Insights from Pulsely

Read our latest articles and white papers and learn what's trending in DEI

Reports

Inclusion and Belonging: the Keys to Unlocking the Innovation Potential of Neurodivergent Employees

Neurodivergent employees consistently report a lower level of inclusion in their workplaces compared to their colleagues, even those with (other) disabilities, that is negatively impacting their engagement, ability to innovate, and their retention. Read our latest research to learn more.

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Blog

Why Work-Life Effectiveness is a DEI issue

People exist outside of work in diverse ways, so interweaving work and life is different for different people. The desire for work-life balance is not a reflection of ambition level, a simple matter of allocated hours or even the what/how/where of the workplace. Rather, it includes subjective measures.

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Demystifying DEI Data: Addressing Concerns and Building Trust for an Inclusive Future

Using data to understand your current state enables you to set specific, achievable goals that are relevant to the organization. Many organizations are wary of the legal risks associated with this data; on one hand, data is necessary to identify challenges and measure progress but, on the other, recent legislation in the U.S. has created fear of litigation.

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Articles

Pulsely Scientific Framework and Guide to Analysis 2023

Pulsely's DEI Assessments are based on two scientifically rigorous and research-backed frameworks, measuring the inclusion environment an employee experiences in your organization (Workplace Inclusion) and the inclusion skills and beliefs they bring with them (Inclusion Competencies).

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Are Your Company Events Creating Exclusion?

Many companies overlook how influential corporate events are in reinforcing exclusion or cultivating inclusion. And even though certain practices became obsolete and most leaders recognize the need to create inclusion in the workplace, when it comes to corporate social events, some specific considerations should be taken into account.

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How to Build an Inclusive Performance Management System

Performance management bias can undermine your best DEI efforts and reinforce inequitable outcomes and discriminatory structures. By ensuring an inclusive performance management system, your employees will be motivated to give their best contributions to your organization - knowing they will be recognized and appraised for those contributions.

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Have You Checked Your Team's Motivation Levels for DEI?

When it comes to DEI, the motivation levels of individuals and the overall motivational profile you are dealing with matter. We’ve repeatedly heard that leadership commitment is critical to DEI effectiveness and trickles down to effect the organizational tone and commitment. What motivates an individual can come from different places, it can be intrinsic or extrinsic, but motivation underlies commitment.

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5 Ways to Become More Conscious About Systemic Bias

Systemic bias negatively affects individuals, groups, teams, organizations and society. It governs the basis of important decision making and has a profound impact on the workplace. It’s the pervasiveness, ambiguous and often invisible bias that is most detrimental. Systemic bias has a continuous and cumulative debilitating impact foremost on individuals in certain groups. 

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Embracing Change - The Principles of Inclusive Leadership

Creating an inclusive culture requires that leaders embrace change and actively seek to improve their inclusive leadership competencies. Fortunately, becoming an inclusive leader is not a quality that is fixed or strictly inherent, but something that can be assessed, measured, coached and developed. 

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Why Be More Curious About Others in the Workplace?

Without curiosity towards others, you are missing their different experiences and perspectives and you will also not hear how and why they are different. That goes for a background experience, a perspective on a decision or an opinion on a new process change. If you want to lead and live with open ears and open eyes, you must be willing to both listen and learn from others.

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Become a Data-Driven DEI Strategy Advocate

The best DEI leaders aren’t just data rich. They are data smart. They are leveraging data to gain clarity and DEI vision. By tying DEI data to the business agenda, they are revisioning their DEI story and driving a quantifiable difference to their business. 

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18 Ways to Make your Meetings More Inclusive

Inclusive meetings help to create a positive team environment in which team members feel psychologically safe and maximize effectiveness. Yet, meetings are notorious for distorted power dynamics and bias. 

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Before Finding Solutions, Identify your DEI Challenges

Identifying the challenges your organization face will help you to chart longer-term strategies to address them. Then you can not only focus your efforts on the right solutions, but you can also be more discerning in what DEI partners you choose to bring in and keep around. 

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Does your Organization Provide Inclusive Career Support?

Career advancement depends a lot on who you know and affinity bias plays an important role. No matter what career path an individual may want to take, there are several more ways your organization can support more inclusive career advancement.

