During the initial stages of Floor & Decor’s DE&I current-state assessment performed in 2020, we realized there was an opportunity to ensure our leaders were properly equipped to facilitate challenging conversations with associates across all differences. Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic and with the rising racial tensions in the United States at the time, our Executive Leadership Team engaged a management consulting firm specializing in leading inclusively and leveraging differences in the workplace.

Our consultant partnered closely with our VP of DE&I to customize two leadership workshops: one for senior leaders and another for people managers across all functions and locations. The workshops for senior leaders began with thirty-minute individual interviews. This provided our consultant with the insight needed to design a two-hour executive thinking and learning session, which focused on the group’s role in embedding DE&I throughout the organization. The workshop developed for people managers provided more awareness for DE&I and established a foundation for managing different types of difficult conversations. Leaders also received a workbook that provides a comprehensive review of the information covered in the workshops along with templates and tools guiding them to think and act more inclusively.

We achieved three objectives through this effort by advancing our leaders’ understanding beyond the D&I and unconscious bias training all associates had recently completed, increasing awareness for the importance of inclusive leadership, and taking another fundamental step towards a greater commitment for DE&I. The feedback provided by leaders during and after the workshops will be used to guide our development of inclusivity training modules for leaders and associates.

Melissa Smith, CHRO