Purpose and Belonging: Two Key Ingredients for an Inclusive Culture

This event is part of The Forum’s new Professional Development Labs learning series. More information below. This course is Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) certified and counts as four (4) Continuing Education Units (CEU).

The old way of DEI isn’t working. From Main Street to Silicon Valley, companies struggle to develop an inclusive and purpose-driven culture, build camaraderie for their remote and hybrid teams, and embed inclusion into their beliefs, behaviors and business logic. Reliance on one-time trainings, ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) and anonymous reporting systems have failed to deliver substantial results in inclusion and equity.

The result? Companies lose great people, the word gets out, and they have trouble hiring. We need a new way. We need a systemic response to systemic issues. But what is the new way?

By activating purpose and belonging in a series of small, diverse learning group sessions, employees find their own expression of inclusive leadership, and deepen their professional relationships across differences. Results of this approach: +7.4 months of tenure, 96% experience empathy from their diverse peers and over three-quarters form new daily habits.

Join the Unity Lab team to learn how to activate purpose, belonging and inclusion on your teams, and effectively lead diverse teams. In this interactive session, you will understand how activating purpose and belonging in the workplace builds an inclusive and inspiring culture – full of authentic, high trust, diverse relationships across an organization. To create truly inclusive and diverse workplaces, we must first create opportunities for employees to activate their purpose and build empathy and trust with each other.

Learning Outcomes

• An understanding of the critical role that employee purpose plays in driving inclusion and belonging
• A deeper connection to their own sense of purpose (through exercises and group discussion)
• An understanding of the latest research and best practices for scalable social learning approaches
• An understanding of the 5 key practices of purposeful and inclusive leadership
• A Purpose-driven Leadership Action Plan to activate these practices, and an accountability structure to fulfill upon it

About The Forum’s Action Planning Breakout Sessions

Unique to the PDL learning experience, each PDL includes Action Planning Breakout Sessions. The Action Planning Breakout Sessions give individuals a chance to participate in small group work that results in having their own goal-oriented action plan to take what they learned at the PDL and apply it in their workplace or organization.

About The Forum’s Professional Development Labs

Professional Development Labs (PDLs) are half-day interactive learning experiences intended to develop professional competencies that support leaders in reaching the next level in their DEI leadership. Unlike traditional workshop sessions, PDLs will be goal oriented and include personal and professional action and accountability planning for next level leadership. PDLs will be offered synchronously in varying formats (in-person, hybrid or virtual) based on CDC convening recommendations.