Get Reworked Podcast: How to Build a Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results

Many organizations have been serious about diversity and inclusion work for decades, so why has so little progress been made?

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Cynthia Owyoung, vice president of inclusion, equity and belonging at Robinhood and author of the new book "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results." Cynthia shares insights and practical advice from her two decades of experience in a wide range of companies. The bottom line: If you're just making it an HR initiative, you're missing the point. 

Listen: Get Reworked Podcast Full Episode List

"When we view this work as primarily an HR initiative or something that only sits within talent, I think we're missing a huge opportunity," Cynthia said. "And we're also not addressing the broader influences and context within your business ecosystem that is actually going to make or break your success in this space." 

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The evolution of diversity and inclusion to incorporate equity and belonging.
  
• How DEIB work can go beyond HR to be a driver of business and growth.
• How leaders can overcome their discomfort to be an advocate for DEIB work.
• The future of DEIB work in the hybrid world of work.
• Why the Great Resignation is an opportunity to really make a difference.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Cynthia about diversity quotas, algorithmic bias and why businesses should stop hiring for culture fit. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at [email protected].

Tune-in Here

Show Notes

• Cynthia Owyoung on LinkedIn
• Cynthia's personal website
• Cynthia's book on Amazon: "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results"
• Breaking Glass Forums

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript has been edited for space and clarity.

Cynthia Owyoung: He was like, "Oh my gosh, I just realized that I am guilty of actually perpetuating our lack of diversity because I have three open roles. And we're looking for very specific skill sets. And we're looking for people who have very specific experience in this space at similar kinds of companies. And so that has really narrowed down our talent pool because we are really just fishing from the same pools that everyone else is fishing from."

Mike Prokopeak: That was Cynthia Owyoung talking about some of the challenges that are related to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging work within organizations and how we can productively address them within our organizations.

Cynthia is the vice president of inclusion, equity and belonging at Robinhood, where she drives the company's approach to enhancing its culture of diversity and inclusion. She's also the founder of Breaking Glass Forums, where she develops strategies to accelerate an increase in more diverse leaders and inclusive organizations. She has a brand new book that is coming out this month, in January, "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results."

We're going to talk to her about that book, as well as the history that she has within this industry. So I'm eager to get it started. How about you, Siobhan?

Siobhan Fagan: I am too, Mike.

Mike: Alright, let's Get Reworked.

The Evolution of Diversity and Inclusion Work

Welcome to the podcast, Cynthia.

Cynthia: Hi, thanks for having me.

Mike: We're excited to have you here. The topic for today — diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging — is an important one and only becoming more important as we go through this revolution of work that we're going through. So I want to start with a pretty broad question for you because you've been doing this work for quite some time. And how have you seen the evolution? Can you walk us through the evolution of diversity and inclusion work?

Cynthia: Yeah, I'm definitely going to date myself here because I've been doing this work for over 20 years now. And I remember early on, when I first started in the field, a lot of the conversation around diversity was really driven by affirmative action, and how a lot of companies were looking at this and driving it from a compliance-based business case. Meaning, you know, government regulations required companies to report out on their numbers and make good faith efforts to really improve their diversity representation.

I think, over time, you started to see this really great shift away from compliance and affirmative action, and more towards diversity and inclusion being a key reason for company's success in the long run. So thinking about how more diversity drives innovation inside companies, how having more diversity of perspectives and thought can really create a really much more inclusive kind of environment for people in which they can thrive and grow. So this started to shift much more towards, OK, how does diversity and inclusion really help the business move forward in different ways both from a talent and a business strategy perspective.

And then in more recent years, you started to see equity really be part of the conversation as more companies realize that to make progress in the space around diversity and inclusion, you have to drive towards equity across all different groups — in your talent processes, in your business strategies, in your marketing, outreach, all of that. And so that's when you really started to see equity and social justice concepts really tied in to the field.

And now we've got really, probably in the last three or four years, a much more stronger emergence of belonging as a key concept, because there's been a lot of employee engagement research done in the last decade that has really pointed to the need for connection for employees to really feel connected to their companies. And so belonging is emerged as one of these key drivers for higher employee engagement. So that has been added into the conversation. And I think that is not stopping there. We're gonna see it continue to evolve in different ways.

