Author: Anthony Santa Maria

Understanding Inclusive Leadership

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Picture this — you’re a sales leader at a leading fitness brand. Your team has been tasked with spearheading the company’s expansion into Latin America. You convene your team for a brainstorming session to come up with creative and impactful strategies to make this expansion a big success.

Your team includes Alejandra, a Mexican-American woman who has previous work experience launching new business ventures in the region. Despite her unique insights, Alejandra often finds herself overshadowed by more vocal colleagues. You are under pressure to come up with something fast that you can present to your executive colleagues. You pick one of the general ideas and inadvertently overlook Alejandra’s attempts to share her expertise.

Several months into the expansion, the results are underwhelming. The cookie-cutter approach that was hastily adopted failed to resonate within the intricately varied markets.

This is where inclusive leadership could have made all the difference.

Defining Inclusive Leadership

According to in-house experts in learning design and organizational psychology at Praxis Labs, inclusive leadership is defined as:

The process of a leader engaging in behaviors that adapt to the individual and collective needs of a group, resulting in people feeling included, valued, and treated fairly; they effectively use their understanding of diversity to enhance team and organizational outcomes.

Inclusive leadership isn’t just a concept or a theoretical model, but an active practice that requires an interrelated set of skills and behaviors. It is a lever of business success, honing in on its application in improving employee experience and team performance. As a predictor of organizational culture and business outcomes, inclusive leadership is the new leadership standard for forward-thinking businesses. Inclusive cultures are 3.8x more likely to harness the full potential of their employees. Moreover, they experience lower turnover rates as employee morale tends to be higher. 

Inclusive leaders understand the importance of diversity and actively seek to create a culture of inclusion. They promote equitable opportunities for all employees, regardless of their background, race, gender, or any other characteristic. They embrace and celebrate differences, recognizing that diversity can lead to innovation, creativity, and better decision-making.

Inclusive leadership is not only about diversity and inclusion, but also about creating a sense of belonging for all. It involves fostering a culture of psychological safety, where individuals feel comfortable being themselves and expressing their ideas without fear.

Overall, inclusive leadership is about creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their best.

Why Embrace Inclusive Leadership? 

Embracing inclusive leadership is crucial for several reasons:

  • Increased innovation and creativity: Inclusive leaders understand that diverse perspectives bring new ideas and insights. By embracing diversity and creating an inclusive environment, they encourage collaboration and creativity, leading to innovative solutions and better business outcomes.
  • Enhanced employee engagement and retention: When employees feel included and valued, they are more engaged and motivated to perform their best. Inclusive leadership fosters a sense of belonging, which contributes to higher employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity.
  • Improved decision-making: Inclusive leaders value and seek different perspectives, leading to more well-rounded decision-making. By considering diverse viewpoints and experiences, they can make more informed and effective decisions that benefit the entire organization.
  • Access to a wider talent pool: Inclusive leadership attracts and retains a diverse range of talent. Organizations that prioritize inclusivity are more likely to attract candidates from diverse backgrounds, bringing in a wider range of skills, experiences, and perspectives.
  • Enhanced reputation and brand image: Inclusive leadership demonstrates a commitment to diversity and inclusion, which can positively impact an organization’s reputation and brand image. Organizations that are known for embracing diversity are more attractive to customers, clients, and partners.

Why Be Anything But Inclusive?

Embracing inclusive leadership helps foster a workplace that not only promotes a culture of inclusion and belonging but drives innovation, engagement, and effective decision-making. By actively valuing and integrating inclusion into every action and behavior, organizations can create a more inclusive and valuable experience for all.

Introducing Pivotal Practice: A new approach to giving effective feedback

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Knowing how to give effective feedback is one of the most sought-after, yet difficult skills to achieve in the workplace. For decades now, the question of improving feedback has been synonymous with improving employee performance and satisfaction. And this conversation has taken on a new relevance and urgency in recent years.

The ongoing experiment of “radical candor“, popularized by Kim Malone Scott stands as a key milestone for discourse around workplace feedback, and has faced both praise and criticism since its release. Based on the principle of “caring personally while challenging directly”, Scott introduced a new framework for giving feedback that balances caring for one’s colleagues while still holding them accountable for poor performance. Yet, some critics have noted that in practice, radical candor has sanctioned harsh and biased criticism that mostly impacts members of underestimated groups.

This issue here is not with the concept or theory of radical candor, but with how people understand and practice it.

Until today, organizations and business leaders have not had effective solutions to train people on how to give actionable feedback. That’s why the team here at Praxis Labs is thrilled to announce our latest product release: Pivotal Practice.

Pivotal Practice: Redefining feedback training for lasting impact

Pivotal Practice brings together the latest innovations in Generative AI, learning science, and interactive simulations. This new product offers organizations a solution to improve feedback skills, foster empathy and collaboration, and enhance communication and innovation across diverse and global teams.

At our core, Praxis Labs helps organizations embed core human skills through a diversity lens. By immersing learners in real-world scenarios that map onto key moments of the employee experience, they have the opportunity to practice navigating difficult conversations and collaborating across diverse, global, and remote teams. Pivotal Practice is an extension of our commitment to elevate and transform the workplace through an equitable and science-backed approach. It comes at a time when actionable, effective, and unbiased feedback is needed most.

