Running Your Current DEI Program Remotely
Don’t cancel your events, here’s how to host them virtually.
Just because the company is not all in one location does not mean all your hard work in planning events has gone to waste. In fact, now is a great time to have your co workers become more familiar with remote practices and in the long term you can help your company become more inclusive as a result. Here are a few tips for making a remote session successful.
Layout some virtual ground rules to run you session as seamless as possible
Encourage everyone to be on video: It’s so important to have that face time with your colleagues, and when it comes to DEI conversations it’s important to see people’s physical expression, as context and tone can often get lost virtually.
Wifi issue backup: If you do find the connection is slow, have your video on but call in with your phone so that the audio is consistent. If this still doesn’t work, try turning off your videos. It isn’t ideal, but usually is more productive than having a slow and glitchy meeting.
Use mute: Unless you have convinced your company to buy everyone noise cancelling headphone there will likely be background noise in your meetings. Implement ground rules that everyone is on mute except for the person talking. Employees can use a hand-raise function or write comments in the chat to indicate they would like to jump in with a comment.
Questions and hand-raises: Always have a way for people to submit questions, comments or raise their hand. Unlike in person it isn’t as obvious when someone wants to chime in. Some video conferencing tools allow for hand raising and comment boxes where you can ask questions. If you are having a more serious conversation, consider using tools like Sli.do or WooClap where anonymous questions or comments can be submitted.
Brainstorming tools: If you are trying to brainstorm try using an online live tool such as Miro, this is something we use all the time at Crescendo for our strategy sessions, product brainstorming, and problem solving! You can do some fun DEI problem solving with these, bringing together smaller groups of navigating specific workplace situations.
For example pose the question “How might we make our product more inclusive of people who are visually impaired?”
Let everyone put virtual sticky notes on the board for 5 minutes, and then sort through them together to pair up similar ideas.
Then have everyone spend 5 minutes to put a fire emoji on their favourite idea!
Once you’ve all agreed on the top idea, start outlining what next steps would look like to make this happen and see who else may need to be involved from other areas of the company.
Note taker: If it’s relevant, at the beginning of the meeting establish who will be responsible for taking notes during the meeting and where they will be posted afterwards. Also be mindful that women often end up doing more meeting notes than others, here are some tips from The Muse on how to avoid this bias creeping in.
Always have a clear agenda with clear presenters in the meeting invite or sent ahead of time so you can keep on track during the meeting and people come prepared.
Sometimes people are hesitant to be the first to speak on video, if possible send out a question ahead of the meeting and have people submit their answers in the chat when they join the meeting to start breaking the ice.
Try some new things.
While you have everyone's attention remotely why not use this time to try out some new tactics in your program?
Host a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion live stream Q&A: Have employees submit questions about DEI ahead of time and then book a virtual meeting to answer the questions with everyone who wants to join.
Host a DEI Conversation: Team discussions are a great way to dig deeper into topics and create a safe and open space for your employees to share their own experiences, ask questions and learn more.
Share mental wellness resources: We are likely all feeling the stress of not being able to continue our daily routines. Here are some fitness account sharing free virtual classes!
FitFactory: 12 & 5:30pm EST
FITSQR: 10am EST
Move East: 7am EST
Review processes: Many teams will be re-looking at their processes to accommodate remote work. You can take this time to make sure they are informed on inclusive practices and give them tips for things to consider. Such as these tips Avery Francis, founder of Bloom, has outlined for creating a remote interview process.
Also, this time away from the office may give you some more time to focus in on more individual work, like reviewing compensation, hiring, performance review, and other processes for bias.
Make use of your online learning tools
Whether it’s your current LMS content, online materials you can pull together, or if you’re a current Crescendo client. Make sure your employees have access to relevant, timely, and credible learning about COVID-19’s impact on marginalized communities.
Have a channel of virtual communication.
Previously you may have had communication through in person all hands, posters around the office and word of mouth. Even though email is still viable, that’s where everyone else is turning to stay in touch and your emails might get lost in people’s inbox. It’s time to get creative on how you can create a space where you can post updates and where you can continue DEI conversations:
DEI Slack Channel (Or groups on Microsoft Teams, etc.): Create a space where employees can communicate more efficiently than through email. This could include a company wide channel for general DEI updates and smaller channels for Employee Resource Group (ERG) leads and members.
Intranet Page/Blog: Make use of company specific resource provided to you. It might be worth checking in with your Internal Communications team to see if you can get some DEI posts shared on the landing page of these sites.
DEI Newsletter: This can still be done via email, but you can have people sign up who want to stay informed, have the same subject line so it stands out in their inbox and send on a set cadence so employees know when they can expect updates.