What Equity and Belonging Look Like in Practice

Mike: Thanks for that, because I think it's important to kind of ground our conversation in that and this idea of DEIB. It's becoming a term that more and more organizations are using. It used to just be diversity, then it became diversity and inclusion, D&I, and now it's DEIB. One clarification question: Can you kind of ground us in what does equity practice look like in an organization? And what does belonging practice? Can you give us some examples of what practices that are tied to those kind of overarching themes of the work?

Cynthia: Yeah, so equity, I think, you know, can be practiced in a few different ways. And we take talent processes as a key example.

So look at hiring — how when we're looking at the hiring funnel, meaning people who apply to jobs, people who get interviewed, people who get offers and then ultimately hired, you have to look at that through an equity lens. Meaning you're analyzing that information and data according to different demographic dimensions, to understand if the experiences of different groups along that hiring funnel process are the same or different. In other words, do we have an equitable hiring process, that means that people of different genders and gender identities are going through that funnel at the same rate as each other.

So that's one way that you see equity being put into practice, when you see companies really auditing their hiring processes, looking at their data, and taking different steps to ensure an equitable outcome, meaning that you see parity between men and women using the gender example or if you see a representative funnel from race or ethnicity perspective, right? Whatever that dimension might be.

That's the way that you really look at your interventions, based on whether or not your data is showing an equitable process throughout that. A lot of companies are not just looking at it from a hiring perspective, but also from a performance management perspective, right? Ratings, distributions, career advancement in terms of promotions. Really understanding if there's proportionality based on your representation, and making sure that you don't have significant differences across groups.

How a Marketer Became a DEIB Advocate

Siobhan: So Cynthia, I know in your background, you have over a decade under your belt doing advertising, and you are a brand strategist, you have a bachelor's in marketing and psychology. So how did you find yourself in this world? What brought you to the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging world?

Cynthia: I've always been interested in what makes people tick, what motivates people to take the actions and behaviors that they do. And so that's why I decided to major in psychology. And I thought, well, marketing is the way to go, and ended up at ad agencies for a while being sort of the voice of the consumer at the table and creating different marketing and ad campaigns.

And then after about 10 years of doing that I felt a little burnt out. If you know anything about the ad agency industry, it's very churn and burn. And so I was looking for something that would be really satisfying and fulfilling. I decided to go to grad school. And one of the courses in grad school was diversity management, and I loved it.

It was the best course that really resonated with me because of my family background, where I have a brother who's disabled, I have another brother who is gay, my parents are immigrants. I'm an Asian woman — all of these influences. I have always highlighted how difference shows up in my life, right. And so when I took this diversity management course, and this person from Toyota, who actually held this job, came in to talk about what she did for a living that's when the light bulb went off for me. And I was like, I can't believe that you get paid to help people, give them access to opportunities and advancement. And I thought, that's something that I want to do.

So it happened to also coincide with the first tech bust that happened way back 20 years ago. And my disabled brother had lost his job at that point in time. And I was spending a lot of time helping him find another one. And it took me a number of years to get him another job. So those two experiences coupled together really had me sit back and rethink, OK, this is the field that I want to go into. I want to open doors for people so that they don't have the rough time that my brother and I had in terms of getting a role. So that's what started me down the path. And you know, 20 years later, here I am.

Siobhan: So you probably see this question coming, Cynthia, but I'm wondering if you ever find ways to apply your marketing background in this work. Are there ways that you've learned from making the perfect ad or something like that to actually convince businesses that this is something they need to do? 

Cynthia: You know, it's funny that you asked that because I leveraged that marketing lens to a huge extent in the work that I do. And again, this might be because I come from that marketing background, and I am a product of my own lived experience, right? But I definitely see a lot of applicability of marketing to the DEIB space because you're trying to change hearts and minds and behaviors to create this more diverse, inclusive, equitable world. And in order to do that, you have to apply persuasion. You have to use your marketing strategy in terms of your outreach and your messaging.

And so for me, it's about creating demand for DEIB inside the companies that I work with. And if I can create demand for DEIB as a product, that will help the company be even more successful and more positioned for the future of their business. Then I think I'm doing something, right. So you know, and hopefully, that will translate into real tangible outcomes from a changed behavior, more representation, more equitable process perspective.

Belonging Is Essential to Integrating Work and Life

Mike: We want to get into your book here in a minute. But as I'm listening to you talk, something kind of stood out to me as you're talking about your background and why you got into this work. And that's the idea that it's very personal to you. Those of us of a certain age have always been told that there's a phrase, it's just business, you know, we make business-related decisions sometimes without thinking through the consequences on the personal level, or the personal consequences aren't as important.

