In this episode of Your DEI Minute™, Michelle Bogan, founder and CEO of Equity at Work™, discusses the fundamental components of DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—in the workplace. Michelle breaks down each element, starting with the broad and nuanced concept of diversity, which encompasses not just race, gender, and sexual orientation but also age, ethnicity, disability status, communication styles, and more. She highlights how diversity can change depending on the setting and emphasizes the importance of understanding these variations to foster a truly inclusive environment.

Moving on to equity, Michelle clarifies the often-confused terms of equity and equality. She explains that equity involves providing fair opportunities and access, tailored to individual needs, to ensure everyone can succeed and thrive. Examples range from physical accommodations to ensuring pay equity. Finally, she discusses inclusion, which is about creating an environment where everyone can be authentic, feel valued, and genuinely belong. Michelle also touches on the broader implications of DEI, such as justice and belonging, and provides actionable advice on how organizations can start implementing these principles effectively.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Breakdown of Diversity: Definition and examples
• The expanded view of diversity beyond race, gender, and sexual orientation
• Importance of understanding diversity in different settings
• Equity vs. Equality: Definitions and Distinctions
• Examples and importance of equitable practices in the workplace
• Inclusion: Creating a supportive environment for every employee
• The concept of belonging and its relation to inclusion
• Extending DEI to include justice (DEIJ) and its implications
• Steps for organizations to begin their DEI work effectively

I'm Michelle Bogan, founder and CEO of Equity at Work, and this is your DEI Minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization, all in 15 minutes or less. Welcome to another episode of Your DEI Minute. We're excited to jump in on our next topic, which is what is DEI in the workplace? So what I'm gonna do is break down what those three letters stand for, d for diversity, So first off, diversity. Diversity, while most people when they hear the word diversity, they think immediately of race or maybe gender and usually as a distant third, sexual orientation. In reality, diversity is purely a measurement of differences across a group. So no matter what setting you're in, that's gonna have one certain amount of diversity within it. And then as you move into a different meeting, different location, different group of people, the mix of diversity there is gonna change.

And in addition to that, diversity, yes, it is about race. It's about gender. It's about sexual orientation. It's also about the additional protected classes at work, such as age and ethnicity and disability status and religion and veteran status, but it also clicks out to a much broader set of dimensions that really are the things that make each of us unique and different from each other. And also ways that we can find bridges and connect with each other outside of those protected classes. So those can be things like your social economic background, your educational background, your family status, your marital status. It can be your communication style. It can include things like neurodiversity and learning differences, communication preferences.

There are so many different things that comprise diversity. So as you think of the d in DEI, remember that that's actually a very broad spectrum of characteristics, that need to be considered. And to give you an example of how the diversity can switch from sort of space to space, one example I like to use is actually about my son. He's 15 years old. He's a freshman in high school. He is white. And while, you know, sort of out in kind of broader society, he's part of the majority. When he's in his high school, which is 86% Hispanic, he's in the minority.

So in that school environment, he is part of a minority group. If he moves into a different space, which is in most cases outside of school, he's in a majority. Similarly, at work, you may be in a leadership team that might be predominantly white. And then you go into a different room or different group of people, and it's very mixed from a racial standpoint. So just remember, there are a lot of different ways to think about diversity and how it shows up in the workplace and a lot of different demographics, that really contribute to that. What I like about diversity when you learn about it being more than just those core things that initially pop to mind for people is they create ways for us to find connection with people who might be different from us from what's visible. And oftentimes, we'll do exercises with clients using what's called a diversity wheel, which shows those protected classes in the center. And then some of the broader ones I mentioned on the outside, and we have people pair up in buddies and identify, you know, 1 or 2 things that really are a core part of their identity and inform how they show up at work.

And I have to say probably 90% of the time, the people thing that the things that people gravitate to are the things in that outer circle. They're about education. They're about learning styles or communication styles, socioeconomic backgrounds, all kinds of other things that really inform the complexity of each of us and the intersectionality of each of us, and those can be great bridges to create connections when some of the other things aren't aren't in place. So that is diversity. The next piece is equity, and equity is oftentimes confused or used interchangeably with equality, but they really are 2 very different concepts. I would say the end goal, I think, sort of the ideal thing that people are really striving for is a place where we can all be treated equally. But until you undergo the work of equity first, we're not we can't get to that equality because not everyone is starting from the same place. So the idea of equity is that you are providing access, you're providing opportunity, and you're removing any barriers that might be in place that might hold someone back compared to their peers or others that they're working with and and would hinder their ability to be successful and thrive and and ideally, you know, work up into different levels of promotion and leadership in that organization.

So examples of this, you know, oftentimes, people use the idea of a need for physical accommodation. Let's say you've got an employee in a wheelchair. To make things equitable for that person, that person needs ramps to to be able to get in and out of the office. They may need a lower desk in some cases. They may have other accommodations that they need related to access to the refrigerator at work or vending machines or the coffee machine or getting to the copier or any other equipment that they may need to use in the office. They may need some kind of adjustment for that. However, there are also a lot of things that are not visible that also need a very equitable lens applied to them. So that may be education.

