Leveraging Technology to foster inclusive workplaces is a sound strategy.
According to Zippia research, artificial intelligence growth is upwards of 15%, mobile usage in the neighborhood of 7 billion, while internet usage hovers around the 4 billion mark. In addition, consider the continuing growth of social media usage and how that has changed how we do business. Technology inclusion ideas include training opportunities, improving hiring practices to decrease bias, leveraging inclusive language in communication, and building and reinforcing inclusive communities. As such, inclusive leaders must prioritize technology as an opportunity for leaders to leverage to support diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging goals. Personally and professionally, technology can help bridge the gap for creating safety, building community and connection, and improving collaboration.
Where To Look For Inclusive Technology Opportunities?
Evaluating our existing way of working can provide opportunities for improvement.
MEETINGS
A technology-inclusive opportunity is within reach. According to data captured by Lucid, 60 - 80 million meetings occurred daily in the United States in the last year alone. Therefore, inclusive leaders can tap into online Zoom, Teams, and Google Meets meetings. Zoom, for example, provides us with a chance to:
- Convey identity through pronoun usage. The key here is to ensure acknowledgment in communications. Correct and concentrate on recognizing and using proper pronouns when communicating if there's a bumble and stumble.
- Collaborate with anonymity through linkages to applications like the Lucid Spark Whiteboard. Zoom, by the way, also provides a library of templates to make collaboration easier.
- Change how we communicate (think modification of the visual appearance of emojis). Here's an opportunity to ensure identity representation by encouraging teams to connect with their identities by customizing emojis on the Zoom platform.
Here are some ways to foster inclusion for those using Microsoft Teams.
- Inviting team members into conversations and applauding work effort can be leveraged through Teams applications Kudozza or Praise.
- The Lucid Spark Whiteboard application is also available for Team collaboration. Again, the ability to do so anonymously and non-threateningly will increase psychological safety in conversations and meetings to welcome different communication styles.
- The accessibility bot application can help attend to visual or hearing needs.
Try something new to get a different result.
DECISION-MAKING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING
Meetings aside, there's a lot of buzz around ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence application that, if prompted, will engage in a chat conversation to reduce the effort required for written communications. Look at the example below for insights into the power of ChatGPT.
ChatGPT Search Results
The question was, what technologies should an inclusive leader leverage to create more inclusion in the workplace? The response, generated within a few seconds, shown below, is that there are five technologies to investigate. So, why not engage and ask your most burning question? Keep in mind ChatGPT does provide disclaimers about validating responses during the interaction.
With the above example, the ChatGPT output could be a starting point for research and conversations with technology teams on business interests—additionally, a guide to building skills in areas of uncertainty.
COMMUNICATIONS
Inclusive language is an opportunity area to leverage technologies for building skills. For example, Textio and Ongig applications help scrub job descriptions to ensure welcoming language for job postings.
Author’s note: The author participated in a product demonstration for Ongig software.
