Is Everyone in the Room? Conversations on Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace: LGBTQIA+

June is Pride Month, a month dedicated to uplifting LGBTQIA+ voices, celebrating LGBTQIA+ culture and supporting LGBTQIA+ rights. It commemorates the years of struggle for civil rights and the ongoing pursuit of justice, equity and equality for the LGBTQIA+ community.

LGBTQIA+ is an inclusive acronym that describes either a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer, intersex, asexual/aromantic/agender, pansexual, and allies.

Gender identity describes a person’s internal sense of being female, male, or someone outside of that gender binary, while sexual orientation refers to ‘a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the behavior and/or social affiliation that may result from this attraction.’

People from the LGBTQIA+ community face discrimination and hate regularly in their personal lives, workplaces and in public spaces. Furthermore, the intersectionality of traits such as race, ethnicity, religion can influence their experience and lead to discrimination on multiple fronts. In the workplace, they’re subjected to microaggressions like being asked inappropriate questions and hearing homophobic jokes and comments. Conscious and unconscious bias can prevent them from being hired or getting a promotion or opportunity at work. Many LGBTQIA+ individuals feel the need to hide their identity in the workplace for fear of discrimination, which causes high levels of stress, anxiety and other mental health issues among them.

During this session of Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace, we will discuss how workplaces and organisations can create a genuinely inclusive culture for LGBTQIA+ employees. On an individual level, using pronouns in email signatures, on social media profiles, and stating them in meetings, being mindful of using gender neutral language and calling out discriminatory behaviours are some of the ways to be active allies.

For companies, using gender neutral language, diverse visuals on the website and options beyond male and female on the job application can help attract a more diverse workforce, while including anti-discrimination and harassment policies that address sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination can help retain this workforce.

In this session, we will discuss

• How can we ensure that workplaces have strong inclusive policies and practices in place?
• How can they attract, successfully recruit and retain LGBTQIA+ talent?
• How can companies create a safe environment for employees of all sexualities and gender expressions to reveal as much or as little as they want?
• How can we, as individuals, be active allies to the LGBTQIA+ community?

Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace: Racial Equity
"Racial equity is about applying justice and a little bit of common sense to a system that's been out of balance. When a system is out of balance, people of color feel the impacts most acutely, but to be clear, an imbalanced system makes all of us pay."~ Glenn Harris, President, Race Forward and Publisher, Colorlines.
Equity has been a big topic for us since the start of Diversify, and the beginning of the Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace discussions, with the topic of our second meeting being "Equity vs. Equality".
Equity is the acknowledgment that while people should always have equal opportunities to resources like jobs, health care and education, we live in a world that is far from equal. Social equity takes into account systemic inequalities to ensure everyone has access to the same opportunities and outcomes.
Racial Equity is the acknowledgment that in many cases, this unequal distribution of resources is driven along racial lines, leading to the systemic discrimination that exists within many structures, including the workplace.
Racism is often an uncomfortable topic to address. In some cases, denial or ignorance is seemingly bliss. Many people deny the existence of racism against people of color on the assumption that racism is a conscious and calculated byproduct of hate. Racism can however occur without conscious intent. Where racist experiences of people across racial lines are concerned, racism happens more often than many people, especially white people, are aware of. How then can companies address the issue of racism as they move towards racial equity in the workplace?
This month we ask the questions:
- What have recent surges in anti-Black racism and Asian-hate shown us about the situation today?
- What is the relationship between racism, micro-aggressions and gaslighting and how do they show up?
- What is the difference between subtle and overt racism?
- Do we have the skills to talk about racial, bi-racial and intersectional identities?
- What degree of race confidence do we need to be able to navigate this topic without causing harm?
- How and when can bystanders intervene in harmful scenarios?
Join us to explore these questions and many more.
This topics acknowledge Black History Month and LGBTQIA+ Month, celebrated in February in the US and UK.

In this episode we will be deep diving into the concept of equality and equity. This podcast is produced in collaboration with HerSpace. We hope you enjoy it!

Most of us use them interchangeably, but they are far apart. Equality ensures that everyone has the same resources, whereas equity mandates that resources are distributed based on the needs of the recipients. This enriching podcast is moderated by Hyacinth Walters-Olsen with three panelists Chisome Udeze, Ezekiel Ward, Astrid Sundberg to manifestant Equality and Equity in the workplace and its impact on gender, minority groups, and company policies and processes.

In this episode, we discuss Transformational and Authentic Leadership. This podcast is produced in collaboration with HerSpace. We hope you enjoy it!

In this episode, we discuss transformational and authentic leadership. The aim of transformational leaders is to help their followers become leaders themselves and authentic leadership would encourage followers to be authentic. The growth of any organization is very much dependent on authentic transformational leaders.

These three panelists—Chisom Udeze, Adebayo Onafuwan, and Kewin Reeder—are joined by Hyacinth Walters-Olsen to discuss the importance of authentic and transformational leadership at work.