The stock market and the impact of tariffs have been top of mind for many business leaders this week.

The markets were down April 3, with the S&P 500 losing more than 4% over the course of the day due to concerns over tariffs and their impact on global trade. When a 90-day pause was announced on many of those tariffs, markets soared with the S&P 500 gaining more than 9%, and then sank again.

What are leaders to make of this kind of volatility?

For the CEOs speaking at the For All Summit, the answer comes down to people.

Consider Edward Jones, with 54,000 employees helping 9 million customers make a sound financial plan. Penny Pennington, managing partner of Edward Jones, shared her assessment of a turbulent market, including the four “worst words” you can hear in the investment world: “This time it’s different.”

Having led seven generations of clients through volatility, crises, and geopolitical turmoil, Pennington sees a crisis that is urgent, but very familiar. “A good plan is better than a bad prediction every time,” she shared with Summit attendees.

For Edward Jones, that good plan is investing in people. It starts with purpose, which Pennington identifies as clearly articulated values that guide the organization. Those values inform culture, which guides strategy and empowers execution. “When all of that comes together, it creates an enduring institution,” she says.

Great Place To Work research supports this, where high-trust companies not only outperform their peers during economic downturns, but see outsized market performance that continues well into the future.

Empowering employees to excel

Great workplaces know that empowered employees deliver exceptional experiences for customers.

For leaders like Jim Kavanaugh, co-founder and CEO at World Wide Technology, the experience customers and partners have working with his employees is a source of deep pride. “The amount of feedback I get from our partners on how much they enjoy working with our employees is amazing,” he says.

^{Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology speaks at the For All Summit.}

At the heart of their strategy are their values – principles that guide the organization through all the disruption happening in the technology sector. “The one thing that I think is a constant are your values and your culture,” he says. “If you have a really strong set of values that you commit to, it’s amazing how that culture helps navigate through challenging times … and present opportunities.

One of those values? The importance of everyone to embrace a growth mindset and pursue lifelong learning. “You need to learn how to embrace constructive input,” Kavanaugh advises, a lesson he learned as an Olympic soccer player. “You don’t get better as a player if you think you all have the answers.”

The rise of AI demands agility

One of the things driving the rapid change and disruption in the marketplace is the rise of generative AI. Company values are crucial touchstones for how this technology can be used to innovate and uplevel the impact of every employee.

Leaders like Anthony Capuano, president and CEO of Marriott International, are looking for efficiencies that increase human capacity.

“All of us have had that unfortunate day of travel,” he shared as an example. The flights were delayed. The weather was miserable. Luggage was lost. The potential of AI to allow a desk clerk at a hotel to quickly check-in a traveler and have 120 seconds of extra capacity to offer a warm welcome make all the difference.

“We’re using AI everywhere,” he shared. “We want to use it to create capacity for better more impactful human interactions.”

Pennington puts it another way: “Automate the ordinary to humanize the extraordinary.”

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 business is a people business,” she says. “It’s a business built on trust.” That trust enables people to grow and develop, from adopting new AI tools to exploring new ways of serving customers.

How great workplaces build a better world

The impact of workplace culture isn’t confined to the marketplace. How employees feel about their work follows them home, a sacred responsibility that leaders like John Pearson, CEO of DHL Express take very seriously.

^{Leaders from DHL join Michael C Bush, CEO at Great Place To Work at the For All Summit in Las Vegas.}

“The biggest part of my job is to send people home happier than they arrived in the morning,” he shared from the mainstage at Summit. The reason why? “When people leave work unhappy, they take it out on the people they find at home.”

For Pearson, creating a great workplace is his way of preventing domestic violence, alcoholism, and child neglect. And an organization at the scale of DHL, with operations in 220 countries, the impact is enormous.

“I like to think people are right in the middle of everything we do,” he says. His aspiration: Be a great place to work, not for some or for many, but for all.

That doesn’t mean it’s an easy task, but it’s an essential part of DHL’s business strategy: People plus quality equals growth.

The hard road of collaboration

The closing keynote featured Jon M. Chu, Hollywood director behind hit films like “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Wicked.”

His final message to attendees was about the real work required to create a truly inclusive and collaborative workplace.

“When I started working on studio films, it was really hard to work with an editor,” he shared. “I just wanted to do it myself.” However, collaboration is what is required to create a truly great workplace that is more than the sum of its parts.

^{Hollywood director Jon M. Chu speaks with Ellen McGirt at the For All Summit in Las Vegas.}

Great Place To Work® research found that the likelihood that employees will give extra effort at work jumps 720% when they feel they have a cooperative, collaborative workplace, according to a survey of 1.3 million employees.

The secret to collaboration? Chu says it is all about communication. “I’m not just a storyteller when I release my movie,” he says. “I’m a storyteller at every step of the process.”  

And it’s still hard to open the door to collaboration and let outsiders into the process. “People start to run you over,” Chu says. However, he believes this difficult, demanding collaboration is the future of great work.

“If you have a great place to work, but the final result isn’t what you wanted, I don’t know if that is where I want to work,” he says. “You have to create great things.”

When you do great work, you earn the next opportunity, and open the door wider for others to come behind you and build a better world.

The For All Summit will return to Las Vegas in 2026! Get early tickets now.

If there’s one thing business leaders should do in this moment, it is to “zoom out.”

That’s the message from Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work in his keynote to start the For All Summit™ in Las Vegas. His advice is based in brain science, and how leaders can get fixated and miss the bigger picture.

“Right now the whole world seems to be zooming in — on what we fear, what divides us,” Bush says. “Businesses focus on pieces: AI, profit, the topline.”

A myopic view misses crucial context that underpins free trade, a fair exchange where both sides of the deal have something to gain.

The For All Summit is highlighting leaders who don’t accept this as the only way of doing business. And Bush’s message is pointed: “The purpose of business is to improve life for all people.”

Shareholders still reap the immense benefits of commerce, but so do employees, customers, and societies.

Can this approach compare with a more greed-based approach? Stories like Hilton say that creating a great workplace leads to impressive business results. From 2014 to 2024, the market cap for Hilton doubled. At the same time Hilton steadily rose on the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® List, placing No. 1 for 2024 and 2025.

The secret ingredient? Trust.

“Trust is the universal currency,” Bush says. “Trust is how people who believe very different things can work together.”

How Hilton builds trust

How does Hilton build trust?

Laura Fuentes, EVP, chief human resources officer and head of Hilton supply management, talked about the importance of listening to employee voices – and how their feedback is changing how the company operates.

“In a way, we have a global listening crisis right now,” Fuentes says of the political and economic upheaval around the world driving lower levels of trust in institutions. To combat this, she asks herself and her team to act as “chief listening officers.”