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How Leaders Can Prevent Inappropriate Behaviors in the Workplace

When we talk about misconduct, we’re often talking about toxic behavior that became normalized as part of a toxic workplace. When leaders use their voices and put appropriate action, they help create a culture with ethical values at the core, establishing a safe space for reporting misconduct without threat of retaliation while emphasizing a zero tolerance policy.

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10 Actions Managers Can Take to Build Inclusion

Inclusive leadership is not about occasional grand gestures, but regular comments and actions. If you are a manager, here are 10 actions you can start practicing today to boost inclusion in your workplace.

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Is Your Organization a DEI Leader or Laggard?

Whether your organization is a leader or a laggard in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a reflection of how you benchmark against other companies, but also and more importantly, it’s a direct reflection on how your culture is experienced by your own employees.

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Inclusive Recruitment - The Secret to Attracting and Hiring Diverse Employees

Acquiring talent from diverse pools requires both widening how you source your candidate pool and focusing precisely towards overlooked spaces. The secret to inclusive recruitment is being real and consistent in your signals of inclusion to diverse talent.

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6 Key Elements of a Psychologically Safe Workplace

Without psychological safety, individuals focus on “impression management” and can’t show up wholly, using their voice and daring their perspectives. When companies crack psychological safety, they liberate their employees to be effective and focus on their contribution to the organizational vision.

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Why Equal Opportunity Doesn’t Translate to Equal Outcomes

Equity requires curiosity, attentiveness to each other and immense maturity. Sharing abundance requires a deep inner security. True leaders will go beyond their own stories of achievement to also acknowledge that the structure was built to be more conducive to some.

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Want to Improve Employee Retention? Start with Inclusion.

One in five workers planned to quit their jobs this year. Job fulfillment and the ability to be one’s self at work are two of the main reasons why people consider changing jobs. While inclusion does not guarantee job satisfaction, it is a prerequisite. So if you want to increase retention among your workforce, start with inclusion.

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News

Pulsely's Advisor Natasha Chetiyawardana Speaks at Websummit

Web Summit 2022 is starting soon and our brilliant advisor Natasha Chetiyawardana will be hosting a roundtable on November 3rd to discuss how misfits can transform businesses.

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Building a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace

The absence of belonging is costly and corrosive to both individuals and organizations. An overall sentiment of belonging is a result of day-to-day experiences that allow you to feel psychologically safe, valued and like an “insider” amidst the culture. Belonging is measurable. If you’re not qualitatively and quantitatively assessing belonging in your workplace, your DEI efforts are missing the mark while running blind.

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It’s Not A Values Question: Does Your Organization Embrace Difference?

An organization that embraces difference will recognize that different backgrounds create cultural wealth that builds leadership potential, it will challenge and diversify the norms that limit the perception of leadership and understand that different minds bring unique and compelling business and cultural advantages.

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How To Implement Formal Mentoring and Sponsorship Programs

Informal mentorship is not a bad thing. It helps people to grow personally and professionally. The problem is when your talent decisions are driven by informal mentorship and informal sponsorship, because of bias. And that's why we discuss how prioritizing formal sponsorship creates real and measurable changes towards more equitable outcomes at the top.

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Why Creating Inclusion at Senior Levels Requires Formal Sponsorship

Informal sponsorship and mentorship can proliferate inequitable power dynamics in organizations. Organic sponsorship is a big part of how leadership proactively recasts the pipeline in the majority image. Meanwhile, the status quo power dynamic inhibits individuals who are in the minority among leadership from lifting others up behind them.

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Addressing Intersectionality in Diversity and Inclusion Analysis

Without an intersectional approach to diversity, equity and inclusion analysis, you risk creating more blindspots, or even worse, exacerbating exclusion, because rather than "not knowing", you start to "think you know".

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Advocacy vs Allyship: Understanding the Differences

Both allyship and advocacy play important roles in creating workplaces where people are able to be authentic and belong while having more equitable opportunities to fulfill their potential. But what are the differences between the two and how do they complement each other?

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How To Find The Right DEI Training For Your Workplace

Building a culture of inclusion requires changes in processes and policies. But, most importantly, it requires that individuals develop their own inclusive skills - their inclusion competencies. So how do you know how and where to focus your DEI training to advance people in ways that will make a real difference in your culture?

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Blog

Is anti-racist layoff really a thing?