Research shows that employees who receive timely feedback see higher levels of performance, have more confidence, and feel a greater sense of job satisfaction. 72 percent of employees report that feedback can directly improve their performance.

“Candid and actionable feedback is one of the most sought-after yet difficult skills to cultivate in any workplace, and it’s essential to driving career growth, development, and engagement. Yet, there is a lot to be understood around how to give inclusive feedback across diverse teams,” said Elise Smith, Co-founder and CEO of Praxis Labs. “We see enormous potential in harnessing the latest advancements in AI and immersive technologies to build the confidence and skills needed to provide feedback that helps people of all levels and backgrounds advance in their careers and that supports a more inclusive and collaborative workforce.” 

Pivotal Practice builds upon this foundation. It does so by offering bite-sized, experiential opportunities for learners to help them build and reinforce their communication and feedback-giving skills. All of this occurs within a safe, judgment-free environment.

Driving feedback development at scale

Pivotal Practice marks an innovation not only for teams looking to improve how they work, collaborate, and innovate together. It extends its impact to the broader corporate learning industry. The product introduces a novel way to combine immersive technology and gen-AI to drive skills development. Moreover, it gives learners the practice and experience needed translate learning into action.

Key Pivotal Practice design features include:

Generative AI Grading and Research-Backed Feedback 

Learners deliver feedback, either by voice or over text, ensuring flexibility and accessibility for different learning and diverse communication preferences. Trained by Praxis Labs’ team of in-house learning scientists, gen-AI assesses participants’ responses. It specifically focuses on inclusive leadership skills. After evaluation, gen-AI offers personalized recommendations that clarify and improve participants’ feedback. This approach makes every practice session a valuable learning opportunity.

Perspective-Taking through Immersive Technology

In-the-moment learning enhances memory retention and skill development in areas like empathy and communication. With immersive simulations, learners navigate nuanced situations across differences and deepen their understanding of people with different identities and lived experiences.

On-Demand Microlearning at Scale

Packaged in 5-10 minute experiences, learners can practice giving feedback where they learn best and when needed most — like before performance reviews, 1:1s, and team meetings. 

Unlock team performance with human-centered and inclusive feedback

Radical candor isn’t just a catchphrase; it’s a philosophy that promises transparent communication and transformative growth. Yet, its execution requires finesse and skill that many find elusive.

This latest addition to our platform offers an opportunity for organizations to reap the benefits of a culture that prioritizes effective feedback and inclusion. Join us as we unveil Pivotal Practice—a solution designed to revolutionize how feedback is given and received.

Ready to embark on this transformative journey? Discover the impact Pivotal Practice can have for your organization.

Learn More 

5 DEI metrics that matter

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

The biggest mistake we see companies make when scaling their diversity and inclusion programs? Not measuring DEI metrics beyond the hiring process. 

Having a diverse pool of qualified candidates is of course important when recruiting, but the most successful forward-thinking organizations track diversity and inclusion at all stages of the employee lifecycle. That means throughout onboarding, performance reviews, compensation decisions, and succession planning.

DEI Metrics to Track

Keeping track of DEI metrics throughout an employee’s tenure at your company can help you spotlight barriers or highlight successes for your programs. With these metrics, you can measure the impact and ROI of DEI efforts, develop accountability, and ensure transparency.

Here are 5 key DEI metrics to measure when assessing your company’s DEI progress:

1. Hiring biases

If you’re attracting diverse candidates to your hiring pool, but your team is still not diverse, biases in the hiring process may be responsible. Certain methods of assessing potential candidates (on paper, in person, and even with AI) are riddled with bias against underrepresented folks. 

A recent study showed that candidates who submit CVs with “Black sounding” names are less likely to get interviews. Prioritizing hiring people who went to certain schools, or requiring “prior industry experience” in entry-level roles where internships are often unpaid, unfairly excludes a huge group of qualified candidates. 

How to amend this? Obviously there’s no easy, single solution. But there are ways to standardize your selection process to reduce the potential influence of bias. 

  • Consider reviewing CVs “blind” without names attached
  • Standardize interviews with a clear rubric and templated questions 
  • Give a work sample test 

And critically – collect data throughout the entirety of the process. If the numbers suggest that diverse candidates are disproportionately losing out when compared to others with similar qualifications, follow up with your hiring team. 

2. Retention

Retention is the #1 operational priority for organizations. If you find that people of a certain demographic are quitting in disproportionate numbers, consider that they may be responding to a non-inclusive work environment. 

When employees quit, companies tend to assume that their decision was driven by a “hard line” factor like compensation. But this often isn’t the case. 

A McKinsey report found that the top factors employees cited as reasons for quitting were that they didn’t feel valued by their organizations (54 percent) or didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work (51 percent). Notably, employees who classified themselves as non-white or multiracial were more likely than their white counterparts to say they had left because they didn’t feel they belonged at their companies.

This means you can improve your retention rates by making workers feel valued. In addition to compensating fairly and offering workplace flexibility, we’ve found that investing in empathetic leadership training and next-gen learning & development goes a long way in fostering a culture of open and honest communication. 

