![\"February](\"https:\/\/loveandcompany.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/LI-872_-_February_2024_Webinar2_FINAL-2-1700x944.jpg\")
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Watch the webinar recording to learn more about how developing a strong culture of inclusion can help prepare your organization to serve a more diverse market.<\/h2>\n
In our February 15, 2024 webinar, W Lawson Company<\/a> Founder and CEO Marvell Adams, Jr.<\/a> and Love & Company President\/CEO Rob Love shared their insights on what developing a culture of equity and inclusion really means in our webinar, \u201cInclusion as an Essential Growth Strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past decade, a significant number of senior living organizations have begun developing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. For some, the primary goal has been to attract more residents of color. Although race is certainly a piece of the DEI puzzle, it\u2019s only one of many. Our communities are already segregating people by age, so changing that paradigm can be one element of an inclusion program. Many communities also have an opportunity to better serve the LGBTQ population as well.<\/p>\n My focus is on inclusion, on creating a sense of welcome that someone\u2014whether a resident or a staff member\u2014truly feels they belong in your community. Inclusion creates diversity, not the other way around. I like to refer to inclusion as \u201cthe big tent.\u201d It\u2019s a growth strategy, enabling organizations to invite more people into their tent. At the end of the day, inclusion is about welcoming more individuals to your community.<\/p>\n What we in senior living need to understand and embrace is that\u2014in today\u2019s world\u2014people have so many choices as to where to live or where to work. If they don\u2019t feel welcome, they won\u2019t come to your community. That\u2019s what inclusion is all about\u2014making people feel they belong.<\/p>\n Developing a culture of inclusion is not easy. It\u2019s not like ordering a new CRM or rolling out a new menu, and it\u2019s not a \u201cprogram\u201d you can implement over a short period of time. It\u2019s a pervasive thing that takes a lot of devotion over a long period of time.<\/p>\n Lily Zheng<\/a> (they\/them), the author of DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right<\/em><\/a> and Reconstructing DEI: A Practitioner\u2019sWorkbook<\/em><\/a>, offers great guidance on how to think about and put together a culture of equity and inclusion. Zheng underscores the critical role of trust and makes the strong case that efforts to become more inclusive will not be successful if the leadership of the organization does not have the trust of the stakeholders, such as residents and staff. If you start and stop, or don\u2019t do things well, you won\u2019t earn trust and it won\u2019t be successful.<\/p>\n This is why I founded my company W Lawson<\/a> to increase the number of leaders that are aware of the implications that certain decisions can have, and know how to dismantle obstacles to inclusion that may already be in place. Leaders need to look carefully at their organization\u2019s policies to be sure they don\u2019t create barriers to inclusion. Let me share an example of what I mean.<\/p>\n Many organizations do drug testing before they hire someone. But what if your community is in Maryland, the District of Columbia or another state where recreational use of marijuana is legal? You need to ask, \u201cWhat is the rationale for testing for cannabis?\u201d By drug testing, are you artificially reducing the size of your potential workforce? For this very reason, even many faith-based organizations in Colorado, another state where recreational cannabis is legal, have stopped drug testing for cannabis. Also, many organizations test before hiring, but then don\u2019t test again. What kind of statement does that make to staff about the organization\u2019s leadership and commitment? And keep in mind, this isn\u2019t about judging right or wrong when it comes to drug testing. It\u2019s about asking the question: What is our goal in maintaining a drug testing program? If the answer is to protect residents and ensure a safe workplace, then it\u2019s our responsibility as leaders to ensure our policies prevent impairment. And a drug testing policy that tests only at the point of pre-employment does not meet this goal. So, the next question is: Why do we have the policy if it doesn\u2019t ensure a work environment free of impairment?<\/p>\n There are many benefits of a strong inclusion program. Your community becomes more attractive to a broader base of potential residents, not just the typical monochromatic group that most senior living communities serve today. And you become more attractive to prospective workers as well. In fact, organizations that have strong DEI cultures are shown to have stronger retention and better recruitment.<\/p>\n There\u2019s not always a direct link between implementing a DEI program and retention and recruiting; It doesn\u2019t \u201cjust happen.\u201d People apply for a job based on some sort of invitation. Perhaps they saw an ad you placed online, or perhaps a friend told them about the position. The key question then becomes, when they first come in contact with the organization, do they feel welcome? People tend to stay where they feel included, and where they feel they belong. When staff don\u2019t stay, it\u2019s because they no longer feel they belong there. A number of today\u2019s workforce challenges are due to care staff realizing that they have more career choices than they\u2019ve ever had before. They need a sense of belonging to want to stay somewhere.<\/p>\n What\u2019s proven to work in building effective DEI programs is to build a cohort of individuals dedicated to making a difference, and then start building another one. The cohorts start to work together to enact change. That\u2019s what I\u2019m doing with W Lawson\u2019s Longevity + Inclusion Alliance Fellows Program. By starting the Fellows program, we are working to create leaders that have a clearer vision of how to create a more inclusive environment, gain and\/or improve their cultural competence in understanding other lived experiences, and join a growing cohort of leaders looking to create equity in aging. You can learn more about the Fellows program here<\/a>.<\/p>\n We will be holding an inclusion retreat with our current cohort class on April 18 and 19, and I\u2019m excited to share that Lily Zheng<\/a>, the author I referenced earlier, will be one of our speakers. We will be opening the retreat to a limited number of people from outside the Fellows program, so please reach out to me<\/a> if you\u2019d like to learn more.<\/p>\n I\u2019m really optimistic about the potential that serving a more diverse aging population has for our organizations. We are seeing a lot of movement toward creating intergenerational and middle-income communities that will help meet this need. The next step is laying a foundation from which our existing Life Plan Communities and other senior living organizations can begin to serve the broader population in the years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Explore the importance of equity and inclusion in senior living organizations for serving a more diverse aging population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-trends"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.loveandcompany.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Is a Culture of Inclusion?<\/h3>\n
How to Develop a Culture of Inclusion<\/h3>\n
The Benefits of Inclusion<\/h3>\n
The Longevity + Inclusion Alliance Fellows Program<\/h3>\n
An Exciting Future<\/h3>\n