Building an Inclusive Culture: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Effective Workplace Policies

Dear Peoplism,

Like many tech companies, ours is not currently hiring. Instead, we’re focusing on retaining the employees that we have and providing a great employee experience. One area that we had kicked down the road in past years is evaluating our policies to make sure they are as equitable and inclusive as possible. We’re starting to do our research but I’m already overwhelmed. Where do we start? What really makes a policy inclusive? I want to put together a cohesive case for changes and address the most pressing needs.

Thanks,
Plotting New Policies


Dear Plotting New Policies,

While having the time to focus on something proactive is fantastic, we totally understand your overwhelm. Of course, everyone wants to have inclusive policies…but what does that really mean? We commend you for not simply copying what other companies are doing. It’s important to develop an approach that makes sense for your organization.

Let’s start with the word inclusive. Let’s face it, it’s pretty vague, which means it probably doesn’t help you make decisions. At Peoplism we define inclusion as creating a company where all employees feel supported, valued, and able to participate. Having a specific definition of inclusion allows us to hold up a policy and ask very specific questions:

• Does the current policy unintentionally make any group feel unsupported, under-valued or make it more difficult for them to participate?
• Does any group of employees or potential candidates currently feel less supported, valued or able to participate than others? What could help fix the disparity?

Of course, not every policy can anticipate the needs of every single employee. And that’s okay. When you approach HR with a DEI lens, you make a commitment to center the needs of current and potential employees that have historically faced discrimination in organizations and likely currently still have less power.

Once you have settled on what “inclusive” means at your company, you’re ready to consider policies that will help you increase inclusion.

This is not an exhaustive list, but below are our recommendations for policies that contribute to creating a company where all employees feel supported, valued, and able to participate:

Code of Conduct / Anti-Harassment & Anti-Discrimination Policy

Before employees can feel supported, valued and able to participate, at the bare minimum they must feel safe. If you’re part of a majority group, it’s easy to take the feeling of safety from harassment and discrimination for granted. But for too many people–yes, even in 2023, even after BLM and #MeToo–this is a fundamental concern.

If your company currently only has a legalistic Anti-Harassment and Anti-Discrimination policy, we highly recommend re-writing it in human language. Clearly tie these policies to your values and company mission. Make sure to provide several different reporting options, including an anonymous one.

Example: Peoplism’s Anti-Harassment & Anti-Discrimination policy

Paid Time Off (PTO)

In the last several years there has been a trend, especially in tech, to offer unlimited Paid Time Off. While unlimited vacation sounds great in theory and is an attractive perk for employees, there’s some evidence that it can actually lead to people taking less vacation time than with a fixed policy.

Employees typically want to do what is expected of them and not fall outside the norm. When vacation is unlimited it can be hard to know what the normal range is. To appear more ambitious or competitive, people may forgo vacations or try to limit them as much as possible.

We recommend setting a minimum guideline—for example, 3 weeks—and training managers to communicate and enforce the minimum.

If you have a traditional PTO policy, ensure you are providing enough time for employees to recharge from stress and live their personal lives throughout the year. We recommend at least 3 weeks. (One 40-year study published in the European Journal of Cardiology finds that less than 3 weeks of vacation a year leads to a 37% increased chance of dying over a 30-year period. That’s right, dying.)

Sick Leave Policy

It’s obviously critical that employees are able to take time off from work when they are ill. While there is shockingly no federal sick leave mandate, several states including CA and NY mandate at least 3 days of sick leave. You should have a clear, generous sick leave policy that is evenly applied across managers. We recommend at least 14 days.

Some employees are not just responsible for themselves, but also for a child, sick spouse or an elderly parent. Unfortunately, these responsibilities don’t fall evenly in our society, with women shouldering the majority of unpaid caregiving work.

Employers can win loyal employees by helping caregivers take the time they need to take care of a sick family member. We recommend that your sick leave policy be available for use for one’s own illness or family member’s illness.

Parental Leave Policy

The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t mandate paid parental leave. Therefore, unfortunately, the burden of supporting new parents during one of the most challenging periods of their lives falls on employers.

A new parent trying to keep a two-week-old fed and alive is not going to be of much use at work. But a new parent that receives paid parental leave support during the difficult first months of their baby’s life is more likely to be a loyal employee for a long time to come.

We recommend providing paid, gender-neutral parental leave for at least 12 weeks. Researchers and advocates strongly argue for gender-neutral* policies that provide both men and women equal parental leave time. Unequal leaves perpetuate the idea that women are “naturally” primary caregivers. This stereotype negatively impacts women’s earnings, as researchers have long shown that the wage gap noticeably widens when women have children. When men take leave, however, women are not only more likely to return to work, they earn more. For example, one study found that every month a father stays on paid parental leave has a larger positive effect on a mother’s earnings than if she’d reduced her leave by the same amount. If you use “primary” and “secondary” caregiver language, get rid of it!