3. Employee engagement

Understanding the drivers of employee engagement helps companies foster a fulfilling employee experience. If you find that your people are burning out or checking out, consider re-tooling your processes with a focus on feedback and recognition —  two of the most overlooked drivers of employee engagement.

Top employers reward good work not just with bonuses and promotions, but by saying “thank you” and “good job” often. Without positive reinforcement, high-performing employees will feel unappreciated and begin to disengage. Regular pulse surveys are one easy way to collect data on your core engagement drivers and identify pain points.

4. Pay equity

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently conducted a study on pay equity and found that across experience and education levels, Black men and women continue to make less than their white counterparts, as low as 76 cents on the dollar. Despite countless efforts to dismantle pay ceilings and improve pay transparency, biases continue to factor into compensation models, often taking the shape of requests for “salary history.” 

Conducting a pay audit — or assessing how pay gaps break across gender and racial lines —  is one way to gain insight into the biases that may be unfairly influencing your company’s compensation structures.

5. Career advancement and internal mobility

In 2020, companies such as Meta attracted attention by making landmark commitments to increase BIPOC representation among leadership (vowing to increase representation by 30% by 2025.) And while these commitments clearly represent a step in the right direction, they fail to detail where these new diverse leaders will come from. Will they be recruited externally? Or will companies invest the time and resources to nurture diverse talent and source them from within?

If your company lacks BIPOC representation at the senior level, you may want to consider scaling opportunities for internal mobility. According to a McKinsey report, Black employees are 23% less likely to say they receive “a lot” or “quite a bit” of support to advance at work, 41% less likely to view promotions in their workplace as fair, and 39% less likely to believe their company’s diversity and inclusion efforts are effective, compared to their white counterparts working at the same company.

To bridge the promotion gap, companies like Merck are launching dedicated employee resource groups (ERGs) to help BIPOC professionals network, upskill and advance. 

Measuring DEI metrics matters

For companies serious about building an equitable and inclusive culture, it’s mission-critical to understand the impact of your DEI efforts across every step in the employee journey. By tracking the DEI metrics above, you can gain insight into what’s working and identify areas for improvement.

To learn more about how to show impact from your DEI programs, check out our recent guidebook. 

Download the guide

Why DEI is important for employee experience

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Creating a meaningful employee experience is about supporting employees throughout the moments that matter most in their careers. Whether you’re overseeing the hiring process, onboarding, or promotion decisions, being empathetic and DEI-minded is key to securing their continued engagement. 

Recent studies have shown how DEI training improves employee experience, leading to 2x engagement. According to a Changeboard report, they have been proven to work 12% harder, are 19% more likely to stay longer with the organization, and collaborate 57% more effectively with peers. 

So how do you maximize this DEI upside? A DEI training strategy that elicits buy-in at all stages of an employee’s journey, not just the beginning.

Prioritizing DEI across the talent lifecycle

With the future of work changing, traditional one-and-done trainings are no longer effective. Insincere interactions with management drive employees to disengage. Employees are seeking companies that are actively and authentically committed to DEI topics.

Our research has found that DEI training improves employee experience when it is A) modern and sincere and B) integrated across the entire employee lifecycle, not just during onboarding.

Here are our recommendations for when and how to engage employees with DEI training: 

Start with the interview process

A DEI-minded hiring experience makes new employees feel confident that the organization they’re entering shares their values. And this couldn’t be more important — according to a recent CNBC survey, 56% percent of people today won’t even consider working for a company that doesn’t share their values. 

If a hiring manager mishandles an interview, a values-minded employee will not only refuse the offer — they will warn other applicants by posting on social media or popular review sites like Glassdoor.  

If your applicant pool is diverse but your team is not, or you suspect bias in any part of your hiring process, consider removing names from resumes and standardizing your interview process. To keep hiring managers on the call, we recommend incorporating data-enabled technologies that consistently monitor and analyze progress. Training hiring managers on how to prioritize equity is critical to building an inclusive talent pipeline.

Create a welcoming onboarding experience

75% of organizations today incorporate some kind of DEI training into their onboarding process. But in 2023, just checking the box doesn’t earn employee buy-in. You can measure the ROI of your DEI training by regularly collecting data on your employees’ attitudes and human skills. 

For example, suppose your program emphasizes perspective-taking by showcasing how individuals from diverse backgrounds perceive workplace scenarios. We recommend conducting a survey six months later to gauge the extent to which participants have retained the knowledge.

Some data-powered platforms even do this for you, functioning as “skills centers” where employees can access DEI training on-demand and receive continuous feedback over their talent cycle.          

Build skills for career growth and advancement

In a constantly evolving workplace, the most effective DEI training teach employees about the significance of human skills, like inclusive leadership and empathy. These programs emphasize that cultivating these skills is crucial for unlocking individuals’ career ambitions.

And it’s true — as AI reshapes job descriptions, the “hard skills” required to perform certain roles will change, but human skills such as communication and collaboration will remain key. Additionally, they are transferable across industries, giving employees agility as market conditions fluctuate. Establishing an arena where employees can practice and hone these skills on-demand has a proven impact on building more engaged and resilient teams.

Create an experience that makes employees want to stay

Employee churn costs companies an average of $1 trillion per year. Forward-looking DEI training programs can keep talent engaged by working human skills into their performance incentive structure. 