How do you balance those two expectations — the fact that work is personal but yet there is a business operation that needs to happen there?

Cynthia: I think a lot of companies think that when we come to work, we somehow are able to leave our personal identities at the door. And I think that that is not accurate, right? I think that most people aren't really able to leave their personal context outside of their normal day to day, and we have to recognize that. I mean, we're all human. Right? We can't just be these like work automatons that are just like completing tasks every day, our family contexts, our mood, all of that matters.

And so I think it behooves us to really understand that people are integrating their personal and their work lives in ways that maybe they haven't been given permission to do in decades past. So it's something that you have to acknowledge and recognize as company leaders and embrace if you're really going to help your employees thrive and contribute their full potential to your business and operations.

So I just think that the two are very much intertwined. And you see a much more heightened acknowledgement of that. And that's part of the reason why belonging I think has taken such a stronghold in the employee engagement conversation. And in the DEIB conversation, that part is really recognizing that it's that emotional connection that people have to their work and to the people that they work with that really helps them produce their best work.

Why Has There Been So Little Progress?

Mike: OK, let's dive into your book now: "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results," and we'll link it in the show notes for folks who are listening so you can check it out.

You ask a pivotal question as we get into what does this actually mean inside of companies that day-to-day operations, and the big question that you ask is why has so little progress been made? As you mentioned, you've been doing this for quite a while, and this has been a focus for many organizations for a long time. So why has so little progress been made, especially when it comes to the leadership levels?

Cynthia: Good question. I think that it's because we were really resistant to change, right?

In order to make progress in this space, it means that you have to not rely on what were sort of the signals of success that you maybe defined before. And so I think by that I'm really meaning that you have to have the courage to actually re-examine all of the things that made us successful, made the company successful to that point and challenge it and be willing to have difficult conversations in this space to resolve the issues around why you may not have as diverse a workforce as you're trying to get.

Let me give you an example that will help illustrate this a little bit more. I was just talking to a colleague of mine about what we're doing from a diversity, equity inclusion lens for the company. He is a very successful director and is black and has been building his own team. And in the conversation, while we were talking about the different strategies and what it takes to really drive change, he was like, Oh, my gosh, I just realized that I am guilty of actually perpetuating our lack of diversity because I have three open roles and we're looking for very specific skill sets. And we're looking for people who have very specific experience in this space at similar kinds of companies. And so that has really narrowed down our talent pool because we are really just fishing from the same pools that everyone else is fishing from. So we're never going to be able to improve our diversity numbers if we keep doing that.

And I was like, Oh, I'm so glad that you recognize and realize that. And that's exactly one root of this issue that we have to solve for. We have to be willing to say, hey, maybe these three positions that I'm hiring for, one or two can be super experienced. But the other, we're going to reserve for somebody who maybe doesn't have all the years of experience or the types of skill sets that we're looking for people to come in and hit the ground running on. We're willing to mentor. We're willing to teach. We're willing to nurture and grow this person who may have a less traditional background in this space.

That's what we need more leaders and hiring managers to think about and to actually do to really kind of get out of their own sort of patterns of success that have historically helped them, and think through how you can look at different pipelines of talents, examine different ways of operating your business such that you can open some doors for people who would normally be shut out.

Why DEIB Can't Just Be an HR Initiative

Siobhan: So Cynthia, that's a great example. And I think it seems like oftentimes these kinds of initiatives are just sort of pushed into the HR realm and aren't fed throughout the business. And you are very much spreading this so that it is each department's responsibility. Do you think that that might be the cause of some downfalls of some of these initiatives and other companies?

Cynthia: Definitely, because when we view this work as primarily an HR initiative or something that only sits within talent, I think we're missing a huge opportunity. And we're also not addressing the broader influences and context within your business ecosystem that is actually going to make or break your success in this space.

So what I mean by that, basically we're only looking at how diverse our workforce is, and you're not looking at it in terms of how does diversity impact your business from a customer perspective and business development perspective and a marketing perspective. Then you only have half your business case. You have to understand who your customers are, what they want from you, and what your shareholders want as well to really drive some of the work and the change that you need to see happen.

So another example from a past company that I've worked at. I worked at a global tech company that served a massive user base, right, hundreds of millions of users would visit our site every month, and built into that is diversity. And if we weren't creating media sites and creating content that was specifically targeted to that diverse audience's needs, we obviously were going to not have as many users and the business would not do as well.

