At our Health@Work networking breakfast on health equity last November, keynote speaker Shamayne Braman encouraged worksite wellness champions to move from an equality mindset to one of equity. Braman said, “Equality is everyone getting the same thing, equity is everyone getting the same outcome.”
“With equality, everyone gets a shoe. With equity, everyone gets a shoe that fits. We can’t expect that if we offer the same thing to everyone in our wellness program, that everyone will get the same health and wellness.”
Is your worksite wellness program providing employees with what they need to be healthy? The following six steps recommended by Braman will help you add an equity lens to your wellness program. Consider:
- How do different aspects of your program impact various segments of your employee population?
- Who has access to your program?
- Who has and has not been thought of in the design of your program?
We have added some resources to the recommended steps below so you can act right away to make your wellness program more inclusive.
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Leadership: Are diverse perspectives represented in your wellness program’s leadership? Read and discuss The six signature traits of inclusive leadership by Deloitte Insights to gain a framework for thinking about wellness leadership and for concrete recommendations.
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Infrastructure: Does your organization’s wellness plan include equity goals? To make equity part of the fabric of your organization, consider getting help from local diversity and inclusion experts and organizations through this crowdsourced resource list.
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Policies and practices: Have your organization’s policies been evaluated for disparate impact? One example cited by Braman was bereavement policies that have traditionally stressed immediate family. To be more inclusive, you may want to consider that in many cultures, extended family plays a vital role in people’s lives.
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Assessment, engagement, and evaluation: Is data disaggregated by demographic or protected class, race, age, and gender? SurveyMonkey offers this guide to measuring diversity and inclusion.
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Communication: Does your wellness program address language, literacy, or cultural nuances? Subscribe to the excellent newsletter Better Allies 5 Ally Actions for everyday actions to increase cultural competency.
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Programs: Does your health education programming incorporate the impact of unconscious bias and micro-aggressions? We all know that stress is a big issue in the workplace, but are you aware of the mounting research showing the added stress due to bias and micro-aggressions? Eagle County Public Health and Environment in Colorado has these concrete suggestions from workplace wellness interviews.
Braman concluded her talk with these words, “Because health equity stems from systemic challenges, wellness programs cannot solve health equity, but they can create an inclusive culture that advances equity in well-being for all employees.”
Want to learn more about making your workplace wellness program more inclusive?
Save the date for our Health@Work Advancing Wellness Together networking breakfast on health equity on April 22. Stay tuned for registration and details.
“One of the things that we have to change is the narrative. I’m no longer a believer that we keep promoting quote 'diversity' in our work environment. We need inclusiveness in our work environment. And it’s a big difference. When you accept someone into a group, and let them be who they are — that changes the dynamics of the group. Versus when you’re invited into the room, but we’ve already decided the culture of the group — and now you need to fit in. I want people to bring themselves to work and to be able to contribute, to bring their best thinking forward. And at the end of the day, all I’m after is the best results, by the best people.” - Bernard Tyson, late CEO of Kaiser Permanente
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