What does that look like? Listening twice as much as speaking. “If I find myself talking too much, I’m not doing my job well,” Fuentes says.

The most important step might be the one that comes after a listening session. “You need to have a tight listen/act ratio,” Fuentes says. “We want to show that stories and feedback drive action.”

One example is how an employee shared their personal story with Fuentes about how a personal tragedy impacted his life, both at work and beyond, and the ways that Hilton both supported him and fell short. In response, Hilton launched a Crisis Concierge to support employees facing an emergency or trauma.

“Listening is your superpower,” Fuentes says. 

How trust matters to investors

Hilton’s financial performance hasn’t gone unnoticed by financial markets. The hotel chain is the most profitable investment ever made by Blackstone, the private equity group with $1.1 trillion in assets and managing a portfolio of 250 companies.

Investors like Blackstone care deeply about employee engagement and the level of trust across a workforce.

“Numbers follow people,” says Courtney della Cava, senior managing director and global head of portfolio talent & organizational performance at Blackstone. In her role, she focuses on ensuring the right management team is in place to drive value at the companies in which Blackstone invests.

“The No. 1 thing we can get right is leadership,” she says. Her remit is to look for learners, people with self-awareness and the grit to persevere. “We worry when somebody has all the answers,” she says. The No. 1 indicator of a leader with a learning mindset? They can tell you about a mistake they made, and how they responded.

Blackstone absolutely considers a chief human resources officer (CHRO) to be an essential part of the leadership team that drives success.

And Great Place To Work data plays a crucial role in helping these top leaders understand the preparedness of their workforce.

At Synchrony, No. 2 on the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For list in 2025, the board of directors is heavily engaged with employee survey data through Great Place To Work. “It’s invaluable,” says Laurel Richie, a board member at the financial services leader.

^{Michael C. Bush interviews Brian Doubles, CEO of Synchrony and Laurel Richie, an independent member of Synchrony's board.} 

“You read the report and you look at data:  90% of employees feel heard,” she says. Another metric she cares about: “90% of employees feel their manager seeks their input.”

This data is a leading indicator that Synchrony is on the right track. “That’s what stood out to me and gives me confidence that Synchrony is on a path of continued growth,” Richie says.

Opening doors to opportunity with trust

A foundation of trust is what unlocks potential for companies, a point that was driven home by Anirudh Devgan, PhD., CEO of Cadence.

^{Michael C. Bush interviews Anirudh Devgan, CEO at Cadence, at the For All Summit in Las Vegas.}

“Culture is super critical,” he shared with the Summit audience. “Everyone says they are customer focused — but if you don’t have the right team and the right technology, you won’t have the right customers.”

For Cadence, building a high-performance culture has three layers. At the foundation is trust and integrity. On top of that are the opportunities offered to every employee, regardless of who they are or what they do. From those layers of trust and opportunity is a meritocracy that drives excellence across the organization.

“Opportunity for all is a competitive advantage to get the best talent,” Devgan says. “If we build a culture where we attract the best people, we will perform better for our customers.”

For these leaders, this is a better way to do business.

“We are not doing it for charitable purposes,” Devgan says. “We are a great place to work because it helps our business.”

But don’t take these leaders’ word for it. Just check their financial performance, and the performance other Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For.

Join the livestream of the 2025 For All Summit mainstage, or join us next year for our premier leadership event.

It can be hard to define, but you know it when you see it: a great company culture. One where employees feel seen and heard, where management is transparent, and where teams are proud and excited to work together.

Too often, company culture is presented as flashy perks: free lunches, unlimited time off, and dog-friendly offices, but the substance of a strong culture lies not in these amenities, but rather in how employees are valued, trusted, and encouraged to develop both professionally and personally.

{loadmoduleid 3768}

While perks and benefits are certainly great to have, and can help employees to feel supported and appreciated, they merely sit on the surface.

A great corporate culture goes much deeper: It involves open communication, mutual respect, shared goals, and a commitment to employee growth and development.

Why does a good company culture matter?

A great company culture makes for a stronger company overall.

In fact, when we compared the annual returns of the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® against the Russell 3000 Index® (the broadest benchmark index for U.S. stocks), we found that these companies had a cumulative return of 1,709% since 1998 — compared to a 526% return for the Russell index alone during the same time period.

Strong organizational culture is also closely correlated with employee engagement, retention, innovation, and even customer service. For example, our research has found that employees at Great Place To Work Certified™ workplaces (where company culture is prioritized) are 34% more likely to believe their company’s customer service is excellent.

Achieving Great Place To Work 카지노커뮤니티™ shows that your company values its people and is committed to building a high-performing company culture that drives business success.

By thoughtfully investing time and effort into these eight areas, and drawing inspiration from successful company culture examples, you can show your people that you care about them, improve employee experience, and put your company on a path to creating a great culture.

An example of great workplace culture

At technology company UKG, culture begins on day one, with a warm welcome that shows new employees they’re joining an organization that cares. Pat Wadors, UKG’s chief people officer, describes it as “getting human” — showing employees that you’re ready to support their workplace journey with a positive first impression and helping them to feel connected with their new colleagues.

Other ways that UKG creates a positive company culture is by being adaptable and transparent and by prioritizing “who you are” over titles.

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 titles will change over time, but what an individual brings to the table every day matters,” says Wadors.

Employee recognition, mentorship programs, mental health support, and social justice initiatives are all ways that the Best Workplaces™ demonstrate their company cultures. Check out these company culture examples for inspiration.

The 8 elements of great company culture

There are numerous things you can do to improve your organization’s culture. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 data shows that great workplaces focus on these eight elements of company culture:

1. Credibility

Employees at great workplaces find their people managers and leaders to be more credible: According to our research, 83% of employees at the 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 said management’s actions match its words, versus 42% of employees at the average workplace.

Trustworthy, credible, and personable managers have a significant positive impact on:

• Employee retention
• Overall workplace satisfaction
• Employees’ willingness to recommend their company
• Motivation to give extra effort at work

When employees say managers are honest and ethical, they’re five times more likely to want to work there for a long time, and 11 times more likely to think the workplace is great.

2. Respect 

We all know this: You need to show people respect to earn respect in return. Respect can take many forms, but the best workplaces regularly show respect by recognizing employees’ efforts, seeking employees’ input, and caring for employees as people with lives outside of work.

For example, many of the 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 trust their employees to work flexible hours and from remote places. This workplace flexibility makes employees more dedicated and engaged because they feel respected and trusted to meet their business goals in a way that works for their life.

Many companies today even offer unlimited paid vacation and let employees work from anywhere; strong employee relationships prevent people from abusing the policy.

