Pyn's Guide to Inclusive Workplace Communications
It’s been just over a year since we released the first version of our Guide to Inclusive Workplace Communications, here's what's new.
Written by
Stacey Nordwall, People and Product
It’s been just over a year since we released the first version of our Guide to Inclusive and Equitable Workplace Communications.
While numerous valuable resources about inclusive word choice and language existed, we couldn’t find a framework to help people develop and think through their communications. It was our perspective that how an organization communicates with its employees is foundational to developing an inclusive culture. So, we partnered with DEI consultant Dr. Breeze Harper, and created the framework ourselves.
In addition to sharing the framework and why we believed inclusive communication matters in the Guide, we presented the concepts in our Inclusive Communications at Work webinar and on the Want to Work There podcast.
We didn’t know if what we developed would resonate with the community, but we were thrilled when it did. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive and allowed us to connect with others who were also focused on inclusive communication.
This year, we’ve updated the Guide to Inclusive and Equitable Workplace Communications. We’ve also gathered with colleagues at Oyster and Culture Amp to discuss communicating effectively across time zones, cultures, and languages and hosted a discussion with our colleagues at Officevibe, PowerToFly, and ThinkHuman to provide learnings about inclusive communication from industry experts.
Along the way, we’ve embraced our own continuing evolution. The experiences and connections with colleagues and community further deepened our own knowledge. We learned that some of our communications from the beginning of this journey needed improvement.
For example, upon reviewing our communication for Juneteenth, we found it didn’t center and celebrate the Black community as it should have. So we worked with our DEI consultant, Natania Malin Gazek, to update it.
During the last year, we were also gathering feedback from all of you to inform updates to the guide. You wanted to know:
- How to communicate inclusively in regards to neurodiversity
- How to communicate effectively across geographies, cultures and their accompanying norms
- How to apply these frameworks to everyday HR communications
When we created the first version of our Guide, we intended for there to be a version two based on feedback from the community.
Here's what's new in version two of the Guide to Inclusive and Equitable Workplace Communications:
- Expanded guidance on how to create communications inclusive of neurodiverse individuals (found in the section titled “Consider your language”)
- A new section on best practices for formatting your communications to make them more accessible (section titled “Consider your format”)
- Additional resources specifically addressing how to make your communications more accessible (found in the Appendix in our “Resources” section under “Accessibility Resources”)
- An example, along with resources, demonstrating how a non-inclusive job description can become an inclusive job description (found in the Appendix under “Resources”)
Stacey loves to hike and read. Her goal is to create inclusive workplaces. Before Pyn, she was an early member of Culture Amp’s people team.