Many people in HR or other leadership roles at companies are familiar with the term DEIAB, which stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Belonging, and its importance for a successful workplace culture. However, in today's environment, is DEIAB all talk and no action? The February Workforce Wednesday session tackled the tough questions around how employers and stakeholders in this space can go from conversation to action.

Adesewa Adesiji, DEED's Twin Cities Metro Area Workforce Strategy Consultant, opened the discussion with a description of performative steps versus effective allyship. Performative steps that a company can take include taking a DEIAB pledge, posting an equity statement or ensuring diverse employee representation in the media and at events. But to be effective, DEIAB efforts can't stop at words or optics, there needs to be action. Panelists dug into a great discussion on this point – here are some of the highlights:

"I've been doing this work for a long time. I think some of the frustration with DEI as of late, some of it is warranted," said James Houston, DEI Consultant with Xcel Energy and Owner of Houston Resources. "Having coherent strategies is going to be what keeps it alive and keeps it productive."

"I think we still have a long time, long long way to go at implementing DEIAB strategies," said Sonja Simpson, Owner of iONIS Solution. "I think that it's very critical to have it and continue to have it because we're just right around the corner of actually seeing this become real."

"It's a little known fact, you know, when you look at specifically Black Americans around home ownership, when you look at how many of them owned [a home] by a percentage, we had more home ownership for Blacks before the Fair Housing Act than we do now…I think sometimes we forget about that when we talk about DEI," said Jamar Hardy, Director of Diversity and Inclusion for Edina Realty. "We're still fighting with things like access. This is why this initiative is so important that we keep around, because if we just lose it, that gap widens even more."

Where do panelists envision DEIAB efforts going?

"The tone of diversity and inclusion is changing now from just training – where you're checking the box – into more actionable processes…Like what is the action behind that change?" said Simpson. "What is the action that we're embedding in DEIAB around our benefits book? What are those actions behind that training… It used to be a check the box, you know. I'm just going to train you on "What is diversity?" "What is inclusion?" "What is belonging?"...But how do we take that deeper dive, that's the thing I'm feeling in the atmosphere right now."

"I've heard this analogy all the time. It's one thing to invite somebody to the party, but are you asking them to dance?" said Hardy. "So I think it's again providing more spaces for people to feel supported and then really identifying what your community support looks like."

The panelists covered significantly more ground than we were able to include in this blog and examined DEIAB from a variety of other perspectives. Access the full recording of this wide-ranging Workforce Wednesday discussion.

Check out the schedule of upcoming Workforce Wednesday sessions and access resources from the February session and other past sessions on CareerForceMN.com.