This shows employees that their contributions to an inclusive culture will help them reach the top. The improvement in human skills will mean more constructive performance reviews and more empathetic managers. Half of employees who quit do so because of bad managers, according to a recent survey.

Next steps? Future-forward DEI 

The best DEI programs are mindful that the difference between a jaded employee and an engaged one is in the details.

Making a DEI program on-demand and tech-enabled gives workers the time to practice their human skills and see the real-time impact of the things that matter. By harnessing the perspective-taking power of immersive technologies, you can equip your team with the necessary resources to develop into empathetic and detail-oriented leaders. By embedding these trainings across the talent lifecycle, people leaders are sure to see how DEI training improves employee experience.

For more information on how to embed DEI training across the talent lifecycle, check out our recent guidebook:

Download the Guide

How to align your DEI programs with business strategy

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Making the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) can be a challenge. The complex and intangible nature of DEI goals, and the difficulty of measuring employee engagement and retention, can discourage companies from trying to make advances in equity and inclusion.

Especially in the midst of a challenging year for DEI, it’s more important than ever to showcase how your programs ladder up to organizational outcomes. DEI success is people success and people success is business success. Studies have shown that organizations that prioritize DEI see higher returns on engagement, retention, productivity, and innovation. The broad range of impact DEI can have on a business illustrates how DEI programs can serve as both a revenue generator and money saver in the long term. 

Moreover, with retention being the number one concern for business leaders, it’s essential to put in place strategies that engage and retain top diverse talent. According to a report by McKinsey & Company, businesses that emphasize inclusivity training for employees see increased employee satisfaction and outcompete their competitors by 36%. 

Making the business case for diversity: Connecting the dots with data

Mindful of these challenges, Praxis Labs has published a comprehensive 2024 DEI Blueprint Guide. With a focus on maximizing ROI (and measuring it), the guide gives leaders the tools to make the business case for diversity training. Readers will discover how to assess and improve their company’s culture of inclusivity and learn how new standards in technology are driving high performance.

Want to track DEI impact on your business, but not sure where to start? The 2023 DEI Training Guide gives you some helpful metrics to watch:

Recruitment and hiring metrics

Tracking the diversity of job applicants and new hires can help you assess the effectiveness of your recruitment and hiring processes. If you’ve rolled out an inclusive hiring program for hiring managers and talent acquisition teams, you can run a comparative analysis on your applicant tracking system (ATS) to understand if the training changed their behaviors. In particular, check new hire demographics before and after the training.

Employee engagement surveys

Regularly surveying employees to gauge their experiences and perceptions of the workplace can provide valuable insights into the success of your DEI programs. One of Praxis’ partners found that when compared to non-Praxis learners, Praxis learners displayed increased motivation (+8%), work engagement (+7%), decrease in alternate job seeking (-15%), and felt more respected (+7%).

Retention rates

Measuring the retention rate of employees from underrepresented groups can help you determine the effectiveness of your DEI initiatives in creating a supportive and inclusive workplace. More than 1 in 2 Praxis Labs learners report that they are more likely to stay at their company because of Praxis Labs training.

Business Growth

By not tailoring products and services to diverse populations, companies are missing out on opportunities to expand into new markets. Training your employees to better empathize and relate to people different from themselves can directly inform their day-to-day work.

Acquired competencies

Focus your training on core skills and competencies and then measure progress towards achieving them. When viewed on an aggregate level, skills-growth tracking can help you better understand how your upskilling and reskilling programs are performing at scale. Praxis Labs learners see a 72% growth in empathy after just 3 modules.

Knowledge retention     

Assess participants’ understanding of DEI concepts and principles before and after training. To see the long-term impacts of your training, conduct your surveys and measurement activities 6-12 months after the training. Especially when supplemented with more opportunities for continuous learning and skills reinforcement, you’re sure to see a lasting and meaningful impact.

One of our clients, a Fortune 100 Tech company, saw that even 8 months after completing Praxis Labs training, more than 75% of learners continue to take regular, informed action to create a more inclusive company, and over half noticed positive changes for equity and inclusion across their company.                  

The key to improving DEI outcomes across all of the metrics above? Immersive tech

Workplaces looking to translate DEI training into action are increasingly turning to immersive learning solutions to improve their DEI training outcomes. And the results speak for themselves. Designed to capitalize on knowledge and research about how people learn, immersive L&D solutions have been shown to increase knowledge retention by up to 75%.         

How can you leverage this new tech?                                                                                                  

While immersive learning can and should be applied to many types of skills development, it’s particularly useful for building core competencies for today’s modern workforce, such as empathy and inclusive leadership. Moreover, immersive learning is ideally suited to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training, about which much ink has been spilled but unfortunately rarely moves the needle as it should.

By harnessing immersive learning technology, there is immense potential in driving the self-awareness and understanding needed to propel tangible results for DEI. 

Driving DEI impact for your business

Optimizing for better DEI training outcomes is a proven way to differentiate yourself as a forward-thinking employer in the coming year and will help you make the business case for diversity initiatives in the future. With the knowledge and resources provided in our new DEI Training guide, companies can begin setting the foundation for improved employee engagement and long-term DEI success. 

