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  • As the year draws to a close, it’s a common practice for businesses to celebrate the season through holiday parties, bonuses, and granting time off. These traditions, steeped in goodwill, are an excellent opportunity to foster a sense of community and appreciation within the workplace. However, it’s crucial to approach these gestures with a sense of awareness and inclusivity.

    Often, when companies plan these end-of-year celebrations, they inadvertently lean towards Christmas and New Year-centric themes. This is evident in typical decorations, such as Christmas trees and ornaments, and the imagery chosen for holiday cards. While these elements are widely recognized and appreciated, it’s important to remember that not every team member will resonate with federally recognized holidays such as Christmas or even observe the same calendar for the New Year.

    It can be a challenging season to navigate, and the last thing you want to do is alienate a staff member. We’ve put together a few ideas to help you create an inclusive environment.

    Holidays To Note

    Start with awareness. In our diverse and globalized world, the winter season carries a variety of cultural and religious celebrations. Recognizing and acknowledging these differences can transform your workplace into a more inclusive and respectful environment. Significant fall and winter holidays that your team members might observe include the following:

    • Bodhi Day: Observed by Buddhists worldwide, this day commemorates the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha. The day of celebrations varies from community to community; however, it has a wildly recognized fixed day each year on December 8th and is generally a time for meditation and reflection.
    • Hanukkah: An eight-day Jewish festival, Hanukkah is celebrated with the lighting of the menorah, special foods, games, and gifts.
    • Kwanzaa: A week-long celebration from December 26th through January 1st honoring African heritage in African-American culture. Kwanzaa is based on African Harvest festival traditions from various parts of West and Southeast Africa and involves music, dance, poetry, and a large traditional meal.
    • Lunar New Year: Commonly associated with Chinese New Year, this is celebrated in many Asian countries and begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar. It’s marked with a thorough house cleaning to remove bad luck, in addition to family gatherings, traditional foods, parades, and more.

    There are many more holidays throughout the year that are equally important to note, such as Eid-al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan – the holy month of fasting in Islam. Acknowledging widely celebrated and less commonly known holidays demonstrates your dedication to fostering an inclusive workplace. It also reflects your consideration of your team members’ unique needs and cultural backgrounds.

    Inclusive Ways To Celebrate

    While it’s not feasible for your business to celebrate every holiday, being aware of them and understanding how your staff honors these days can significantly contribute to creating a respectful and welcoming atmosphere.

    You can help foster a more inclusive workplace in many ways, including decorations. Try to avoid Christmas trees altogether and instead try snowflakes and other general winter décor. Offer flexible time off policies for your team to use on the days most important to them – even if they are not officially recognized public holidays.

    Consider organizing educational sessions or workshops to further enhance inclusivity and cultural awareness. Each session’s goal should be to inform and engage employees in learning about the rich tapestry of cultural celebrations their colleagues may observe.

    *Please note: when organizing these sessions, it’s crucial to ensure they are used for general educational purposes and not as a platform to single out any individual staff member inadvertently. Avoid putting any team member in an uncomfortable position where they feel compelled to be the spokesperson for a particular holiday or cultural practice. The objective is to foster a learning environment that is respectful, inclusive, and enriching for all.

    Another way to help your team stay informed is to maintain a calendar of upcoming holidays. Utilize an internal newsletter or bulletin to share information about these holidays. Each edition could highlight upcoming celebrations, providing a brief history, the significance of the holiday, and typical ways to celebrate. This approach educates and builds anticipation and respect for these diverse celebrations.

    Holidays Aren’t Always Positive

    The holiday season, often portrayed as a time of joy and celebration, can evoke many emotions, including negative ones. In 2022, around 31% of individuals experienced increased stress, anxiety, and depression during the holidays. Factors such as financial pressures, the pain of grief, and feelings of loneliness are high contributors to mental health crises this time of year.

    In light of this, taking proactive measures to support your team’s mental well-being is essential. One practical approach is to provide easy access to mental health resources or counseling services. These could include employee assistance programs (EAPs), mental health days, stress management and self-care workshops, or partnerships with mental health professionals who can offer guidance and support.

