Over the past two years, especially, we’ve heard the word “diversity” a lot in the workplace context – but what are people actually talking about when they say that’s important to them?

This episode’s guest explains why it’s important for leaders to figure that out – and shares lessons about how meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion work lifts the whole team. 

Professor Sabrina Volpone is a recognized expert in workplace diversity. At the Leeds School of Business, she is the doctoral program coordinator for the Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics division and also runs the Diversity and Identity (DI&ID) Management Research Lab.

In this episode, she talks about different ways we can think about diversity in the workplace, and how digging into this work yields unexpected results.

EPISODE QUOTES:

On the benefits of gender-diverse teams

[00:04:26] When you have more voices working on the team and working together and presenting ideas, you not only get that positive impact to get the work done with more ideas, more problem-solving more, individual types of decision-making going into the problem-solving. But what we also found happens is that individuals on the teams, when they're more gender diverse, tend to engage in boundary-spanning behaviors more. That means spanning the boundaries of the team. Going outside the team, and utilizing those networks, which will be theoretically more diverse because you have more women, more men. Those networks are going to look different. And so, you have even more resources outside the team that these individuals on the team can span, and ring back more information and resources for the team to do their job effectively. And that enhances the team performance even more. 

On expected inclusion benefits of the remote workplace

[00:22:34] We are seeing reports that marginalized individuals have benefited in a number of ways from that networking environment because there's less microaggressions that they're experiencing through their daily interactions with colleagues. 

On the importance of DEI work

[00:20:49] It's not going away. It's time to figure it out, and it's only going to benefit you if you know you're doing it right. And there's a lot of opportunities to benefit organizations. 

SHOW LINKS:

Guest’s Profile:

Faculty Profile at Leeds School of Business

More About This Guest:

Diversity and Identity Management Research Lab at Leeds School of Business