Download the Guide

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3 ways organizations can improve their managers’ effectiveness

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Managers play a key role in companies as the connective tissue between leaders and the larger workforce. Tasked with communicating expectations and goals, motivating teams, overseeing workflow, and providing feedback, they set the example for how employees should work together and treat each other. And they do so to varying degrees of success, generally with limited oversight from senior management.

A Gallup survey found that 50% of employees who quit are quitting their boss, not their job. Given this, it’s no surprise that manager performance accounts for at least 70% variance in employee engagement. The most common reasons employees cite for quitting a job is not feeling valued (54%), followed by lacking a sense of belonging at work (51%.) This points to a skills gap in empathetic leadership.

Being an empathetic manager isn’t easy. Managers are often overwhelmed, overworked, and lack the training to lead and mentor people with varied working styles. Much like public speaking or negotiation skills, knowing how to be a better manager and motivate teams effectively isn’t something most people are born with; it’s learned.

Building better leaders

Research by leadership development expert Jack Zenger reveals that most managers do not receive training until they have been in a leadership role for almost 10 years. Leaders who go two years without training often end up with negative leadership habits that impede their careers, says Linda Hill, a Harvard Business professor and leadership author, in a recent interview with the Harvard Business Review. 

At Praxis Labs, our curriculum leads have extensively studied management theory to learn the secrets to successful inclusive leadership in the evolving modern workplace. Creating safe spaces for managers to practice their skills supports them to communicate effectively, give feedback thoughtfully, and ultimately build trust. These actions support a psychologically safe and cohesive workplace that values collaboration, innovation, and productivity.

Want to build better managers? Here are 3 steps you can take.

1. Invest in inclusive learning opportunities for managers

Equitably delegating tasks. Recognizing positive contributions. Listening with empathy. 

In management roles, leveraging these inclusive leadership skills is critical. Investing in DEI training is one way to help managers be more mindful of their unconscious biases and equity in the workplace. Leveraging the perspective-taking power of immersive technologies with performance analytics capabilities can support your managers to become more self-aware and effective leaders. 

Pro tip: When implementing an L&D strategy, make sure you consider how and when your employees prefer to learn. For example, in one Salesforce survey, three-quarters of employees said they prefer to learn on the job and in small moments, as opposed to in long seminars. Your people will appreciate your flexibility. 

2. Hold managers accountable.

Feedback should be a two-way street. Research suggests that it’s best practice to give employees at all levels of an organization regular opportunities to give and get feedback that is constructive, specific, and timely. Additionally, we recommend organizing regular pulse surveys where employees can anonymously provide feedback, as opposed to once-annual performance reviews. Surveys should account for seemingly minor things like tone, as well as more serious things like explicit bias. Regular check-ins demonstrate that your company values employee opinions.

3. Embrace new technology

Managers who avoid incorporating the latest tech into their work processes are holding their teams back. Professor Linda Hill cautions leaders against counting on younger team members to carry them forward digitally: “Just because you put someone in the room who has digital capabilities or who has never seen an epidemic before, you bring in a new young person from a different generation, doesn’t mean that person knows how to speak up or how to be heard, and you’re going to have to help with that as the leader.”

Collaborative technologies (i.e. Slack, immersive platforms), when coupled with empathetic leadership training, create a common space for older and younger generations to share ideas. From DEI training to persuasive communication practices, these technologies can enhance a wide range of essential training activities. You can build a more cohesive working environment by prioritizing training on new technologies and incentivizing managers to incorporate new tech into their workflows.

Better managers = better business outcomes

Inclusive leadership is more learned than born, and adaptability is key. By investing in DEI-minded learning and development opportunities and embracing new technology, you support your managers to lead equitably. And by strengthening your organization’s feedback loop, you help them build trusting teams that will follow them into the future. 

 

Looking to improve your manager training? Find expert solutions in our Manager Skills Training guide.

Download our guidebook

Creating psychological safety in the workplace

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

In the late 1990s, researcher Amy Edmondson was studying medical mistakes in emergency rooms when she discovered something strange. The best-performing teams in hospitals were reporting making the most mistakes. How could this be? 

Further examination revealed that these teams weren’t more prone to error than their counterparts. They were simply more comfortable talking about their mistakes in front of their peers. The link between cohesive, high-performing teams and “psychological safety,” or the shared expectation that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up or making mistakes, was established.

Today, pop culture’s understanding of psychological safety often misses the mark. 

“Psychological safety isn’t about being nice” Edmondson explains on a Harvard Business Review podcast. “It’s not about “coziness.” It’s about taking risks, giving candid feedback, openly admitting mistakes and learning from each other. It’s about being able to ask for help when you’re in over your head.” 

Psychological safety in the modern workplace

Since Edmondson’s initial report the case for psychological safety’s role in the modern workplace has only grown stronger. Between 2012 to 2014, Google data scientists began a study, Project Aristotle, that used statistical analysis to discover the secret behind its most effective teams. 

Psychological safety, again, was the main differentiator. An individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk directly correlates to their performance. When employees didn’t feel comfortable making mistakes, they were less likely to point out errors and more likely to disengage at work. 

The impact of creating psychological safety in the workplace on overall employee engagement should not go unnoticed. Low employee engagement costs businesses hundreds of billions every year. 