Tech company Twilio just made the headlines for cutting 11% of its workforce following a wave of layoffs affecting organizations worldwide in 2022. But what stood out from the CEO's announcement was his claim of this being an "anti-racist layoff". So what does he mean by that?

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Quiet Quitting: Why Are Employees Disengaged And What Can Employers Do About It

Some people see quiet quitting as a passive aggressive way to respond when they feel devalued by their company. But the important conversation we should all be having is not about criticizing employees for acting this way, but rather understanding the root causes and identifying opportunities to increase employee engagement.

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Breaking Patterns: How Your Talent Management Decisions Hinder Equity

Each individual talent management decision may seem justified, rational, objective and consciously discerning. But it’s the cumulative impact of these decisions that spells out the patterns of unconscious bias. What is invisible and seemingly benign at the level of individual decisions is revealed in plain sight at the level of patterns. 

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News

Pulsely Announces Advisory Board

Pulsely proudly welcomes five members to its advisory board. These inspiring leaders will support the company's strategic growth and guide the continued delivery of world-class DEI solutions to make workplaces more inclusive.

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Leveraging Disability Inclusion In The Workplace: A Guide for Employers

As more jobs are supported by technology, old barriers become obsolete and companies can create workplace cultures and environments that are more equitable, safe and supportive for leveraging the talent pool of people with disabilities.

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How Inclusive Leaders Help Build Psychologically Safe Workplaces

The most important driver for team psychologically safety is a positive team environment. Above all, visible role-modeling of inclusive leadership mindsets and behaviors at the very top has the greatest impact on creating psychological safety in an organization: reinforcing expectations and setting a cultural tone of inclusion. 

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The Reykjavik Index - Measuring Perceptions of Gender Equality In Leadership

Do we think men or women are better suited to leadership positions? That question is the at the core of The Reykjavik Index that highlights our culturally conditioned blindness that contributes to the persistent underrepresentation of women in leadership: the image of leadership is still skewed towards men.

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Driving ESG Progress Through DEI

DEI is not only part of S and G but interwoven through ESG. Poor ESG leads to greater systemic inequities, whereas an "ESGD" approach that focuses through and on addressing systemic inequities strengthens all of ESG.

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10 Key Elements of an Effective DEI Communication Strategy

DEI communications can help to shift the organizational tone towards the language of inclusion, disrupt old beliefs and embrace new ones, and support inclusion and belonging. In this article we show you the 10 key elements that matter in DEI communications.

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Why Does Inclusion Matter for Business

Inclusion is a measurable qualitative factor that influences your business performance. Inclusion catalyzes a return on investment in diversity because it contributes to performance at individual, team and organizational level. In this article we discuss why does inclusion matter for business.

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How to Successfully Launch a DEI Committee

A DEI Committee is a purpose-driven task force that helps to steer DEI decisions, strategies and actions in your organization. When a DEI Committee is set up for success from the beginning, it can help steward the DEI journey of your organization. Learn how to launch a successful DEI Committee in our latest article.

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Focus on DE&I Analytics: How Do You Measure Inclusion?

Compared to diversity, inclusion has been a far more difficult topic to measure because it was seen as purely a subjective topic and believed to be just about "feelings". This article discusses how inclusion can be measured more objectively to create an internal business case and actionable plan that also brings stakeholders on board to advance inclusion.

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Bias in Hiring: Why Does It Matter And How To Tackle It

How you feel about having unconscious bias does not put into question whether you have it. Even if you work on your conscious mindset, unconscious mental shortcuts and split-second decisions prevail - especially in the recruiting process. In this article we discuss the consequences of bias in hiring and how to tackle it.

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Bias In Hiring: Going Beyond The Basics

Accepting that bias exists in your hiring process empowers your organization to productively focus on implementing the behavioral interventions that will mitigate its effects - allowing you to build a more talented workforce by making more effective and inclusive hiring decisions.

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Breaking The Glass Ceiling Through Visible DEI Leadership

Diversity in senior and C-suite leadership helps to create a culture where more people in the organization can envision their potential trajectories, feel supported, be able to fully contribute and feel free to be themselves. When DEI leadership is weak at the executive level, there’s no backbone to DEI efforts throughout the organization. 

