“Unconscious bias” and “inclusive leadership” are today’s D&I buzzwords. But what should companies do about those who continue to show conscious bias? These are the “excluders,” who despite various corporate interventions, still treat specific groups of people differently than others.

In this talk, we’ll discuss how excluders might be a key reason for the recent stagnation of D&I progress in organizations, while also exploring some evidence-based best practices to identify, prevent, and deal with excluders. 

When are we perceived as authentic? Under what conditions should we be authentic? In general, ʺbeing authenticʺ is considered a desirable character trait in professional and private contexts. Acting in harmony with ourselves is commonly seen as a desirable and ethically valuable goal. 

But how can our understanding of multiple roles that we take and discard on a daily basis be reconciled with an emphasis on authenticity? And doesn’t our very ability to develop roles and perform well in roles not only represent an essential competence to act in the professional positions assigned to us, but rather still an important protective function against stress and frustration? Can a reference to authenticity justify questionable actions in roles? 

Corporate cultures and organisational structures evolve around certain needs depending on power relations. The systems tailored to the male sole breadwinner do not fit for many others. Instead of finding “special arrangements” for groups that do not fit into this full-time culture and the corresponding structures, we should think critically about how we can make changes so that more groups feel included and can contribute their full potential. In doing so, it is important to look more deeply at long-term effects and shifts in power. Menstrual Fridays are certainly the wrong way to go.

Various factors are relevant for a successful inclusion. However, leaders – in their role as role models and multipliers – play a particularly important role: To promote inclusion through leadership, knowledge, empathy and commitment are required. But even short “bites” can be effective: Changes that are often not visible at first glance can make all the difference in the long run! So what can we do concretely to promote inclusion in organizations? 

During our session, we will present a training that uses short, effective “inclusion bites” to promote inclusive leadership. Using this practical example, we would like to shed light on how inclusion can be implemented, promoted and made measurable in everyday work. 

Our session will consist of an introduction on the current state of research (Prof. Dr. Stephan Böhm), insights from our own data (Nicola Glumann, M.Sc.) and the perspective from practice (Simon Huber, M.Sc., Swiss Post). Finally, there will be time for a Q&A.

Equal opportunities are relying on the commitment of managers – and that is particularly a commitment of men in the company. Even if this may involve highly visible appearances and activities by “male champions,” it is mostly about the less visible things that shape everyday practices. If leaders can develop and implement gender-inclusive leadership practices here, a great potential for fostering change opens up for them. In our study “Leaders for Equality: The Gender Equality Commitment of Male Leaders”, we showed that men are motivated and in many cases already active. At the same time, however, there is often still a lack of hands-on knowledge and good examples of how gender-inclusive leadership can look like.

In this online session, we will present the most important gender-inclusive leadership practices and elaborate on concrete examples. The systematic overview of the various possibilities for action in everyday leadership situations supports managers in acting in a gender-inclusive manner and thus promotes the company’s equal opportunities culture.

We are looking forward to discussing with participants about already experienced successes, but also the existing challenges.

Diversity and inclusion don’t end with the workforce of a company. This Online-Session discusses the topic of diversity & inclusion in the supply chain. Diversity & Inclusion in the supply chain is an extension of companies’ diversity & inclusion programs in their supply chain. This involves ensuring that there is supplier diversity within the company. With the increasing focus on ESG issues (Economical Social Governance) and the UN SDGs (https://sdgs.un.org/goals), companies are increasingly looking to make their supply chains more diverse.

You will learn what supply chain diversity & inclusion programs are and why they help companies increase revenue.

This talk addresses two interdependent logics that produce an unsustainable inclusion of Black women and other racially minoritized groups in European higher education. Racial burden, on one hand, designates the labor surplus that racially minoritized people must accomplish to “fit” in an institution that is historically not meant for them. Tokenism, on the other hand, relates to the way institutions instrumentalize Black and racially minoritized presence for the fabric of their own progressive image. By means of Black feminist modes of critique, such as experiential storytelling and fabulation, I expose the effects of racial burden and tokenism on Black women and dream about higher education institutions centered on care. 

At the latest since the revised Gender Equality Act, a central topic in the field of D&I has been the subject of much discussion: where does Switzerland stand in terms of equal pay? With the equal pay analysis, companies have brought visibility to their pay data and now know where they stand. Employees and companies have become more sensitive to this issue. This is also accompanied by the desire for pay transparency on the part of employees.

What is wage transparency?

Salary transparency can mean openly communicating the results of salary analyses, clearly defining salary systems or even completely disclosing all salaries. One thing is clear: in Switzerland, wages are predominantly a taboo subject. Companies that implement wage transparency are important role models to counteract this taboo culture.

For what reasons do companies disclose wages or even let the team itself set the wages? In the panel, representatives of Swiss companies tell us how they implement wage transparency. We want to know what challenges they have to overcome, which systems work and which do not.

This session sheds light on how intelligence research has historically contributed to creating and sustaining the idea of human hierarchies and the invention of human ‘races’.

Research on intelligence has served as a scientific explanation for the exclusion of people due to their supposed ‘race’, their social class or their gender. Until today we tend to associate intelligence with certain diversity characteristics. Ascriptions of intelligence hence still play a role in processes of exclusion. Today, contrary to its harmful consequences in the past, research on intelligence can be used to question those deeply held implicit assumptions.

Thus, contrasting implicit ascriptions of intelligence with a contemporary scientific understanding of intelligence could counteract these exclusionary social processes and thereby foster the inclusion of traditionally excluded social groups.