Strategies to remain inclusive during the Coronavirus crisis

Iveliz Crespo, Reed Smith’s global Diversity & Inclusion advisor, joins John Iino in this episode to discuss strategies that business leaders can adopt to foster inclusion and mitigate the effects of social isolation on their employees. Formerly an employment and civil rights lawyer, Iveliz has advocated for inclusion of some of society’s most marginalized communities. Iveliz and John will offer recommendations to address xenophobia, guidance on allyship and upstanders, tips for inclusive crisis communication, and ways to maximize employee resource groups during these times. 

For more information, please visit Reed Smith's Diversity & Inclusion page. For more information on the legal and business implications of COVID-19, visit the Reed Smith Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Center.

Transcript:

Intro: Hi, I'm John Iino, and welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Inclusivity Included: Powerful Personal Stories. In each episode of this podcast, our guests will share their personal stories, passions, and challenges, past and present, all with a goal of bringing people together and learning more about others. You might be surprised by what we all have in common, inclusivity included.

John: Okay. Hey everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Today we have a special edition of Inclusivity Included. I'm joined by Iveliz Crespo, who is Reed Smith's global D&I advisor. And Iveliz and I have been having a number of conversations around response to the coronavirus and D&I issues specifically. And so we thought we'd just, instead of having the conversation amongst ourselves to have it on this podcast and share with all of you. So Iveliz, welcome today.

Iveliz: Thanks for having me, John.

John: So we've been talking a lot about the whole environment we're in, how tragic it is. We're seeing some people around the world, deaths and really sick, and we're seeing a number of people laid off businesses closing. The economy is suffering. It's just a very, very tragic time. And businesses are obviously responding to this in different ways, but you and I have talked about the importance of keeping focused on principles of diversity and inclusion, equity even during times like this. Tell us a little bit about why it's so important to continue to focus on diversity inclusion principles during these times.

Iveliz: Yeah, absolutely, John. I mean, I think it's undoubtedly that we are in terrain and this is terrain for everyone that's involved. However, I think it's really important for us to remember that for better or for worse, we as organizations, we're dependent on one another and we are dependent on our most valued resource at this time, our most valued asset, which is our employees. So while there's stressful times for everyone, I think it's incredibly important now more than ever, perhaps, that we as organizations continue to lead by example and foster inclusivity to make sure that we're taking care of our workforce. Because at times like this, the fear and uncertainty with everything that's going on really do impact employee wellbeing. And at the end of the day, productivity.

John: And it's really been heartwarming in many respects to see the triumph of the human spirit, to see how some businesses have really stepped up and like you say, taking care of the employees. I know that law firms, for example, at least to date, have been pretty, I'd say immune, but haven't suffered as hard as some of the other businesses because the nature of the businesses being able to really work remotely. But I agree with you completely is that this is a time for all organizations to really step up. And we've seen so many companies and law firm clients and law firms talk about the importance of diversity inclusion and how committed they are to it. But it's times like these where actions speak louder than words and are you really committed to it? And when your backs are against the wall, when times are so tough and when you're in crisis mode and scrambling, I've always said that your D&I mission should be intertwined with every aspect of your business. So as much as you're focused on employment law and HR issues and contracts insurance, also think about your D&I elements and how it's affecting, like you say, your people and your customers. So hopefully we can talk today a little bit about some of the responses that we see, some of the recommendations that we would make for companies as well to continue to just pay attention to D&I, even amongst all the things that are going on.

Iveliz: John, just like you said, in this effort for us companies to prevent the spread of COVID-19, companies around the globe are shutting their physical office doors, and that's leaving many people without work. And oftentimes when we're looking at who is left without work, we're looking at not the white collar workers. We're looking at folks that just aren't able to do their jobs remotely, and that's leaving a lot of folks, mostly people who are already marginalized from making a gainful living. And then for those of us who are fortunate enough to have the privilege of working remotely, that doesn't come without its challenges. And so I think the goal really here is to talk about ways in which we can take care of our employees and productivity and making sure that our employees are provided with the resources they need to do their jobs. I think you're right. We as law firms are in a perfect position to lead by example. Right now, I think it's true that we are not just measured by our principles on diversity and inclusion. When the economy is strong and when things are going well, we're even more so measured by our principles and we're looked at even closer in times like this.

