What’s next? Intersectionality to play a critical role in ongoing DEI efforts

Katasha Harley, chief people officer of employee coaching platform Bravely, says she can pinpoint exactly when the concept of diversity and equality changed in the workplace: May 25, 2020, the day of George Floyd’s murder. 

“As things started to unfold, I was being invited into the C-suite more often to just be asked, ‘What do we need to do?’” she said at EBN’s Workplace Strategies Conference in Austin, Texas, this week. “I was working at the New York Times at the time, heading up the talent development space so inclusion was a part of everything I did, [and the conversations] went from proposals to, 'Just tell us what we need to do and how quickly you need the budget for it.’”

The national tragedy, combined with the ongoing global pandemic, put into motion a diversity push across all industries as employees demanded action and employers promised support — and in many cases, delivered, investing in more equitable hiring and the development of ERGs for marginalized groups. 

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Still, there’s plenty of room for improvement, and more to the conversation than employers may have initially considered. 

“Diversity and inclusion has been around for such a long time, but what's so new is the equity piece of things,” said Aaron Youngblood, vice president of healthcare provider Included Health. “That's where a lot of organizations are starting to spend their time now: ‘How do we make our practices more equitable?’” 

The answer, according to Ivan Hall, senior principal adviser of diversity, equity and inclusion at management consulting company Gartner, lies in intersectionality. Having women-led ERGs and LGBTQ ERGs and BIPOC ERGs is a great first step for companies, but once implemented, it’s important to broaden their horizons.

“Our ERGs have never really been entirely separate — we've all kind of talked to each other and worked together and shared ideas,” Hall said. “But there’s all sorts of different points of intersectionality that you can kind of connect to.” 

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Instead of focusing just on the things a company can do to support women, what can it do to support Black women? Or queer women? Or queer people of color? These questions can help answer larger challenges, too, like understanding how a person’s identity factors into the way they interact with healthcare.

Looking at employees as whole people and highlighting the complexities of their struggles can really begin to breed trust between employees and their employers, which is the biggest hurdle companies are facing, according to Youngblood.

That focus on intersectionality has also pushed Bravely to begin identity matching when it comes to assigning professional coaches, to ensure that the person charged with a client’s care will be empathetic and knowledgeable of their needs. 

“We want employees to feel comfortable,” Harley said. “If we think there's a blocker getting you to coaching whether it's based on race, whether it's based on gender or sexuality we want you to have the option to select the coach that you want to talk to. Which is making equity access even more available.”