Key takeaways:
- Unified Communication Strategies: Collaborate closely with communication teams and HR to address social issues promptly and effectively, ensuring messages are inclusive and culturally sensitive.
- Empower Executive Leaders: Empower executive leaders to take decisive action in crisis management, fostering cultural competency and ensuring timely responses irrespective of perceived urgency.
- Leverage Employee Resources: Harness the collective voice of employee resource groups (ERGs) to communicate actions and provide support tailored to the needs of diverse communities, while also soliciting employee feedback to inform crisis management strategies and benefit offerings.
When major events arise that disrupt employees’ livelihoods and pose a threat to the safety of people in the community, diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders know the importance of leveraging business partners to help with crisis management.
During a leadership panel discussion hosted by the DEI Board about developing crisis management plans, senior DEI leaders shared insights into how they’re leveraging business partners to address social issues.
Here are four key steps they say can help with taking action on crises like COVID-19, mass shootings, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and more.
1. Work with communication teams and HR in addressing social issues
It’s essential for business partners at all levels to acknowledge and address recent social issues. Otherwise, not properly addressing them could negatively impact your business.
While addressing social unrest can be complicated, an article by Forbes highlighted how employees want to see employers take more action.
“4 in 10 employees believed their employer needs to do more in response to social justice efforts — and that number jumps to 66% for Black employees,” the article stated.
This expectation of executive leaders taking action has made it more clear than ever how collaboration is needed in addressing social issues.
Diversity and inclusion is needed in messaging
Knowing how detrimental it can be for senior leaders to support employees, Darice Brown, Senior Director of DEI Strategic Partnerships, Community, and Brand Impact at ServiceNow, explained how DEI leaders must consistently work with business leaders and communication teams to address the impact of social issues.
“When we think about the DEI leader’s role when working with those key stakeholders, it should be happening consistently before anything happens,” said Darice. “When you think about helping ensure equity and inclusion in any and all messaging, especially related to social or civil unrest or issues, there has to be the thought or someone taking a beat and thinking beyond surface level.”
DEI leaders should be a part of the final approval process of messaging
Darice talked about being realistic with goals and recognizing the lack of diversity of thought and inclusion for many HR and legal teams.
“When you think about helping ensure equity and inclusion in any and all messaging, especially related to social or civil unrest or issues, there has to be the thought or someone taking a beat and thinking beyond surface level.”
Darice Brown, Senior Director of DEI Strategic Partnerships, Community, and Brand Impact at ServiceNow
“One of the things I see as a DEI leader, not only are you a voice at the table — providing perspective as communications or responses are being drafted — you’re one of those last pulse checks before anything goes out. And I think they are kind of that gatekeeper,” Darice added.
She stated how DEI leaders should be one of the first people to review statements on social issues to ensure diverse and inclusive language is implemented.
2. Empower executive leaders to take action
Just because DEI leaders are responsible for leading their initiatives, it doesn’t mean they should be expected to hold everyone in their organizations accountable for taking actions alone. To take proper actions, all executive leaders must feel empowered.
Randy Irving, Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Nutrien, shared how he works with business leaders in getting involved in crisis management.
“When it comes to these things, I found myself in the role of an eye opener, in having the job of raising the cultural competency of our leadership,” Randy said. “Because they’re operators, they’re running their operations, they’re running their business units. And they’ve got their blinders on when they’re doing those things.”
Don’t let timeliness decide if your company should take action
After the mass shootings in Buffalo and New Jersey earlier this year, Randy described how he went to their Director of Communications on the importance of communicating sentiment to the communities affected by the tragedy. However, leadership ultimately decided the timing was too late for their company to make a statement.
“When it comes to these things, I found myself in the role of an eye opener, in having the job of raising the cultural competency of our leadership.”
Randy Irving, Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at Nutrien
Then, the mass shooting in Uvalde occured, and Randy shared how timeliness could not be used as a reason to not speak as a company anymore.
“I got right back on the line. I was like, ‘Okay, this is three of them back to back. We can’t use timeliness as a scapegoat to not speak,’” Randy said. “From there, we pulled together our Chief Safety Officer, we pulled together our biggest North American business unit, which is our retail. We pulled together our legal team, and we pulled together our HR Vice President that supported the retail organization. And from that, we came up with a plan to communicate.”
Their initiatives included an internal statement with safety measures that Nutrien would take to support employees, including safety resources and tips of what to do in an active shooting situation.
3. Leverage employees to help with crisis management
Another great resource that DEI leaders can leverage are the employees themselves, many of whom participate in employee resource groups (ERGs). Reaching out to ERGs and using the voices of specific groups who might be impacted the most by certain social issues can be critical in taking action as a company.
Work with ERGs for communicating actions
Dr. Monica Curry, Associate Director and Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at Subaru of America, shared how senior leadership teams can help cascade DEI initiatives to address social issues with the help of ERGs.
She shared how after the mass shootings this year, she worked with ERGs to take action and communicate how Subaru would support employees.
“I initially sent something to my Black and Latino ERGs because I was feeling some kind of way, because it is my community,” Monica said.
She created a message for the ERG leads to use across the enterprise and followed up to her HR team with more communication from the ERGs.
“What happened in that instance was there was a communication that was crafted by the ERG leads that went to the Black and brown community,” Monica said. “Then our CHRO also sent a very similar message to all leaders of people to say something along the lines of if your employees seem disconnected, let them be. If your employees need to work from home, let them. Our leadership team understood how to care for people in this instance.”
Updating benefits with input from employees
Monica also shared how critical it was to audit their benefits packages offered to employees, specifically after the verdict of Roe v. Wade was overturned. While leading DEI at a global company like Subaru, she shared how country-based events need specific attention so that all employees feel supported.
“We are making sure that our employees understand the benefits that are already out there. But we are also reassessing our benefits to ensure that they are inclusive or as inclusive as we possibly can as it relates to this most recent verdict.”
Dr. Monica Curry, Associate Director and Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at Subaru of America
“We are making sure that our employees understand the benefits that are already out there. But we are also reassessing our benefits to ensure that they are inclusive or as inclusive as we possibly can as it relates to this most recent verdict,” Monica said.
She continued, “We’re starting to engage different areas because the social unrest is looking like we’ve never seen before. Before, it was just maybe legal, PR, corporate comms, and our executives. Now we’re starting to engage other areas in the organization so that they can take the lead on the benefits.”
4. Learn more from your peers about addressing DEI social issues
Addressing social issues as a DEI leader is not an easy task. Many employees are looking to their companies for action to support their communities.
While the insights from this leadership discussion helped benchmark how DEI leaders can help address crises, members of the DEI Board are having ongoing discussions about advancing their initiatives to better support employees.
As DEI Board Members, Darice Brown, Randy Irving, and Dr. Monica Curry are able to hear directly from their peers and get actionable insights in real-time every day. If you’re a head of DEI at a large organization, you can learn more from your peers about leveraging business partners to address social issues in the community.
Learn how a DEI Board membership can elevate your organization.
