Introduction
The Diversity and inclusion activities for remote teams are important aspects of a healthy work environment, particularly in remote teams. They help your company stay competitive, bring out the best in each person, and create an inclusive environment for all employees.
Diversity, equity and inclusion can be challenging practices to implement if working remotely. However, there are many ways you can incorporate these activities into your day-to-day work. I’ve compiled a list of some activities that will help get you started on creating more diversity and inclusion within your virtual team!
What is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are all intertwined concepts. Diversity refers to the varying characteristics of a group of people (such as race, gender identity, age), while equity means ensuring that those differences are treated equally. Inclusion is about making everyone feel welcome and respected within a community.
In business settings, diversity is often used as shorthand for racial or ethnic “diversity”—but it can also include factors like gender identity and sexual orientation. These different facets of human identity are important because they help us understand how different people identify themselves in relation to others around them.
For example: If you’re working with an all-white team from Ohio at your Silicon Valley startup who grew up playing tennis together in college (and you didn’t), there’s probably going to be some tension between what your coworkers see as normal behavior for someone from Ohio versus someone who isn’t white or straight.
Why are diversity and inclusion important?
There are many reasons why diversity and inclusion are important. First, they ensure that everyone is included and treated equally. Second, they help to create an environment where everyone can thrive. Finally, this type of culture helps to create a company where everyone feels like they belong.
As an employee or even a manager, it’s important that you feel like your workplace is inclusive and diverse. This can be done by having meetings where everyone is able to participate without being judged for their ideas or opinions.
It’s also important to recognize the differences between people and how they approach different situations. In order to do this well, you need to be aware of your own biases and stereotypes. These can be very difficult to overcome, so it’s important that you’re willing to try new things and listen to others before jumping in with your own opinion.
There are many things that you can do to make your workplace more inclusive and diverse. One way is by setting up employee resource groups (ERGs). These are groups that are formed based on shared characteristics, such as race or gender identity. keep on reading this article to get some inspiration on diversity and inclusion examples.
A happy and inclusive workplace catalyzes new ideas and productivity. Studies show that diverse teams are more innovative, deliver higher quality work and are better at solving problems to achieve strong results.
What are diversity and inclusion activities?
Diversity and inclusion activities help employees understand the importance of these values. These activities can help employees understand their own biases, as well as the impact they have on others in the workplace. They also help employees learn how to be more thoughtful about how they treat others, even if those people don’t look like them or share the same background.
Diversity activities can include workshops, presentations, lunch-and-learns, and more. These activities are typically led by someone who has a lot of experience with diversity and inclusion issues in the workplace and can help employees understand how they affect them personally.
They can also help them learn how to be more thoughtful about how they treat others, even if those people don’t look like them or share the same background.
Know your qualities are the 15 Exercises Leaders Can Use To Foster Appreciation For Team Diversity
Challenges to implement diversity and inclusion ideas when working remotely
- Communication barriers. It’s difficult for remote teams to communicate effectively because they don’t have the benefit of face-to-face interactions. This can make it hard for team members to build relationships and trust with each other, which can lead to issues like low morale and poor performance.
- Lack of diversity in remote teams. The lack of diversity often extends beyond just gender or race but also includes things like age, education level, and even personality type (think introvert vs extrovert). When you work with someone you don’t know very well—regardless of whether they’re in your office next door or across the globe—there are often unspoken biases that prevent you from getting along well enough with them so that working together becomes mutually rewarding rather than gratingly frustrating.
- Lack of diversity in remote locations/workforces/work cultures: I’m sure many people reading this article will agree that there is still plenty more work needed before we reach true parity between men and women everywhere around the globe; however what about other minority groups such as ethnic minorities? Or LGBT communities? Or people who identify as differently abled? You get my point: there’s still much more work needed here too!
Diversity and Inclusion Golden Rules
Having an inclusive workplace is key to your company’s success, and it is ultimately also good for yours and your employee’s health. “When people feel they belong,” says psychologist Amy Cuddy, “they’re more likely to be engaged and perform at their best.” So how do you create a culture in which everyone feels valued? Here are some tips for fostering an inclusive environment:
- Be respectful
- Be open-minded and open-hearted and encourage your team to be the same
- Unlearn biases, stereotypes, prejudices.
- Adopt inclusive language
- Create working groups including people from different backgrounds, perspectives, opinions
- Don’t assume that someone shares your values or opinions.
- Don’t assume that everyone thinks the way you do, believes what you believe, or has the same ideas about things as you do.
- Be careful not to stereotype people based on their gender, race/ethnicity, religion/spirituality, age or sexual orientation.
- Don’t make assumptions about what other people think and feel.
Top 5 virtual diversity and inclusion activities for your remote team
- Virtual Cooking Classes. ChefPassport can help you have cooking events focused on cultural relevant cuisine, (.e.g. if you have Indian employees, we can celebrate Diwali sharing food culture and tradition of this Indian festivity), happy hours with Professional Chefs trained in advocating gender equality
- Play Diversity and Inclusion themed games (i.e., ‘What’s Your Cultural Identity Quiz?’). These can also be used as virtual diversity and inclusion icebreakers.
- Virtual Book club where everyone reads the same book and discusses it in a virtual meeting room or over Zoom video calls (while chatting about the book, ask each person to share how it helped them understand other cultures better).
- Celebrate calendar days around diversity – for example: International Women’s Day and Black History Month etc… this is an easy way for anyone who doesn’t want to go out into the field but still wants to participate with their colleagues in celebrating these days at work!
- Seminar and team building activities on inclusive behavior – invite speakers from outside organizations like Bend The Arc: A Jewish Partnership For Justice who can give presentations on how we can all be more inclusive towards those who may not look like us or come from different backgrounds than ours/li>
Looking for more ideas for your next team event? You can learn more about 10 not lame virtual team building activities in this article.
Diversity and inclusion is a complicated topic. And how do you define diversity and inclusion activities that best fit your company’s needs is still a new growing topic for human resources professionals and team leaders. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers, statistics or even emotions that surround it.
But what we know for sure is that this issue affects everyone—and we all have a responsibility to do our part to create a more diverse and inclusive society. By implementing some of these activities into your remote team’s daily routine, you can help create an environment where everyone feels safe, valued and included regardless of race or gender identity.
