A new employee’s first days with your organization can inspire them and confirm they made a great choice—or leave them treading water in a sea of doubt. Use this framework to ensure new employees experience a great start with your organization.

Managing other employees is one of the most important roles a leader can have. Inclusive supervision should be a top priority for nonprofit leaders who manage others. But most leaders have never been taught to do that. Here are some practices that will help. As you’ll see, your team members’ feedback will paint a picture of where you need to learn, grow, and change to become a more inclusive manager. And an inclusive team will be more innovative, responsive, and thoughtful in how it executes its mission.

Buy in. If you’re privately telling peers that your organization’s goals for hiring and retaining diverse staff are pie in the sky, you’re not fully on board to execute them. What aspects of your organization’s diversity strategy resonate with your values? Focus on those, commit to doing the work, and bring your best effort to meet the challenges. Where are your weak spots in diversity and inclusion? Do the reading, talking, and action to grow in areas that challenge you. Don’t make others educate you, but when people are open to interaction and dialogue, welcome it.

Solicit meaningful feedback. Ask your team members what type of supervision works best for them, such as what kind of positive and constructive feedback they prefer. Request their feedback on how your supervision approach works for them. These conversations may feel awkward at first. However, communicate that you want to create the best working environment for everyone, and these discussions can help, even if they’re uncomfortable. When a team member gives you constructive feedback, thank them, tell them how you will address the issue they raised, and set aside time to reflect on what you’ve heard and the changes you’ll make in response.

Honor differences and own your mistakes

Equitable is not equal. Different people may respond best to different supervisory approaches. Inclusive staff supervision makes room for that. While it’s vital to treat staff fairly and equitably, you don’t have to work with each member of your team in the exact same way.

Take an interest in your employees as people. Ask your team members questions about what fulfills them, their likes and dislikes. Show your interest in them and let them set the standard for how much they want to share about their personal lives. Giving people the experience of feeling seen is a form of inclusion, and it will make team members more likely to share other issues and concerns with you.

Apologize. When you’re wrong, say so, without equivocation. If your error caused harm, tell the person or people who witnessed it that you’re sorry. Demonstrating that you can acknowledge and address mistakes helps create a climate in which people speak up about offensive comments or actions.

Model inclusive behavior for your team

Help your team members work across differences. Provide space, time, and feedback to help your employees grow their own abilities to navigate issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Provide time and resources for courses, seminars, and other learning. Have regular discussions with employees about the opportunities and challenges they face working with people who are different from them. Help team members brainstorm ways to navigate those opportunities and challenges—and to learn.

Set and enforce standards of respect. Communicate that offensive, inappropriate, or biased behaviors at work are not OK. Provide employees a safe way to report such incidents and adopt a straightforward approach to investigating and responding to reports.

Promote connection. Provide opportunities for employees to get to know one another as people and develop relationships across the organization. Virtual or in-person gatherings can present great opportunities to connect. Hold those events during the workday so you don’t place an undue burden on employees with responsibilities outside of work.

Be flexible. Work to say yes to as many requests for flexible schedules, shift changes, etc. as you can. Recognizing that people do their best work at different times and via different methods can make team members feel valued and seen for the strengths and skills they bring.

Avoid ‘faux flexibility.’ True flexibility exists when staff have autonomy and choice. ‘Faux flexibility’ is when you offer limited options and require employees to choose one of your options.

Pause before you speak. A pause of a few seconds in a new situation can help our higher-level brain kick in and bypass some of the unconscious biases we all hold. You’re human and you will make mistakes (and need to apologize, above), but a brief pause can prevent quite a few careless comments that could damage trust.

Resources:

• “Developing Inclusive Communities Begins with Inclusive Supervision” – ACUI
• Inclusive Workplaces Focus on Management Practices That Matter, Not Fluff – McKinsey
• Inclusive Leadership: Tips for Leaders Looking to Grow – Qualtrics

Transgender people may experience discrimination in many ways, including at work. Employers have a legal and moral responsibility to accommodate the needs of transgender workers and not tolerate discrimination. Here are best practices and resources to ensure a safe and welcoming workplace for transgender employees. NOTE: keep in mind that some of the practices below may not be legally required in your state, or may not be required for small employers. Before adopting new policies that expand protections beyond what is required based on your location and/or size, consider discussing your plans with an employment attorney licensed in your state.

Take the Human Rights Campaign’s Gender Identity and Gender Expression Workplace Review to gauge your organization’s protections for transgender employees.

1. Ensure your nondiscrimination policy includes gender identity or expression as a protected category.

2. Review organizational policies to ensure they are transgender-inclusive.
   Some examples:
   • Do your administrative policies ensure the use of the name and pronouns that correspond to a person’s gender identity?
   • Do you have a policy that allows people to use restrooms and locker rooms for whatever gender they identify with?
   • Do you have inclusive options to allow self-identification of gender identity on internal forms?
   • Are your dress codes gender-neutral?
   • Do your policies spell out the requirement to keep employees’ health status confidential?

Names, Pronouns, and Transitions

3. Honor transgender employees’ chosen names and correct pronouns. Use them every time you refer to the person. If you slip up, apologize and correct yourself. Do the same with your team members. Communicate that you expect them to do it with each other (and with you, too).

4. Create written gender transition guidelines. This will help ensure your organization is proactive and respectful to employees who transition while they work for you. Guidelines should cover issues such as who has the responsibility to help an employee manage their workplace transition. The guidelines should also cover the creation of a comprehensive communications plan for colleagues and clients. And the guidelines should cover providing additional resources such as training and education that may be necessary.