John: Yeah, I know we want to talk a little bit about some of the things we could be doing, but you just hit on something that rang true with me is that for law firms, we are fortunate that at least a large part of our workforce does have the capability to work remotely, but don't assume that, and certainly within other organizations, that you can't assume that all your employees are able to work remotely for the fact of the matter is you may not have a computer or the bandwidth of wifi to be able to work remotely. I just think about you have families with kids at home that are doing online learning and partners or spouses or cohabitants in your household that are also needing to use computers, and who has, if you have two kids who has four computers, just lying around, I don't know if you've done some research in terms of how we can get computers to others, but it seems like it's time for we could donate old computers to an organizations, other organizations can maybe step up to help provide those resources.

Iveliz: Yeah, absolutely. So I did put out a call. I like to say that I put out a call for resources on my social media platforms. I'm going to highlight two organizations I think that are more than willing to accept donations. The first is going to be Habitat for Humanity. So if you're an individual that has extra laptops or extra electronic devices that you're not using Habitat for Humanity, depending on the local office, so you might want to call your local office to check is more than willing to take those and provide those to families without the resources that they need to either work remotely or to homeschool their children. The other one is for larger companies who may have extra technology lying around that they're not using, and that company is reviving, and they will actually take large donations, repurpose those computers and provide those to individuals who need them.

John: Yeah, no, I just hope that companies will get creative. We've seen the call for help and people that need masks are getting donated by nail salons, but hopefully corporations that have the resources can really find opportunities to help people stay connected. So iise, what are some of the things we've been talking about, some of the high level topics that are really important for organizations to be focusing on now from a D&I perspective in response to the coronavirus crisis?

Iveliz: John, I think there are three things that, three strategies that I think are really important to remaining inclusive or to fostering inclusion during this time, and that's communication is huge. Ongoing communication and transparency is paramount to quelling some of the fear and anxiety that we're seeing within our workforce education. This is incredibly important. During, in a time like this, with a bunch of misinformation and sensationalized media, we are really the folks that should be disseminating accurate and reputable news information to our workforce. And then the third is staying connected and checking in particularly with those individuals that are facing the most challenges right now.

John: So we really need to create opportunities for people to connect with people outside of their normal comfort zones. We always try to do that in terms of diversity inclusion, but now even more so given that people are working remotely or just isolated, we really need to connect people even. What are the important things we need to be thinking about from a D&I perspective about connecting with people?

Iveliz: I think that the most important thing, right? When we're talking about staying connected and we're talking about the folks that have the privilege and the ability to work from home, we need to make sure that we're providing accessibility to the resources they need to stay connected. And that includes whether we're using software for video chatting and providing training to some of our employees, because we take for granted that while most of us, many of us and the workforce currently are pretty tech savvy, there are many of us that are not as tech savvy, so we need to provide training to those folks, right? When we're talking about working in a workforce that has multiple generations of people, we need to understand that for some generations being tech savvy is not something that exists. So we need to make sure that we're making the ability to stay connected, accessible to folks from many different backgrounds, and we do that by providing them with the resources, providing them with the softwares that they need, and also making that accessible by providing training for some of the folks that need it.

John: Yeah, no, absolutely. One of the things that we're really trying to increase and accelerate is the role of our employee resource groups. Most corporations, large corporations have employee resource groups, and our strategy is that as much as I just said that it's important to get in touch with people outside of your normal comfort zone, it's also important for these employee resource groups to be more active in times like these, where they can provide that basis of support, the comfort zone, the safe space for people to connect and talk. And so thinking if you could do it virtually or just by old fashioned conference call or the like, just accelerating the meetings, having people, having the groups meet more frequently just to provide those touch points. Our disability resource group, which we call leaders, they've actually just rolled out the concept of virtual coffees and have seen certainly virtual happy hours and things like that, virtual networking, but virtual coffees for people to connect. We don't have the, what do you call, old fashioned water cooler talks that people would have just to stay connected, but the ability to just block out some time to have some virtual coffees that are sponsored by the ERG.

Iveliz: Absolutely, John. And I think that virtual coffees are, that's something that I'm really happy and proud that our employee resource group has come up with. I think that while I've seen virtual happy hours, I think one of the downsides with that is that it doesn't really take into account people who are in recovery, particularly for those individuals that are home isolated right now, it can be incredibly difficult for them. And when we're normalizing things like virtual happy hour, we're making it even more difficult for them to maintain sobriety in many instances. So I really love the fact that our mental health task force is really taking that up a notch and making sure that they're making these virtual coffees accessible and safe for many of our workforce that need it.