So it's imperative that we had a workforce inside to help reflect and better serve that really diverse customer base, and we also did a lot of work in the communities that we operated within from working with NGOs and other nonprofits that could help us not just from a serving our customer base perspective, but also developing talent for the future for us.

And you think about those three things like the communities, your customers, your talent together, that all creates this really virtuous circle because if we do it right in any one of those areas, it will actually feed into the other two. So we have to really think about this from a much broader lens in order to drive success.

The Role That Leaders Play

Mike: Cynthia, what can leaders do better if they don't have somebody like you in their organization, or their intentions are there but they're just so busy that they find it difficult to take the mental space to be able to address some of the things that they want to do, day-to-day operations get in the way of that? What advice do you have for people who are in those positions to do better in this work?

Cynthia: For folks who don't have someone like me, that shouldn't stop them.

First of all, they should absolutely get themselves educated around the issues in this space, right? Read the research out there. Talk to people at other companies who do have folks that are dedicated in this space. Read books and articles that give you sort of frameworks and outlines that you can apply, and then really start to apply them. And you know, leaders can do this at any stage of their company, and whether they feel like they know a lot or not, I think the the key thing is to get started and not let the lack of stop your actions, right?

I think very often you see a lot of leaders who are just like, you know, well, I don't know what to do. So it's easier to do nothing than it is to make a mistake, because I don't want to offend somebody accidentally, right. And I can respect that. But at the same time, that is part of what holds all of us back. If we're not willing to step into these uncomfortable spaces, then it's really hard to drive progress.

There's the saying that I love that, even if you fall flat on your face you're still moving forward. So that's what I would advocate for anybody who is thinking about what needs to happen in their companies in this space, to just go out and do something because something is better than nothing. Now, you have to be educated and aware so that at least you can drive actions that won't create more harm in the process of trying to drive the right changes. We have to always be mindful of that.

But again, if people are doing the work, getting themselves educated, talking to the right people, and doing some self reflection on what they need to change, not just within their companies, but inwardly to really drive this work, then I think you know, people are on the right path.

Mike: Alright, before we close out this, I want to kind of bring it full circle, because we started off this segment of the conversation talking about the lack of progress and some of the frustrations and the reasons for that. And I think it would be easy to say that it is slow progress. It's continual. Sometimes it's hard to see the results of that in the short term. Are there things, though, that as you look at the way organizations are approaching it that make you hopeful?

Cynthia: Yeah, there's so many organizations that I think are doing amazing things in this space. I keep up a lot on different kind of DEI reports that companies put out there. I recently read Dropbox's report. They have this amazing program called Truth and Reconciliation that came out of the events of last year in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder where they engage with their communities to have an open dialogue around what the Black experience in the United States looks like and feels like and how systemic racism has impacted the Black community.

Just implementing a program like that, I think, gives me a lot of hope, that when you see companies doing something in that space and not shrinking back from having those kinds of difficult conversations, I feel like we're really able to move forward. Similarly, I go back again to the events of last year, all the amazing sort of commitments that were made by different companies in the wake of all of the social unrest, I'm hopeful to see the companies actually follow through on a lot of those commitments. I read Nike had pledged like hundreds of millions of dollars, Adidas did the same thing, to support the Black community, to Black initiatives to support their talents and advancements in hiring and all of those things.

I just think that OK, now we're really putting dollars behind our words and we're actively putting programs in place that we're being public about and therefore being held accountable to. I think those are the kinds of things that give me a lot of hope for the future that will drive some significant change in the next few years.

Underrated/Overrated With Cynthia Owyoung

Siobhan: So Cynthia, we definitely want to hear more of your thoughts in this area. But we're hoping that you'll just take a break with us and play a game that we like to play on the podcast called underrated/overrated. Are you game?

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Cynthia: Sure thing.

Siobhan: Thank you. So I'm just gonna throw out a concept and you can tell me if it's underrated or overrated and explain why if you want to or not. So first one is unconscious bias training. Underrated or overrated?

Cynthia: Totally overrated. Overrated because everyone, I think, has been using it as a crutch. Like, there's this sort of trend of, hey, the first thing we want to do at the company to tackle D&I is to roll out training. So let's roll out unconscious bias training. And then you see a lot of companies actually don't do anything else behind that, or they think one-and-done, like suddenly rolling out one training is going to solve all of our problems. And that just isn't the case. If it's not part of a holistic strategy, instead of broader actions, then it doesn't actually take you anywhere.

Siobhan: So it's just becoming a checkbox exercise.