Yet the reality is that cultures centered on learning, growth, and honesty are not the norm in the modern workplace. And building them is easier said than done. It requires a strong example set by leaders, frequent, transparent communications, and thoughtful incentive structures.

How to promote psychological safety at work 

Creating psychological safety in your workplace can help you take advantage of the benefits that equity and inclusion can bring. Here are a few things you can do to get started: 

Lead by example

Organizations win when employees at every level feel comfortable making mistakes and learning from them. But in order for this to happen, leaders have to go first. “They have to show that they’re fallible human beings,” says Edmondson. 

Asked for an example of a leader who does this well, Edmondson pointed to Pixar Studios’s co-founder Ed Catmull, whose humble, honest communication style created a culture of psychological safety that many credit for the studio’s long record of success. Catmull is famous for admitting “Early on, all of our movies sucked.” He framed the production process as a learning journey. As a result, people felt comfortable raising questions and sharing their opinion before the finished products hit the box office.

Be inclusive in decision-making

When people feel like their opinion is valued, they’re more likely to stay engaged. Soliciting input, opinions and feedback from your teammates is one way to set a two-way communication precedent that encourages people to speak their minds. 

Explaining the reasoning for your decisions and acknowledging helpful feedback is another way to improve engagement. Google, for example, teaches managers to call out when team members were contributors to a success or decision. 

Prioritize a safe learning environment

Investing in learning & development is one way to show your employees that you value them and want them to succeed. Emerging tech like immersive learning is helping learning leaders build technical and even human skills like empathy, leadership, and communication while creating psychological safety.  

Immersive learning puts learners in a simulated environment in which they can make mistakes and fail forward in a safe, judgment-free zone. Look for solutions where learners can replay a learning experience multiple times and understand how their actions impact real-world outcomes. This can be particularly helpful when practicing navigating a difficult conversation, or advocating on behalf of yourself or a colleague when encountering bias.

Don’t forget that building a robust learning culture that encourages employees to grow in their careers starts from the top. Helping employees make space for learning, or working with vendors that offer engaging experiences that embed within a learner’s flow of work, helps make learning frictionless and more impactful. 

Managers and leaders can go a step further by connecting skills growth outcomes with professional development goals so that employees understand how learning connects to their career ambitions.  

The business case for creating psychological safety in the workplace

A survey of 400 companies with 100,000 employees each cited an average loss of $62.4 million per year because of inadequate communication to and between employees. Directly correlated to psychological safety — this research shows that communication and empathy skills gaps come at a serious material cost. By investing in safe learning environments and prioritizing inclusive decision making, organizations promote a culture of honesty and mutual respect. This supports a psychologically safe and inclusive working environment where employees want to give their all. You can guarantee your teams will be better off for it. 

 

How L&D pros can take advantage of new tech for human skills training

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Technological innovations and economic uncertainty are challenging companies to think strategically about how to upskill for the ‘Future of Work’.

Upskilling has always been a priority for companies looking to drive innovation and stay competitive. By upskilling, companies save money by investing in developing current employees, instead of spending time and budget hiring new ones. They also improve workplace culture and morale by making employees feel valued and supported in their professional goals.

And according to LinkedIn’s 2023 State of Workforce Learning and Development report, the stakes for upskilling are higher than ever. Rapidly changing the way companies operate, automation and AI are creating new processes and re-tooling old ones. This is resulting in skill shortages with meaningful implications for the Future of Work.

While companies continue to advertise open positions under the same titles year after year, like “consultant” or “manager,” the skill sets required for them have changed by nearly 25% since 2015. By 2027, this number is expected to double. Yet, while technical skills will continue to evolve, human skills — like communication, leadership, and management — remain durable and in high demand.

L&D’s 2023 priority list

Owing to this, LinkedIn reports that the 2023 budget forecast for L&D remains strong — representing the third most optimistic view in seven years of tracking. Only 8% of L&D pros expect their budget to decrease.

Some other notable findings:

  • Companies are putting people at the center of their L&D efforts: 83% of organizations are looking to build a more people-centric culture. 81% of L&D pros say they are playing a key role in this effort.
  • L&D pros are closer than ever to business leaders: The percentage of L&D pros working more closely with executive leaders has grown significantly year over year, from 39% in 2022 to 44% in 2023.
  • Proactive skill building seen as key to navigating the evolving future of work: 89% of L&D pros agree that proactively building employee skills will help navigate the evolving future of work. They cite employee retention and upskilling as the biggest concerns.
  • Human skills are leading the future of work: Human skills (also referred to as “durable skills” and “soft skills”) like empathetic leadership, networking, effective communication, and “managing up” are some of the most important competencies in today’s hybrid work environment. 

What’s next for L&D?

This data begs the question — how do forward-thinking companies ensure they are investing in L&D with impact? And in a way that unlocks potential, drives employee engagement, and improves strategic business outcomes?

Historically, L&D professionals have struggled to get buy-in from employees using traditional e-learning and in-person programs. This is in part due to low completion rates (with a 15-30% industry average) and low information retention.

