Empowering DEI Change Agents Through Asynchronous Efforts
The Client Need
A multi-billion dollar American film and television production company needed to build a diversity and inclusion resource hub for its global employee base. The hub needed to be versatile enough to connect to a culturally diverse audience and tactical enough to apply to team members’ daily working lives. While the company had a robust DEI learning strategy, it recognized an opportunity to invest in a dynamic learning medium that could simultaneously offer bite-sized content as well as unique customization elements for team members in various global regions. Their Head of DEI partnered with ModelExpand to create an innovative approach to accelerate their employee’s DEI education journey, equipping teammates, leaders, and creators with tangible strategies to model inclusion in everyday moments.
The learning journey they took with ModelExpand began by grounding team members in the core competencies and capabilities that create an inclusive work environment while connecting it to the business-critical themes of creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation. The DEI Resources hub enabled their team members to develop and practice inclusive behaviors while providing them the flexibility to own their learning journey.
The Solution
The learning journey was spread over twelve bite-sized online modules. The hub was hosted on the company’s DEI intranet site, and available to all team members.
In addition to the live DEI training the company offered, team members could take abridged, on-demand learning modules to enhance their knowledge of specific DEI topics. The twelve modules covered topics ranging from allyship to unconscious bias. This customizable experience leveraged a variety of learning mediums, and given the company’s global audience, the Resource Hub was a great medium to equalize access to DEI learning content.
ModelExpand collaborated with the client to create a communications plan that encouraged participation and outlined how to navigate the learning path. Crafting content for a DEI Town Hall, ModelExpand partnered with the client to provide employees with an overview of the Resource Hub and information on why it was important for folks to participate. Of critical importance was messaging that the company’s continued progress was dependent upon the learning and action of each member. The client recommended employees complete the material within a six-month time frame, completing two modules a month. To encourage behavior change, the company’s Head of DEI reviewed the hub with the executive team and taught them how to embed the learnings into their team culture. The information from the hub was cascaded across the business, and through their collaboration, they discussed how constant touchpoints on DEI topics could help facilitate the company’s growth.
“The modules received positive reviews by participants and were leveraged by people managers, HR Business partners, and talent managers as a resource.”
Results
The energy and excitement generated by the hub were highly infectious - just the kind of spirit the company needed to move its culture forward. The modules received positive reviews from participants and were leveraged by people managers, HR Business partners, and talent managers as a resource.
Following the launch of the hub, many of the company’s leaders gained tactical skills on how to better navigate DEI-related topics. While previously they would collaborate with the DEI team to seek guidance and advice, the resources and knowledge they gained from the hub equipped them with the knowledge to problem solve without the intervention of the DEI team, reducing the need to escalate issues and increasing the speed of execution.
Increasing work efficiency and empowering team leaders to “own” DEI within their sphere of influence, the hub has afforded leaders the opportunity to catalyze change at scale, reinforcing the longer-term sustainability of DEI culture change. Once the resource hub was launched, the DEI team saw a steep decline in the number of requests they received to facilitate employee requests and questions regarding DEI. Specifically, they saved about ten hours per week responding to training requests or general inquiries on DEI topics folks were interested in learning more about. Because of this, they were able to reapply this time towards strategy development and execution.
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