Why You Should Care About Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity & Inclusion: Why You Should Care
Aubrey Blanche, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Atlassian, joins us in this latest edition of The New Stack Makers podcast to talk about the difference between diversity and inclusion and why anyone should care.
“Diversity is being invited to the party,” she said. “Inclusion is being glad you’re there.”
When you create an inclusive culture, Blanche explained, business thrives. Employees who feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work perform better and are happier at work, which leads to less turnover, which leads to greater profits.
In this conversation, Blanche breaks down what specific steps Atlassian has taken to create an inclusive culture. She comes from a political science background and is all about measurable outcomes. Working on the company’s initiative to foster inclusiveness, she said she realized that teams are the unit of measure, because teams are where all the work happens. Once she focused her energies on creating diversity in teams, she started making changes and measuring outcomes, which ultimately lead to changes in the way Atlassian does business and looks at hiring.
Empathy is the most important criteria for hiring at Atlassian, she said. Technical skills are likely to be out of date in a few years anyway.
In This Edition:
0:56: The difference between diversity and inclusion.
5:40: The social science of organizational theory.
8:24: How data plays into team building and management.
16:43: Culture shift and empathy.
22:33: Exploring Atlassian’s team playbook for management training.
26:36: Other tools Atlassian is working on to pioneer culture shift.
Feature image via Pixabay.