Create Equal Opportunities and Experiences for All Employees

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Distinguish between intent and impact.
  
• List the four key practices for building a welcoming workplace.
  
• Identify strategies for gaining insight into others’ experiences.
  
• Recognize the value of employing empathetic listening skills.
  
• Describe actions that demonstrate your presence, engagement, and commitment.
  
• Explain the impact of speaking up as an advocate for equality.
  

Creating an inclusive, welcoming, and consistent experience for all employees is critical to driving business outcomes. Here are Salesforce, we identified data trends that support this claim. For example, we discovered that employees who feel a sense of belonging at work are 5.3x more likely to feel empowered to do their best work. Additionally, we found that sales teams with higher engagement and belonging scores perform 12% better, and they enable 27% better use of employees' skills and abilities.

So where does an organization start to build these types of experiences for all of its employees? Well, it begins with understanding the impact of our decisions, promoting empathy and accountability, and using a few key practices to reinforce a welcoming culture.

Understanding Impact, Accountability, and Empathy

It’s helpful to begin any discussions about equality by distinguishing between intention and impact. The majority of the time, people have positive intentions; however, it’s the impact of your decisions and actions that matters.

While it might be possible to justify just about any decision we make, it’s critical that you think about the impact of those decisions. For example, you could want to narrow your hiring pool to a specific school or company you had a lot of success with, with the intent of hiring the best talent. The unintended impact could be that you’re missing other incredible and highly qualified talent who you could find if you opened access to opportunities and focused on skills/competencies instead.

We’re all human, and we’re not always going to get it right. No one is perfect. That’s why accountability and forgiveness are so important. While you must take responsibility for the impact of your decisions, it’s also critical that you extend forgiveness to those around you for their own mistakes and missteps as you'd like others to do for you.

Finally, when working to build welcoming experiences for all of your employees, it’s important to lead with empathy. When you seek to understand before being heard, you can greatly affect culture and become a better leader for your team. Part of this is practicing mindful and active listening as you begin to hear more personal stories. This means listening to understand, rather than listening to respond, and taking the time to make eye contact, pause before speaking, and reflect on the information being given.

Four Key Practices for Creating a Welcoming Workplace

At Salesforce, we encourage our team members to connect and learn about each other to build a sense of belonging. The more we invest in each other, the stronger we are as a collective. And the good news is that it doesn’t require a lot of effort. In fact, we worked with our community to identify four simple steps everyone can take to help build a welcoming and inclusive workplace culture.

• Ask others about their experiences.
  
• Listen with empathy to understand different perspectives.
  
• Show up by being present, engaged, and committed on the topics they care about.
  
• Speak up when necessary to ensure fair and equal treatment for all.
  

Let’s take a closer look at each practice.

Ask Others About Their Experiences

The first step is being willing to learn and ask about others’ experiences with the understanding that it’s OK to be vulnerable and admit you don’t know everything. Start with a sincere curiosity to learn about your teammates, colleagues, or direct reports to build an understanding of their lived experiences by having conversations and other daily interactions

It’s important to note that taking this step doesn't permit you to put others “on display.” Avoid questions that make others feel uncomfortable, or make them feel like they don’t fit into the environment. And be respectful of cultural differences. Additionally, your questions should never make others feel like you expect them to be the spokesperson for an entire group—only ask questions within relationships that feel sincere to both parties.

Finally, remember that these conversations should be a two-way street. When engaging others about their experiences, be sure to create a safe space that encourages the other party to ask questions as well, and where mutual vulnerability, genuine curiosity, and active listening lead the conversation.

Here are some opening questions to get you started on your journey.

• What makes you feel included and empowered?
  

• What do you wish I knew about how your culture and experiences affect your work life?
  
• How can I support you?
  
• What do I need to understand better?
  

Listen with Empathy to Understand Different Perspectives

After you ask others about their experiences, it’s important to practice mindful, active, and empathetic listening. Listen to learn, not to respond. Pause and reflect during conversations, communicate your interest through body language, and ask thoughtful follow-up questions. Practicing active and empathetic listening skills not only helps you internalize what you learn, but it also shows others that you genuinely want to learn from them.

Show Up by Being Present, Engaged, and Committed

After you practice asking questions and listening with empathy, you can begin to understand what action is needed to help make the workplace more welcoming. Showing up simply means taking an active role and making sure you show up for your employees and colleagues by considering their needs, interests, and how you can advocate for their success/growth.

Here are some questions to ask to help identify ways to start showing up.

• What meetings or events can I attend to support you and learn about, and ultimately influence, our company culture?
  

• What are some causes I can show up to by donating and supporting?
  
• What time, energy, or resources am I individually putting in to exhibit my commitment to equality at work?
  

Speak Up

At Salesforce, we often talk about having each other’s backs. In that spirit, it’s important to speak up when we see or hear something that is biased, discriminatory, unfair, or that does not result in treating someone equally. It can be hard to speak up. It’s important to foster a culture of courage, accountability, and grace so that we can give and receive feedback in real time.

Speaking up can be uncomfortable and even scary. But not speaking up can make it seem like you agree with the harmful actions around you. When we challenge bias and discrimination in real time, we actively start to mitigate them, which is a critical step to building a welcoming environment for all.

Here are some ways you can use your voice to speak up.

• Restate an idea that wasn’t recognized in a meeting, and give credit to the person who said it.
  

• Confront a harmful comment by asking the person on the receiving end if they’re OK and addressing the speaker directly
  
• Point out an action that discriminates against a group when it happens.
  
• Propose policy changes that can create a better environment for all.
  

Keep reading to learn more about the language we use to engage in conversations about equality.