Key takeaways:
- Shared Responsibility: DEI success hinges on collective engagement across all levels of the organization, with frontline leaders implementing changes and senior leadership championing strategies collaboratively.
- Prioritize Personal Well-being: To combat burnout, DEI leaders must implement a well-being strategy, setting personal goals while finding motivation in success stories and the broader impact of their efforts on the organization.
- Community Support: Building a network of peers offers invaluable support and inspiration for DEI leaders, fostering continuous learning and embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all business practices for organizational growth.
Fatigue is hindering the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across enterprises. While advancing DEI is a top priority for many companies, DEI leaders have expressed how much of a toll it’s taking on their well-being to create cultural changes.
The burnout is real, and leaders are realizing the challenges it’s creating to advance strategies. Many have even stepped away. LinkedIn reported that even as those with the title of Head of Diversity increased over recent years, retention has remained low, with the average turnover for a Chief Diversity Officer being three years.
How can you mitigate your fatigue to avoid burnout? Here are the steps you can take to stay engaged and motivated as a DEI leader.
Make DEI a Shared Responsibility
The challenges within DEI impact everyone in an organization. To advance your strategies, it’s critical to ensure responsibility is held at all levels.
In a study done by Boston Consulting Group, Global Director of Diversity and Inclusion Jennifer Garcia-Alonso shares how frontline leaders play a critical role in implementing cultural changes.
“It should not only be the DEI leader who’s championing DEI. [You should] come together with your executive team and co-create and co-author a strategy that they too own and can feel a sense of ownership and accountability.”
Pamela Morris-Thornton, Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Panera Bread Company
“Frontline leaders interact with line employees all day, every day,” the study says. “They are the most immediate role models for most employees, and they have significant power to implement, ignore, or actively undermine change efforts.”
But change must start from the top, and senior leadership teams must share that responsibility.
In the DEI Board’s panel discussion about mitigating DEI fatigue in an enterprise environment, Panera Bread Company Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Pamela Morris-Thornton shares how executive teams can help.
“One key thing I shared is having an executive team and specifically a CEO that can be the champion,” Pamela says. “It should not only be the DEI leader who’s championing DEI. [You should] come together with your executive team and co-create and co-author a strategy that they too own and can feel a sense of ownership and accountability.”
Take Personal Time to Rejuvenate and Recharge
To address larger organizational goals, it’s essential first to acknowledge your burnout. While it can be an excellent opportunity to lead DEI at a large organization, it can be equally demanding, as highlighted in a Forbes article showing how DEI practitioners should focus on self-care.
With concerns of being overwhelmed with responsibilities, some DEI leaders took time to decide if the work was worth it.
“When I was asked to take on the role, I was like, I don’t want to do that,” Pamela says. “I had to have a conversation with myself because it was happening at a time where I was emotionally raw. I was reconciling my own emotion about what was happening around me in the world while still trying to be a partner to the business and helping the organization navigate it, as well.”
Pamela explains how setting a well-being strategy has helped her and her team manage personal burnout.
“We have developed a well-being strategy, and everyone has to set well-being goals,” she says. “So just like I developed my FY22 goals and KPIs, I also developed my well-being goals. From the CEO on down, we share our well-being goals with our teams.”
These goals help focus on self, family, and community, which Pamela says is important in creating balance.
It can also help to take a step back to appreciate how your efforts are affecting your organization in more significant ways. For example, Adrienne Dawson, Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for North America at Merck KGaA, explains how she stays motivated by success stories.
“What inspires me and energizes me every day is just seeing some of the success stories from our business leaders,” says Adrienne. She shares how the partnerships from their employee resource groups and initiatives to support their communities help her stay engaged in all the efforts.
“My advice to anybody who is in this work is that you don’t make it just about you and the DEI work you’re doing.”
Darryl Castellano, Vice President of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement at WESCO International
Reach Out to Your DEI Peers Who Understand Your Challenges
It always helps to have a community you can rely on and who can support you in your efforts. Many senior DEI leaders use networking groups, community involvement, and other resources to stay connected with their peers.
Darryl Castellano, Vice President of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement at WESCO International, shares how learning from his peers keeps him inspired.
“Attending meetings like this, joining the DEI Board, learning from peers, and stealing shamelessly in terms of everything that’s going on — that’s just my own wiring, so I’m not burnt out because I’m a lifelong learner,” says Darryl. “I understand that with inclusion and diversity, I’ll never get to the point where I’m going to be like, ‘Yeah, I’m all that, and I know everything.’ I’ll never do that. It’s always going to be a position where I’m going to be learning.”
Darryl says communities help him appreciate how his organization is growing because of the work he’s involved in. He says DEI leaders will be successful by embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion in all business practices and seeing bigger goals.
“My advice to anybody who is in this work is that you don’t make it just about you and the DEI work you’re doing,” Darryl says. “If you can try to make those connections in terms of the work you’re doing and the success of the business that you’re supporting, then I think you’re golden.”