3. Fairness

Humans place a high value on fairness. 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 where employees feel like everyone is getting a fair opportunity consistently report more positive employee experiences.

Fairness is an area that great workplaces excel at, as our workplace study revealed. When rating equal compensation and recognition, employees score these companies 37 to 42 percentage points higher than the national average.

Employees at these companies also report issues with favoritism and politicking far less often. On employee surveys, these companies score 38 percentage points higher when asking their people about these experiences.

Surprisingly, fair pay isn’t the factor that most impacts employees’ overall workplace satisfaction and intent to stay. Other, less tangible aspects of the workplace, such as pride and strong leadership, play a much larger role.

Employees say that being paid fairly for their work makes them twice as likely to think their workplace is great. But when employees are proud of their work, they are 20 times more likely to say it’s a great workplace.

4. Pride

Employees who have pride in their workplace believe in the company and what it stands for, from what it produces, to how it operates, to how it engages with the local community.

There are three levels of workplace pride:

• Pride in your job and the work
• Pride in the team
• Pride in the company and its reputation

Pride is much more than a pat on the back. When employees feel proud of their workplace, they are more engaged: According to our data, they are 2 times more likely to want to stay with the organization for a long time and 6 times more likely to endorse their workplace to others.

Ideally, employees feel pride in all three areas, but this isn’t always the case — and that could be a problem. That’s because workplace pride needs to be reinforced over time, through consistent actions, no matter the circumstances.

For example, at the 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 employees express a sense of winning together when times are good — and sticking together even when times are tough.

5. Belonging

Belonging in the workplace is an employee’s sense that they are accepted and valued by the organization. This goes beyond feeling appreciated for what they do, and into feeling appreciated for who they are.

Every company says it values employees. The 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 don’t just say it; they show it. They celebrate employee accomplishments, they ensure new employees feel welcomed from day one, and they embrace the diversity and individualism of their employees.

For example, at the Best Workplaces, we’ve see things like parental leave practices becoming more inclusive, and employee resource groups being empowered to guide business decisions.

The result? Employees who feel a sense of belonging are 3 times more likely to look forward to coming to work and 5 times more likely to want to stay at the company for a long time.

카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 research also shows that workplaces that are consistently great for all employees grow revenue 3 times faster than less-inclusive organizations.

6. Effective leadership

Leadership can make or break a team. A great leader will inspire, motivate, and drive innovation. A bad one will demoralize, kill productivity, and push employees to walk out the door.

The Great Place To Work leadership effectiveness index measures business leaders in four areas. How much management:

• aligns their words and actions
• avoids favoritism
• demonstrates competency, honesty, and approachability
• shows genuine interest in employees as people

Effective leadership is more than hitting company targets. It is fostering a team mentality that ensures everyone is working together and to their best of abilities. That environment will then help to hit those necessary targets.

카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 research on effective leaders has found that they:

• Seek out ideas from team members and involve them in decision-making
• Recognize and celebrate employees and support their professional development
• Demonstrate competence and honesty so that they can earn employees’ trust

The good thing is that people don’t need to be born as great leaders. A great leader can be created. The Best Workplaces invest in leadership development, identifying employees with leadership potential, and helping them to learn the skills and qualities needed to succeed — and thereby creating a pipeline of future leaders.

7. Values

Your company’s core values are your guiding star: the beliefs and principles that shape who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

The best workplaces lead with shared values rather than rules and policies. That’s because when rules are the guiding force, rather than an organization’s values, trust isn’t at the core of the employer-employee relationship. Shared values can engage and empower, which in turn boosts innovation, creativity, and productivity.

8. Innovation

When managers create a safe environment to express ideas and make suggestions, employees are 31 times (!) more likely to think their workplace is a breeding ground for innovation. Workplaces that have innovative cultures inspire employee loyalty, confidence, and willingness to give extra. 

Employees at innovative companies are:

• 4 times more likely to say they’re proud to tell others they work there
• 9 times more likely to think their company is a great place to work
• 4 times more likely to give extra to get the job done

What is a toxic company culture?

If your current culture isn’t strong, you’re on a slippery slope into toxicity.

A toxic company culture is one plagued by negativity, where employees don’t feel engaged at best, or don’t feel safe at worst. There could be gossiping, backstabbing, bad habits and a general feeling of mistrust.

And while that may sound like a big jump, it’s not really — a mediocre corporate culture, where employees and leaders are merely going through the motions, can easily descend into something far more sinister. Things like a lack of values, ineffective leadership, and no sense of belonging can kill employee trust and morale.

On the other hand, employees that experience a healthy culture are more likely to give significantly higher levels of discretionary effort, .

How to use employee surveys to improve company culture

By thoughtfully investing time and effort into these eight areas, you can show your people that you care about them, improve employee experience, and put your company on a path to creating a great culture.

To ensure you’re on the right track, conduct regular pulse surveys to get employee feedback on how they are feeling about their work, their workplace overall, and their place within it.

The data suggests leaders should take a closer look at the psychological and emotional health of their employees.

Research from the Johns Hopkins University Human Capital Development Lab in partnership with Great Place To Work® found that workplace well-being has dipped to pre-pandemic levels. What’s more, African American or Black employees, are having a consistently worse experience, a gap that grows even larger for Black women.

Great Place To Work research has shown that lower levels of well-being for these employees pose a huge risk to businesses. When employees have a consistently positive experience, companies are more likely to outperform during an economic crisis, eventually seeing stock market returns that are nearly four times the market average.

Making psychological well-being a priority for Black History Month

Initiatives that improve workplace well-being for one group of employees will benefit your entire workforce. At Certified workplaces, where employees report higher levels of trust, 47% more employees of all demographics and backgrounds report having a psychologically and emotionally healthy workplace, compared to a typical workplace. 

This improvement matters for companies looking to retain employees and recruit new talent. When employees reported having a psychologically healthy workplace, they were 30% more likely to want to stay at their company and 70% more likely to recommend their company to friends.

The business case for building a psychologically healthy workplace is clear. With employees’ fears about discrimination on the rise, leaders should be extra vigilant for workers who might suffer in silence.

Employees may resort to code-switching and masking to navigate their work environment, coping mechanisms that can lead to feelings of isolation or perceptions of inauthenticity among colleagues. This complicates leaders’ ability to accurately diagnose and address what is undermining engagement within the organization.

How to promote psychological and emotional health

For leaders who decide to focus on psychological health, the data shows three activities that are likely to have an impact.

1. Don’t forget to have fun while celebrating important cultural events

When employees of all backgrounds say they look forward to going to work, they are 140% more likely to say their workplace is psychologically and emotionally healthy. Fun is the No. 1 driver of well-being for every generation.