“Forward-thinking organizations need to create environments that embrace and unlock the potential of the whole employee,” said Linda Jingfang Cai, the Global Head of Learning and Talent Development at LinkedIn. New and innovative tech could be the key to unlocking impactful and scalable human skills training.

Immersive tech is the key

One way to tailor your L&D programs to engage the “whole employee” is through innovative tech solutions. Emerging tech like VR and other immersive solutions can increase knowledge retention by up to 75%.

Trusted for L&D and DEI training by leading companies like Uber, Etsy, and Ericsson, immersive learning helps learners translate learning into action. Through engaging and relevant experiences, learners build the memory and muscle needed to apply learning to real-world situations. When tied to a skills strategy, this helps create a feedback loop that connects learning outcomes to business goals. 

While immersive learning can and should be applied to many types of skills development, it’s particularly useful for building soft or human skills for today’s modern workforce, such as empathy and inclusive leadership. 

What’s more, is that 70% of people say they prefer immersive learning to traditional ways of doing human skills training.

Collect data to inform L&D strategy

LinkedIn’s report found that “progress toward career goals” is the #1 motivation for employees to learn. 

Mindful of this, centering your workers’ career development goals when designing your L&D strategy is one way to ensure engagement. We recommend surveying workers on their career goals and identifying potential opportunities for upward mobility. Tailoring your training programs in response to employee feedback will show your investment, and investment drives an agile, people-centric culture.

Taking a skills-based approach to hiring and internal mobility, where candidates know what skills they need to be successful in a role can be a helpful strategy in aligning learning to business goals. When employees can connect learning to career advancement, they are more likely to be engaged and motivated. 

Your employees who actively advance their human skills growth demonstrate a commitment to building an equitable culture and inspiring peak performance for all. They are well poised to be your next pool of managers and leaders.

Bridging gaps with tech

Incorporating new tech like immersive learning into any company process can be daunting. But, when it comes to L&D, the results are unmatched. To upskill with impact, show your employees your commitment to their success by providing them with the most impactful learning solutions for their careers, and the business. 

Want to learn more? Download on our 2023 Guide on Human Skills Training.

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Unlocking the Business Case for DEI: Maximizing ROI, Engagement, and Innovation

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

The “business case” for DEI is, and probably always will be, a hot-button topic. Despite proof that there is a direct relationship between DEI, innovation, and financial results, business leaders are still not giving DEI the investment it deserves. 

In 2021, the Washington Post asked U.S. companies, which had promised a total of $49.5 billion to diversity programs, how much they actually spent. It received responses confirming less than 4% of that amount — $1.7 billion.

Business leaders often forget that people programs solve a pressing business issue. And one that long predates the pandemic and hybrid work: when employees don’t feel a sense of belonging at work, they check out. They don’t learn, they don’t contribute, they don’t stay. 

The cost associated with attrition is enormous — today, it’s nearly $350 billion a year! And a big share of that cost is directly related to a lack of inclusion and belonging. Sixty percent of employees who left their companies in the last year did so because of a lack of inclusion and belonging. 

Breaking down the business case for DEI

At Praxis, we get this question from our partners every day. What’s the business case for DEI? What’s the ROI? We love this question. Because when companies launch DEI programs with intention, the results speak for themselves.

To confront the ROI question head-on, Praxis called on our in-house experts to discuss the latest trends in DEI, ways to maximize ROI, and proven methods for improving employee engagement and experience. 

In our most recent webinar, called “Proving the Value of DEI Training: Measuring Impact and ROI,” Dr. Olivia Holmes (Curriculum Measurement Lead) and Sabrina Rønningen (Head of Client Impact) draw on a wealth of experiences working with Fortune 500 clients to show what DEI success looks like.

“The typical assumption is that having diverse employees means, inherently, that you’re able to capture more market share and perhaps expand productivity. This is true, but we’ve found it’s an incomplete narrative. What really does work is focusing on those levers that drive inclusion, belonging, and engagement.”

The answer to unlocking those levers, Rønningen explains, is data.

“When businesses have the appropriate data to know how and where to focus action, companies see increased success and innovation,” she explained.

Looking at recent data on what’s motivating DEI performance today, Praxis’s team identified the following trends:

More cross-functional partnerships

“Talent leadership is starting to take new shape, becoming more cross-functional. DEI departments are working closer with L&D, realizing that it really takes a cohesive effort” said Rønningen.

With 83% of organizations looking to build a more people-centric culture this year, and human skills singled out as a key priority for L&D teams, cross-functional departments are a must.

“We can’t expect to keep doing the same things every year, the same type and nature of programming and skills development, and expect a different result. Working across functional leadership within the talent team is a key takeaway,” said Rønningen. 

Be clear about what your business is trying to accomplish with learning

“Make sure you’re crystal clear from the start of every learning program how you’re connecting learning to the business,” said Rønningen. 

This ensures employees don’t feel their time is being wasted or that their learning is happening in a silo. Learning needs to be contextually relevant and be directly applied to employees’ day-to-day. Dr. Holmes recommends narrowing the focus of impact measurement to acquired competencies (or skills learned) and knowledge retention. 

Tracking skills gained alongside productivity and culture surveys directly show how your programs led to company success. 

