The summer of 2022 has brought diversity and inclusion issues of all kinds to the fore of national conversations and to the minds of anyone in any kind of leadership position. Not just in the form of think-pieces and business advice articles, but in terms of igniting a real evaluation of the policies and habits within our offices, firms, and practices. We’ve celebrated Pride Month and Juneteenth with our friends, our families, our colleagues, and ourselves. We’ve seen landmark Supreme Court decisions bring gender equality and religious freedom front and center.
Wherever we all stand personally on these issues, the point is that we all have colleagues and clients who must navigate their daily lives around a variety of prejudices and challenges. We may not know if those challenges are better or worse than they used to be in the world at large, so it matters whether those challenges follow our colleagues and clients into our offices, one place where things should be better, not worse. Sometimes that feels like a tall ask, especially when there’s so much to juggle, but it’s also worth the extra effort.
We don’t pretend to have all the answers to finding the right approach to diversity and inclusion in your own organization. Our expertise is records, privacy, and legal support, but we think of our unofficial mission as employee mental health. Sometimes that takes the form of supporting work-life balance for our clients. Sometimes that takes the form of just supporting a manageable and engaging workload to reduce stress in the firms and businesses we serve.
Otherwise, we can only speak to what works for us in hopes our approach can work for others. We focus our practices on how attention to diversity supports employee mental health in our own organization. That means accepting and taking care of all our people, so they feel safe in the workplace, even down to the personal small talk and chit-chat that binds teams together. It means making our clients feel secure about who they are so they can be honest about their needs. Diversity in the workplace means everyone gets a space where they can be their best selves, not just on special occasions, but year round.
In a world where there is little that we can control, promoting mental health support and work-life balance is an attainable goal for all businesses if the proper tools and procedures are implemented. One of the most lasting and impactful ways to show respect for the team you lead is to efficiently allocate their skill set and give them the flexibility to better perform their job, which allows them a better work experience and also better work-life balance, which will facilitate loyalty and growth within your business as it continues to grow. As always, we invite you to contact us to learn more about how our services can support your work-life balance strategies.