How can my mobility team start to better focus on diversity, equity and inclusion?

Mobility can play a key role in advancing corporate DE&I initiatives. Plus CEO Susan Benevides offers some advice on how to get the ball rolling.

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Complete transcript: “Hi, I’m Plus CEO Susan Benevides, and welcome to Relo Tip Tuesday. My question today is, ‘How can my mobility team start to better focus on diversity, equity and inclusion?’

Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DE&I, is a very important topic to me, and I’ve always felt that mobility teams are uniquely positioned to advance DE&I initiatives within their organizations. However, the hardest part for many is knowing where to start. So many things fall under DE&I and it can be overwhelming to come up with a plan. Here are three steps you can take to advance DE&I efforts within your team.

First, have conversations. This might sound simple, but it’s critical to start having difficult discussions. Be open about any biases or blind spots your team might have, and make a point of bringing up important questions that you might have sidestepped before. Like, ‘Is our program providing equitable support to all relocating employees? Does our relocating population look similar to the rest of our organization or community? If not — who’s being excluded from relocation and assignment opportunities?’

Once these conversations start happening, open your program up for a DE&I audit. The word ‘audit’ might seem a little scary, and this could be an uncomfortable process, but that’s OK. Lean on internal DE&I leaders within your organization and invite their open, honest feedback. It’s good to be proactive and welcome input, even if it challenges your team.

Finally, start to think about a mobility approach that has fewer labels and more choices. Labels — like renter or homeowner, single or married — often carry unfair assumptions about relocating employees. They can also severely restrict benefit options depending on how your policies are structured. Instead, consider stripping away these labels and assumptions, and allow relocating employees to build packages that meet their needs, rather than putting them into a bucket based on pre-conceived notions. And if you expand your benefit offerings to include non-traditional and alternative options, you’ll go even further toward meeting their unique needs.

There’s a lot more to be said — and done — about DE&I in mobility, but hopefully these three steps help you get started down the right path. Thanks for watching!”