For leaders, that means focusing on bringing an element of fun to cultural celebrations. Some educational programming might be appropriate, but make sure that employees can connect with one another. A potluck where people share family recipes or a team field trip to a museum or historical landmark are more likely to foster team relationships.

Other ideas include using employee resource group (ERG) events to help employees connect and network with one another. Consider sponsoring a happy hour or ice cream social where employees of all ages can interact with and learn more about your ERGs. Mature ERGs are focused on business results and should be able to be started by any employee looking to volunteer and improve business results at the company.

By celebrating Black History Month and the achievements of Black professionals who have made significant contributions in their fields, your company sends an important message about its values. These stories are not just inspiring; they are crucial for understanding the importance of fostering a successful and inclusive workplace. By actively celebrating these contributions, leadership helps create a workplace environment where all employees feel valued, and eager to contribute while having fun.

2. Encourage all employees to have a healthy work-life balance

When employees of all backgrounds say they have a healthy work-life balance, they are 120% more likely to say their workplace is psychologically and emotionally healthy, according to surveys of 1.3 million employees.

The upshot: Make sure celebrations for Black History Month help employees find balance rather than add to already overcrowded schedules. Consider having a flexible holiday schedule so that employees can take time to celebrate cultural holidays that matter to them.

Flexibility can help employees manage a variety of needs in the workplace, and remote work has even allowed some employees to minimize their experience with microaggressions. As more employers ask their workers to return to the office, consider how those changing experiences impact employees’ mental health.

3. Use storytelling to help employees find their community within the company.

When employees of all backgrounds say they can be their true selves at work, they are 50% more likely to say their workplace is psychologically and emotionally healthy.

What helps employees feel like they can be their authentic selves?  Practical examples include storytelling initiatives or networking programs that encourage employees to share and listen to one another. When employees see others bringing their full life experience to the workplace, they are more likely to share more of their own unique story.

For leaders, the high-trust leadership behavior most likely to improve performance on this metric is “listening.” When leaders take time to really listen to employees and learn about their experiences, it fosters a culture where everyone feels safe to express their true selves.

This cultivates a workplace culture where diversity of thought and experience is the bedrock of innovation and growth.

Taking action in 2025

Driving psychological well-being will have a profound impact on organizations that take meaningful steps to improve the employee experience. The year ahead promises another 12 months of change, market shocks, and uncertainty. More than ever, companies that have a resilient and engaged workforce are going to outperform their competitors.

By focusing on psychological well-being, leaders can ensure that every employee has the resources and support they need to achieve great things in the year ahead.

What you celebrate as an organization can send a powerful message to employees.

Does it feel like the company cares when someone hits their 10-year work anniversary with the organization? How do employees acknowledge and honor each other’s lives outside of work, from birthdays to weddings?

When you celebrate, you are expressing your values.

“The most important things to celebrate are the values of the organization and how people help the organization achieve its purpose,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work®.

Great workplaces reinforce their values and expected behaviors when honoring employees for their contributions. When behaviors are celebrated and properly incentivized, a company transforms its workplace.

Plus, employees want their workplace to be fun, an experience which is the No. 1 driver of well-being for every generation, from Gen Z to Baby Boomers. That doesn’t mean that companies should put a ping-pong table in every office. Instead, it suggests that employees are looking for connection.

“Unfortunately, the research shows that many people don’t have a friend at work, but for those who do, they’re more likely to stay with an organization,” shared Jen Fisher, chief well-being officer at Deloitte in an appearance on the “Better” podcast. “They’re more engaged, their work product is better, because we are meant to connect with other human beings.”

Great workplaces use celebrations to build connection between co-workers, where everyone is invested in collective success. Here are five things you should celebrate to build trust with employees:

1. A healthy variety of milestones and anniversaries

It should be standard practice to celebrate anniversaries and personal achievements, but the celebration itself can be regionalized or even personalized.

At NVIDIA, teams around the world celebrate tailor celebrations for new hires, retirements, baby showers, and more to local tastes. In Germany, teams might go for beer and sausages. Canadians don’t pass up the opportunity for drinks al fresco in the summer. In China, employees follow the Lunar New Year custom of exchanging gifts in lucky red envelopes.

Great workplaces also celebrate collective achievement, like when NVIDIA’s Durham engineering site celebrated its 25th anniversary. The company hosted an open-house with more than 500 employees, both past and present, celebrating with their families.

By honoring both current and former employees, NVIDIA sent a powerful message about the work of the company, its respect for employees, and the deep meaning everyone involved takes from their efforts.

[카지노커뮤니티 Nation Day on Oct. 16, 2024 is a great opportunity to celebrate your company's great culture. Don’t miss it! Get inspired from how companies celebrated last year.]

2. Shared company values

Celebrations are crucial for employee well-being, with Great Place To Work® research showing that fun is the No. 1 driver of well-being for every generation. That could be why some great companies are throwing a party to highlight their commitment to employee well-being.

At DHL Express in Europe, a four-day event brings together more than 3,000 employees from every country in Europe to participate in well-being activities. Attendees can participate in soccer and cheerleading competitions, or take part in yoga, kayaking, or rock climbing programs.

Well-being is not the only value companies want to celebrate.

At Deloitte, the consulting firm emphasizes its commitment to local communities by celebrating a nationwide day of service each year it calls “Impact Day.” Tens of thousands of Deloitte employees volunteer at more than 1,000 local community projects.

When bringing employees together, carefully consider your purpose and how a party or festival can reinforce your core values as an organization. You can also celebrate your culture and the value your employees bring to the workplace every day, as Great Place To Work Certified™ companies do on 카지노커뮤니티 Nation Day. Or, use social media to engage employees and celebrate achievements like making a Best Workplaces™ list.

For example, NVIDIA celebrated being named No. 3 among the Fortune 100 Best Workplaces to Work For® in 2024:

3. Belonging and inclusion

Employee resource groups (ERGs) can program celebrations that honor the unique traditions and gifts of different cultures. Celebrating these cultures helps strengthen the bonds between employees, ensuring higher levels of inclusion and camaraderie across the organization.

At NVIDIA, there are nine ERGs that serve to increase awareness of different demographics in the workplace, from Asian and Pacific Islanders to women in technology. The ERG for Black employees, the “Black NVIDIAN Network,” hosted in-person and virtual events to celebrate Black innovation, culture, and leadership. “Women in Technology” celebrated Women’s History Month with skill-building sessions and workshops.

Great workplaces can partner with ERGs to offer fun moments for connection, too. At Visa, ERGs partnered with the return-to-office team to host ice cream socials where employees could connect and learn about the different ERGs at the company.

4. Innovation and progress

Great workplaces work hard to ensure people are celebrated for trying new ways of doing business. Events that focus on innovation reinforce company values around learning and growth, and allow team members from across the organization to connect and deepen relationships.  

Atlantic Health System showcases compelling new research from faculty and team members at its medical centers during its annual “Research Day,” now in its 25th year.

At American Express, a two-day hackathon called “GrowthHack” brings technology and product teams together to collaborate on new ideas. More than 1,300 participants across 205 teams participated in the 2022 event, competing for three grand prizes.

Other business units at American Express host their own pitch competitions, à la “Shark Tank,” bringing people together for fun collaborative events that develop business acumen and potentially identify new projects worth pursuing.

5. Individual excellence

What unique skills and talents on your team deserve their own special celebration?

At Nugget Market, an inter-store competition known as “Bag-Off” lets associates compete for the title of “Best Bagger.” Winners go on to represent the company at the .

Last fall, the entire company was invited out to an airfield for a Top-Gun themed party with parades, costumes, fighter jets, and more.

The grocery chain based in Davis, California, takes pains to make the event as inclusive as possible, inviting warehouse and kitchen teams to join the party, even if they don’t have baggers on their teams participating in the competition.

Before rounding up your employees for your own bagging competition, consider what skills might make more sense for employees in your industry. A Bag-Off is nicely aligned with a grocery retailer, but there might be other competitions that perfectly align with your organization.

Benchmark your culture

Discover what employees value about working at your company and how you can boost retention rates and increase productivity and performance with Great Place To Work 카지노커뮤니티™.

Burnout is on the rise again in 2024, and managers are missing the signs.

A and The Grossman Group found that while 89% of managers say their employees are thriving, only 24% of workers said the same.

“We have lost awareness of this issue at the manager level,” says David Grossman, CEO of The Grossman Group, a leadership and communications consultancy. “Senior leadership is so focused on other priorities that this has fallen off the radar.”

Having a leader who is tuned into employee well-being makes a huge difference.

A study from UKG found that managers impact employees’ mental health more than doctors or therapists, and 81% of employees worldwide prioritize good mental health over a high-paying job.

During and immediately after the pandemic, managers learned the importance of one-on-one check-ins with employees, what Grossman calls an “emotional check-in.” A short conversation about what is going on with employees both at work and in their lives can build trust and engagement.

“We’ve forgotten how successful these conversations were,” Grossman says.

Neurodivergent masking

One explanation for burnout in the workplace is a lack of inclusion for neurodivergent employees.

Researchers believe that there might be as many as 1.2 billion neurodivergent people worldwide, which suggests that every company has at least one neurodivergent employee.

However, most companies don’t know much about these employees. Only one in 10 employees within a disability category , and nearly half (45%) of neurodivergent or adjustments at work.

When neurodivergent professionals don’t disclose their status — called “masking” — these employees are spending extra energy to fit in and avoid detection. This extra effort can take a toll over time, says Ed Thompson, CEO of , a platform for awareness and education around neurodiversity in the workplace. At Accenture, No. 7 on the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® List in 2024, over 16,000 employees have used the platform.

“In the neurodivergent community, people talk about burnout all the time,” Thompson says. When employees don’t feel like they can disclose their status, they don’t have a psychologically safe environment. In short, they don’t trust their organization.

Great Place To Work® research has shown that when employees decline to share parts of their identity with their employer, workplace trust suffers. For every 10% of employees who chose not to respond to survey questions about their identity, there was a six-point decrease in overall levels of trust at a given company.

A threat for retention

Burnout isn’t just a threat to engagement. Employees are more likely to leave a job rather than try to get help for a mental health issue, according to Ramona Schindelheim, editor-in-chief at , a nonprofit focused on helping employees thrive in the modern workplace.

“Employees are leaving their jobs because of not feeling comfortable talking about their mental health issues,” Schindelheim says. “Instead of having to seek an accommodation or try to talk out an issue with a boss, they just leave their job instead.”

As , particularly for highly skilled workers, any barrier to acquiring talent is a problem. “When you see that there is a need for talent, doing anything to take that talent off the table has an impact on the bottom line,” Schindelheim says.

A better workplace for everyone

Why should leaders focus on neurodiversity when tackling burnout and mental well-being?

Solving workplace issues for neurodivergent employees has the potential to improve well-being outcomes all employees. At the For All Summit™ in New Orleans, Dr. Daniel Wendler, a researcher and expert on neurodiversity in the workplace, spoke about the power of universal design.

“When you design with everyone in mind, it makes it better for everybody,” Wendler says.

One simple step: Make sure to publicize your commitment to diversity and inclusion for all disabilities.

“If you can say that you are open to all disabilities, and include in that public statement that you recognize this includes mental health, neurodiversity, and physical disabilities, you can make sure that a current or a prospective employee understands this is a welcoming environment that recognizes talent exists in everyone,” says Schindelheim. 

카지노 커뮤니티 추천 can do a lot of good just by raising awareness, Thompson says. “I know it’s not sexy, but what we hear from people is that they would trade a free yoga class for people having basic appreciation of people thinking differently,” he says.

Tips for inclusion

Here are some ways companies can break down barriers and help neurodivergent employees find a sense of belonging:

1. Update the “golden rule”

“Treat others the way you want to be treated” is good advice, but can be problematic if leaders assume that everyone’s experience matches their own. Instead, great leaders should create room for a variety of experiences.

“Everyone will want to contribute, but not in the same way,” Thompson says. Make sure you extend the flexibility and space to others that you would want for yourself.

2. Share your inclusive message with current and prospective employees.

New hires are looking for signals that your workplace is welcoming and inclusive, but it’s an important message for your current workforce as well.

It’s not always an employee’s boss who can make them uncomfortable when disclosing a disability or specific status, says Schindelheim. “Sometimes it’s their co-workers.”

An inclusive environment is the responsibility of every employee, not just management. 

3. Track the positive/negative cycle

When one employee has a positive experience sharing their story or status with their employer, that can create a positive cycle, says Thompson. When an employee has a negative experience, that also reverberates throughout the organization.

4. Survey your workforce

If you don’t know how neurodivergent employees are experiencing the workplace, go get that data. “Give your people an opportunity to tell you,” Thompson says.

When looking to gather data, it’s crucial to empower employees to share their stories in a way that makes them comfortable. These employees are not looking for amateur diagnosticians to label them, Thompson warns.

“It’s not about identifying who is who,” he says. Instead, companies should ask: “What can we do to allow everybody to contribute their best?”

Benchmark your culture

Discover what employees value about working at your company, and how you can boost retention rates and increase productivity and performance with Great Place To Work 카지노커뮤니티™.

Why do veterans struggle to find adequate employment when transitioning to the civilian workforce?

There are some common myths about former service members that may lead employers to discount veterans’ experience and skills — but that’s a mistake, according to Alveda Williams, chief inclusion officer at Dow.

Williams joined Bob Ferrell, executive vice president, global HR and diversity, equity and inclusion at World Wide Technology — himself a veteran and retired three-star general — for a discussion about veterans in the workplace at the 2024 For All Summit™ in New Orleans.

Hear from leaders of the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® at the For All Summit™ April 8-10 in Las Vegas!

Debunked myths about veterans in the workforce

Williams started the conversation outlining four common misconceptions about veterans and the experience they bring to a civilian role:

1. Veterans are more susceptible to turnover

“There’s this myth around turnover, that veterans don’t get acclimated or integrated well,” Williams says. The idea doesn’t pass muster when you dig into the data. Veterans remain with their initial post-service employer 8.3% longer than non-veterans, .

2. Veterans’ military experience doesn’t translate to civilian roles

Williams and Ferrell acknowledge that there are new skills veterans must develop when working at a for-profit organization, but argue that veterans also bring unique and highly valuable experience to a role.

“We run big manufacturing and production facilities, often with pretty dangerous stuff running through the pipes,” Williams says about the experience needed to work at Dow. “One of the things that’s inherent in our culture is our safety culture — veterans, they know the power of one bad decision and what a difference that can make. It’s all about tapping into what they’re capable of and translating that into an environment for them where it makes sense.”

As it relates to technology, Ferrell notes seeing more veterans come to World Wide Technology with skills in areas like cybersecurity.  

3. All veterans have the same strengths and weaknesses when joining your organization

Like any other demographic group, veterans are not a monolith but instead contain a vast wealth of diverse experiences. “They’re made up of a bunch of different communities, a bunch of different backgrounds and experiences,” Williams says. “We need to be sensitive to that and meet people where they are.”

For example, while veterans are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder than their civilian co-workers, it’s a mistake to assume that every former service member has a mental health issue.

“We need to acknowledge where that’s true and dispel that as a sort of catch-all myth for the entire community,” Williams says.

4. Veterans only need support during the hiring process

While lots of attention is paid to helping veterans navigate the transition into the civilian workforce, they might still need support after getting hired.

“Just like any other employee, we need to rally around them, provide the support that they need so that they can be successful in our organizations and thrive,” Williams says. That could include starting an employee resource group (ERG) or developing targeted programming to help them translate their military experience into civilian skills.

In addition to being purposeful in hiring veterans, Ferrell says employers must be purposeful in how they embrace veterans once they join the organization. Ferrell recommends connecting newly hired veterans to your veterans ERG or to other veterans in your organization as a part of the onboarding process. 

How you can support veterans in your workforce

Here’s how World Wide Technology and Dow are using their company resources to build a welcoming workplace for veterans that support their transition to a civilian role:

Partnering with external groups

“There are multiple programs that we are connected to,” Ferrell says, naming the Tap program, SkillBridge, NPower, and Hiring 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 Heroes as examples. These partners work with companies like World Wide Technology to give veterans on-the-job experience and sometimes place them in jobs at the company. World Wide Technology’s veterans ERG also has a strategic partnership with My Warriors Place, a retreat center for veterans and their families that offers recovery and coping programs

“A big key in the entire process of hiring vets is to meet them where they need you,” Ferrell says. That might include help with preparing résumés or tips on how to negotiate salaries.

To really increase the number of veterans joining your organization, Ferrell recommends adding military veterans to your talent acquisition team and taking advantage of their large networks. Veterans in your organization can reach over the fence and use their network to identify other highly skilled veterans as candidates for hire.

Invest in employee resource groups

Dow in particular places value on its ERGs with more than 60% of its current workforce participating in one of its 10 resource groups. One of its groups is called the Veterans Network or VetNet and is an essential resource for leaders to understand veterans’ experiences at the company.

It was with input from its VetNet group that Dow developed a military degree equivalence program, giving former service members with a rank of E-6 or higher credit for their service, equivalent to having earned a bachelor’s degree. For a materials science company like Dow, where degrees are often required for the work, this step made a huge difference.

Williams gives the example of one Dow employee who had worked at the company for 16 years who came with experience in the Naval Nuclear Program. “Because of military degree equivalence, he’s now able to lead one of our key projects with small modular nuclear reactors,” Williams said.

World Wide Technnology's veterans ERG — VETS — provides a rally point for veterans to gather for support, and supports purposeful accommodation of those who continue to serve in the National Guard or Reserves. VETS also brings education and awareness of veterans' matters to the broader workforce at the company.   

Use company resources to increase visibility for vets

World Wide Technology and Dow commit company resources to celebrate veterans and their service, both internally and externally.

World Wide Technology partnered with the Honor Flight Network, an organization that transports veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorials and monuments honoring them and their service. For one veteran who didn’t have family members to accompany him on the journey, more than 50 World Wide co-wokers rallied to hand write cards thanking him for his service.

Dow took advantage of its partnership with NASCAR to wrap the No.3 car it sponsors with a design to honor the service of 2,000 veterans, both employees who served and employees’ family members who served. “There is nothing more powerful than when this car gets unveiled, to see the employees going and looking and finding their names or their great-grandfather's name,” Williams says.

Ferrell says that individual leaders can also have an impact by taking a personal interest in their Veterans. “When you see a Veteran, ask him or her how they’re doing,” he says. “Transitioning into the corporate world is not easy. Ask how they’re doing and then figure out how you can give back and help.”  

The first step in building belonging and inclusion is investigating the contours of your workforce.

What demographic groups are underrepresented or overrepresented? What are the gaps between the experiences of different groups?

Those are hard questions to answer when you only have a handful of members of a particular demographic group in your organization. The number of responses from a group in your employee survey might not produce a statistically significant sample. Popular strategies like creating an employee resource group (ERG) might not make as much sense, either — but that doesn’t mean these groups shouldn’t get support from the organization.

When employees look at the roster of ERG groups at a company and don’t see one that fits their identity, they can feel overlooked, or worse.

“In some cases, they might feel that they can’t be their full selves at work,” says Matt Bush, senior strategic advisor at Great Place To Work®. “In a worst-case scenario, people might assume there is antagonism towards their identity in the workplace.”

Learn more about industry-leading ERG strategies at the For All Summit April 8-10 in Las Vegas!

How to support invisible groups

First, companies can ensure that employees feel comfortable sharing their identity with their employer.

“You may actually have more members of a group in your company, but not know because you have not created the conditions for them to be open about who they are,” Bush says. A self-ID campaign is a crucial early step to increase visibility and build trust.

“What we always recommend is coming up with a listing strategy and inviting members of your target group to collaborate with you,” Bush explains. Questions to ask include: “How would you like your organization to show up for you?” and “How would you like to be seen in the organization?”

Different groups will want different kinds of support. Employees might want to create an ERG, but they might also prefer something smaller, such as specific programming around a cultural holiday or awareness day.

Finally, if there is a specific group that your organization is looking to engage, you can lean on external resources and subject matter experts.

“Whether it’s a speaking engagement or someone that you can bring into consult, inviting in external leaders and experts can fill in the void,” Bush says. You can build a relationship with a resource and vet them over time, starting with a small engagement and building into a more meaningful partnership.

Nested ERGs offer important subgroups

Great Place To Work’s report “Untapped Energy: The Potential of ERGs” offers insights on adapting these groups to offer inclusion and belonging to smaller subgroups within an underrepresented demographic.

These subgroups can be crucial for giving smaller subgroups a place to experience the full benefits of ERG participation. Bush gives the example of a women’s ERG, which can have a vast amount of diversity within the group.

“A member might say: ‘Yes, I’m in a women’s ERG, but I'm still very much a minority here because I’m a Black woman,’” he says. To counter this experience of marginalization, some ERGs will create subgroups with dedicated separate meetings, programming, and goals.

Another strategy for ERG leaders is to open membership to all employees.

“This is something that a lot of companies disagree on,” Bush says. “Should ERGs be exclusively for people who identify as part of a group, or should they be also inviting to people who are allies or people who do not identify as a member of that group?”

Whatever strategy you adopt, it’s important to clearly communicate your approach. Some companies add a plus at the end of ERG names to expand expectations on who can participate and how groups will operate.

Make your ERGs work for all

To ensure that your ERG strategy creates space for every employee, Bush offers four tips:

1. Start with clear community agreements that provide space for all participants

“We always recommend that when ERGs are started, founding members in the organization work together to come up with a charter that makes sense for the goals of the people, the community, and the business,” Bush says.

These are often positioned as agreements, not rules, and are intended to guide behaviors and practices that will be productive toward the goals to the group. One example: Always have space and open floor time for subgroups in the ERG at group meetings.

2. Don’t prioritize demographic groups based on their prevalence in the organization

It’s a mistake to allocate your resources and levels of engagement solely based on who you think is represented in your organization, Bush says. Even if you are pretty sure you don’t have a single employee that identifies with a particular group, there is still value in raising the visibility of that group and its experiences.

“Whether it’s acknowledgement, education, lunch and learns, guest speakers — the value of these activities can still benefit the organization,” Bush says. “One day you might have someone who identifies with that group in your organization. You might have customers or suppliers who identify with that group. Building more understanding and empathy between groups is always beneficial.”

3. Find ways to get involved outside your organization

When looking to engage with underrepresented groups, consider opportunities outside the workplace. Find relevant charities where you can donate or sponsor a volunteer event, Bush recommends.

“Those are always beneficial, not only for the people who identify as those groups, but also just for your entire workforce to build bridges for themselves and develop the skills to build connections across wider, more diverse groups,” Bush says.

4. Start where you already have engagement and momentum

If you are just getting started with your ERG strategy, start by offering an ERG to employees who are actively requesting more support and resources. When one ERG launches and starts having events and producing results, other groups may want to follow suit.

“ERGs should be employee-led,” Bush says. “If some employees just have more energy or are just more gung-ho about doing it, let them take the lead.”

For companies that are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging, programs must have a clear connection to key business outcomes.

For CareSource, a health care insurance provider in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia, President & CEO Erhardt Preitauer set an ambitious goal for the company to become the employer of choice for .

The goal has clear strategic benefits for CareSource.

“CareSource makes a difference in more than two million lives. While we are supporting our members, we want to ensure we support employees and make a space that is inclusive for all.” says Solomon James Parker, director, research and development, complex health solutions at CareSource.

“How can you do that if your employee base is not representative of that population?”

CareSource sees its efforts as crucial for elevating the culture of the organization to drive innovation and progress that downstream impacts the lives of members.

“Building an inclusive workplace is a bet on the future,” Parker says. “We are investing in and creating spaces where the leaders of tomorrow can thrive.”

Learn more about industry-leading ERG strategies at the For All Summit April 8-10 in Las Vegas!

Setting benchmarks to measure impact

To understand how to create more inclusion for people with disabilities, companies might want to explore a self-ID campaign to learn more about the employees in the organization.  

“First, we have to ask, ‘Who are our employees that have a disability?’ and ask if we are creating a culture that makes them feel supported in disclosing that they have a disability,” Parker says.

At CareSource, this became a campaign to invite people to share information about their experience with the HR team.

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 initial percentages of individuals who felt comfortable self-identifying as persons with disability was fairly low,” says Patrice L. Harris, director of diversity, equity and inclusion at CareSource.

“If you’re not engaging your employee base, how can you know what is working and what is not?”

To increase participation, CareSource has focused on trust, and uses its Great Place To Work survey to understand the experiences that increase or decrease trust across its workforce.

Survey results are broken out by different demographic groups, including employees with a disability. Statements around things like psychological and emotional well-being revealed gaps between employees with disabilities and the larger workforce at CareSource.

“It wasn’t horrible, but it was lower,” Harris says. The team then takes the results and builds action plans to try and improve scores.

To increase the number of employees who trust the organization enough to share their status, the team has focused on communication and education.

“We built two web pages, one external, one internal, so people can go and see our goals, annual KPIs and accomplishments,” Harris says. “We’ve launched education around disability inclusion, how our words matter, etc.”

Executive sponsorship has also been incredibly important, with engagement from Josh Boynton, senior vice president, specialty companies and complex health solutions, and Jennifer Dougherty, chief human resources officer. With these top leaders making the issue a clear priority for CareSource, there has slowly been an increase in the number of employees who are disclosing their disability status.

“Are we where we need to be or want to be?” Harris says. “No, but we are really, really proud of the progress that we’ve made.”

Making disability inclusion a business priority

To build more inclusion and offer support to employees with disabilities, CareSource launched 10 workstreams to tackle different aspects of the employee experience, from recruitment processes to offering accommodations.

Each workstream is made up of a cross-functional team with measurable goals that are not a side-project, but rather a core part of their job duties. A workstream might include employees with lived experience or who identify as having a disability, but also have relevant roles such as human resources, IT, facilities, and more.

"First, we have to ask, ‘Who are our employees that have a disability?’ and ask if we are creating a culture that makes them feel supported in disclosing that they have a disability.” 

When Dougherty as CHRO sent out invitations to join workstreams, the first message was sent to managers. “From the start, we wanted to set our expectations around DE&I,” Harris says. That meant being explicit with managers and seeking their input on the right person for the workstream and what would be expected of those that participated.

Harris summarized the message: “If you say yes, this work is a part of their workload, not something that they do off the side of their desk when they have time.”

When performance reviews come around, Dougherty reaches out again to make sure managers are considering the disability inclusion work and all the progress the workstreams have made when evaluating their direct reports.

“We created an internal dashboard that all the workstreams can access,” Harris says.  “They go in, they put in their desired goals and their deliverables. They tell us to what degree have they completed those goals — and we revisit on a quarterly basis.”

Getting direct employee feedback

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are an essential part of the strategy and ensure that employees can share their experience.

“If you’re not engaging your employee base, how can you know what is working and what is not?” asks Parker.

At CareSource, there are two ERGs that have direct responsibility for employees with disabilities, but other ERGs can also offer their insight and provide valuable visibility around different intersections, like race or gender.

For the CareSource team, the groundswell of support that employees have shown for the effort to increase visibility and inclusion for people with disabilities has been tremendous.

“It was almost like people have been waiting for us to say or have this conversation out loud and to simply say, we want to help,” Harris says. For others looking to tackle this challenge in the workplace, she advises doing your prep work to avoid being bowled over by the enthusiasm and energy people will bring to the work.

“Partner with consultants or advisors — people who have been there, who know what you don’t know — to help you put your strategy together, then sit still for a minute,” she says. “Take time to pressure test your strategy and socialize it before you launch.”

Both Parker and Harris are clear about the opportunity that exists for companies of all sizes to have an impact.

“Just start the work,” Parker says. “Don’t wait for the perfect timing.”

Employee resource groups (ERGs) can be effective tools for building a more inclusive workplace.

They are unmatched listening channels and serve as crucial catalysts for transformation and change inside the best workplaces. Great Place To Work® research on ERGs has found that ERG members are 40% more likely to feel good about their company’s impact on the community and 30% more likely to have confidence in their executive team.

Some great workplaces are using ERGs to improve the experience of employees with disabilities, a demographic that is often overlooked and underappreciated. 

At Navy Federal Credit Union, its “Diverse Abilities Network” is the second ERG to be launched at the company. The group is designed to support employees with both visible and invisible disabilities, with membership open to caretakers and allies, as well.

Launched in May 2023, the group’s success is measured against three strategic pillars: education, career development, and belonging.  

“Meetings — which happen on a monthly basis — have some sort of component to tie to one of these strategic pillars,” says Athena Villarreal, manager, diversity, inclusion and belonging & corporate social responsibility strategy and optimization at Navy Federal Credit Union.

Activities include “Accessibility Corner,” where the team shares tips and tricks to improve the experience, such as how to turn on closed captioning or turn off distracting notifications. The group also launched a cross-functional project to develop new best practices to support neurodivergent employees.

“[ERG members] are helping to provide perspective and feedback in real time, says Villarreal. One example is a new benefit the company offers called Joshin, which supports neurodivergent employees and offers coaching for managers on how to work with different learning and communication styles.

The group also has the opportunity to volunteer or support causes that matter to them and support external partner groups like .

Learn more about industry-leading ERG strategies at the For All Summit April 8-10 in Las Vegas!

Responding to employee needs

Would your company benefit from having a resource group for employees with disabilities? For Navy Federal Credit Union, the group was started as a direct response to requests from employees at the company.

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 employees were asking for a space where they can get together and talk about things,” says Villarreal. When the company offered events or celebrated observances on the topic of disabilities, they saw impressive engagement rates.

With this input, Navy Federal Credit Union launched the ERG and within 48 hours, it had more than 400 participating members. Today, more than 1,100 employees at the company belong to the ERG.

Apart from membership, Villarreal and team measure engagement to understand how their efforts are landing with employees. Digital communications channels like chat offer metrics, and the team measures readership on content pieces and educational resources shared on the company intranet.

Collaborating across resource groups

When employee resource groups collaborate, the results can be profound.

Navy Federal Credit Union’s other resource group, focused on the military community, found common cause to have a discussion around PTSD awareness in June 2024.

“A leader from each of the ERGs provided their own experience and they shared their own stories to the group, which was received really with open arms,” Villarreal says. By joining together, the groups were able to expand the conversation and offer powerful evidence of shared values and experiences employees have, regardless of past life experience.

Lessons learned

For other companies thinking about launching an employee resource group to support employees with disabilities, Villarreal offered six tips:

1. Be sure to connect with crucial HR and operations partners

"Make sure to connect with key partners like employee relations, medical accommodations, employee benefits, and wellness teams," Villarreal says. "This makes the effort a collective action and allows the team to route questions to people with the power to make change."

2. Prioritize privacy and safety

“There is a specific privacy aspect to this type of ERG,” Villarreal says. She advises setting clear guardrails around confidentiality and how information shared in ERG meetings will or won’t be disseminated. At Navy Federal Credit Union, it was important to be clear that joining the group didn’t mean a participant was disclosing any personal experience.

“This is a safe and judgment-free zone geared toward supporting employees,” Villarreal says.

3. Demand the inclusion of employee voices

Make sure that you are hearing from and including the voices of employees with disabilities in your organization.

“There’s a really important phrase for disability inclusion: ‘nothing about us without us,’” Villarreal says. “Representing lived experiences accurately is a really meaningful part of this particular ERG.”

4. Get leaders involved from day one

The quality of the engagement you receive from top leaders in the organization is an important signal for employees about how safe they are to share their honest experiences.

“If there can be explicit leadership support, that will absolutely open pathways forward,” Villarreal says.

5. Sweat the small details

When thinking about activities or events for employees with disabilities, small details can have a huge impact.

“For things like event activation, specific details really matter, like sign language interpreters, or offering closed captions in a digital setting,” Villarreal says. In another example, Navy Federal Credit Union’s ERG members specifically requested a quiet, sensory-friendly space for employees to decompress.

These accommodations can dramatically change how an event is received and encourage participation in future events.   

6. Don’t wait for a big budget to get started

You don’t have to wait for the perfect campaign or a big ERG budget to start transforming your workplace culture.

“I know we’re a huge organization, but the way that we were able to get started was by celebrating observances like Autism Acceptance Month,” Villarreal says. These observances created the momentum to unlock potential for new programming.

For others looking to start a similar group, Villarreal recommends focusing on a small calendar of observances or events and then using employee feedback to gauge what the company should do next.