For Holland's diversity advisory council, the aim is to make lasting workplace culture improvements on the equity and inclusion fronts
10/21/2024
By Bridget Dean, Associate Editor
A workplace culture can’t change overnight. Meaningful, lasting improvements take time to implement. Commitment and buy-in from leadership and employees are crucial — something members of Holland’s Diversity Advisory Council (DAC) know firsthand.
“This is not just a quarter’s worth of work,” says Deb Wensel, chief financial officer at Holland.
The DAC was founded by six employees in fall 2020, with management support, to help Holland leadership understand how to best address employee distress after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests nationwide.
“We have people that work all around the country,” says Wensel, a DAC member since 2021. “We decided we really need to be understanding of where employees might be on this — how it might impact them, from a safety perspective as well as a psychological safety perspective.”
Initially, the council’s objective was to raise awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion within the organization, so people would feel more comfortable talking about racism and bias, and their impact in the workplace.
“[The DAC] wanted to do some education and training, so one of the first things they did was a monthly newsletter, [sharing] organizations and events that were going on that highlight diversity and learning about other diverse cultures,” says Wensel.
Equity and inclusion initiatives can improve the workplace for current employees, and they also can attract talent to Holland, Wensel says, which is why the council recommended integrating diversity, equity and inclusion into the core values of the company.
“We started looking for someone to help us. How do we do this? How do we take this journey with our company? None of us had any experience with that,” Wensel says. “We decided to work with a company called Social Current.”
Social Current is a consulting agency that helps organizations evaluate and improve their policies, systems and practices to be more equitable through training and consulting. With Social Current’s help, Holland created an equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) plan to be implemented in phases, with planned actions to achieve goals. The plan's three priorities are internal communication, hiring and promotion practices and customer relations.
Throughout 2022 and 2023, the DAC and Social Current helped the human resources department make changes to remove potential bias in hiring and promoting practices, which it has, Wensel says.
“We have a system by which candidates’ information is taken ... you don’t see the name, or any of the details of that person, only their experience and whether they fit those qualifications,” she explains.
Having a public EDI plan can attract potential customers and project partners, too, Wensel says, as organizations may seek out partners with similar values.
This year, the DAC hosted six educational workshops and discussions on EDI topics. Two sessions tackled implicit bias and two covered approaches to difficult conversations. There was one session on cultural humility — reflecting on cultural backgrounds to better understand how they impact communication — one on psychological safety.
“We’ve had some good attendance in these sessions, upwards of 90 to 100 people at each of these sessions,” says Wensel. “What is diversity and equity? What are some of the challenges of that? What makes people different? ... It was interesting and it was good to be able to talk about these things in a very open way.”
For the most part, employees have been receptive and respectful of the EDI plan and the workshops.
“At times, too, there are disagreements. And that’s good, that’s fine. We want people to be able to bring these ideas forward,” she says. “We’re all part of Holland and we all want Holland to succeed, but that means that our people have to get along and work together.”
The DAC encourages employees to participate in workshops or training, but also to reflect and understand why Holland is pursuing EDI education and integration.
“It’s a journey for the organization ... but it’s also individual,” Wensel says.
Key employees — managers and members of leadership — were given the opportunity to meet with Social Current consultants and take individual bias assessments.
About 30 people took the assessments, and several have reached out to the advisory council to ask if they could touch base with the consultant again after completing “homework” to further educate themselves on implicit biases. The willing participation from employees is tangible evidence that Holland employees understand the importance of EDI education and policy changes at the company, Wensel says.
Heading into 2025, the DAC is preparing to present a formalized, more detailed EDI action plan, goals, budget, and public company statement to Holland’s executive leadership team for approval.
“The organization certainly at the upper level feels and believes this is good for the organization. ... You can see if it really is a priority for your organization by them allowing the employees to have a say ... but even more so when the dollars are included,” says Wensel. “That shows commitment to [EDI] as well.”