* Parental leave is different than disability leave related to pregnancy. Birthing mothers who have a medical need still have access to additional disability leave. In the case that a birthing mother needs disability leave, it’s even more important that her partner has access to longer leave so that the person not on disability can provide care for the newborn child.

Work From Home (WFH) / Flextime Policy

Employees value flexibility. The research on the impact of flexible and work-from-home policies, however, is mixed. In general, we see personal productivity gains when employees are allowed more flexibility to work where and when they want. On the other hand, researchers find some evidence that teams are faster to solve problems that require collaboration when they are in the office. There is a balance to be achieved in balancing employee desires, personal productivity, and collaboration. Policies that err on the side of inflexibility usually result in inconsistently applied exceptions, leading to frustration and perceptions of unfairness among employees.

We believe there is room to encourage a strong culture of collaboration while still trusting employees to use WFH and flexibility to increase their personal productivity by reorganizing work hours when needed. WFH policies should be created to offer the most flexibility possible. Don’t create a policy with people that you think might game the system in mind—those employees are a different problem that a strict WFH policy won’t solve.

We recommend a WFH policy that allows employees to choose where they do their work with clear guidelines when everyone is expected to be in the office for collaboration (e.g. one or two meeting days per week).

Disability Accommodations Policy

When we run our DEIB Assessment, HR leaders are often surprised to learn that they have far more employees that identify as having a disability than they thought. That’s because employees widely underreport having a disability when disclosing is not anonymous. A report by the Center for Talent Innovation, for example, found that although 30% of employees met the federal definition of having a disability in 2016, only 3.2% disclosed this disability to their employers.

Companies can increase support for employees with disabilities by proactively offering environments and tools that allow for equal access and participation for employees with disabilities. In your physical office that includes: ramps, automatic doors, elevators, reserved parking spaces, size-inclusive office chairs, adjustable height furniture, and quiet spaces. In remote spaces that can include: enabling closed captioning/live transcription for video calls, reimbursing for size-inclusive home office chairs, and ensuring digital resources are accessible (WCAG 2.0 standards or better).

In addition to proactive steps, make sure you have a clear and well-communicated policy (especially during onboarding) for asking for individual accommodations. Employees should be able to go to different people to make a request, in case they don’t feel comfortable going directly to their manager. This can be very simple. For example, in your handbook you can say: “We want everyone to have the opportunity to be successful at this company. If you need accommodation to make it possible to successfully perform your role, please talk to your manager or X in HR.” (Of course, managers should be trained on how to handle such requests. Disability:IN offers a free training that you can use).

Trans-Inclusive Policies

In addition to being surprised to discover they have a sizable group of employees with disabilities, some leaders we work with are surprised to find they have trans employees. Once they know they have trans employees, they set about addressing gaps in their policies that leave trans employees out–but often the damage has already been done, and their trans employees report worse experiences at work.

Our recommendation: don’t wait. Set trans-inclusive policies now. This will show trans employees and potential candidates that they are valued and will be able to fully participate at work. As trans-inclusion researchers write, “When we detect signs of social devaluation (apathy, disapproval, or rejection), we experience negative emotions and a loss of self-esteem. When we detect signs of social valuation (praise, affection, or admission to a desired group), just the opposite occurs. Thus inclusive policies and practices [...] send vital messages to trans employees about their value as organizational members.”

Four areas you can start with are:

• Bathroom access. Provide gender-neutral bathrooms and/or encourage trans employees to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Here are Human Rights Campaign’s guidelines and how one company went about it.
• Dress code. Eliminate any gendered dress code requirements or suggestions.
• Pronoun and name use. Allow employees to indicate their chosen names and correct pronouns, and encourage proper usage through onboarding, email signatures, and training.
• Trans-inclusive health benefits. If you’re a large company, offer comprehensive plans that cover reproduction for LGBTQ people. As these plans are expensive, smaller organizations can offer supplemental reproduction plans such as Arc Fertility, as well as set up a health savings account (HSA) for employees whose health care needs are not covered in the current health care plan. The University of California San Francisco has published helpful articles on health insurance coverage and fertility options for transgender people.

Finally, we urge you to include all your employees, including part-time workers and contractors, in your inclusive policies. Inclusion shouldn’t just be a benefit for employees at the top of the income ladder.

As an HR leader, you may not have full control over the actions of individual managers and teammates. But you do have a major role to play in setting company policies. Inclusive policies are a major component of the DEIB puzzle and can lay the foundation for a fair and productive work environment for all employees.

Good luck,
The Peoplism Team