Broadcast Your Support for Inclusion, and Other Actions for Allies

Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.

1. Broadcast your support for inclusion

In The Better Allies® Way: A Workbook for Being More Inclusive at Work, I explore the seven roles that allies can play. I developed this framework to describe the many ways allies can make a difference. It’s been a popular and powerful tool for my readers to understand that there is no single definition of what it means to support colleagues from underrepresented groups.

One of the seven roles is the Champion, who ensures colleagues are recognized for their expertise, often in large, public settings. They aim to diversify who gives project updates and answers questions at important meetings, sharing their own spotlight to help colleagues be more visible.

They also are champions of inclusion, being loud and proud about their support for creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

Here’s an activity from my workbook to identify ways to broadcast your support.

Consider the following ideas. Check those that you are already doing, and identify one additional action you’ll commit to doing:

• Add my pronouns to an email signature, name tag lanyard, video conference account, or online profile such as LinkedIn. Doing so can help normalize this practice and make it easier for coworkers to share theirs.
• Join a diversity-related channel in our organization’s online discussion forum, such as Slack or Teams, and contribute to the conversations.
• Change my video conference background to a diversity-themed one. (Many organizations create branded ones for Pride, Women’s History Month, Juneteenth, and other diversity-related celebrations throughout the year.)
• Write “Aspiring Ally” on a conference badge to let others know this is a skill I’m developing.
• Celebrate a local Pride parade with coworkers.
• Something else: __

What action will you take to broadcast your support for a more inclusive workplace?

Of course, showing support alone isn’t enough. Let’s also pledge to take action when we witness non-inclusive behavior.

Share this action on LinkedIn, on Instagram, or on Threads.

2. Look out for “identity omission”

In a Harvard Business Review article What Demographics Forms Say About Inclusivity at Your Company, professors Sean Fath and Devon Proudfoot wrote about their research into identity omission.

They explained, “the seemingly mundane choices companies make when designing demographics forms — such as those used in job applications or employee engagement surveys — can have relatively major implications. For members of minority groups, finding their identity omitted in an organization’s demographics forms can make them question whether their identity is valued and respected by that organization.”

Examples of identity omission include forms listing only “male” and “female” as gender choices. Or forms that don’t include accurate race/ethnicity options. Or not allowing multi-racial people to select more than one category.

If you design forms, Fath and Proudfoot recommend erring on the side of inclusivity. Offer more response options and allow people to select more than one option. They also explore the idea of asking respondents to describe their identities (instead of listing options for them to choose) and using a large language model AI to categorize the responses into the dataset you need for your analysis.

3. Don’t ask “What happened to you?”

I recently watched an Instagram reel from disability rights advocate Sylvia Longmire. Seated in a wheelchair, she started off with, “I can’t believe I have to make this video, but here I am. Some random old guy asked me the dreaded question, ‘What happened to you?’”

Longmire asked this man, “Why would you ask such personal information of a total stranger?” She then posed some hypothetical questions. Would he ask people he didn’t know about their weight or how many people they’d slept with? To which he answered, “Of course not.”

Longmire implores us to treat wheelchair users the same way that you’d treat anyone else.

In other words, if you wouldn’t ask a question to someone without a visible disability, don’t ask a wheelchair user that question.

(Many thanks to my friend Bobbie Riley, who suggested I watch Longmire’s video.)

4. Advocate for wellness rooms

Here’s another entry for the ever-growing “Things Karen learns from subscribers” file.

In my newsletter last week, I pointed out the problem with non-lactating employees using lactation rooms for breaks, long lunches, and personal calls.

Afterwards, I heard from subscribers who suggested I consider the larger issue at play — that employees may need private/quiet spaces during the workday. For prayer. For virtual therapy sessions. For meditating. For a short rest from the sensory overload of the workplace. And so on.

I should have thought of this myself, but I didn’t. I learn from subscribers regularly, and I’m so very appreciative.

If your workplace doesn’t yet have wellness rooms, consider advocating for them.

5. Say something

Speaking of learning from subscribers, I love hearing examples of actions people have taken after reading my newsletter, hearing me speak, or diving into one or more of my books.

Today, I bring you a gem from Tatum at CBRE in Denver:

“The Ally Actions newsletter has given me the confidence I needed to speak up. When my parents recently sold one of their cars, my dad told me that the sale had gone smoothly and he was happy the car was going to ‘a nice Hispanic family.’ I explained to him that, while I’m sure the remark was well-intentioned, he likely wouldn’t have commented on the family’s race or ethnicity if they were white. My dad was so grateful for the callout, and it led to some important reflection. He wound up sharing this story and his mistake in a team meeting at work to call attention to othering and its impact.”

“It can be intimidating to speak up, and I’m so glad I did. It’s helped me a great deal to remember that most people mean well and truly do want to be better. Thank you for reminding us of this fact, and for your willingness to share about your own journey and learnings along the way.”

Thank you, Tatum!

I’d love to know about an action you’ve taken to be a better ally. Please reply to this email and tell me about it. (And mention if I can quote you by name or credit you anonymously in an upcoming newsletter.)

That’s all for this week. I wish you strength and safety as we all move forward.

— Karen Catlin (she/her), author of the Better Allies® book series

Copyright © 2024 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

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