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DEI Analytics - Where to Start

Implementing a DEI assessment is not about collecting all the data you can get your hands on: it's about getting the right data, reading that data for precise insights and then knowing how to act on those insights. With bespoke DEI analytics, you can investigate the state of DEI in your organization to formulate and prioritize your action plan. 

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How to Reduce Risks of DEI Programs

Publicly espousing the importance of DEI without backing that with substantial commitment, robust data, actionable steps, comprehensive policies and an effective monitoring process is risky. Organizations need an authentic, focused DEI plan to address gaps and become more resilient to potential risks.

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DEI Leaders

DEI Leaders: Lee Jourdan

Kicking off our new DEI Leaders series, Pulsely interviews Lee Jourdan, member of Pulsely's Advisory Board, former CDIO at Chevron and Independent Corporate Board Director at PROS Holdings. In this interview, Lee shares his knowledge about DEI and talks about important topics such as privilege, leadership accountability and the importance of DEI data for the success of DEI initiatives.

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Blog

Invisible Diversity: How Neurodiversity Inclusion Drives Business and Cultural Advantages

Neurodivergent individuals can often be misunderstood or misperceived when viewed through neurotypical expectations - and rejected too quickly for the wrong reasons. Learn how to adapt hiring processes, workplace arrangements and norms to enable neurodiverse talent to join and thrive in your organization.

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Fostering Inclusion in Hybrid Workplaces

The current hybrid workplace model is a result of reactively, rapidly assembled remote workplaces now slowly coming back into the office. That’s not the same as designing an intentional hybrid workplace. Now leaders must ask how to optimize the hybrid workplace to best create cultures of inclusion and performance.

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Kalkine Media Interview with Pulsely Co-founder and CEO

Learn about the benefits of DEI for business performance and the most important metrics to track DEI progress in this interview with Pulsely Co-founder and CEO, Pedro do Carmo Costa.

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Overcoming Microaggressions in the Workplace

While the perpetrators of microaggressions may not intend harm, microaggressions are harmful for individuals and organizational cultures. Microaggressions perpetuate disapproval, derogation, or discomfort towards marginalized groups and should be confronted to mitigate their harmful effects.

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The Secret of Effective DEI Surveys

DEI surveys put your employees and their experiences at the center of your DEI efforts, right where they belong. Learn how DEI surveys can make your DEI strategy as communicable, solid in substance, and impactful as any other performance matter in your organization.

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The Rise of the Empathetic Leader

Empathy is about our shared humanness. It’s touching base at the ground level of our being. Empathetic leaders are on the rise. They are able to widen their awareness to understand what people are experiencing, thinking and feeling so they can take that as part of their own perceptual lens to run an organization or a team.

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Higher Education: Building a Culture of Inclusion Among Faculty and Staff

Not even the most elite universities can avoid the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Faculty and staff are a mirror for the prospective student body and their ability to envision themselves at the institution, as well as their belonging and opportunities for thriving in their chosen fields of study. 

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Pulsely's Co-founder Betsy Bagley shares her journey

Our Co-founder Betsy Bagley shares her journey from a diverse family background to building Pulsely to create technology-based DE&I solutions.

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Interview with Pulsely's Co-founder and Director Pedro do Carmo Costa

Watch the interview with Pulsely's co-founder Pedro do Carmo Costa part of the Galp Leader Talk Show hosted by Tiago Forjaz.

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Is Allyship the Key to Unlocking the Power of Diversity? [Webinar recording]

Last week Pulsely Co-founder and DEI Director Betsy Bagley joined Jess Sandham from RightTrack Learning to talk about the importance of allyship.

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Why Unconscious Bias Training Is Not For Everyone

Not everybody is at the same level when it comes to DEI, so using unconscious bias training as a catch-all, tick the box solution for diversity posturing without putting the work into creating a culture of inclusion can do more harm than good. In this article we discuss why unconscious bias training is not for everyone.

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Pulsely Sessions: Assessing Inclusion Competencies

Last month, we had our first Pulsely Session with host Betsy Bagley, Pulsely co-founder and DEI Director, and guest speakers Anneke Beerkens, Head of Inclusion and Belonging at Adevinta and Chandre Torpet, Founder and Director of Inclusive Matters talking about inclusion competencies assessment.

