5 Things / Gratitude

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Full transparency: my small firm has been impacted by client budget cuts and priority shifts. This has meant our own budget cuts, priority shifts, and a heartbreaking layoff. I’ve had hard conversations with folks on my team over the past 18 months.

Yet, as I write this, I’m flying to a client event and can’t help but feel such a strong sense of gratitude. Gratitude that organizations are trusting me to deliver a message that will give their employees the tools they need to contribute towards psychological safety on their team, create meaningful connections, and show up just a little more authentically.

It’s a gift that I’m being trusted to deliver this message, especially since I spent years feeling inauthentic in my work.

Thank you for your trust in me, in this little firm I’m building with a fabulous team and a spirit of “better late than never!” and “let’s do this together!” Please respond if I can help you in any way.

Here Are This Week's Good Vibes:

1. USCIS Now Offers Gender X

   • United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) introduced an X gender option on naturalization forms, a crucial step for gender-nonconforming immigrants. This aligns with the US passport policy and global trends, like Pakistan and Mexico's inclusion of third-gender options. This is a big stride towards recognizing diverse gender identities and dismantling barriers to accessing immigration benefits, fostering a more equitable and accessible pathway to citizenship for all.

2. Shift from Autism Awareness to Acceptance

   • President Biden shifts from "Autism Awareness" to "Autism Acceptance" in this year’s proclamation. This reflects a broader movement advocated by autistic self-advocates to foster a society that accommodates and includes autistic individuals, moving away from fear-based awareness campaigns. While some organizations will still use "awareness," the shift highlights a growing understanding that acceptance is crucial for true inclusion and creating welcoming communities.

3. Innovative Trans Employment Project

   • California pioneered the nation's inaugural large-scale initiative to combat the disproportionately high unemployment rates among transgender folks, especially trans people of color. As an incentive to owners and managers to hire trans staff, the first 60 hours of a new hire's wages will be paid for through a $150,000 grant from the California Workforce Development Board. To qualify, owners or managers must attend a seminar on the issues that trans people face at work and how to support trans staff. I absolutely love this initiative because it removes significant barriers to employment and even paves the way for broader societal acceptance.

4. First Watch Employees Get Caregiver Benefits

   • The brunch restaurant First Watch introduced groundbreaking childcare and elder care benefits, partnering with Bright Horizons to offer discounted rates for employees. This move addresses the industry-wide issue of caretaking responsibilities hindering upward mobility, especially for women. The initiative is a rarity in the industry! The benefits are available for all employees, both part-time and full-time, regardless of their position within the company. This approach ensures that all hourly employees (who are disproportionately women and BIPOC) have more options to address the challenges of balancing work and family obligations.

5. First Arab Woman Graduates from NASA

   • Emirati Nora AlMatrooshi's journey became the first Arab woman to graduate from NASA's astronaut training. NASA even set her up with a custom hijab within the spacesuit. I appreciate that this shows the agency's commitment to accommodating diverse backgrounds in space exploration. AlMatrooshi is a great possibility model, showing that women of all backgrounds can belong in space.

This Week’s Call to Action:

Book recommendation time! Check out The Boldly Inclusive Leader by my friend Minette Norman. There are some great stories in this book that illustrate the principles of inclusive leadership. Minette has seen A LOT!

5 Things / Triggered

I spent two days this week on a retreat with my mastermind group. We’re a bunch of varied founders who come together to learn and support each other as we build our businesses. The theme of this retreat was “communication” and one of the sessions I enjoyed was on communicating with ourselves when we’re triggered by something someone says at work.

We started by learning our individual fear response - mine is flight - and then self-reflecting on the various comments that have triggered that response at work. We then practiced getting triggered (and recovering from it) in pairs. The magic is in the tool we learned to recover from the triggers. Our facilitator, Pavini Coakwell Moray, taught us a technique to ground ourselves, expand, and let the body settle the mind.

There are so many reasons people get triggered at work but I can promise you that the overturn of Roe is a big one. I hope that your organization is having internal conversations on what the overturn of Roe can mean in terms of programming (consider listening sessions), employee benefits, privacy, communications, and more. Brace yourself for business implications like these.

Here are the good vibes I found this week:

1. Allyson Felix Launches a Child Care Initiative for Athlete Moms

   • Olympic runner Allyson Felix launched a new initiative to provide free child care to athletes, coaches, and staff in the U.S. Track and Field Championships. Her sponsor Athleta is supporting this program and has also continued to provide childcare grants totaling more than $200,000 to female athletes. This equitable initiative matters because child care costs often prevent women athletes from continuing to compete at high levels after giving birth.

2. Marriott International Launches “Bridging The Gap” Hotel Development Program

   • Marriott has a new program to increase the diversity of its franchisees. The program provides capital and other resources to qualified historically underrepresented people and helps them become hotel owners. This program matters because, due to systemic racism, access to capital is frequently a barrier for BIPOC folks, and this program can ultimately reduce the racial wealth gap.

3. Google Will Let LGBTQ-Plus Merchants Tag Their Businesses in Maps

   • Business owners can now self-identify their business as LGBTQ+ owned using Google Maps. Businesses can currently tag themselves as Black-owned, Transgender safe spaces, and LGBTQ-friendly. Users can search by typing in “LGBTQ-owned business”. This new tag matters because it increases exposure to businesses that may be overlooked.