    Fostering a workplace culture where mental health is openly discussed and destigmatized can be incredibly beneficial. Encouraging open dialogues about mental health, sharing resources and information in internal communications, and training managers to recognize signs of stress and mental health struggles in their teams are all valuable steps.

    How GMS Can Help

    If you’re looking for ways to reengage your team, ‘tis the season to partner with a professional employer organization (PEO) like GMS to help. Creating an inclusive workplace starts with your internal policies and procedures.

    At GMS, we offer audits focused on compliance, best practices, strategy, and function-specific HR areas to ensure that your policies not only align with your organizational goals but are also current and effective. Contact us today, and let us help you create and maintain a compliant and inclusive workplace.

  • Gender diversity may seem like a passing trend; however, creating a gender-inclusive workforce has significant business advantages. Research consistently shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones when it comes to problem-solving and innovation. A gender-diverse workforce creates a more inclusive and productive environment for your whole team. For example, diverse teams can experience a nearly 40% increase in productivity per worker and can increase profitability by almost 63%.

    Despite these overall benefits, women still encounter substantial inequalities in employment opportunities and promotions within the workplace. While women make up nearly half of the workforce, the proportion of women in top leadership positions falls significantly short of their overall representation. This disparity not only affects gender diversity but also hinders organizations from benefiting fully from the talents, perspectives, and experiences that women bring to the table.

    Multiple factors contribute to these disparities, including biases, stereotypes, and structural barriers perpetuating gender inequality. Women often encounter obstacles related to implicit bias in hiring and promotion decisions, limited access to mentorship and sponsorship opportunities, unequal pay, and work-life balance challenges.

    Diversifying your staff can be a real challenge and strain on your resources. Partnering with a professional employer organization (PEO) such as GMS can help. We’ve prepared some actionable strategies that you can begin implementing right away. With our support, you create a workplace that values and leverages the strengths of every individual.

    How Your Business Benefits From Gender Balance 

    A study of over 1,000 companies in 12 countries found that gender-diverse organizations are more profitable than their non-diverse counterparts. Not only are they 58% more likely to have a positive social reputation, but businesses with women in management positions experience 35% more return on equity (ROE).

    Achieving gender balance within your workforce enables a deeper understanding of your customer base. Women comprise 80% of consumers, so their buying habits significantly impact business growth. By cultivating a gender-balanced workforce, you bring together diverse perspectives, experiences, and ideas that can enhance your ability to cater to different customer segments.

    When both male and female perspectives influence decision-making, you can develop products, services, and marketing strategies that resonate with a broader audience. A diverse workforce allows you to establish stronger connections with customers, foster customer loyalty, and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

    Establishing a more gender-balanced team is only one piece of the puzzle. In order to tap into these diverse insights and approaches, you must foster an inclusive environment where everyone has an equal voice. This diversity of thought leads to more robust decision-making processes, the ability to identify and address blind spots, and the development of innovative solutions.

    Hiring And Promotional Strategies 

    A common mistake many businesses make is the failure to develop long-term strategies. Like any business endeavor, implementing a strategy without ongoing evaluations and adjustments can waste valuable resources. To counter this issue, it’s essential to regularly reevaluate your diversity efforts to determine their effectiveness and make necessary improvements. To start this process, you can:

    Implement clear performance evaluation criteria

    Statistically speaking, women receive more attention and criticism for their failures than recognition for their successes. This translates to fewer promotions and raises for women compared to their male counterparts, which can negatively affect your business’s ROE. To help combat this within your promotional processes, establishing explicit performance evaluation criteria is essential to eliminate conscious and unconscious bias. The criteria for evaluating employees should encompass strategic, operational, and individual performance factors that are clear, attainable, relevant, and quantifiable. Once defined, these criteria will objectively assess your employees on a scale from “not met” to “met.” This not only assists in eliminating bias during promotion decisions, but it also helps give your whole staff a clear understanding of your expectations.

    Offer unconscious bias training

    Unconscious or implicit bias is the prejudice or unsupported judgment in favor of or against one thing, person, or group often developed in early childhood and reinforced through familial, educational, and cultural institutions. With proper training, you can help eliminate the impact unconscious bias has on your business. This bias extends beyond gender and can encompass prejudice against individuals without a high school or college education or those engaged in “blue-collar” work such as manual labor or skilled trades. Unconscious bias training can help your staff effectively interact with customers and colleagues from diverse backgrounds. This training aims to foster better understanding and communication, promoting a more inclusive environment for everyone.