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International Women’s Day 2022: A Time For Action

Despite the progress in recent years, women continue to be both underrepresented in leadership and undervalued at work. To add to that, the pandemic measures were far more consequential for women, resulting in many spheres of losses. This International Women's Day, let's take a moment to reflect on the current issues faced by women in the workplace.

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Using Diversity and Inclusion Data to Ensure Leadership Accountability

The degree to which DEI is prioritized at the leadership level conveys the company’s commitment (or lack thereof). Leadership accountability is the engine that allows DEI efforts to finally get down to business and translate into measurable success and DEI data is the fuel for leadership accountability.

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Articles

How Pulsely Uses DEI Analytics to Provide Direction Towards Greater Equity in the Workplace

In-depth DEI data leads to a stronger DEI ecosystem. The stronger the DEI ecosystem, the more credible the DEI strategy. Learn how Pulsely leverages DEI analytics expertise working with partners to build a company’s DEI foundation based on clear metrics.

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Three Equity Checkpoints in The Employee Life Cycle

To reach their full potential and the synergies that harness performance results, organizations must think beyond hiring and commit to sustaining efforts throughout the whole employee life cycle. In this article we discuss three checkpoints where employers can work to increase equitable experiences for their workforce.

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ERGs: Do they increase exclusion or build inclusion?

How is your organization treating ERGs? If they are managed as islands that exist onto themselves, it's time to rethink your strategy. ERGs should be seen as strategic business groups who can fundamentally move the organization forward. To create impact, ERGs must be able to extend their impact outside of themselves. 

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Psychological Safety at Work: a Performance Issue

Companies like Google have found that psychological safety is one of the key elements that make their teams effective. However, it’s a misconception to think that psychologically safe work environments are the norm. In fact, they are rare.

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White Papers

The key D&I success factor: Getting your leaders on board

While many D&I initiatives begin at a grassroots level among employees, organisational impact is often elusive until senior leaders become engaged.

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Inspiring Allyship: How to Engage the Bystanders In Your Team

When everyone is operating from a bystander mindset at the same time, nobody takes responsibility. Understanding what conditions are inhibiting allyship in your organization is the first step to remove barriers. This article gives practical advice on engaging the bystanders in your team.

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Cancel Culture: How Leaders Can Overcome the Fear of Speaking Up

When it comes to braving the DEI conversation, inclusive leadership is also a commitment to lead with values-aligned vulnerability. A leader’s accountability is not to get their words perfect, but to find the courage to overcome the fear of speaking out, roll up their sleeves and move the organization into the real work of addressing what’s stopping diversity, equity and inclusion.

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Understanding DEI Data-Driven Strategy and Key Metrics

Creating real change in diversity, equity and inclusion comes down to how well you identify and understand the problems in the cultural ecosystem of your organization. Bespoke DEI analytics provide guidance on understanding the gaps to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as the what, how and even why of those gaps.

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The Science Behind Pulsely

Tapping into research that demonstrates how inclusion enables an organisation to leverage the power of diversity and unleash the full breadth of its talent.

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We have an Engagement Survey to hear from our employees. What more can we do?

Annual engagement surveys are important assessments but often aren't actionable. Inclusion surveys can identify what is getting in the way of engagement and point the way to action.

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Pulsely Partners to Advance Diversity in the Tech Sector

Pulsely is a proud signatory of Tech Talent Charter joining a number of organisations from different industries, including many tech leaders.

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How Allyship Promotes Diversity and Inclusion In the Workplace

Allyship was elected the word of the year 2021, and while allyship may be a noun, developing more equitable and inclusive workplaces for everyone requires the action of allying.

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Diversity & Inclusion: A Common Language

If your organisation is not “fluent” in D&I, the first step is to get on the same page with terminology.

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Singled Out: The Overlooked Importance of Relationship Status on Inclusion

Like their partnered colleagues, single workers have non-work obligations and personal priorities that are often overlooked or undervalued by the workplace. In this article we discuss what companies need to consider so that single employees feel engaged, valued and supported with opportunities to thrive.

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Getting Leaders on Board with Diversity and Inclusion

Whether the aim of your leadership conversation is budget approval or D&I championship, we have suggestions on how to frame the discussion.

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Connecting D&I to your own Business Goals is the Strongest Business Case

Getting traction for Diversity & Inclusion can feel like an uphill battle until your data shows it improves business.

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