John: We have our mental health task force that works in collaboration with our Wellness Works program, and we've seen communication that goes out about focusing on people's anxiety and mental health during this time and our resources available, but we really need to step it up even further than that, and especially, for example, our mental health task force and the people that can really support one another in that. We're really encouraging people to take it an extra level and think about not just being broad and have, Hey, there's a hotline available if you need to talk to somebody, but continue to reach out to people because it's like you've mentioned, it's for some people, it's very isolating. We know how the stress and anxiety just that's going on, just worrying about where the world will end up. But just to be able to be very intentional about reaching out to people on your team and the like, I certainly recommended that managers think about their entire team and not just the folks that they may feel comfortable with on their team, their inner circle, but really making sure you're inclusive to reach out to your entire team, not just from mental health perspective, but just staying connected because it's so important for us to feel that human connection, especially when we feel isolated, cramped up in our homes.

Iveliz: And one of the things that I love that I've seen our firm particularly do particularly well is that this is coming from the top down, right? We have leaders sending out weekly reminders that we have employee resource groups, that we have mental health insurance coverage, and reminding our workforce that they're here, they're checking in, they care about these issues. And that's something I think is incredibly important, right? It's not just the workforce itself taking it upon themselves to do it, right. Employee resource groups are incredibly important because most of the time they're employee driven and that really is the heart of the organization, but it's also really heartwarming and encouraging to see that information being disseminated from leadership.

John: And you talked about the importance of communication right now at Reed Smith. I think we have done a good job in terms of communication from the top and very deliberate communication or other organizations that I am attached to. I see almost daily updates, and it's just so important to keep people advised, but to also just know that we're thinking about them.

Iveliz: I think that in times like this, when people are fearful, when people are anxious and when there's a good amount of uncertainty looming, I think it's incredibly important for leadership, for organizations to have ongoing communication and be transparent. A lot of the nervousness that people have is around job security and to the extent that an organization can communicate where they are and how they're going to remain open and what steps they're taking. I think that's incredibly important to quelling some of that fear and anxiousness that people have. And it's important that it comes from leadership and it has to be disseminated and accessible to all employees. We had a company-wide call with leadership from our firm, and I think they did a wonderful job of talking about where we are, what we're doing, what steps we're taking, what task force have been created, who are the members of the task force, what are they working on? And this commitment that they made to continuously stay connected and continuously provide information, I think was an excellent example of that ongoing communication that we need from leadership at a time like this.

John: Absolutely. This is, I always said in times like, this is when leaders are really made. You're not anointed in a leader just from holding a title. This is when our true leaders will emerge. As I say, generals are made in battle, and here's where is opportunity really for people to step up.

Iveliz: Absolutely. And strong messaging is important, right? If we have leaders who are nervous and anxious when they're communicating and communicating from a place of fear, all that's going to do is increase the anxiety and the fear that your workforce is going to have. So I think you're right, John. I think this is a testament to real leaders, and I think that we're starting to see folks shine, and I think it's great to see great examples of leadership happening during a time like this.

John: Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about education and the role that not only leaders can do in terms educating, but thinking about our D&I programs as well. I really view this as an opportune time for the D&I programs to do even more about educating people. Maybe because they're sitting at home, they have the ability to maybe listen more, but in addition, they're just accentuated by all that's going on. And I think about xenophobia and fear, like you say, but what are some examples he released that we can do right now to help educate?

Iveliz: John you hit the nail right on the head. I think it's incredibly true that fear and prejudice can spread faster than the virus itself, and there are absolutely steps that an organization can take to educate its workforce, particularly in a time like this. While I know that it's no longer possible at this moment in time for us to have in-person trainings, I think this is still an opportunity to keep the needle moving forward and to continue educating our staff. And we can do that in multitude of ways. We can utilize webinars, we can have those real in time trainings and just make sure that we're making them accessible for those that are interested in participating in them. We can educate folks on the history of viral outbreaks that have originated in other countries that used to foster bias perspectives that leading to racism, xenophobia and scapegoating. We saw this with the Ebola outbreak in 2014. We've seen this with the AIDS epidemic and being referred to as a gay disease. I think that it's time for us to learn from our history, and I think that organization and inclusive leaders are the folks to move that conversation forward. In addition to these webinars, there are a multitude of trainings that you can do. We can talk about bias and even more importantly, because I think bias focuses a lot on thoughts and unconscious behavior. We could start teaching and encouraging positive behavior. We can talk about allyship and what allyship looks like in the workplace. We can talk about being upstanders. We can train folks on positive behavior. I think it's important while we learn to identify our own biases, what's the next step? What do we do from there? So I think it's even more important in the time like this for us to provide training materials on being an upstander, on being an active ally. We can do that with webinars, we can do that with checklists. We can do that by seeing behavior and encouraging that behavior by highlighting it when it does happen. I think it's incredibly important to make sure that we're recognizing when folks are acting as upstanders and bystanders. So incorporating those recognitions in your employee weekly emails, in your employee newsletters. There are ways to try to move the needle forward, even though we're stuck in this virtual workforce right now.

