The beginning of the year is an excellent time to apply the spring cleaning mindset to reviewing your organization’s policies and procedures.

The case for a closer look

Policies and procedures do more than help organizations run smoothly – they shape employees’ experience and engagement. Ways of working and systems shape how employees have access, communicate, hire, and more. Outdated or exclusive policies and procedures can actively hinder an organization’s efforts toward a fair and equitable workplace. In addition when organizations adapt to become more accessible and inclusive, they benefit from diversity of talent and perspectives, which positively affects innovation and productivity.

Examining current policies and procedures can offer key insights into the relationship between written policy and workplace climate.

Analysis helps identify opportunities to enhance internal policies or practices so that they can be as inclusive and equitable as possible.

“Cultures that lead to talent staying around don’t arise from mission statements or isolated policies” says the Harvard Business Review. “Rather, they are a function of systems where core practices align, where hiring models, pay structures, and advancement philosophies, whatever they are, reinforce one another. Employees respond to that alignment by demonstrating significantly higher levels of commitment”

Removing Barriers to Access

Because exclusionary or biased policies are the antithesis of a healthy organizational culture, accessibility and inclusion are arguably the most important things to check for when reviewing policies. It’s also important to include people with disabilities in the conversation; input by those with lived experience is the only way to improve representation of marginalized groups. Currently, the U.S. lacks representation of people with disabilities in the workforce. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the unemployment rate of people with disabilities, who are able to work, is 9%, compared to 4.6% for people without a disability.

Disability covers a broad range of conditions, many of which are not always visible or obvious when interacting with someone, and in general, people’s experiences of the workplace vary widely. Chronic health conditions, post-traumatic stress disorder, dyscalculia, and sensory processing issues are just a few examples of disabilities that policy-makers may not know their colleagues or employees are living with. Leaders must consider accessibility through the lens of all types of conditions that may inhibit it.

Along with evaluating whether policies restrict access to anyone, it’s also important to consider whether policies can help empower the inclusion and participation of all employees.

Recognizing and Revising Past Practices

“Changing policy is one way to turn the page on poor cultural practices of the past”, says Inclusity’s Director of Research and Evaluation, Mitchell Campbell. “We tend to underestimate how sticky culture is: the ideals of an organization’s original leaders are often codified in written policy, which shape the culture long after they depart. Writing new policies helps to interrupt a culture’s self-reinforcement, leading to productive change.”

Frequent review and reconsideration are important as the faces of your organization change. If you hire new employees or have team members moving into new roles, it will be essential to review policies and procedures to ensure fairness and set each member of your organization up for success.

Review & Revise Policies and Practices from a Fair and Inclusive Lens

Inclusity’s Inclusive Policy Toolkit provides users a comprehensive guide (which can be paired with live virtual consultation) to refresh and reframe the elements that make your organization what it is, or what you want it to become.

In particular, we look at processes for hiring (including position descriptions, diversity of interview panels​, etc.), promotion, development, and succession planning. We offer recommendations for creating more inclusive language and procedures, as well as an accessibility audit.

Policy making with inclusion and accessibility in mind ensures that steps in the right direction are not fleeting but are codified for years to come.

Contact us

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There are distinctly different causes for the impact a great leader makes on their team versus the impact made by a poor leader or an ill-fated promotion. The latter can often be attributed to something called the “Peter Principle”. In their book by the same name, authors Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull argue that “in a hierarchy, employees are promoted based on their success in previous roles until they reach a position where they are no longer competent, at which point they remain stuck.” Organizations tend to promote good front line workers without giving them the supervisory or managerial skills they need to transform from a good worker to a good people manager.   

The problem with Tenure-based Promotion 

According to Gallup, 65% of all supervisors were promoted based on their performance or years of experience in frontline roles. Only 30% were promoted based on their supervisory skills and experience. Gallup also found that only 31% of employees who are supervised by individuals promoted for their experience and performance as front-line workers are fully engaged at work.  

