Three Key Focus Areas for Your Spring Inclusion Efforts

This spring has been another interesting time for equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as we continue to feel the effects of the global pandemic and the social justice movement in our professional and personal lives.

There are three key inclusion areas that have been center stage at bci recently, and so I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts and recommendations on how organizations and individuals can continue to navigate this difficult moment.

1. Mental Health is More Important Than Ever Before — Having passed the one-year anniversary of COVID lockdowns (can you believe it?!?), we must continue to focus on managing our own and our teams’ mental health. Organizations must prioritize mental health inclusion programming, and to this end, bci will be offering webinars, learning series and more to assist you with your efforts. In March, we delivered a free webinar on mental health inclusion with bci’s resident expert Komal Bhasin, and Komal will be delivering another free webinar in April on burnout in the workplace. Watch this space for updates!
2. A Continued Commitment to Interrupting Racism is Critical — Though Black History Month is now over, we must continue to prioritize interrupting anti-Black racism in all of what we do in workplaces and in society. This month, we've also seen heartbreaking incidents of anti-Asian racism, and we know that hate crimes against Asian Americans rose by 150% in 2020. It underscores the need to continue to actively interrupt anti-Asian racism.
3. This Pandemic Experience Keeps Highlighting Gender Inequities — The toll that the pandemic has taken on women has been immediate, but the effects are likely to linger for years to come, which is why it’s more important than ever for organizations to recommit to empowering women professionals and disrupting all forms of oppression that intersect with gender inequity.

Considering these three inclusion areas, we know that our work towards creating more inclusive workplaces and a more inclusive society is an ongoing project that will require continued learning, collaboration, resilience and more.

Given how difficult this moment continues to be — and how quickly the world continues to change around us — keeping our foot on the gas when it comes to inclusion is essential.