    Develop transparent and inclusive job descriptions

    To promote more balanced and inclusive hiring practices, utilize less rigid language in job descriptions. For instance, by replacing terms such as “competitive” and “best of the best,” which tend to appeal more to men, with language that emphasizes qualities such as “loyalty” and “collaboration,” you can help attract a more diverse range of candidates. Additionally, limit the use of industry or company-specific terminology. This allows candidates with diverse experiences and skill sets to understand the requirements and qualifications better, making them more likely to apply. By using clear and accessible language, you open up your job post to individuals who may have been deterred by unfamiliar terminology, ensuring a broader and more diverse applicant pool.

    Foster an inclusive workplace culture 

    Create a supportive and inclusive environment that values diversity and promotes gender equality. Encourage inclusive language such as “team” or “folks” instead of “guys.” Inspire open dialogue, respect, and amplify marginalized voices in meetings. In other words, be mindful of who takes up the most space in discussions, who is being interrupted, and who isn’t speaking at all. This can benefit your whole team, not just women. Quiet and more introverted team members can have valuable insights but may not feel comfortable or don’t have the chance to share. So, ensure you’re providing equal opportunities for all employees to contribute.

    Set anti-harassment policies

    To assist with retention efforts, it’s vital to cultivate a workplace culture that fosters safety, equality, and respect. This involves developing and enforcing policies and processes that address harassment, discrimination, and any other issues that may arise. Communicating these policies to employees and providing avenues for reporting and addressing concerns are key steps in creating a safe and equitable environment where everyone feels valued and supported.

    Promote flexible work arrangements 

    By offering flexible work hours, remote work options, and family-friendly policies, you demonstrate a commitment to supporting work-life balance for all employees, fostering an inclusive workplace that acknowledges and values diverse needs. These initiatives benefit employees with caregiving responsibilities and promote employee well-being, productivity, and overall job satisfaction, leading to a more engaged and motivated workforce.

    Conduct pay equity audits

    Women, on average, still only make 82 cents compared to a man making a dollar. Through a pay equity audit, you can identify any inequities within your business related to factors such as race and gender. By regularly reviewing and analyzing compensation data, you can address any discrepancies and provide fair and transparent salary structures free from gender-based wage gaps.

    Support career development and training

    Professional development programs can include workshops, seminars, conferences, and training sessions. These programs should focus on enhancing leadership, communication, negotiation, strategic thinking, and other competencies relevant to advancing in leadership roles. These programs can benefit the women on your team and anyone interested in developing their skills.

    Maintaining An Equitable Culture 

    In addition to implementing more inclusive hiring and promotional practices, fostering a culture of respect, accountability, and compassion is crucial for creating a truly gender-diverse workplace. Regularly communicate to your staff the benefits and positive impacts of diversity and inclusion to help generate company-wide buy-in and support for these initiatives.

    Develop an anti-harassment policy clearly outlining the consequences for leaders and employees who engage in repeated harassment or create a hostile work environment. Within this policy, ensure a robust complaint system is in place where staff members can feel safe to report any misconduct. Establishing a strong complaint system empowers your team to come forward, address issues promptly, and uphold accountability within your organization. This proactive approach not only helps prevent future incidents but also showcases your dedication to developing a respectful and supportive workplace culture.

    Performance Management Assistance 

    Performance management plays a pivotal role for business owners as they make crucial decisions concerning training, career development, compensation, transfers, promotions, and termination. Through our employee performance management service, GMS can help you set clear goals and expectations for each employee and provide feedback about those goals. Employees also value performance management, as it can offer opportunities for them to grow within your organization and, ultimately, advance their careers.

    Additionally, our learning management system makes it easier for you to streamline job training, improve employee performance, and reduce costs for learning platforms and in-person training. Partnering with a PEO like GMS can elevate the burden associated with managing employees, and protect your revenue and profits from unexpected fines, all while maintaining complete control over your team. Contact us today, and let’s get started!