Highlights:
Foster a culture of holistic integration, where DEI and belonging permeate every aspect of your organization.
Embrace intersectionality to address diverse identities and experiences, promoting fairness and justice within your organization.
Take concrete steps with measurable goals, accountability, and progress monitoring to drive impactful DEIB initiatives.
Prioritize well-being and resilience, ensuring individuals can contribute effectively to building an inclusive future.
For organizations of all kinds, even those who are actively engaged in efforts to center and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, it is important to consider the future of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and how we can all be more intentional and effective in our efforts. There are five key considerations I encourage organizations to make meaning of, discuss, and take action towards.
The first consideration is the adoption of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) as a holistic frame and lens for every function, domain, or aspect of the organization. Far too many times, DEIB work centers around a singular function, such as human resources (HR) or client services. However, the future of this work must call in every function, aspect, and domain of an organization or institution for examination so that there are aligned strategies, practices, policies, and commitment to DEIB across the board. We cannot piecemeal our way to an equitable and inclusive workplace environment.
While it is important to be realistic and thoughtful in not taking on more than we can chew, the ultimate goal should be full integration. The destination is not a fragmented sense of adoption, but it is a comprehensive vow we make to become an institution or organization that sees its very identity as being linked to this work.
Secondly, organizations must be willing to adopt an intersectional lens for their DEIB work. Too often, people and organizations equate diversity to race alone and negate the reality that diversity actually represents the vast variety of identities, lived experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives of people. This means that our DEIB work must open itself to discourse, reflection, planning, and action that centers on age, gender, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, and more.
None of us are monolithic beings, and addressing the way sexism, nepotism, ageism, elitism, and other forms of harm and injustice transpire within organizations every day is vital. We cannot piecemeal our way to justice. We must be willing to ensure that everyone, not just some or select individuals, experience fairness and psychological and emotional safety and are set up for success within workplace environments.
Third, organizations must cease assuming that staff or employees of color should be exempt from DEIB learning opportunities or assuming that they are the experts in this body of work. DEIB work is for everyone, and black and brown staff and employees, just like everyone else, have room and opportunities to grow, unpack, and unlearn biases that they, too, are capable of carrying.
As a Black woman, I can name plenty of examples of problematic and unjust practices I’ve seen between a person of color to another marginalized group or members of our own racial/ethnic community. There are people of color who can be sexist, homophobic, and elitist, and perpetuate very problematic practices even within HR work when it comes to hiring and selection. So organizations must commit to ensuring that its DEIB work doesn’t just stop with race, and even when race is explored, we must also welcome meaningful and real discourse about colorism, classism, and respectability politics.
Fourth, organizations must shift from short-lived DEIB programming to building real DEI action plans or centering the buildout of its DEIB work within its overall organizational strategic plan. Your efforts must incorporate a real vision for what you want to see come to pass within this work. Your plan must encompass real key performance indicators and goals. Be bold about even naming owners or who will be responsible for what, and even a timeline, even if aspects of the timeline change or evolve over time. What gets measured gets monitored, and far too often, DEIB efforts are not grounded in a tangible plan that the institution then monitors as well as reports on in terms of its progress and shortcomings to date.
Last but not least, the future of DEIB work must consider wellness, rest, and renewal within the work. So often, this body of work - especially for those that lead it every single day - can be not only mentally taxing but also physically and emotionally taxing as well. For hundreds of years, the burden of it has also too often fallen on people of color as well as women within organizations to carry.
We must create educational opportunities within our DEIB efforts about how to take care of ourselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and more. Organizations should also embrace hosting opportunities, such as restorative yoga or offering affinity-based therapy, that honors the mind, body, and spirit. Fighting for what is right is always right, and at the same time, we cannot lose ourselves in the fight to the point that we cannot carry on the work well or at the bar we know the work should be done.
Of the considerations above, I encourage you to think about the one or two things you, your team, or your organization as a whole hold as growth areas, and welcome identifying them as areas in which you can take your DEIB initiatives, efforts, and commitment to the next level.
Author Bio
Krystal Hardy Allen is the Founder & CEO of K. Allen Consulting, and an education advocate and philanthropist. A native of Selma, Alabama, Allen is a well-respected former school principal and teacher. She began her career teaching elementary school, serving as an instructional coach, then asst. principal, and finally leading as a school principal. Most recently featured in TIME Magazine, she is a 2019 Gambit 40 Under 40 recipient, a 2019 Aspen Institute Ideas Festival Scholar, the 2016 Urban League of Louisiana Activist Award recipient, and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Kid Smart; Success at Thurgood Marshall; and the Selma Center for Nonviolence.