The Missing Piece of Your DEI Strategy: Grassroots DEI

As the DEI Leader for Deloitte Consulting’s 65,000-plus person practice, I am laser-focused on how we embed diversity, equity and inclusion into every corner of our business to create a consistent talent experience for every single person. A huge part of successfully doing that is about shifting culture, and while culture should be modeled by leaders at the top, it’s just as important for there to be buy-in and excitement and change at all levels of an organization. I see part of my role as helping to encourage that bottom-up cultural shift by highlighting and championing examples of Grassroots DEI.

What is Grassroots DEI?

When you read about DEI initiatives at an organization, they often fall into one of two categories: Corporate DEI and Everyday DEI.

• Corporate DEI are company-led programs that are run at scale. Think organization-wide mentorship programs or hiring practices intended to limit bias, such as using blinded resumes.
• Everyday DEI is what you do individually on a day-to-day basis in your job to help make the company more inclusive and equitable. This can be everything from your approach to leading with inclusivity to ensuring there are diverse voices represented on your teams (and letting them all be heard without interrupting!) to using someone’s preferred pronouns.??

But there is a third type of DEI that occurs at organizations: Grassroots DEI, which lies between these two, and can be an essential tool to harness the passion and creativity of your workforce. Grassroots DEI refers to activities that are “bottom-up” versus “top-down” and many times are driven by marginalized groups fighting for change. These grassroots efforts can make an impact on the entire organization for the better.

All three different types of DEI – Everyday, Grassroots and Corporate – are necessary. They should work together to advance DEI within an organization at all levels.

What Grassroots DEI Looks Like

?To give you a better sense of what Grassroots DEI is, I want to share a few great examples from my Deloitte colleagues. ?

Fostering a Safe Space for a Community to Connect

The first is the Wolfpack book club, started by Nikki Diamantes, Customer & Marketing Senior Manager, after she recommended that a group of colleagues meet monthly to discuss books, articles, and podcasts that explore challenges that women encounter in the workplace. The first book was “Wolfpack” by Abby Wambach. The energy from that conversation led to the idea of forming a more regular book club, which has grown over the last two years to 150-plus members. The books usually focus on women in the workplace or social justice issues, and the meetings have been a springboard for deep, intimate conversations about everything from mental health to pay equity to what it’s like to be Black in America.

“The book is a small part, but it’s really about the community,” says Nikki. “People tell me all the time that this is a space where they feel like they can be their authentic self.” The Wolfpack book club is a great example of Grassroots DEI because there is no formal leadership involvement. Nikki has intentionally opted to keep the group independent, and it solely operates through word of mouth. But it’s made a huge impact on the people who participate and intentionally created spaces for vulnerability and empathy.

Creating a Stage for Powerful Storytelling

While the Wolfpack book club is an example of getting out of the way and letting things grow from the ground up, other times, elevating ideas and providing resources can help a single idea make a much bigger impact.

For example, after hearing Vice President Kamala Harris’s victory speech, where she noted she might be the first female VP, but she “won’t be the last,” Aly Sherali, Human Capital Senior Consultant, was inspired to dig into the history of Deloitte and the women who blazed the trail for future generations.

?In celebration of Women’s History Month, he came up with the idea of having a panel discussion with these women in order to celebrate their impact and learn from their experiences. After bringing the idea to me and my team, we thought it was so great that we made it even bigger, getting Kavitha Prabhakar, our Deloitte US Chief DEI Officer involved and extending invitations across Deloitte’s businesses. More than 5,000 of people across Deloitte attended the event, which featured Deloitte trailblazers such as Cathy Engelbert, the first women to be CEO of Deloitte (and of a “Big Four” US Firm) and current WNBA Commissioner, and Linda Solomon, a founding partner of Deloitte’s Federal Practice and one of our first Black partners.

?Creating a Consistent, Inclusive Experience on Every Team ?

?Grassroots DEI can also lead to initiatives and practices that create lasting legacies and will continue to make an impact for years to come. For example, Niya Baxter, Senior Manager, Consulting DEI Chief of Staff, and a small group of practitioners spearheaded an effort known as Project Driven Inclusion (PDI.)

?Project Driven Inclusion began with a simple hypothesis: that a person’s experience is most heavily impacted at the team level, where they spend the majority of their time. Niya says, “What our CEO and other leaders say and do matters immensely in setting the tone and cultural expectations but can mean little if your day-to-day experience isn’t aligned with that aspiration.” PDI resources are made available to all professionals, regardless of career level, geography or job function and seek to break complex and sometimes controversial topics – such as privilege, race or pitfalls for bias in performance management – into bite sizes that spark meaningful dialogue and actionable change.

?“Our goal was to create action-oriented resources that anyone could use on their project teams to create an inclusive environment so everyone feels like they can bring their authentic selves to work,” said Niya. In just three short years, PDI has grown from a small pet project to the internal standard for practical, tangible and actionable DEI toolkits, workbooks and resources.

?Another example of this comes from Senior Manager Emily Yee and Senior Consultant Margo Keale, who worked with a team of practitioners to build, what now called, the “PDI Accessibility Toolkit.” This toolkit contains activities, educational materials, and guidance on how we can collectively make Deloitte a more accessible place to work. Resources include an events accessibility checklist, a one-pager on disability inclusion in a virtual environment, research papers on uncovering talent. It’s a simple one-stop shop where team leaders can be educated on how to create more inclusive team experiences for colleagues with disabilities.

?“The team not only saw a need but an interest for informative and accessible disability inclusion education across project teams. The toolkit has been incredibly well received and utilized across the practice. This has encouraged our group to continuing thinking about how we engage team leads on disability inclusion etiquette and advocacy,” Emily said.

?The toolkit has also been adopted in the implementation of inclusive recruiting practices, as well. The notable availability of Braille case studies or materials ready for sight-impaired candidates during interviews has allowed us to be more diverse and inclusive in our hiring process.

?A Call to Action

As an employee, I would encourage you to seek out these opportunities. Where can you lean in around diversity, equity and inclusion beyond your day-to-day interactions? How can you connect DEI to your passions and contribute to your organization in a new way? If you’re in a formal leadership role, I challenge you to reflect on how and if you’ve intentionally cultivated a work environment that fosters creativity and provides people the psychological safety to take risks and try something new. Are you aware of initiatives that could make an even greater impact if you were to provide them with support and resources to scale?

Grassroots DEI efforts can be overlooked in trainings and education about company DEI, but they can make some of the biggest impact. They help embed DEI more deeply into your company culture, empower teammates at all levels to affect change and create a ripple effect – both inward to everyday actions and outward to company-wide programs – that ultimately helps build a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization from bottom to top.