How companies can improve inclusion by approaching it as an ecosystem.

In our divided world of today, inclusion and its ability to create common ground are crucial to the success of businesses. However, we think there is only one type of inclusion and this is a problem because it positions inclusion as this monolithic enigma that we cannot solve for. From my work, I propose that there are three types of inclusion and by being able to tell apart the different types of inclusion, how they operate, and who are the primary influencers can enable us in building true cultures of inclusion. In the future, I will share concrete ways to measure the different types of inclusion, but this article focuses on introducing the ecosystem model.

Inclusion is an ecosystem.

Every individual's behavior, business priority, and policy interacts with one another to create a company's inclusion ecosystem: their culture of inclusion. Changing one thing can have a lasting impact on others, or missing an entire facet of inclusion can cause damage to the ecosystem. In this ecosystem model, there are three types of inclusion: environmental, strategic, and political.

Environmental

This is what we traditionally think of when we talk about inclusion. It is the "feel-good", "I belong here" culture employees want to experience.

Unlike the other forms of inclusion, everyone in a company directly contributes to environmental inclusion (granted, not equally). Environmental inclusion is distance-based and if an employee is asked "do you feel included here?" they generally cite the behaviors of their manager and people in their immediate vicinity.

Some examples:

• When a new hire starts, their team takes them out for a welcome lunch
• An employee thanks a co-worker for a job well done
• A manager says "good morning" to everyone on their floor as they arrive for work

Environmental inclusion is crucial in the ecosystem because it is what attracts and retains talent. Furthermore, it creates psychological safety which allows for the free movement of ideas and feedback. Failure to address environmental inclusion is bad business-- censorship, organizational sabotage, and high turnover emerge and the organization begins to work against itself.

At the end of the day, people want to work in environments where they enjoy the people around them, and they contribute fully-- environmental inclusion does this.

Strategic

Most companies excel at strategic inclusion because it is both embedded into business initiatives and measured easily. At it's core, strategic inclusion encompasses any activity that directly ties to company revenue or growth.

Some examples:

• Chiptole is launching new products to include people on special diets (e.g. keto, whole 30, etc.)
• Apple has world-class accessibility technology in their products to allow people with disabilities (PwD) to use them
• Walmart is rapidly expanding their e-commerce division to reach out to the younger, digital-savvy generation that buys everything online

Successsful implementation of strategic inclusion often results in strong value propositions to help companies establish their moats. For example, in the PwD community, Apple has been a gold standard and a pioneer when it came to their accessibility on their iPhones. As a result, they dominated the market share within that group and still do today despite competitors offering a similar suite of features.

What is difficult about this form of inclusion is that this is the most exclusive form of inclusion (ironic) because it relies on executives and company influencers to set it. In many cases, employees execute the strategic inclusion roadmap, but they don't set the vision and have full autonomy in creating strategic inclusion as they do with environmental inclusion.

Failure on strategic front is easy to see-- the company fails (whatever happened to Kodak?). Remaining stubborn in the old ways of doing things and failing to pivot results in dying streams of talent and revenue until the company no longer exists. Therefore, executives and influencers must fully own this type of inclusion and constantly assess and adapt as needed.

Political

Lastly, there is political inclusion. I like to think of this as anything that is a system or collective voice: company policy, formal tools, and spokespeople (e.g. CEO, grassroots movements). In an age where a company's voice matters and how they engage in social discourse determines how they conduct business and hire, political inclusion is a deal-breaker. It's where most companies fail.

On the spectrum, political inclusion sits in the middle of environmental and strategic in who can influence it. Employees can influence political inclusion through collectively presenting their concerns to decision makers (e.g. through focus groups), or by working in/with the marketing, legal and HR departments of their company. On the other end, executive sponsors and "face-of-the company" people can curry influence to progress political inclusion.

Examples:

• Company implements a robust work-from-anywhere (or work from home) policy
• Employees start an internal movement to lobby their organization to not provide products to dictatorial regime
• Company has does a pay gap analysis and corrects the compensation for groups who are getting paid less than others for the same scope of work

To elaborate what political inclusion is, let's look at Work-from-anywhere (WfA, aka telecommuting, work from home, remote work). It is good business because by doing so, a company increases the talent pool they can select from by introducing flexiblity. In a market where high housing costs force people to commute for hours, an organization with a formal WfA policy substantially reduces the flight risk of that group because they might be able to work from home a few days. For employees with a young children, a formal WfA policy allows for them to pick up their kids from school and spend time with them, something they may find more valuable than a higher paycheck. Formal policy is crucial to political inclusion because it removes managerial discretion of subjectively granting WfA, which can create inconsistent experiences between teams in the organization. A formal policy also disallows them from using it to influence the performance rating of an individual. In this example, political inclusion is really foundational to the success of strategic and environmental inclusion. When it goes wrong, it makes environmental inclusion impossible to achieve because of inconsistent behavior and puts the whole organization at risk.

The ecosystem is intertwined.

There are many pieces that sit in more than one type of inclusion. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are an example that sits in the middle of all three types.

• Environmental: the generations ERG puts on programs and events to bridge the gap between different age groups to create common ground and a sense of belonging
• Strategic: the Black employees ERG may connect the company to new talent at previously overlooked historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)
• Political: the LGBTQ+ ERG lobbies for health insurance with more comprehensive coverage for trans employees

Closing Thoughts

Inclusion is a complex, yet beautiful ecosystem where every individual's behavior, business priority, and policy interacts with one another to create a culture of inclusion. As companies think about their inclusion strategies, it's crucial to think of inclusion holistically in order to truly create inclusive workplaces.

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Kunal is an HR professional, and writer. He was recognized as a Linkedin Top Voice amongst others like Richard Branson. You can follow him on Twitter (@KunalKerai) or send him any wonderful insights you may have to kunal@berkeley.edu.

Opinions are my own.

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