Cynthia: Yes, that's what we have to avoid

Siobhan: Over to Mike. 

Mike: Alright, algorithmic bias in technology. So is that underrated or overrated? Because you know, we hear a lot about this, particularly in recruiting that the technology used to source and find candidates are excluding, via technology without human intervention, groups of people that we may want to attract. Do you think that concept is underrated or overrated?

Cynthia: I think it's underrated. By underrated I mean, we're probably not paying enough attention to that. I think that we we should be focusing more on the potential of algorithmic bias in our HR technology, and how that contributes to the results that we're getting. And because we have this sort of misguided in some ways, notion that if it's an algorithm it is unbiased, which you know, I don't think is true.

I think algorithms are created by humans and humans are inherently biased. And that's how you get actually bias in algorithms, that we really have to be careful and watch out for how that can perpetuate some of the inequities that you just mentioned.

Siobhan: Next up, Cynthia, asking about culture fit in hiring interviews. Underrated or overrated?

Cynthia: I don't think it's either underrated or overrated. I think you just shouldn't do it, period.

Siobhan: I like it. You're remaking the game to fit. Just a bad idea.

Mike: We call that unrated.

Cynthia: That's right. There you go. That would be my third category, unrated. Culture fit, basically if you're in a culture that doesn't have the diversity that you're seeking, then if you're asking about culture fit you're just sort of perpetuating more of the same, right? Like you have to ask about culture add. You want to look at who can we bring into this culture that is going to enhance our culture, evolve it, make us better in some way, so that we're not kind of stuck in our past or our present, frankly. So that's why I don't think culture fit is the thing. I think culture add is really where we want to go.

Siobhan: OK, so here is the last one in this round of underrated/overrated: diversity quotas.

Cynthia: Also something we shouldn't do. 

Siobhan: Excellent. We're just throwing the game out the window.

Cynthia: I'm not a rule follower. So yeah, quotas. Quotas are just a bad idea for lots of reasons. I mean, anytime somebody hears about a diversity quota, they think, Oh, are we hiring people who are not qualified for their role? And I mean, it's an unfortunate association. Because if you look at, you know, other countries that have actually instituted sort of so called quotas, and I'm using air quotes here, in the UK where they mandated more women on boards, right? That has actually resulted in more women on boards, and it can help and those companies don't seem to be any less competitive than they were before that regulation went into place.

So there are really good examples of when government mandates certain things around diversity that it actually works. But it has this bad reputation because people see it as you're just gonna bring in people who aren't qualified to do the job, as opposed to seeing it as we actually now have a strong motivation to open up our apertures and really look at people who can bring something different to our space.

So you know, that's why I think it's neither underrated or overrated. Like we have to switch the conversation away from quotas, and into a space of how do we get more difference in our organization that will help us be a better organization and really re-examine how we define what top talent is, or what that quality bar is that that we're looking for because right now, those are too narrow.

Siobhan: It kind of comes back around to what you were talking about in the beginning of the podcast and the evolution, where in the beginning it was seen as purely on a compliance basis. That's why companies would go into diversity. And now it's, oh, the business value.

Cynthia: Yeah, exactly. Right.

The Future of DEIB Work in Hybrid Work

Mike: Well, thanks for playing along with us, Cynthia, and thanks for breaking the rules. That was actually helpful. We appreciate it.

We spent a good part of this conversation so far talking about the history and the present state of DEIB work. But we've been going through this period of massive disruption to the ways we work and moving into remote environments, increasingly digital environments, hybrid environments. And as you look forward to the way that your organization is working, to how others are working, what are some of the emerging issues in the new ways that we're working, that you are keeping a close eye on that you think we all should perhaps monitor?

Cynthia: Well, in this current age where we're dealing with the pandemic, and we're dealing with remote work, that is the main thing that is top of mind for me right now. Because as companies have gone into this much more remote virtual world, and are thinking about how do we have potentially hybrid workforces, where some folks are working from home, some folks are working in the office, other folks are working from anywhere in the world. How do we make sure that every one's experiences at the company are equitable? And that people who are in the office don't get more access to opportunity than people who are not in the office

And how do you also recognize and reconcile how different people feel about the level of risk tolerance they have in terms of working and interacting with colleagues and coming into offices and doing business travel during a pandemic. We all have different contexts that we have to be mindful and consider as companies are making policies in this space.