Embrace the latest tech — or get left behind

Don’t be afraid to embrace the latest tech when upskilling your teams. Immersive L&D solutions increase confidence in skills application by 275%. This is because they’re designed to capitalize on knowledge and research about how people learn. When learning is done well, companies see positive results. 

“With one of Praxis’s clients, a Fortune 100 company, we saw that employees were +15% less likely to look for alternative jobs and +8% more motivated,” said Ronningen.

The changes in behaviors are also telling — “One of our earliest clients, a Fortune 500 Tech company, saw that even 8 months after training, over half of employees noticed changes at all levels of their org, including management and leadership” said Rønningen.

Partner for success

In the past decade, we’ve seen work spill beyond the office and become not just an extension of, but a primary expression of, our values and identities. In order to sync our work with those values — inclusivity and equity chief among them — we need to focus on our behavior and how it promotes (or inhibits) collaboration. This is true both within an organization’s teams and its external partnerships.

For many organizations looking to improve L&D, DEI and engagement, partnering with outside experts is the right choice. They have the resources and expertise to design and implement a forward-looking solution for the company. That frees up time for company leaders to focus on managing the day-to-day. And they can adapt the approach to stay up-to-date with the latest trends. This approach minimizes stress and maximizes results.

According to a report by McKinsey & Company, companies with DEI training see increased employee satisfaction and outcompeted their competitors by 36%.

“Recognize and settle into great partnerships and integrate them into that role you have,” recommended Rønningen.

Real change takes time

Creating a vibrant, inclusive company culture takes time. But prioritizing your people’s learning and development will generate trust and goodwill fast.  

“One of the best ways to support behavior change is to build knowledge, skills, and practice to help people deeply understand how to collaborate and work across differences, and to inspire psychological safety. This is the only way to inspire peak performance across teams” said Rønningen. 

Watch the full on-demand webinar

Fostering Connection in the Workplace

Posted on by Anthony Santa Maria

Research shows that the strength of co-workers’ connections in the workplace plays a key role in determining levels of team engagement and performance. Directly correlating to higher performance, collaboration, levels of innovative thinking, good working relationships are one of most important factors that contribute to job satisfaction.

The long periods of physical isolation people went through during the pandemic heightened the value of this link. 

In a recent webinar “Fostering Connection in the New World of Work,” Praxis Labs Curriculum Lead Dr. Olivia Holmes explains the link between feelings of belonging and performance in the workplace. She references American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s renowned theory of human motivation, often referred to as the Hierarchy of Needs, which proposes that in order to achieve self-actualization, people need to first have their “base needs” met. In addition to physical well-being and safety, this includes feelings of love and belonging.

How companies can support greater connection in the workplace

And despite companies’ best efforts to preserve a culture of belonging since the pandemic, 60% of employees report feeling less connected to their coworkers in the past year. And more than half of employees who left their jobs in the last year said they lacked a sense of belonging. This build-up of disengagement and employee turnover results in trillions of dollars lost globally per year. 

To remedy this, companies like Meta, Amazon, and Starbucks are calling for employees to return to work fully in person, assuming a lack of face-to-face interaction is to blame for decreased engagement. But this doesn’t have to be the answer, especially for employees who prefer the flexibility that remote or hybrid work offers. 

Dr. Holmes suggests that all companies, whether remote, hybrid, or in-person, can foster greater connection and belonging.

“The advancement of technology has made this possible, literally shortening the distance between people,” she says. Noting how the internet has been proven to make expressing one’s “true self” easier, she cites frequent contact and mutual disclosure as key to building and maintaining strong co-working relationships.

Regardless of whether your employees are working on-site or remotely, there are a number of proven ways to foster social connection in the workplace.

1. Make sure you are meeting your team’s physiological and safety needs

Employees who don’t feel their basic needs are being met will disengage, no matter how many team-building activities you schedule. When benefits like mental health apps and fitness stipends are connected to a wellness strategy that supports employee safety and well-being, companies can see improvements in connection, belonging, and engagement. 

2. Get people together, whether remote or in person 

Whether it’s just once or twice a year, provide opportunities for employees to get together in-person at a team or functional level. Throughout the year, plan activities that promote team-building, vulnerability, and ways to set inclusive team norms and ways of working.

3. Be able to articulate and share group goals, norms, values, roles and responsibilities

One of the biggest culprits of employee burnout and disengagement is not being able to connect one’s scope of work to the company’s larger mission, vision, and goals. Rallying employees around a shared purpose can help new and existing employees establish closer bonds and team cohesion that promotes better collaboration and innovation.

4. Start at the top 

When leaders communicate transparently through turbulent times, it helps build trust that informs employee’s perceptions of leadership and company culture. When people feel anxious about economic headwinds, they are more likely to seek jobs elsewhere. This can be a challenge, especially at a time when businesses are trying to tighten their recruiting costs and focus on upskilling and reskilling existing employees in critical areas. 

5. Leverage emerging tech to build human skills 

Advances in learning technology that helps people build skills like empathy, connection, and interpersonal communication, can help move the needle on business metrics like equity, manager effectiveness, and productivity. 

Working better together 

A robust workplace social life positively correlates strongly with fulfillment, pride, and meaning. When you invest in equitable access to networking and create opportunities for informal contact and collaboration, stronger and more meaningful employee relationships will follow.

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