Because we know that there is a direct correlation between engagement and productivity, this reality can negatively affect an organization’s overall success. The importance of employees feeling that their leader is engaged, inclusive and competent truly cannot be overstated. According to Gallup’s Culture Shock, “managers’ own engagement, effectiveness, and natural talents account for at least 70% of the variance in team-level engagement, even while controlling for other factors.” 

The Missing Piece of that Promotion Package 

Organizations that promote from within need to do more than reward good employees with more responsibility, oversight and pay. Employees being promoted to supervisory or managerial roles need training to develop the skills they will need to be successful. Being an effective leader requires more than the knowledge and experience needed to complete the actual work tasks. Part of rewarding good employees with promotions is helping them become effective leaders – which will have a positive impact on their teams’ engagement and productivity.  

Sharpening the Skillset 

What types of skills will help new leaders become successful leaders? At Inclusity, we look at leadership development through the lens of our Inclusive Leadership Framework, which is categorized into areas that include actionable qualities for leaders to harness and develop. Skills that are fundamental to good leadership also happen to be skills that support an inclusive culture.   

This includes skills like:  

• Active listening 

• Assessing skills 

• Valuing feedback 

• Building trust and fostering belonging 

• Creating safety 

• Leveraging diversity 

• Upholding accountability 

…and many more.  Our framework allows leaders to look at their practices and to identify strengths as well as which skills need further development. We build one or more of the framework’s 18 skill objectives into each of our workshops.
Inclusive leadership development clearly builds the awareness and skills of the leader, but the positive impact ripples through the organization. Employees trust and engage more fully, teams collaborate more effectively, and the organization performs better.  

If you’re ready to set your leaders up for success – contact us about tailoring our inclusive leadership training options for your organization. 

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“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential, is invisible to the eye.” – The Little Prince

Why is Empathy and Leadership so Important?

We are presented with a steady stream of messaging that encourages us to embrace others and see the world through their eyes. On the other hand, there are those that suggest empathy can be fraught with challenges, especially for those in leadership. In fact, in the book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, Paul Bloom argues that empathy can impair judgment.

For me, the challenge is not about taking my “empathetic” self to work but to refrain from being immersed in the situation. Empathy is as natural to me as breathing air – absorbing others’ vibes, putting myself in their shoes and “feeling” their pain.

Early in my career, I set aside my natural tendencies toward empathy and attempted to not ‘‘show up”. What I conveyed to others and what I felt internally were not aligned. This felt disingenuous. Through this experience I quickly realized that being myself was the only choice and made the personal decision to be authentic.

With a previous employer, I was faced with closing a division within the company. Working through the transition, moving a group of dedicated employees and loyal customers to a state of being displaced workers and customers without much needed services, was devastating. Trust me, I am by no means a hero, but to this day I am convinced that what happened next was due in large part to being in tune with my feelings of empathy.

My capacity for understanding propelled me forward and gave me the courage to ask leadership to consider and approve a different plan. Collectively, a few of us went on to move mountains, keeping the division open long enough to identify another source for our loyal customers and offer alternative employment to staff members. In fact, the team bond was strengthened and three of those individuals went on to work alongside me in another division. I believe demonstrating empathy in the workplace is key and we can’t lead effectively without it.

Empathy is also key to building an inclusive work environment where a business and its employees can thrive. Leaders must be able to effectively communicate and build trusting work relationships with different kinds of people. Some individuals have a natural ability to feel comfortable with different types of people and can easily build camaraderie among their co-workers and subordinates. It’s a mark of strength – a balance of intelligence, self-awareness and understanding.

Recently I attended a training class designed to help define yourself, what connects you to other, and why. I took away a better understanding of how important it is to recognize and value every part of myself. Empathy is the core of emotional intelligence and how can you possibly be a leader without it. That’s why empathy and leadership are intertwined.

One thing I know for sure is that I must recognize and value every part of myself. And I am not alone, Lucas Pols echoes my sentiments in his Forbes article, “The Importance Of Empathy In Leadership” where he states, “The ability to get out of your own mental framework and put yourself in other peoples’ shoes is essential for impactful communication, crisis management, business strategy, sales and marketing and successful business.” Forbes article. Simply – I am a work in progress.

– Stacy Shew

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