John: To me, it also seems like to be able to amplify people because now that we're all working remotely jump on conference calls alike or video conferences, it's just so important to be able to amplify people, not talk over people and really reach out to make sure that all members of the team are being heard. But I want to hit on something that you said earlier. Just the whole xenophobia and racism or bias and calling the virus the Chinese virus or saying it's an alien invasion, obviously creates tension. And to be a good upstander or active bystander, there are obvious ways that we could stand up for people that are victims of that kind of behavior. Whether it's speaking up in the moment, defending the person or whoever was victimized by that behavior or speaking to the person who you may not be confrontational at that moment, might, might not be the right time, or it could be dangerous, physically dangerous,

Iveliz: Agreed, or people might not be the best person to step up. Some people recognize that if they're the ones to step up, it's not going to be as impactful as if they went to someone who has more power in the situation, like a manager or a supervisor to have encouraged them to address the behavior. I think that in and of itself right there is being an upstander, recognizing that there's an issue that needs to be addressed, recognizing that it doesn't feel good in your gut, and then also recognizing who the best person is to have that conversation. Where are you going to see the most impact? Because oftentimes I think people think, oh, I'm too scared to speak up. I don't have power in this situation. I want to encourage those people that feel that they don't have the power in the situation to find the people who do and utilize your privilege to have that conversation and encourage that person who might have more power in that situation to address it.

John: And as I said at the outset, I think that we're seeing the best in human behavior. We're also seeing some of the worst in human behavior during these times, but the way that people have been reaching out and standing up for each other or helping each other, some really heartwarming stories there as well, is even being creative about things and how people are doing that. So to be intentional around these things, I think people in their gut, like you say, know what's right, but just to be a little bit more, to get that extra step during these times.

Iveliz: Absolutely. John, and I think leadership itself needs to be cognizant that these biases exist, particularly for folks that are in service industries. They need to be prepared for clients having these opinions for clients, not wanting to work with people from certain demographics because of their own biases and misinformation. How are we as leaders going to address this? Because it's something that's a reality right now, particularly with sensationalized media, particularly with the misinformation that's out on the internet, that's just readily available for people. It, it's spreading hate and it's spreading misinformation and ignorance, and we as leaders need to be cognizant of not just our workforce, but what's going on in the world outside of that because it's going to leach in and impact our workforce one way or another. Whether or not that's our clients, that's our customers, how are we in those moments going to address that?

John: No, absolutely. So I know we're running out of time, so in closing, any overall thoughts and recommendations for our audience?

Iveliz: Absolutely, John. I mean, we can talk about these strategies for remaining inclusive for a lot longer than half an hour, but I think one of the things that I want to leave folks with is that please continue to take care of yourselves and continue as leaders to foster workplaces that are physically safe, broadly inclusive, socially connected, and morally accountable. And most importantly, right, seek support if needed. And remember, we're all in this together and that we're stronger as a whole. And it's easy right now to forget that. And it's easy right now to be torn apart, but it's even more important now than ever that we come together.

John: So beautifully said. Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't have said it any better. My underlying message, I guess, to the leaders of organizations, or actually to everyone in organizations is that, as I said earlier, is that diversity inclusion, if we really mean it, it's important to the organization and important to the culture of the organization. As much as we're focused on the right things from employment law, the much as we're focused on the business operations and impacts on revenues, don't forget to focus on impacts on inclusion, and it should be a key part of your overall strategy in response to the crisis. If you're not including your D&I professionals or your United leadership in the discussions you should be, because it's so important to make sure that you're thinking with all your best talent and bringing those specific principles to all the decisions you're making. So more to come, I'm sure. But Iveliz, thank you for sharing with our audience some of the thoughts that we've been having and just great to brainstorm with these things. But some of the specific strategies that we at Reed Smith are implementing, and hopefully others will similarly share some of the great things that they're doing as well. So thanks everyone, and as he released says, stay safe, stay healthy.

Iveliz: Thanks, John.

Outro: Inclusivity included is a Reed Smith production. Our producer is Ali McCardell. Available on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, PodBean and reedsmith.com.

Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

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