November 2021
3 Wellness Initiatives to Improve Your DEIB Recruiting and Retention Efforts
Organizational leaders understand the importance of recruiting and retention efforts that focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). After all, research going back to at least the 2013 Harvard Business Review article “How Diversity Can Drive Innovation” has shown the benefits of diversity.
Leaders also see the great value in implementing wellness initiatives that succeed in engaging employees in their own well-being. An article posted to the HSE Network website in May 2021 succinctly explains “Why Healthy Employees Are Safer, Happier and More Productive at Work.”
But for a long time, and despite both being vital components of organizational success, DEIB and employee well-being programs have existed as largely separate efforts. This happened even though the efforts share a common goal of fostering and maintaining a workforce in which everyone has an equal opportunity to reach their personal goals and, ultimately, propel the organization to a better, stronger culture and improved results.
From the HR20/20 Report …
HR can help drive a culture of innovation through championing process improvement initiatives and by helping leadership engage in effective change management strategies. In the public sector, HR must lead the way by adapting policies and practices to keep pace with the evolving needs of the organization.
What my colleagues and I see while working with clients is that the two vital forces that drive an organization’s culture are finding their way together because DEIB and well-being are naturally allied. What we have not seen until recently, however, is intentionality in bringing the programs together. The more DEIB and well-being efforts support each other, the better off each program is and the stronger an organization’s culture becomes.
Achieving that alignment begins with setting a goal to create a state of workforce well-being where all employees have an equal opportunity to reach their personal health and wellness goals. Moving toward attaining that goal requires developing a very firm understanding of the lay of the land and being intensely sensitive to what is not currently working so leaders can figure out why those things are not working.
Following are three wellness initiatives that, if implemented thoughtfully, can help improve your organization’s DEIB recruitment and retention efforts. When thinking about implementing any of the initiatives, keep these truths in mind:
- We all need curiosity in order to learn.
- Creating safe spaces empowers learning.
- Be wary of tripping over old landmines.
- Setting up a new program is not, by itself, the ultimate goal.
- Success depends on cultivating a collective growth mindset.
- Success depends on establishing new norms.
Expanding Access to Mental Health Care
Organizations that care about recruiting and retaining top talent, and that are prioritizing employees, must offer well-being programs that focus on mental health, not just physical health. This may be doubly true for organizations wanting to attract BIPOC employees.
According to Mental Health America, 17 percent of Black people and 23 percent of Native Americans live with a mental illness. People who identify as being multiracial are more likely than individuals in any other racial or ethnic group to report living with mental illness. It is also true that BIPOC individuals are less likely to have access to mental health services, less likely to seek out treatment, more likely to receive low-quality or poor care, and more likely to stop accessing services early.
Everyone benefits from mental health support. Consider implementing a program for routine mental health check-ins and easy access to support groups and psychologists.
Providing Help With Caregiving Responsibilities
The vast majority of household chores and child care responsibilities fall on women. Researchers quoted in a Jan. 7, 2021, article posted to The Nation explained, “77 percent of employed mothers report being mainly responsible for housework, 61 percent report being mainly responsible for child care, and 78 percent report taking the lead on helping with their children’s remote learning.”
Those findings are in line with ones from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statics, whose American Time Use Survey determined full-time working moms spend approximately 21 hours per week on household chores and child care/eldercare. This is roughly 50 percent more time than men spend on those activities.
This all adds up to a stress crisis that is disproportionately impacting women, who feel they cannot get any relief as they try to shoulder the responsibilities of work and caregiving. In fact, in a report titled Women in the Workplace 2020, the group Lean In wrote, “Senior-level women are 1.5 times as likely as senior-level men to think about downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce because of COVID-19, and almost 3 in 4 cite burnout as a primary reason.”
To help recruit and retain top female talent, organizations must get creative in offering benefits those individuals will find truly beneficial to them, such as child care stipends, help with eldercare, flexible work schedules and a culture that does not penalize them for taking time away from their jobs to attend to the demands of their families.
Customizing Well-being Programs to Ensure Inclusivity
While it may be tempting to implement a well-being program that is one-size-fits-all, taking that approach will not create the type of inclusive workplace culture that is necessary for recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. So where do you start when your goal is to ensure the needs of the many do not overwhelm the needs of the few?
Begin by acting with intentionality. Ask questions and listen to employees in order to learn about their realities and how they might be struggling. Then proceed to holistic program design. Focus on diversity so people can “see” themselves and feel a sense of belonging. Equally important is ensuring that delivery mechanisms exist to ensure everyone can access meaningful benefits regardless of their worksite, needs for accommodations, goals and preferences.
While expanding programs to support DEIB initiatives, be careful not to be too exclusive. Prioritize giving every employee access to programs to avoid inadvertently overlooking any individual’s needs. For example, men and working fathers will value benefits such as parental leave, support for child care and eldercare, and housekeeping stipends as much as women and working moms will. The same will be true of flexible schedules and hybrid work arrangements. Extending benefits to the entire team rather than just a few select employees serves to strengthen morale, boost engagement and raise productivity across the workforce.
Bringing well-being into diversity programs and bringing all aspects of diversity into well-being programs creates a symbiotic relationship between the programs. When launching well-being initiatives, it is imperative to do so through the lens of inclusive well-being. A solution that does not address the unique needs of everyone—that doesn’t ensure equal access to resources and doesn’t speak to potential participants as a solution they can belong to—will not lead to the recruitment and retention an organization needs to ensure a healthy, inclusive, diverse and equitable workforce.
01 November 2021
Category
HR News Article