At Equitable, we are committed to advancing a culture that respects and values diverse opinions, backgrounds and experiences.  We accomplish this through inclusive leadership and supporting a continuous learning environment that encourages new ideas, reinforcement of our principles and taking action to promote not just diversity, but inclusion at all levels.

To continue our journey toward a more diverse and inclusive organization, we developed a workshop for Inspiring Inclusive Leadership. The objective for the workshop is to identify how we leverage the differences around us and recognize the opportunities to make a more inclusive organization. The workshop is an experiential learning session that is designed around the following key concepts:

Business Imperative: Reinforcing the Equitable Diversity & Inclusion commitment and our beliefs, we look at key business case studies that reinforce the individual and business imperative for inclusion.

Professional Standards: We believe that the role of the leader is critical in understanding what's at stake and setting expectations. We guide participants through the legal environment in which people are treated with respect and encourage meaningful conversations that help address sensitive issues.

Reincarnation Exercise: People feel included when there is perceived fairness and justice. Unearned advantage is at the root of all feeling of unfairness. It is the role of leadership to level the playing field. Through an experiential exercise, we help participants “live their life moments through another lens, reinforcing the moral obligation to inclusion in the workplace.

Action Planning: Individual reflection and plan building based on outcomes and learnings from the workshop.

Last year, we introduced the workshop to our organization by inviting our Executives and Managing Directors to participate. Based on feedback and the desire to continue to promote the conversation of inclusion within the organization, we have expanded the workshop to all our people managers at the Director level. Interest in the program continues to increase as we reinforce the business, legal and moral case to more levels of the organization. We will continue this journey to encourage ongoing reinforcement and application of these concepts through this and other offerings in the future. It is critical that we bring together people with different backgrounds and perspectives to increase our impact and reach. This enables us to develop a common language, holding each other accountable, take ownership of our culture and collective business success.