Founded on the shared belief that diversity, equity, and inclusion is a societal issue, rather than a competitive one, CEO Action looks to drive measurable action and real change in advancing DEI within the workplace. Their focus on and work towards accelerating progress in the workforce was a large part of what motivated me to take the pledge, along with Flexential’s continued commitment to advancing DEI in our workplace.
In taking this pledge, we promised to:
- Cultivate an environment that supports open dialogue on complex and difficult conversations around DEI
- Implement and expand education and training around unconscious bias in our workplace
- Openly share our successes and challenges along our DEI journey
- Engage key stakeholders as we develop and evaluate new DEI strategies
Reflecting on the past year, we are proud to share three DEI initiatives we’ve accomplished:
- We founded a new DEI program for Flexential and built a structure for it that includes an employee-driven DEI Council.
- We launched additional Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), bringing our total to four unique groups – Women Who Flex, FlexPride, FlexMORE (multicultural) and FlexFocus (mental health and wellness).
- We implemented a DEI survey to specifically measure belonging and listen to the employee voice.
In founding our new DEI program, we looked to intentionally power an inclusive, employee-centric culture that diffuses bias and fosters underrepresented talent. It was important to focus our efforts on creating a safe space where everyone can bring their whole selves to work. To us, uniqueness is powerful and a central part to driving what makes Flexential successful. Through this program and the work being done by our DEI council we are fostering inclusion by intentionally understanding the employee voice and actively implementing news systems and programs to drive this work forward.
Additionally, we are committed to helping our employee resource groups expand, providing both the space and support for our employees to grow – personally and professionally. We firmly support the idea that when employees feel they truly belong, the organization experiences better performance, more innovation and higher engagement across the board. Our ERGs play a critical role in how we put this belief into practice. They are crucial to our foundation, our ethos, and in shaping who we are as a business today.
A vital piece to our work from the last year is in our employee surveys. With each new survey we’re receiving feedback that our efforts are effectively increasing a sense of belonging and engagement for employees. This is because we not only listen to, but seek to understand, the unique voice of each employee, leveraging that feedback to build a workplace that is welcoming, inclusive, and safe. An example of how we are doing this include gender-neutral bathrooms in all new build office locations, as well as new signage for existing offices.
We are also working to provide continuous learning and education for our managers to help remove unconscious biases and coach them in what it means to lead more inclusively – and more specifically what that looks like. Our team is hard at work to implement new tools and further educational programs that can help our employees learn to de-bias their language, navigate name changes for employees who are transitioning, and understand gender neutral pronoun usage.
We are excited about and motivated by the progress we’ve made in just one year. But we also know that this is a journey, and one year is just the beginning of the road towards impactful change. As we look to the next year and beyond, our focus on fostering inclusion, exacting equity, increasing diversity, and putting ourselves in a position to further influence our industry remain at the forefront of our DEI commitment – to all of our employees now and in the future.
Would you like to join us in our pledge? See our career openings by visiting, flexential.com/careers.