5. Treat each transition individually. One transgender employee may want to make a bold public statement of their identity. Another may wish to quietly do their work with their new name and identity. The employee’s wishes should shape every aspect of their transition plan.

Show Teammates How to Support Employees Who Transition

6. Share best practices with your staff on how to support employees who transition. Encourage employees who see biased behavior to name it clearly, and in a respectful manner. That could involve a private conversation with a colleague to explain the potential harm of a comment they made.

7. The very best practice to support transgender employees is to ask what they need. A manager should ask a transgender employee how they’d like to handle it when someone makes a biased comment. The employee may wish to advocate for themselves, or prefer that someone else step in. The manager should share that preference with the team as the transgender employee wishes.

8. Listen to other employees’ concerns about a team member’s transition, but don’t back down on support for transgender staff. If employees express discomfort to you about their colleague’s transition—such as not wanting to use the same restroom as a transgender person—hear them out. Reiterate your organization’s commitment to supporting the employee’s transition and why it’s important. Suggest alternative approaches if necessary. For example, the person with concerns can use a different restroom than the transgender person uses. Remind employees that they have the right to their opinions, but they also must work with all types of people and treat them with respect.

Commit to Continue Learning

9. Review the resources below to increase your knowledge of ways to create a safe and inclusive workplace! A powerful theme in Think Again, by Adam Grant, is that a commitment to changing our minds and behaviors is essential for leaders who desire to learn and grow in their roles. As you learn more about a new or unfamiliar topic, look for ways to apply new insights and share what you’re learning!

Resources:

• Transgender Inclusion In The Workplace – A Toolkit For Employers, Human Rights Campaign
• Model Transgender Employment Policy, Transgender Law Center
• Employing Transgender Workers – Society for Human Resource Management
• Creating A Trans-Inclusive Workplace – Harvard Business Review

This checklist reviews important reminders and tips for identifying, securing, and administering affordable, desirable benefits.

For the first time in modern history, five generations are in the workplace at the same time. This presents both opportunities and challenges. Here are some tips for how to tap into the diversity of perspectives that come from managing multiple generations, and navigating cross-generational conflicts that may arise.

Remember that your employees are whole people. Many factors beyond age affect a person’s perceptions, including family upbringing, gender, ethnicity, cultural background, religious or spiritual beliefs, and more. Make no assumptions, except that any group of people will include a variety of perspectives. The best way to find out what matters to any individual or group in their work is to ask, and listen to the answers.

Share your preferred methods of communication and encourage your team members to do the same. This helps people get to know each other and avoid falling into stereotypes (“millennials only respond to texts.”) Spell-out group communication expectations.

Encourage discussion, manage conflict

Respect boundaries and differing opinions. Topics that might not have been discussed at work 15 years ago—sexual orientation, gender fluidity, mental health—surface frequently now. Spell out values that are non-negotiable for your organization: for example, your nonprofit values the diversity of its employees and clients, and requires employees to treat others with utmost respect even if they don’t share their views.

Solicit a wide variety of viewpoints across generations and other differences in meetings. Everyone wants to be heard, whether they’re at the beginning of their career or 40 years in. Make sure all your team members get that opportunity.

Acknowledge conflict when it arises. Solicit diverse views on how to move forward. Explain how and why you made your decision.

Tap into appreciative inquiry to manage conflict. Appreciative inquiry focuses on strengths rather than weaknesses. The approach recognizes that people who have very different perspectives and experiences across generations can collaborate effectively, and all of them bring something different to the table.

Be flexible, open-minded and supportive

Offer as much flexibility as possible in work schedule and location. Employees consistently rank flexibility as one of the most important aspects of a workplace, and flexibility benefits people at all stages of life. So don’t assume that staff from one generation value greater flexibility than others.

Communicate changes clearly. Make sure employees know when and how they can come to you with questions or feedback about changes.

Provide professional development opportunities across all levels of your organization. Employees across generations want to learn and grow in their work. If your team sees those opportunities get distributed evenly, it will increase their trust.

Foster cross-generational mentoring. Take advantage of the amazing opportunities having five generations in the workforce at once presents. Seek ways employees can team up to teach each other things they’re great at. This will help build camaraderie and respect.

Check your own biases. Do you make assumptions about how age shapes an employee’s work style or opinions? When you assign work, focus on how well employees execute tasks. Don’t let intangibles guide your decisions on project management or promotion. You’ll not only avoid the risk of illegal age discrimination, you’ll also make better decisions for your team.

Resources:

Most employees dread performance reviews and many managers dread giving them. But it doesn’t have to be this way! With effective preparation, a collaborative approach, and a template to guide you, performance reviews will feel more meaningful and produce better results for your organization and your employees.

Cybersecurity is a common vulnerability for all nonprofits. This infographic offers tips on how to build resilience against a potential breach.

This factsheet compares and contrasts the features of 4 leading HR web products that offer pricing and options appropriate for small nonprofits: BambooHR, Eddy, Gusto, and Zenefits.

When a great employee leaves your organization, you may ask, “What could we have done to get you to stay?” The concept of the stay interview arose to get that kind of information at a time when your organization could still act on it.

Knowing what to ask candidates can sometimes be confusing! How do you quickly learn about this person to make a decision about whether they’re the correct person for your job and your mission? Use this infographic to build your next interview question bank.