4. Walmart Expands Health Services to Address Racial Inequality

   • Walmart is now providing employees in several Southern U.S. states access to a doula as part of their medical benefits. Doulas are awesome and provide emotional and physical support to pregnant people. This benefit is designed to reduce the maternal mortality gap between white and Black women that largely results from structural racism. This matters because Black Lives Matter.

5. Walgreens Aims to Add Diversity to Drug Trials Through Stores

   • Speaking of health care disparities, Walgreens is now offering up its stores to host clinical trials of experimental drugs and devices. These trials have traditionally been held in hospitals, universities, and clinics which has led to decades of homogeneity within-trial patients. With over 9000 stores, Walgreens’ goal is to increase the diversity of the participants in clinical trials, which then leads to data on how to better care for a wider variety of patients. This matters because it can ultimately decrease health care disparities.

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5 Things in 15 Minutes / making it right with Erma BreAnn Standley

Bernadette and Erma recap last week's 5 Things, highlighting the recent controversy and potential redemption of Activision Blizzard. Also featured are acts of inclusive diversity such as Mayo Clinic's introduction of disposable hijabs for Muslim patients that wear them!

Image by Frederick Tendong

5 Things / patience with process

This week I found myself continually frustrated by things I couldn't control. To be honest, I'm not very patient with "process" - but of course the reality of bringing something new into the world (in this case, my book Inclusive 360), requires an awful lot of process.

The reality of bringing your diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative into the world also requires a lot of patience with process. There's a lot of stakeholders, competing priorities, and resource constraints. Because of that, I've come to truly admire companies that have quickly (and by quickly, I mean since last summer) taken action -- and stayed in action towards their DEI goals.

Sephora is one such company. In the past year, they've made measurable progress towards promoting more Black employees, increasing supplier diversity spend, expanding inclusive marketing, and launching inclusive leadership training. Their approach is impressive -- it's holistic, and it's Inclusive 360.

Here are some good vibes I found this week:

• The Grammy Awards will have an inclusion rider for their 2022 awards, guaranteeing that more underrepresented talent will be involved in the production process. This matters because the entertainment industry has historically lacked diversity, and creating a policy to set diversity targets will interrupt some of the unconscious bias that leads to a cycle of homogeneity.
  
  

• The National Labor Relations Board has its first Black woman as a Board member. Obviously this is long overdue. This matters because representation matters and Gwynne Wilcox will bring a new, valuable perspective to this work of supporting workers rights. (h/t to Emily Farr for sharing)
  
  

• Kickstarter is testing a 4 day workweek in 2022. But what I learned is that there's a 4 Day Workweek advocacy group that consults with organizations interested in adopting this policy. This is awesome and it matters because a four day workweek can promote greater employee wellbeing, which can lead to greater employee loyalty. 4 day workweeks have proven successful in a number of previous trials.
  
  

• Argentina is the first country in Latin America to issue X IDs to non-binary people. This matters because it normalizes existing outside the sex binary and respects the diversity of gender. Every acknowledgement and utilization of the “X” alternative by an institution is a big step forward for not only the acceptance, but also the safety of all intersex and trans & gender non-conforming people.

Image from ILR Scheinman Institute, Cornell University

5 Things / Olympic edition

Have you been watching the Olympics? I love them - the competition, sure, but especially the stories of resilience and courage. I always find inspiration. 

This year, the Olympics are inspiring me for different reasons. The courage I'm inspired by this go-around has nothing to do with athletes recovering from injuries or overcoming a difficult upbringing. This year, I'm inspired by the courage that comes from authenticity and vulnerability. The courage that comes from speaking out against sexism.

What does this have to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion? Well, authenticity and vulnerability are key ways to build psychological safety on your team. It can just start with one person but create a powerful ripple effect. Psychological safety is a key driver of a culture of inclusion. And as you probably know, inclusive teams are more successful in a variety of ways. 

Courage is contagious. 

So, in this Olympics edition, here are some good vibes I found this week:

• The Norwegian women's beach handball team protested their skimpy bikini bottom uniforms by wearing shorts (like the men). They received a fine for their decision not to wear the required bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg.”
  
  

• Similarly, the German woman's gymnastics team wore full body leotards (aka unitards) in competition to protest the sexualization of the sport. This matters because these women are brave enough to call out outdated double-standards that sexualizes women.
  
  

• Runner Allyson Felix, in conjunction with Athleta, are providing $200k in grants for Olympic athletes who are moms.The grants will cover child care, summer camps for sitters, and flights for family members who can step in as caregivers. This matters because women shouldn't have to choose between caring for their child and their career as an athlete.
  
  

• Despite some transphobic dissent against specific athletes, at least 172 Olympic athletes are out as LGBTQ+ - more than ever before. Some of these people are transgender or non-binary. This is notable especially for an Olympic games hosted by a country with limited LGBTQ acceptance. This matters because they're showing up as possibility models for other young athletes, and when people are more authentic and resist the pressure to conform, they tend to perform at a higher level.
  
  

• And in the biggest news of the games so far, the world's greatest female gymnast, Simone Biles, withdrew from competition and later shared it was because of mental health concerns. She put her mental health and wellbeing first. After she withdrew, the team stepped up and earned the silver medal. This matters because when someone at that level is honest about their own challenges, it gives others permission to do the same. Athletes are human, too.

Image by AP Photo/Gregory Bull