How to Enhance Your Company’s Culture of Belonging and Inclusion

Belonging is one of the most critical factors of individual and organization success today. It’s simple: people want to feel like they belong, and not like they have to check themselves at the door when they come to work.

Here at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., we are committed to a People First culture, where we embrace and value the unique strengths and differences of the people who power our work. We cultivate an inclusive environment of respect and trust where we all belong. But the truth is, a strong culture of belonging goes beyond just increasing diversity in the workforce and treating people fairly. Let’s explore some of the key pillars to successful diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) work.

Make sure your policies and procedures reflect your culture.

An organization’s culture is what attracts and retains – or drives away – team members, and even customers or—in our case—patient families. Here at Children’s, when we say culture, we’re talking about integrated patterns of behavior—including language, thoughts, actions, customs, beliefs, values, traditions and more. We foster and reinforce a culture of belonging through our actions and words, policies and procedures, education and engagement.?

All organizations are grounded in their policies, systems and procedures. Unfortunately, this is too often where the most unconscious bias and inequities lie. This is also where some of the most difficult and greatest impact work within the Culture and Inclusion plan often lies. By regularly reviewing existing policies, systems and procedures and while creating new ones with an inclusion lens, we can begin to breakdown systemic inequities and unnecessary barriers within our organization—and so can you.

Apply a lens of inclusion.

Using an inclusion lens means thinking about the impact on, and experience of, those who are not like you and those who may be at the greatest disadvantage. While much of this work is spearheaded by our team at Children’s, creating a culture of inclusion and respect is everyone’s responsibility—and culture is a key driver to overall success. So, how can you ensure everyone’s contributing and holding themselves accountable? Looking at your work, team and your environment through a lens of inclusion might help you see things differently and uncover important opportunities to improve.

At Children’s, our ICARE values help ground us, reminding us to lead with Innovation, Collaboration, Accountability, Respect and Excellence. We bring on people who align with these values and share the key principles that drive our organization forward, including:

• Respect for all regardless of the differences
• Value and celebrate diversity
• Listen to understand
• Embrace the whole person
• Advocate for others

It’s through these principles that we aim to make people feel seen, valued, heard, welcome and safe. Education and awareness are a huge part of creating this culture, which is where our team comes in—helping to shape and deploy relevant and impactful programming. How is your organization prioritizing DEI education? What topics or training might benefit your team?

Take an integrated, upstream approach to DEI.

We’re intentional about taking a proactive, upstream and prevention-focused approach to culture, diversity and inclusion—rather than a reactive, downstream or treatment-focused approach to this important work. To meet the needs of our organization, we’ve grown our DEI team in recent years, helping us maximize and expand our reach.

For starters, simply getting to know people helps us improve care, tap into new ideas and perspectives, and therefore get closer to excellence. Every single person in this world brings unique experiences and elements of diversity to the table—and when we interact, we need to keep that in mind at all times. Our experiences and, therefore, our lenses of life and society, are not always like those we work with or treat. This is where inclusion comes in.?

Inclusion work isn’t always revolutionary or grand in scope. In fact, it’s the simple things that are often the most life changing. When you’re in a meeting or have a seat at the table of a discussion, simply look around and think: “Who isn’t here who should be right now? Whose voice are we missing?”

That’s inclusion, right there.

Listen and act with authenticity.

Everybody is an expert in their own experience, and we’ve had fun learning and growing together as we have open, honest conversations at our organization. Our Culture and Inclusion program manager has encouraged various cultural experiences and conversations over the past year and a half, bringing people together to learn together—and individually. As a leader, I love seeing team members have a “light bulb” moment as they discover new things in these conversations.

To make sure your DEI efforts don’t miss the mark, you have to make sure your programming is authentic to your organization. One of the things that makes this work really challenging—but also really fun—is that you can't take a specific algorithm or plan that’s been instituted at one organization and make it work for yours, because you have different people. Instead, be thinking: “How would this look at my organization?” or “What tweaks can we make to have this idea resonate with our workforce?”

Drive engagement and retention through belonging.

It’s no secret that the pandemic brought with it an increased need for connection. Humans need to feel connected and accepted and, once they do, they subsequently feel like they belong. Achieving this on an organizational level can bring powerful results. Belonging isn’t just key to DEI but is also closely linked to employee engagement and retention.

For us, our annual employee engagement survey gives us a good pulse on how our team members are feeling on a variety of topics, including belonging. We were proud to see that the question “I feel like I really belong at Children’s” scored 92.4% favorability, exceeding benchmarks and showing an increase from our 2021 survey. “I believe that my team is committed to providing an excellent experience for everyone at Children’s” also ranked highly at 92.7%, revealing a highly engaged workforce.

Armed with these insights, we can plan our programming, events and education opportunities accordingly—but we’re never “done.” Children’s is committed to continuous improvement on this journey to be excellent and respectful in all our relationships. We will honor and learn from the diverse traits and experiences of every person we encounter, and we will view mistakes as important opportunities for learning and growth.

To learn more, visit ChildrensOmaha.org/Culture-Inclusion.

Shavonne Washington-Krauth is the Director of Culture and Inclusion at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, Neb. Shavonne is passionate about providing a more diverse and inclusive workplace for all team members through intentional programming, systems and policies.

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