It might be past work experience. It might be, certainly with pay equity, it may be that someone's coming into a job out of a work history where they were paid less than their peers. And if you start a new job, if you're starting their salary based on their past salary, you're actually perpetuating an inequitable situation. So one really important thing to do related to pay is make sure that you're paying everybody equally for the same tasks that they're performing, the same expectations from their position, and same sort of responsibilities that they have. Some of that comes through in equal job. It's commonly referred to as equal pay for equal work. But within that, you've gotta make sure that that the leveling there is appropriate as well because I think a lot of people try to set band salary bands or compensation bands by level. But then if you're holding someone back because they maybe don't have the same experience or haven't given been given the same tools, you may technically be paying them equitably for that role, but you're not really being equitable in setting them up to be able to succeed and thrive for their broader expectations.

So taking into account what someone needs in terms of training or tools or access to be successful is just as important as the pay component for the equal work. So that is really those are the things that really comprise equity in the workplace. The final piece, the I, is for inclusion. And inclusion, I think, feel like brings the 2 together in making sure that everybody has an environment to work in where they can really show up as their full selves, and they can be valued for that. They can be seen and heard for that. They can have an opportunity to really contribute and be part of something bigger than just themselves, Even if they are an individual contributor, that they have a way to be part of a broader team, a broader purpose, and that they feel like they don't have to mask something, hide something, or hold back on some part of their identity or something that's really important to them when they come to work. A lot of people also talk about belonging related to inclusion, and I feel like creating environments of inclusion really is what enables a sense of belonging. Many times organizations will call their DEI efforts, maybe some of them do DEI, some also will add a b for belonging DEIB.

To me, that's really the time to do that is really if you're trying to either make a big change from not being as as focused on inclusion and belonging within your organization, or maybe you're signaling that you're someone in your industry that stands out. Maybe you're in an industry that doesn't typically prioritize that, but you wanna make a big statement. The belonging is really an extension of that inclusion and making sure people feel like, again, they're part of kind of a broader purpose, and they really feel like they are connecting to, you know, a broader kind of movement or or mission within the organization. But again, focusing on DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, is really when those all work together, that's when you're really creating an opportunity for everyone to feel supported and everyone to have opportunities to thrive and grow as their full authentic selves. When people ask me, where should we begin in our DEI work? I think the temptation is to start on the d and look at where they may not have great representation in certain dimensions and to go hard after recruiting for that. But in reality, what you need to do is start on the e and the I and make sure that for the people already in your organization, all of the processes and policies and benefits are fully equitable, and everybody has an opportunity to feel included. Until you have those 2 components in really good shape, it's not gonna work to bring in different people into your organization because they won't have an environment that they're coming into where they have equal opportunity to succeed, where they're given the tools and supports and and any sort of equitable accommodations they might need to succeed, and they won't feel like they can be their their full selves. They're gonna feel like they have to conform to something that already exists that maybe is sort of a monolith compared to a truly diverse organization.

So, again, focusing on the e and I before the d, to me, is really the best way to go. Once you've got the equity and inclusion well in place, that's when you can start to really focus on adding diversity and making sure that everybody who comes in based on different experiences, perspectives, backgrounds, identities will have an opportunity to thrive and grow within the organization and feel like they can be part of something bigger than just themselves. The other word that sometimes is included with DEI is justice. So DEIJ, and organizations that include justice tend to be very social justice oriented and looking at sort of broader social issues. They'll call this DEIJ or in some cases, I've also seen jedi for organizations that are Star Wars fans that can be a kind of fun play for your DEI work to call it Jedi. And that's really getting into the social justice elements that are related to DEI work. But justice, is, again, it's kind of taking, the equity and inclusion to a little bit deeper level and tying the d component of that in very much with that and sort of saying, you know, we're on a broader social mission with our inside our organization and through the principles of our organization, taking those out into the community or through advocacy work or lobbying or legal work or political work to ensure that social justice is a really strong component of our kind of DEI identity within the workplace. So all of those are great things to consider as you're defining what DEI looks like in your organization and really defining what this means for you.

And I think that's the the other, you know, key takeaway of this is DEI has very specific definitions, but those definitions really need to then be applied to your organization's mission, how they align with your values, how do they enhance your culture, how do they enable you to really live out the promise you make to your employees, to your customers, to your community, to all of your stakeholders? That's where you start to internalize DEI and not just have DEI be a bunch of word words on a page, something posted on a wall, a statement on a website that doesn't have any true meaning. So I hope that this has provided you with some additional information and good insight into not just what these terms stand for, but sort of what they mean from more of a principle standpoint and how to make those work within your organization. Thank you for spending this time with us. And that's a wrap. I'm Michelle Bogan, and that's your DEI Minute for today. Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to follow us wherever you listen podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review. If you ever have questions, please visit our website or send us an email.

You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Links to everything can be found in the episode notes. This episode was produced and edited by Podgrove with podcast art by our very own Jamie Applegate.