InclusieNL Event: Talking about recent D&I developments

What an inspiring afternoon at the InclusieNL event, where our team from Utrecht University was able to contribute with a workhop!

In our workshop, participants identified the blind spots in their organizations' D&I policies. Together we practiced the Best Methods approach by drawing up SMART goals for exit research. This yielded great insights, including the important leads on the inclusiveness climate within the organization that exit research can provide. Participants also saw the exit interview as an opportunity to make departing employees company ambassadors.

We will incorporate these insights into a new handbook on Exit Research that we are preparing as part of the Goldschmeding Foundation-supported project “Het moet wel werken”, together with Diversity at work and InclusieNL, formerly known as Foundation Nederlandse InclusiviteitsMonitor.

Photo credit: InclusieNL

Workplace Pride announces Global Benchmark 2022 results

Workplace Pride just announced the results of their yearly Global Benchmark survey! The Global Benchmark is a labor-intensive, but very impactful measurement instrument that is designed to measure the LGBTIQ+ policies and practices for internationally active employers.

I would like to congratulate all the organisations that have committed their time and effort into completing this years Workplace Pride LGBTIQ+ Global Benchmark survey! The results of their work offers valuable insight into the way organisations are taking steps to provide a workplace where everyone can be themselves.

Interested in the results of the Global Benchmark 2022? You can find the report by Workplace Pride here!

© Workplace Pride

Coming Out Day & New Members at Workplace Pride 🌈

Coming Out Day is an international day of awareness and respect for LGBTQ+ people. Every year on 11 October, we reflect on the importance of being able to be yourself, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity.

This year on Coming Out Day, my own employer University of Utrecht and our neighbour HU Hogeschool Utrecht have joined Workplace Pride! Christine Holtkamp captured this wonderful event 📸 I look forward to working together to make these workplaces more inclusive.

As of last year, the longest rainbow bike path in the world has been at the Utrecht Science Park. With the rainbow bike path, Utrecht University, Hogeschool Utrecht and UMC Utrecht are calling attention to acceptance, equality and safety of all people from the LGBTIQ+ community. But what do staff and students really think about it?

Photo credit: Utrecht University

Milou van de Brug and Miriam Wickham, former student and PhD student at the Faculty of Social Sciences, respectively, investigated how the rainbow bike path was received by students and staff. They presented their results on Coming Out Day, revealing an overwhelmingly positive evaluation of the rainbow bike path: a rating of 8!

According to participants, the bike path symbolises the institutions' commitment to the LGBTQ+ community, and helps raise awareness. At the same time, according to Van de Brug and Wickham, the survey results give reason for more efforts in favour of LGBTQ+ inclusivity. Based on the findings, the researchers advise a Triple-A Approach:

  • Attention by providing all-gender toilets and inclusive gender registration policies,

  • Amplification by means of safe spaces and more visibility of LGBTQ+ networks,

  • Awareness by creating more visibility of the EDI Office’s actions and diversity goals.

Read more about the research and the policy advice here!

Support and D&I Policy Guide

That support within the organization is important for the success of diversity and inclusion policies will not surprise anyone. But what exactly does that support look like, and what can HR professionals do to create support within all layers of the organization?

To answer these questions, our research team at Utrecht University conducted a new study in collaboration with the Nederlandse InclusiviteitsMonitor and Diversity at work.

In this handout, we summarize the findings and list a number of concrete strategies: "Iedereen aan Boord: Handreiking voor het creëren van draagvlak voor diversiteits- en inclusiebeleid."

The research and the guide are part of the project 'Het moet wel werken: Inclusie op de arbeidsmarkt door synergie tussen wetenschap en praktijk', made possible by the Goldschmeding Foundation.

“Stronger together towards LGBTIQ+ inclusion in Academia”

On September 8th, the LGBT+ Network Leiden University organized a meeting for all members of the Academia@ Workplace Pride community to open the Academic Year! We looked back on what has been achieved and are looking ahead to the topics which will further improve LGBTIQ+ inclusivity in academia.

During the event, Workplace Pride Advisory Board member and senator Boris Dittrich was interviewed about his latest book “Mandate: My Fight for Equal Rights” by Workplace Pride Foundation Board co-chair Michiel Kolman 🏳️‍🌈 (pictured). Aya Ezawa shared the university’s D&I plans for the coming years, and I shared the latest findings from our research highlighting the importance of D&I policy support among board members, managers and employees. What an excellent event to kick off the school year!

Photo credit: Workplace Pride


Kick-off new bachelor course "Making Diversity Work"

Today, Belle Derks and I kicked off our new bachelor course “Making Diversity Work: Building Inclusive Organizations.” Approximately 120 advanced bachelor students will learn about the benefits as well as the challenges of building diverse and inclusive organisations. The course is grounded in social and organisational psychology. In addition, students are introduced to a multidisciplinary approach to diversity and inclusion to gain a multilevel understanding of how to promote D&I at the institutional level, the experiential level, and the symbolic level). In work groups, students will analyze existing D&I initiatives and develop a theoretically sound and evidence-based approach to change these. Students will also practice with effective ways to manage and stimulate D&I in their own work teams.

Dialogue on Data Collection at Work

As an employer, how do you identify the challenges and needs of LGBTIQ+ employees and other relatively invisible groups? This is a question that many organisations struggle with, yet it is rarely talked about with employees themselves.

To encourage such conversations, we developed the P.INC poster campaign, aimed to make discussions about inclusion, privacy, and data gathering easier in the workplace. The posters are designed in such a way that they create a ‘huh?’-moment as the images and texts are ambiguous on purpose and do not always fit in the work context. The explanation of the poster, the ‘ohh-moment’, is facilitated by an email that contains the aim of the campaign, as well as an invitation for discussion. The poster campaign is a collaboration between members of the Young Academies of Utrecht University and Eindhoven Young Academy.

Yesterday morning, Michiel Kolman 🏳️‍🌈 and I were briefly interviewed on this topic by De Ondernemer (starting at 19:00).

Want to know more about the P.INC poster campaign? Have a look here.

Poster on sexual orientation as part of the P.INC poster campaign, designed by Studio SociaalCentraal and in collaboration with Workplace Pride.

"Stronger Together" - Workplace Pride conference 2022

At this year’s annual Workplace Pride conference at the Beurs van Berlage, I had the honor to be part of a panel on employee data collection on sexual orientation and gender identity. I was also interviewed by Aldith Hunkar on how I connect science and practice when it comes to LGBTIQ+ inclusion and how businesses can benefit from this knowledge. The video can be viewed HERE


For more videos and resources from the International Conference, click this link: https://lnkd.in/e9_DT_9