Top Takeaways from 2023 Diversity and Inclusion Trends

The Michigan Chamber kicked off this year’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion series with with more than 350 business and community leaders for an engrossing conversation on “2023 Diversity and Inclusion Trends.” Moderator Rochelle Riley spoke with Marketing and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant at Raven & Lotus, Brett Sinclair; and Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Amway, Amber Snow. Here are the top takeaways that can help provide you and your business food for thought:

1. The table is important. DEI is about valuing differences in staff by making sure everyone gets a seat at the table AND can speak at the table. To foster inclusion and prevent tokenism, make sure your company is giving employees multiple opportunities to bring and share perspectives . Employees have a hard time creating identity or feeling truly included in a workplace if they are not given spaces in their departments or with leadership to share ideas, voice concerns, etc. Leaders need to emphasize and demonstrate multiple feedback loops.
2. Individual relationships with employees matter and are key to retention. Employees don’t want to feel replaceable, they want to feel valuable for the unique skillsets they offer an organization. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, from leaders learning who they are outside of work tasks and meetings, by calling or simplyy stopping by their workspaces for a few minutes as a work break.
3. Buy-in from the top and throughout an organization is essential. Authentic understanding and committment by executive leadership and across the organization is the best way to ensure DEI success and positively contribute to other key business priorities.
4. Be thoughtful about job referrals. Often times, when candidates are referred by someone in the organization, they will be culturally similar to the referrer, because the referrer knows they already fit in at the business and the other person will too. Consistently hiring similar people slows down the DEI process, preventing diverse candidates from feeling like they could belong at the company or the company not benefitting and growing from different perspectives. A lack of representation on staff could even lead candidates to not apply.
5. Employees who identify with a minority group – whether related to gender, race or otherwise – are often more reluctant to return to in-office work. Returning to the office means more coworker interactions, and with that can come an increased risk of experiencing microaggressions, the need to code switch and other potential pain points, which can be exhausting and minimize performance. More than ever, workplaces have the chance to communicate and demonstrate their efforts to grow and work toward inclusion for everyone.
6. Intercultural fluency is the next step. After assessing and/or implementing DEI priorities in your business, employers should learn about the backgrounds and cultural identities of those involved in their organizations. How are their cultures different from yours and how does that impact the ways they show up mentally, socially and emotionally? Are there ways they need to be validated and acknowledged to find identity with your company that you may not have considered previously?

A special thanks to our platinum sponsor, Salary.com, for helping make our largest DEI program to date possible. We look forward to our next discussion.

For questions, comments or topic ideas for future DEI programming, please reach out to Stephanie Young at syoung@michamber.com.

Check out the event recording here: