In the current era of perpetual crisis and disruption, organizations must stay competitive so their leaders are able to navigate change and execute new strategies. At the same time, employees are eager to find meaning in their work and advance in their careers. Organizations with cultures that support growth and learning are the ones best positioned to be agile and innovative, with high levels of employee engagement and retention.

So how can your organization create a culture that puts learning at the forefront — in a way that’s practical, behavioral, and scalable? It starts with planting seeds for a learning culture to thrive.

What Is a Learning Culture?

A learning culture is an environment that demonstrates and encourages learning at both the individual and organizational levels, where sharing and gaining knowledge is prioritized, valued, and rewarded. A learning culture happens when learning becomes part of the ecosystem of the organization.

While it’s no small feat, there are 4 important components that can help transform your organization’s current culture into a learning culture.

4 Steps to Cultivate a Learning Culture at Your Organization

1. Attract and develop agile learners.

If you’re looking to upskill your workforce or perhaps reskill yourself, learning agility is one of the most critical skillsets to develop. Our research has long shown that the most successful leaders with the longest careers have the key leadership trait of learning agility.

Learning-agile leaders exemplify a growth mindset by learning from experience, challenging perspectives, remaining curious, and seeking new experiences. (This is why research suggests that great leaders are great learners.)

Because employees with learning agility continue to grow their skills and capabilities regardless of their current job, these individuals are in demand in the quest for talent. The workplace of yesterday no longer exists, and organizations need agile learners who understand how to transfer their current skillset to solve new problems and build capabilities for tomorrow.

• When hiring new talent: Seek out team members who learn from experience and challenge perspectives. Look for the critical skill of learning agility by asking interviewees how they’ve approached difficult situations in the past, how they’ve learned from mistakes, and how they prepare themselves for new challenges. Inquire about how they’ve applied their learnings to their next opportunity.
• For your current team members: Encourage people to remain curious and open. Provide ample opportunities for on-the-job learning and stretch assignments, along with support in the form of tools, mentoring, and coaching. Provide access to development opportunities for employees across your organization — don’t just limit skill-building to a small subset deemed “high potentials.”

Building a learning culture that democratizes leadership development and values a growth mindset will help you attract and retain a workforce that truly wants to learn, and help others learn as well.

2. Create a psychologically safe environment.

Looking at the teams and groups in your organization, are you fostering the trust and collaboration needed to sustain a strong learning culture? By creating safe spaces to be open and take interpersonal risks, you can build a foundation of psychological safety at work and encourage the learning that contributes to innovation and productivity.

Psychological safety is about promoting risk-taking and candor in a group, to create a secure environment for optimal learning. It’s the belief that candor is welcome, that employees can ask questions often and early, and that people can freely admit mistakes without fear of retribution.

Encourage team members (especially senior leaders) to admit mistakes openly and share stories of “failing forward.” Also, make sure executives know how to encourage innovation, not unintentionally sabotage and undermine it.

Ensuring leaders can create psychological safety for their teams allows team members to learn collectively and leads to a strong learning culture in your organization, where groups are willing to find lessons in setbacks and hardships, listen to one another, and invite differing opinions and candid conversations.

Remember, it’s not about being polite, but rather about being open. The openness to take interpersonal risks and glean lessons from mistakes to achieve something greater signifies a culture where growth is valued, which leads to a stronger organization that puts learning in the forefront.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Promote risk-taking and transparency within your organization.
• Encourage team members to ask questions often and early.
• Welcome candor and encourage employees, as well as the senior leadership team, to admit mistakes and share lessons learned, without fear of consequence.

3. Encourage conversations and feedback throughout the organization.

When determining how to cultivate learning culture, remember that effective communication and feedback should be woven throughout the organization and be encouraged and expected as a part of the norm. When feedback becomes a part of regular conversations, employees are aware of their personal developmental areas, resulting in continuous gains and fewer surprises at end-of-year reviews.

Giving feedback routinely and well often dramatically improves your talent development — but requires a particular skillset, which can fortunately be developed.

Encourage employees to give, and seek, both positive and developmental feedback. Positive feedback can help them leverage what’s working well already, and developmental feedback allows them to see what can be improved upon or done differently to have greater impact.

Because a conversation, by definition, involves 2 or more people, the collective communication competency of an organization is greatly enhanced when all employees are knowledgeable and skilled at holding high-quality conversations. Put simply, better culture starts with better conversations.

And that’s why our clients who have partnered with us to scale our conversational skills training program across their organizations have seen such positive results: When a critical mass of people shares a common understanding around what constitutes an effective conversation, it allows new skills to be applied to everyday work, and to spread organically through the organization. Widely applied, improved conversational skills benefit the organization by creating more robust, innovative, stress-tested solutions and a more dynamic and psychologically safe, learning culture.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Improve conversational skills across your entire organization with scalable training to build a common leadership language.
• Participate in meaningful conversations and provide valuable, actionable, and constructive feedback.
• Encourage everyone in your organization to truly listen to one another and seek feedback.

4. Make learning an explicit organizational priority.

If you want to show that learning is a real priority within your organization, send clear signals to your workforce that you’re all in.

Examine your policies, rewards systems, and opportunities to establish and reinforce a learning culture. Consider making these types of scheduled events a common practice at your organization:

• Lunch-and-learns, where senior leaders are storytellers who share their experiences and what they’ve learned recently and throughout their career journeys.
• After-action reviews, where teams regularly take a few minutes to share what they learned from a project or experience.
• Learning communities, where individuals can share what they’ve learned with similarly situated peers, and they can discuss together how they’re applying these learnings in their everyday work.
• Designated development days, where team- or company-wide sharing of lessons learned is expected and honored.

To show that your organization believes that learning is for everyone, make development opportunities inclusive and accessible across the entire organization. The practice of scaling learning will be unique for every organization, but be sure to provide an array of opportunities for “soft skill development” in a wide array of delivery formats to meet learner needs and abilities, including options that are asynchronous, in-person, self-paced, and virtual. (We’ve found that there are many unexpected benefits of using online learning for leadership development.)

Also, to ensure that you’re building a true learning culture, provide organizational support for learning not only in the form of tools and resources, but also by providing the necessary time and space for growth. Encourage leaders to allocate time for themselves and to set aside time for their teams to absorb and practice new skills.

When every employee sees that the organization values both individual and collective growth, you’ll strengthen your learning culture and gain commitment from your team members.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Create a strong learning culture by naming it as an explicit organizational priority.
• Examine company policies, rewards systems, and career development opportunities — what’s missing and what can be improved?
• Make it a common practice to share insights with others by hosting events such as lunch-and-learns, after-action reviews, and designated development days.

Build a Learning Culture That’s Tailored to Your Organization

To tailor your learning strategy to your organization, make sure to align your business strategy and leadership development opportunities, as well as your organization’s broader values, language, and brand. Examine the capabilities needed both today and into the future, and ask employees what type of development would be most valuable for them, as well as how they prefer to learn.

It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone is in a place to jump in right away. Keep in mind that behavior change is difficult. Meet people where they are, encouraging small steps, risk-taking, and sharing through peer support. Use metrics to keep a pulse on what’s resonating and having an impact so that you can adapt as needed and evolve your learning culture strategy as you grow.

Every organization is different, so the path to truly creating a culture of learning that will become a part of the ecosystem will be different as well. But with an intentional focus and commitment from the leadership team, you can plant the seeds today that allow a learning culture to flourish at your organization — resulting in a more agile work environment that’s prepared for the challenges of tomorrow.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Build a learning culture in your organization by providing ample access to growth and development opportunities. Take advantage of our leadership development subscription, CCL Passport for unlimited access to our world-renowned training content and our most comprehensive package of proven, transformative leadership solutions. If you license our content, you can bring our proven research, programs, and tools in-house to leaders at all levels of your organization.

Frequently Asked Questions About a Learning Culture

More questions? Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation!

The post Cultivate a Learning Culture Within Your Organization appeared first on CCL.

Belonging — the belief that we are connected, supported, and respected — is a basic human need. It’s also a critical component of creating cultures that enable everyone to feel included at work. Belonging in the workplace can pave the way for greater individual and organizational performance, innovation, satisfaction, and persistence through challenges.

Most leaders have a rough idea of what belonging is, but the true importance and value of belonging at work is probably more complex than they might imagine. Beyond just “Do I fit in here?” having a sense of belonging in the workplace involves answering multiple questions, such as:

• Can I connect with my peers professionally? Socially?
• Do I trust my peers, supervisors, and leaders?
• Do I feel like my unique perspective and experiences are valued?
• Am I able to share my authentic self?
• Am I free from worries about fitting in?

The Value of Belonging at Work

Research suggests that in the workplace, both belonging and uncertainty about belonging both matter a lot, as they influence everything from job satisfaction and self-esteem to performance and wellbeing.

This is because when everyone consistently feels included and certain that they belong at work, people are more willing to take risks and more comfortable asking for (and giving) help. So part of the value of belonging in the workplace is that it actually helps to encourage more innovation in the organization and fosters innovative mindsets through open communication.

In addition, belonging is linked to increased persistence through challenges, bouncing back after failure, less likelihood to be thrown off by organizational shifts, and reduced employee turnover. For example, in a recent partnership with a leading global automotive organization, our researchers found that employee perceptions of inclusion, belonging uncertainty, and belonging at work were the strongest predictors of turnover intentions, burnout, and work-life balance.

In another study, building connection and belonging with other participants was also highlighted as one of the most valuable outcomes of engaging in leadership development training.

Luckily, research confirms that belonging uncertainty and belonging in the workplace can both be influenced by organizations and their leaders.

By intentionally working to decrease uncertainty around belonging, leaders invite employees to set aside worries, concerns, or stress. Then they no longer have to expend as much energy wondering if they belong at work, and they’re free to contribute to business objectives in a meaningful, productive, and fulfilling way.

The Impact of Uncertainty About Belonging in the Workplace

Belonging & Belonging Uncertainty: 2 Sides of the Same Coin

We often talk about belonging as a single concept of feeling that you fit in. However, feeling as if you belong is only one side of the coin.

Before we can fully understand the value of belonging — and particularly the importance of belonging in the workplace — we must first understand the other side of the coin: a term known as “belonging uncertainty.”

People experience belonging uncertainty when they aren’t consistently sure whether they fit in at work. This vacillating sense of security can arise from feeling different from others around you, either in appearance or cultural experiences. Belonging uncertainty is especially common if employees come from a background that is different from everyone else on the team.

These individuals may worry about being treated negatively based on stereotypes, or perceive subtle messages about who can (and can’t) be successful at work, causing them to feel less welcome and experience belonging uncertainty. Other team members who do not perceive such messages or feel such burdens do not experience belonging uncertainty.

Belonging uncertainty often leads people to hide aspects of themselves, or not put their whole selves out there. That makes it tricky to detect. But a key indicator is when someone seems hesitant to participate. When that happens, leaders have a clue that the environment might not feel very welcoming to someone on the team.

As leaders, it’s our responsibility to help lift everyone in the entire organization, however and wherever we can. Without intentional support, employees experiencing belonging uncertainty may feel almost as if they’re carrying around a heavy backpack, weighing them down and causing them to struggle to engage fully, think creatively, or bring their full selves to work.

The concerns that arise from belonging uncertainty can also cause people to interpret neutral events negatively. For example, imagine that 2 employees give a big presentation at a quarterly meeting, and neither receives any applause when they finish.

• An employee with low belonging uncertainty may not really notice or, if they do, attribute the lack of applause to an audience eager to get to the next break.
• An employee who does experience belonging uncertainty might jump to conclusions, interpreting the silence as feedback that their presentation was confusing or poorly received. They might even tell themselves they’re not cut out for their job or the organization.

Even if the second employee is able to counter those negative thoughts with positive self-talk, the mental energy involved in processing those thoughts and questioning themselves is a burden they face, on top of their work responsibilities and the stress of giving a big presentation.

For leaders, if one person on the team feels they’re carrying around a heavy backpack, while another is not so weighed down, it’s going to be much easier for the second employee to tackle their work challenges than the first. This is why leaders should work to understand belonging uncertainty and how the workplace feels to everyone on the team, providing additional support for those who need it.

How to Create a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace

3 Tips for Leaders

Here’s the good news for leaders looking for advice on how to build belonging in the workplace: Your efforts don’t have to involve big or expensive gestures. Leaders can incorporate the following actions into everyday work life to counteract belonging uncertainty and instill a culture of belonging at work.

For maximum impact, know that the most powerful experiences involve fostering all elements of belonging: connecting with peers, building trust, valuing all employees’ unique voices, and decreasing belonging uncertainty.

1. Create intentional opportunities for connection.

Consistency is key. When trying to foster belonging at work, most organizations begin with creating opportunities for employees to connect. Many of us have attended a company pizza party or team mixer as an opportunity to meet people and build relationships. While that’s a start, leaders can make those experiences more potent by prioritizing consistent, ongoing opportunities for connection over one grandiose but infrequent event.

Being able to connect with colleagues twice a month is more impactful than a large, once-yearly occasion, even if the opportunities are small, because it serves as a booster for belonging at work. Whether reserving time at the beginning of meetings for team members to share something about themselves or facilitating cross-group coffee chats, creating space for people to connect with peers in a meaningful way on a regular basis is a promising way to support a sense of belonging.

Leaders can also build trust, an important element of belonging, by creating both social and professional opportunities to connect. Offering opportunities to share hobbies or personally held customs encourages employees to bring all parts of themselves to work, and begins to build a foundation of trust. Organizations might offer voluntary Employee Resource Groups to create spaces for connection, for example.

• TIP: Build small, ongoing opportunities for connection into your team or organizational culture. If you consistently focus on building leadership trust and create time for colleagues to make connections with one another, the impact compounds over time. You might set aside a few minutes to express gratitude publicly at the start of every team or department meeting, and create space for others to do the same. Or you might ask colleagues to bring questions as icebreaker activities, or set aside time to share wins and give kudos to teammates. Regardless, finding a sustainable way for employees to connect with each other authentically and consistently is key.

2. Flip the script on uncertainty and failure.

Normalize making mistakes. When people lack a sense of belonging, it can be an isolating experience. Akin to dealing with imposter syndrome, belonging uncertainty causes employees who feel they don’t belong to think they are the only ones experiencing those thoughts.

But in fact, most of us — at some point in our careers — have questioned ourselves and our abilities. When colleagues are willing to share their own uncertainties or even failures publicly, they normalize the feeling and help take away its power. This message can be particularly effective when it comes from colleagues further along in their careers. It can be powerful when a senior leader tells a younger manager their challenges and how they overcame them. Others have the same doubts, and it can be helpful to realize that they’re not alone in their worries and that their concerns might dissipate over time.

You might even consider keeping and sharing with colleagues “a resume of failures,” following in the footsteps of the story about a Princeton professor who created a CV of missteps. Rather than bulleting your accomplishments, list every job you didn’t get, every grant that wasn’t funded, and every idea that was rejected. The resume of failures will likely be much more extensive than your real resume — and more beneficial, too. Failures might have initially reinforced a sense that you don’t belong, but often upon reflection, we realize that we learned more from our failures than our successes. By typing them out and sharing them with your team or newer colleagues, you can reinforce the reality that everyone has to overcome hurdles — and that falling short of expectations doesn’t mean someone doesn’t belong in a role or doesn’t have what it takes. It means they have an opportunity to learn and develop.

• TIP: Normalize failure and frame uncertainty as common and temporary. Encourage a culture where employees can speak openly about handling stress, uncertainty, or setbacks. Encourage senior leaders to help bust myths around mistakes by reinforcing that failure is transient and to be expected. Model open and candid sharing of lessons learned, because that signals a willingness to make yourself vulnerable and encourages innovation, rather than sabotages it.
• TIP: Explore mentoring as a way to provide support during transition points. During times of transition, like onboarding, promotion, and new managerial responsibilities, could senior members of the team help reinforce and support other members? For example, if a new person joins the group or if someone is promoted, invite a more senior colleague to step in to share his or her experiences with the new manager. Coaching and mentoring programs can be used to develop new leaders, not only helping to support and onboard them, but also enabling both parties to benefit from mutual trust-building and an enhanced culture of belonging at work.

3. Show humility by not assuming others’ experiences.

Create opportunities for others to share. Leaders who consistently create space for connection and share their own self-doubts are more likely to have employees who feel psychologically safe at work, and subsequently are more comfortable sharing their experiences with belonging and belonging uncertainty. This is particularly important for employees who are most often overlooked and underestimated.

Power dynamics can often come into place in group settings, with those who hold more senior positions or privileged social identities taking up the most “airtime” in meetings. For example, one Catalyst study found that 1 in 5 women leaders feel overlooked or ignored during group video calls. Individuals from historically underestimated groups often report similar experiences.

Break the mold by scaffolding opportunities for all employees to share openly and honestly with you. When they do, remain open and choose your words wisely. What may seem innocuous to you doesn’t always seem that way to others. For example, if someone on your team opens up to you, and you respond with, “Oh, I know exactly how you feel!” you may think that you’re showing empathy, but that could come across as failing to acknowledge their personal experiences.

Everyone has their own lived experiences, so it’s important that leaders not downplay or invalidate others. Here is where a well-placed silence can be powerful. Don’t cut off potential sharing by moving on to another topic too soon.

Also, be mindful to not push employees to share their personal lives with you. Your job is simply to provide the space, not force anyone to share. Finally, discourage employees from speaking for others by asking everyone to focus on their own experiences. Give people a platform to share their own experiences and perspectives, so others don’t end up talking for them and the whole team can learn valuable lessons.

• TIP: Don’t assume you have the answers. Compassionate leadership starts with listening, and leaders sometimes make false assumptions about employees they don’t hear from, relate to, or understand. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that someone is “just shy,” for example, consider other explanations. Foster a trusting relationship over time, so employees can feel comfortable opening up at their own pace. Build an organization that values different perspectives by modeling (and training your team in) inclusive leadership practices and active listening skills. Particular things to practice include listening for understanding, remaining present in the moment, withholding judgement, and speaking less to hear more.

Better Leaders Focus on Building Belonging at Work

Leading with a focus on building belonging at work requires humility and bravery. Without a focus on equipping leaders and teams with the knowledge about how to create a sense of belonging in the workplace, organizations will never be as strong or productive as they could be.

At CCL, we believe in equipping leaders to cultivate organizational cultures that truly support everyone in the organization — ensuring people are better than just okay. We’ve created a downloadable collection of leadership resources on compassion, wellbeing, and belonging with actionable tips gleaned from our research.

The bottom line: belonging in the workplace is about more than just fitting in. True belonging is built on a strong foundation of trust, connection, and freedom from uncertainty. Fostering a sense of belonging at work acknowledges that everyone brings value through their different experiences and perspectives, and that some individuals might also be burdened with concerns. It’s a critical component of employee wellbeing, too, because when leaders consistently commit to fostering belonging at work, individuals and organizations thrive.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Take a meaningful step toward increasing belonging at your workplace by starting a conversation with colleagues on your team or at your organization. Download Our Belonging at Work Conversation Guide now.

The post How to Build Belonging at Work appeared first on CCL.

Inclusion is when everyone feels welcomed, respected, and valued. It’s a common part of organizational mission statements. But it’s also a profoundly personal experience.

We’ve all experienced what inclusion is by sensing more — or less — of it at some point in our lives. From an early age, we can feel included by being part of a loving and accepting family. Or, we can feel inclusion in the workplace, such as when a manager involves us in team decisions.

But if we don’t feel included, we may question whether we’re respected and accepted. That’s why inclusion requires far more than words alone. It requires a commitment to the full participation of, and investment in, every individual in the group.

Whether most people at your organization are logging onto virtual meetings or stepping into physical offices, having a workplace where everyone belongs is vital to your collective success. It shapes how people see themselves, others, and the culture around them. And it has a direct impact on your organization’s ability to deliver on its mission and grow the bottom line.

What Does Inclusion Mean in the Workplace?

An inclusive workplace is one where employees feel valued, involved, and respected for the viewpoints, ideas, perspectives, and experiences they bring. In an inclusive work culture, employees know they’re an integral part of the organization, and believe that differences in backgrounds and life experiences are a strength, not a weakness.

Ultimately, inclusion in the workplace means creating an environment where employees can show up fully, without feeling they must hide or minimize any part of themselves.

In an inclusive work culture, you won’t see everyone sharing everything. The goal is that employees can share parts of themselves or their lives without fear of retaliation — if they want to.

But passive acceptance isn’t sufficient. Organizations must work to actively build inclusive workplaces — or risk the consequences.

Why Is an Inclusive Workplace Important?

Employee perceptions of inclusion in the workplace can be one of the key predictors of employee engagement, turnover intentions, and burnout. In our survey of more than 2,500 employees at a global company, those who perceived a more inclusive workplace reported healthier work boundaries, lower levels of burnout, and were less likely to say they were looking for other jobs, as we shared in Chief Learning Officer.

But perceptions of how inclusive your workplace is can vary greatly across employee groups. As just one example, in the organization we surveyed, hourly employees reported lower levels of inclusion than their salaried coworkers, as did individual contributors versus those in management or executive roles. Even for employees with similar backgrounds and experiences, there was a range of perceptions. These findings underscore that workplace inclusion looks and feels very different, depending on who you are and where you sit in the organization.

Taken together, this and other research indicates that inclusion in the workplace is essential for supporting a happy, engaged, and committed workforce. As organizations race to attract and retain talent, investing in creating a truly inclusive work culture can be a major differentiator.

Importantly, inclusion in the workplace requires action. Even if you consider your organization to be inclusive, your employees cannot always see your good intentions. Failing to take meaningful action can limit the positive impact of your goals for an inclusive work culture and strain credibility with your workforce. For example:

• Your organization could say that it supports parents, families, caregiving and leadership. But if flexible work options are limited, leave policies are meager, and no lactation rooms are offered, the idea may seem disingenuous to your employees.
• Your organization may say it welcomes and supports employees of different religious or cultural backgrounds. But if you don’t provide workers with the option to take floating holidays, it’s difficult for them to celebrate important cultural or holy days, regardless of their heritage or beliefs.

That’s why organizations that are serious about inclusion take time to understand the specific opportunities they have to support others within their unique culture and context, and don’t simply duplicate initiatives that seemed effective in other organizations. They choose strategic actions that will drive the desired results and invest in training their people in inclusive leadership practices — recognizing that because of how structural inclusion in the workplace can be, leaders play a critical role in moving it forward.

Organizations that don’t focus on inclusion and belonging can risk being left behind, as people leave in search of companies that are more inviting and share their values.

How to Create an Inclusive Work Culture

5 Keys for Leaders

Don’t know where to start to build more inclusion in the workplace? Here are a few specific strategies leaders can use to foster a more inclusive work culture.

1. Foster meaningful and authentic participation.

There’s a world of difference between being invited into a conversation and being able to influence the outcome. As a leader, it’s important you actively seek out a range of perspectives across age, cultural backgrounds, departments, geographic locations, and leader levels whenever you’re making strategic decisions or developing new processes. It’s even more important to allow input from these employees to meaningfully impact your decisions.

Employees can only fully participate if their work environment makes it possible. Be sure to build psychological safety at work so employees feel a sense of ownership of their work and freedom to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. This is particularly important for empowering next-generation leaders, so they feel included in decision-making, feel heard, and can make a positive impact. Employees should feel like they have agency over their decisions to share — a concept known as employee voice. Our research underscores the importance of managers supporting employee voices and helping people feel heard by taking action and by providing explanations.

2. Invest in your employees.

Our research also suggests that leadership development opportunities can support employees in many ways, from boosting confidence and preparedness to strengthening connections and overall effectiveness. Development opportunities can also make employees feel more included and cared for at your organization.

Consider providing leaders with psychological safety training so they understand how to create space for different backgrounds and lived experiences than their own. By providing access to opportunities for growth through training programs and mentorship for newer employees, you can help your workforce learn new skills and demonstrate a commitment to their development.

It’s also important to use the lens of inclusion when you’re determining who is receiving development opportunities. Focusing solely on employees identified as “high potential” is often wrought with bias, and can exclude those who would benefit most from your support. To avoid this, consider how to meaningfully democratize access to leadership development opportunities.

3. Commit to wider representation.

Inclusion in the workplace goes beyond your current employees. It involves your future workforce, too. To build a workplace where everyone belongs, you need recruiting practices in line with your mission and goals.

Once hired, new employees should be made to feel as included as possible as they become familiar with your organization. New employees often experience barriers around differences in their work arrangements, rank, demographics, or location. By spanning those boundaries, and opening up collaboration, you’ll ideally have more diverse representation in your day-to-day operations.

4. Be intentional in your communications and actions.

An inclusive work culture takes time to build — but can be damaged in a single moment. That’s why leaders need to keep their mission and culture top of mind, especially during times of change. Communication with employees is a key factor in supporting an inclusive work culture, but some forms of communication are better than others.

Set expectations early for open and respectful communication, and ensure leaders have access to tools, resources, training, and support as they improve their ability to identify and mitigate bias, respect differences, manage conflicts, and practice compassionate leadership by asking questions and listening closely to learn more, especially on topics outside their lived experiences.

Organizations that focus on being invitational, accountable, consistent, and purposeful in their communications are likely to be perceived as having more inclusive workplaces. Communication that is both specific and actionable also helps to support workplace inclusion.

5. Remember there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and you must keep evolving.

In an effort to find quick solutions, it’s easy to think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to creating a workplace that includes everyone. If an approach works at one organization, then it should work just as well at another. But context matters. After all, what is an inclusive work culture good for if it’s in name only?

In the real world, isolated gestures or rigid ideas about inclusivity break down quickly. That’s because different employees face different experiences or barriers, and because everyone is unique. A policy solely focused on hiring women into more senior positions, for instance, can oversimplify the specific challenges faced by specific women, because women have varying individual experiences. Similarly, offering leadership development training alone won’t address systemic issues with unequal pay or promotion opportunities at your organization. A holistic approach and continual focus on building belonging at work and inclusive work culture is required.

Furthermore, it’s critical to remember that the definition of inclusion — and our understanding of how to foster it — is constantly evolving. In recent years, for example, organizations have had to reckon with new challenges like equipping managers to lead remote teams and adapt to the hybrid workplace.

It’s important to continually review and update your policies and practices, always through the lens of building greater inclusion in the workplace.

How to Repair Damage

Even when they don’t use specific terms, many leaders are interested in creating an inclusive culture at their organization. Inclusive workplaces can help bring out the best in all employees, fostering a climate of innovation and creativity.

And sometimes, creating an inclusive culture can also feel intimidating. Honest mistakes happen. Even with the best of intentions for an inclusive workplace, you or your organization may hurt someone along the way. It’s important to apologize, listen to understand, take action (and check in with others on the impact of those actions), and not give up. Fear of failure can often hold leaders and organizations back.

Avoiding difficult conversations can be far worse than making a mistake and being open to learning and improvement. Trial and error, paired with continuous learning and humility, make things better — and foster more inclusive workplaces.

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The post What Is Inclusion in the Workplace? A Guide for Leaders appeared first on CCL.