Karen Chi

At the start of this year, I was presented with the opportunity to lead LinkedIn's Women's Initiative (WiN) , a program geared towards increasing gender diversity in senior leadership roles in our global sales organization. Seizing this opportunity was a no brainer for me – rarely do opportunities to transform the trajectory of an organization, much less a company, present themselves. Perhaps even more compelling for me, I truly believe that LinkedIn is positioned to lead the world here. Since January, I have had the privilege of leading WiN with an incredibly talented team, partnering with Mike Gamson , SVP of Global Solutions, his leadership team and Sandy Hoffman , LinkedIn’s director of our new Global Inclusion team.

While WiN is making a focused effort to increase gender diversity in our global sales organization, our goal is to create an inclusive workplace where every employee can thrive and contribute to their fullest potential, one where building teams with diversity in mind is valued. We’ve developed a 3-pronged approach to achieve our objectives:

To enhance our already incredible culture , WiN is leading diversity and inclusion workshops for all managers this year to foster constructive communication, define what it takes to be a great leader at LinkedIn, and heighten awareness of unconscious bias. Laurabeth Harvey , Director of Talent Solutions SMB Sales, leads this program globally. We’re empowering high potential women leaders at LinkedIn to reach the next level in their career transformations through leadership workshops, executive sponsorship and executive coaching. Carine Roman , Head of Global Ad Operations, is at the helm here. And lastly, we’re influencing our hiring practices through operationalizing candidate and interview panel diversity and hosting a robust series of external events to attract and pipeline qualified women for senior leadership roles at LinkedIn. Shannon Benjamin , Director of Talent Acquisition for our global sales organization, is the mastermind behind this program. So why did we create the Women’s Initiative? Bottom line: we want to win . Countless studies, surveys and research have shown that diverse companies are more likely to outperform. McKinsey & Company’s most recent diversity study shows that gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform, and even better, ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely. Diversity is essential for LinkedIn to achieve our mission of creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, and WiN is one of several strategies we are using to drive diversity across the organization.

You probably want to win too, right? Here are some suggestions on creating a more inclusive workplace:

Start by defining what diversity and inclusion mean to your organization. It’s difficult to change behavior if you aren’t clear on what ‘great’ looks like. Where are you seeing instances of desired behavior? Asking that simple question can be enough to start a fruitful discussion and help you identify areas of focus for your organization. Develop a deliberate strategy for driving change. Grassroots efforts and hoping for the best simply won’t be effective for organizations that are imbalanced – you must over-index to correct. Recognize wins along the way. At LinkedIn, we’re committed to recognizing Acts of Inclusion to help reinforce the behavior we like seeing and to help keep inclusion top of mind. While our diversity and inclusion journey is just beginning, the transformations that we’ve seen across our organization already – both big and small – are incredibly exciting. I continue to be inspired by LinkedIn’s commitment to transformation of the world, starting with our company and our selves.

What ideas or efforts have you taken to create a more inclusive workplace? We’d love to hear your learnings as well!

(image from bigstockphoto.com)

Karen Chi

New York, New York, United States 4K followers 500+ connections

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Karen Chi Consulting

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4K followers 500+ connections

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