Sponsorship Benefits Series (Part 2)

Welcome to the 10th edition of our LinkedIn Newsletter, "Inclusion and Diversity Learning Circle"! We are excited to reach double digits with our newsletter and to continue to take this opportunity to share more of our story and insights with you. Created by Diversity Inclusion, the I&D Learning Circle provides you and your organisation with best-practice tools, resources, and information, which can be directly applied to your workplace’s I&D program, affecting real and transformational change.?

Building on Our Sponsorship Benefits Series?

In this edition of our newsletter, we build on our Sponsorships Benefits series which we kicked off last year in Edition 7 by sharing the benefits that sponsors gain from participating in a formal Sponsorship Program. In this newsletter, we are exploring the many benefits for sponsees by sharing our latest Learning Lab video with you, “Sponsorship: The Benefits for Sponsees”. ?

We define Sponsorship as the relationship between two individuals in the workplace; typically, a more experienced leader who actively advocates on behalf of a less experienced colleague, supporting them to flourish in their career. Some of the benefits for sponsees (the less experienced colleague) participating in a formal Sponsorship Program which are explored in our?video include;?

• Expanding their network of influential people?
• Building skills and confidence through new opportunities?
• Understanding how their impact on others and their exposure in the organisation impact career progression?
• Learning from a senior leader?
• Sharing biases and barriers with a trusted colleague?

If you are new to sponsorship and how it can support your organisation to become more diverse and inclusive, then you can learn more in Edition 3 of our I&D Learning Circle newsletter and the embedded Learning Lab video where we introduced the concept of sponsorship and explored how it can support and foster greater diversity and inclusion in our workplaces.?We also explored how sponsorship differs to mentoring, in our October 2022 Live Event.?

You can learn more about our Sponsorship Program on our website as well as hearing from participants of the program on this link to a previous LinkedIn post.

Baselining Inclusion ?

Many organisations are measuring levels of diversity in their workforce, but fewer are measuring levels of inclusion. In line with our ‘Big ‘I’, little ‘d’’ approach which we shared in Edition 6 of our I&D Learning Circle Newsletter we believe a focus on inclusion is critical to the success of organisations becoming more diverse and benefiting from that diversity. ?

Over the last few months, the Diversity Inclusion Team delivered our Inclusion Baseline Survey with one of our long-term clients in South Australia. We have just finalised their report which shares their results using infographics and provides a summary with our recommendations. ?

Some of the reasons that clients have engaged us to deliver our Inclusion Baseline Survey include;?

• Measuring existing levels of diversity and inclusion across the workforce?
• Understanding what their existing strengths and areas for improvement are in the diversity and inclusion space ?
• Understanding which areas of the organisation and groups of people feel most and least included?
• Identifying priorities to action to help them achieve their diversity and inclusion goals ?

You can learn more about our Inclusion Baseline Survey on our website and we can provide an example of our Infographic Report.?

Our Learning Lab content – blog articles, videos and other resources – is available on our website (diversityinclusion.com.au), with new content released via our I&D Learning Circle Newsletter. While blog articles and other resources are freely available, Learning Lab videos are available exclusively for our I&D Learning Circle Newsletter subscribers. The following password will allow you to access our video content.??

?Password: LearningCircle??

As we continue to develop future Learning Lab content, we would love to hear from you, our D&I community, as to what D&I topics and issues interest you most. You can share your thoughts, questions, and ideas in the comments section here.?

Please join our diversity and inclusion community by subscribing to this newsletter, which includes our latest Learning Lab content and videos, and the details of upcoming virtual events. Please also share this newsletter with others in your network that you know are interested in learning more in the diversity and inclusion space.