What stories do you tell? What events do you organise? What videos and learning modules do you share? What data do you report on and why? Director of consultancy Russ Norton talks remixing your DEI comms to engage your audiences.
The dates in the diversity calendar give teams easy excuses to talk about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), but that can cause more problems than it solves.
If we only talk about gender inequality on International Women’s Day, or racial discrimination in Black History Month, then we’re probably (definitely) not tackling those topics sufficiently. Even if you aligned your comms calendar to every single date in the DEI calendar, you still wouldn’t be anywhere near covering the full range of characteristics and identities among your people.
To make an impact, it’s time to remix how you engage with your people about DEI. Here’s a few techniques to inspire you:
Talk about topics because they’re important to your people – not because the calendar tells you to.
Race and racism. Misogyny and violence against women. Mental health. Accessibility. Neurodiversity. Trans rights. Many organisations down tools for a ‘Global Safety Day’ – which sends a clear message about their priorities. Giving colleagues the permission to pause, learn about and discuss important DEI topics has the same effect – and you’re in control of when you do this.
The most interesting part of your organisation is your people. The stories they tell, their experiences and their lives in and out of work are a rich source of content that goes untapped in too many organisations. Profile your people to raise empathy, surface important topics and spark conversations.
Make a habit of reporting regularly – not because regulation dictates you have to, but because it holds your organisation to account. From representation to pay gap data, engagement survey stats to verbatim quotes, these data points are influential to the people making decisions. Break down the data as much as you can (without singling out individuals) to show people the impact equity and inclusion (or a lack thereof) can have.
These ideas are additive. Don’t set up an organisational conversation about racism instead of marking Black History Month. Do both. Find a way to do all the things that will make a positive impact on your people. And remember, you don’t have to fully own the delivery of everything.
Give others the time, permission and reward to do these things on your behalf to significantly reduce your to-do list.
Ready for a DEI remix?
We work with progressive communicators to remix how they engage with their audiences. If you’re looking for a new rhythm, we can help.