So those are like huge issues that we're grappling with right now. And you know, the dynamic of the environment here are just like constantly changing with different variants, and what is happening on the COVID side, and in how our government is reacting to it, it's so fluid right now that it's really hard to predict how all of this is going to net out. But many of us are just doing the best that we can to create more belonging across these distances that we might be working with, and really looking at how do we increase our managers' capabilities to manage this distributed workforce in an equitable and inclusive way. So those are the things that we're really trying to solve for now.

The Opportunities That Come Out of the Great Resignation

Siobhan: Cynthia, at the same time that we've got all of these other dynamics going on, we've got another one that's emerged this year that is ongoing, that's being called the Great Resignation. What opportunities does this mass movement of people from one job to the next or out of jobs entirely or rethinking their working life entirely, what kind of opportunities does that present for DEIB work?

Cynthia: A huge opportunity, I think. Because now employees have more power. Right, the Great Resignation is a shift in the power balance between employees and corporate leaders. And so employees are making their voices heard by voting with their feet. And so we, within the decision making bodies within these companies, we have to pay attention to that. We have to like understand what is the motivating factor, and how do our business models potentially need to change in order to support better employee experiences where employees won't vote with their feet, and want to stay and/or join my company if they're leaving a different company, right.

So I think that that gives us so much more opportunity to live up to our values around inclusion and belonging and equity because the companies that do that really well are going to be the companies that these folks who are resigning from other companies will go to, and as we think about just even how remote work will help us open up our lens for different talent and give us access to new talent pools and pipelines that we didn't have access to before when we were very location based. You know, I think that all of that together spells really good news for our ability to drive progress in this space.

Mike: I'm glad you brought up the employee experience, because I think that's a whole another conversation that we could have if you approach employee experience from a DEIB lens and how that applies there. But I'd love to have you come back in the future, if you're able to talk more about that if you can.

Cynthia: Oh, I'd be happy to Mike. 

Mike: Well, if folks want to find out more about you and follow your work, where do you recommend they go, Cynthia?

Cynthia: A few things that they can do, they can check out my book at cynthiaowyoung.com. I'm always happy to get connected on LinkedIn as well. And then if they're interested in some of the conferences that I organize, they can go to breaking.glass. 

Mike: Great. Everybody, encourage you to check it out. Cynthia, thanks so much for joining us today.

Cynthia: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great conversation.

Wrap Up and Final Thoughts

Mike: That last point we brought up, Siobhan, about employee experience and DEIB is just a whole other conversation in and of itself that I do hope that we'll be able to address more on the podcast, as well as potentially bring back Cynthia in the future to talk about. Because that has become kind of the drive behind many organizations approach to how they work with employees through this pandemic era is really thinking about them first and foremost and employee experience.

Do you feel like there's some potential to have more conversation around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging as it relates to employee experience?

Siobhan: Absolutely. I love that we got to that. It was too bad we got to it at the end of the podcast. But I think that it sort of brings it back to the compartmentalization of DEIB. And how we're just seeing it as this sort of, in some cases, a checkbox exercise. And it's just when you tie it in to every part of the work world, when you allow for it to be touching all of these different areas, which clearly it does, it's just much more powerful and rich. So I can't wait to talk about this again.

Mike: Yeah and definitely encourage folks to go to reworked.co. It's something that we write about fairly often. But I do look forward to having those conversations more on the podcast.

And, of course, everybody be sure to join us in our regular Twitter Spaces and join in the conversation as well. We'd love to have your voice be a part of that ongoing conversation about employee experience and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in our organizations.

Alright, until next time, Siobhan. Great to talk to you.

Siobhan: Always good, Mike.

Mike: We encourage you to drop us a line at [email protected]. If you have a suggestion or a topic for a future conversation, we are all ears. Additionally, if you like what you hear, please post a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you may be listening. And be sure to share Get Reworked with anyone that you think might benefit from these types of conversations. And then finally, be sure to follow us at Get Reworked on Twitter as well.

Thank you again for exploring the revolution of work with us, and we'll see you next time.

About the Authors

Siobhan is the editor in chief of Reworked, where she leads the site's content strategy, with a focus on the transformation of the workplace. Prior to joining Reworked, Siobhan was managing editor of Reworked's sister site, CMSWire, where she directed day-to-day operations as well as cultivated and built its contributor community. Connect with Siobhan Fagan:

Mike Prokopeak is editor in chief at Reworked, the premier publication covering the r/evolution of work, where he leads content development focused on the transformation of the workplace. Connect with Mike Prokopeak: