Values & Norms

If an inclusive culture is important to your organization, bring that value to every aspect of building your new organization! As you recruit for your new team, push yourself to think about how new colleagues can ADD to the culture and resist the temptation to focus on how they will fit in. If you are employee #1, look for something different in every sense when hiring employee #2, and so on. In your day-to-day operations, be intentional about inclusion and maintaining equitable practices, as small efforts here can have a big impact on belonging down the road. Everything from making offers and onboarding new employees, ordering supplies and snacks, managing meetings pay and rewards, building out teams, and selecting early Board members can easily have an added D&I lens.

As you grow, you’ll want to focus on more formally articulating your D&I intentions both to reinforce your inclusive culture norms, and to assist in recruiting diverse talent. Start small and focus on what is both stage appropriate and achievable. These incremental steps will have measurable impact over time.

Even the smallest organization can create a commitment to D&I that will scale as the organization grows and developing a Diversity Statement can be a great way to start! Having a clear statement that can be included externally on your website, and posted internally near a meeting, huddle or dining hub is both a doable, and valuable exercise.

If developing a Diversity Statement feels too formal, consider a scaled back exercise focusing on a few key questions from that process such as “What is diversity to me/my organization/my investors?” and “Why is diversity important to me/my organization/my investors?” Another helpful tool is the “Five Powerful Questions for Seed Stage Roles” discussion guide.

Like other goals, D&I goals should be specific, measurable and time bound. Most importantly though, be sure to keep your D&I goals stage appropriate and achievable. One or two intentional efforts that are executed well will have a multiplier effect.

Hiring Generally

At team formation (pre-launch) consider the composition of the people around the table (e.g. founders/investors) and how to complement them as you assemble and launch the team. Ensure that your first key leadership and scientific hire(s) are selected, in part, for their Inclusion Traits (also see Hiring Process Tab). A key early hire representing any dimension of diversity (a female CSO, Hispanic founder, openly LGBTQIA+ Group Leader etc.) can positively influence subsequent recruiting efforts. At this small stage, focusing on one or two dimensions of diversity can go a long way in fostering your D&I efforts and will set the stage for establishing an intentional approach to diversity and belonging.

Team Formation & Team-Building

Coming together as a team, identifying your collective strengths and how you will leverage them best is one of the earliest and most important things you can do to cement the importance of D&I in your organization. See SHRM Executive Network article on how to Build Team Norms That Cultivate Allyship, Equity and Inclusion.

Inclusive Leadership

Deloitte’s research of inclusive leaders around the globe shows that such leaders possess six fundamental traits that foster diversity. Read the full Deloitte Study. See also Culture Tab.

Inclusive Meetings

Meetings, whether standing or ad hoc, 1:1s, group or the whole company, are a critical and often overlooked place to reinforce your inclusion efforts.

Consider adapting this Meeting Tips Template and using it for all meetings.

Survey Tools for Periodic Check-Ins and Annual Survey

Purposeful climate check-ins can be a great way to measure progress on your inclusion efforts. If you are working with an HR consultant, they can conduct these conversations, anonymize feedback and share trends periodically. These can be mapped to an annual “survey” with the same questions and can also be asked of employees when they leave the organization. Surveys can also be created in Survey Monkey or Google Forms. Here are two examples to consider: Downloadable Inclusion Survey Sample 1 and Downloadable Inclusion Survey Sample 2. If you would like to download a copy you can modify and make your own, use these links for Inclusion Survey 1 and Inclusion Survey 2. If you don’t have an HR partner to assist you, consider picking a few statements to create a visible and accessible vision board (or online tool) and create a norm of employees catching each other in the act of role modeling these well and posting those examples for others to see.​​​​​​​

For more scholarship see - Diversity Best Practices Glossary of Terms.

Holidays & Observances

Holidays are a great way to acknowledge and celebrate diversity, especially for small companies! Encouraging each other to host a meal (home cooked or catered) to share at lunch or “happy hour” is a great way to celebrate and learn about differences.

In addition to benchmarking your peer companies to develop your company holiday calendar, consider having fewer designated holidays and offering more floaters to be used for holidays that aren’t typically represented when benchmarking.

If your organization wants to create a series of shared learnings around diversity, creating a diversity calendar for learnings is made easy by visiting https://www.diversityresources.com/2022-diversity-calendar/. ​​​​​​​

Be thoughtful about scheduling meetings and events that overlap with key holidays or observances; just as you wouldn’t schedule a meeting on Christmas, don’t schedule your holiday party during Ramadan, etc.

Creating Shared Learning, Affinity and Belonging

Create a Slack or Teams channel dedicated to D&I learning tools and resources and/or discussions.​​​​​​​

Chezie – founded by 2 first-gen Nigerian immigrants whose mission it is to help people from underrepresented communities belong at work. While 0-5 is early for a formal ERG/Affinity Group effort, their off-the-shelf resources (free) and programming (membership) are a great resource for those wanting to start small.

Out & Equal is a non-profit working exclusively on LGBTQ workplace equality. While they typically partner with lager organizations, their blog is a great resource for smaller organizations.

National Diversity Counsel

DEI&B Strategy Consultants, Speakers & Resources

• La’Wana Harris:

  • https://www.lawanaharris.com

• Skillsoft DE&I Learning Solutions:

  • https://www.skillsoft.com/diversity-equity-and-inclusion

• Carmen Medina:

  • “I don’t need to be included, I belong.”

  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmenamedina/

  • https://www.rebelsatwork.com/

  • Video Samples

• Imran Rehman:

  • Psychological Safety in Moments That Matter.

  • https://bekokoro.com/

  • imran@bekokoro.com

• Tanya Middleton:

  • tanya.middleton.tm@gmail.com

Make an effort to select diverse consultants and suppliers; everything from “plaques to snacks” can benefit from thinking more broadly and inclusively!

On Bias and Discrimination in STEM - Picture a Scientist

More Resources on Inclusion

• “The Cost of Difference” – Rob Perez, Operating Partner, General Atlantic, Founder and Chairman, Life Science Cares, Co-founder, BLOC: Biopharma Leaders of Color The Cost of Difference

• Diversity and Inclusion Playlist - Skillsoft

• Off the Shelf Virtual Book Club - Skillsoft

• Implicit Bias & Workplace Tension: How to Develop Your Company Culture - Video

• Diversity Beyond Lip Service - eBook

• “Race in the workplace: The Black experience in the US private sector” - Insights From McKinsey

Systems and/or Training to Implement Inclusion (for larger organizations)

• Succession Planning

  • Gloat: Gloat is the first-ever Internal Talent Marketplace, used by the world’s leading enterprises. This platform helps enterprises democratize career development, unlock skills, and future-proof their workforces, by utilizing a powerful AI engine and relying on years of experience and implementation.

  • Beamery (formerly Flux): Succession-planning tool to ensure equitable promotions internally.

Mentorship

• Chronus: Mentorship platform that connects employees across functions, regions, and roles. Uses artificial intelligence to help match employees and track engagement.

For part-time HR Consultants who haven’t had any prior D&I Experience (SHRM Store) $1350 member/$1665 non-member in person/online. Includes:

• Techniques to create, maintain, and measure an inclusive workplace through communication, mentorship, hiring practices, executive level support, facilitation, listening, data reporting and training;

• Strategies that foster inclusion to common workplace situations by addressing implicit bias, making mindful decisions and reinforcing positive change; and

• Resources to aid in writing a plan that identifies next steps for creating an inclusive workplace.

DEI Leadership Training Package for Biotech Startups with 12+ employees - Mass Life Sciences Center: DEI Training Package

Volunteering

• Operating in four locations (Boston, Philadelphia, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area), Life Science Cares (LSC) provides a platform for companies in the life science industry and their employees to make a difference on issues of poverty.

• Science bootcamp for 8-10th graders from underrepresented groups, first gen college students, disadvantaged backgrounds or disabilities. Free enrollment allowing for course culminating in designing own experiment and writing results in a manuscript.

Performance Management

See Performance Management Section of Culture Tab. Also see Inclusive Leadership Rating Sheet.​​​​​​​