The What, Why, How, Who, and Where of Inclusion: Highlights and the Way Forward From the SIOP 2020 Theme Track

2020 Theme Track Committee: Aarti Shyamsunder, Bernardo M. Ferdman, Emily Solberg, Katina Sawyer, Stu Carr, and Veronica Gilrane

SIOP 2020 was a pioneering year for SIOP in many ways, not the least of which was the way the conference quickly pivoted to a virtual format in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The Theme Track Committee had worked on the theme of inclusion, chosen by SIOP President Eden King (Rice University), and planned a day-long program of sessions structured around key questions of What, Why, How, Who, and Where with respect to inclusion at work. We converted the sessions to the virtual format and accompanied them with live virtual discussions to extend and enhance the learning on this important theme. We also interspersed clips throughout many of the sessions from interviews we conducted with internal and external DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) practitioners and organization executives.

In this article, we share some key insights on inclusion from the Theme Track, organized around the same topics as the sessions. We first describe highlights from the sessions and then share key insights from the live discussions held during the SIOP Virtual Conference. The discussion during the forum held at the end of the conference was especially rich and brought up important insights, especially regarding the role of SIOP in promoting inclusion (particularly racial equity) in the community of work and I-O psychologists, as well as our responsibility to apply an inclusive lens in our own work—whether research, practice, speaking, consulting, or a mix.

Key Insights for Us at SIOP:

• To challenge institutional-level discrimination, we need to focus on definitions that push scholars and practitioners to address structural and systemic issues. For too long, SIOP and work/I-O psychology have been focused on enhancing compliance to the system—but it is time to check our own blind spots and shift our focus to bring about sustained change. There is a growing desire (indeed, a need!) for work and I-O psychology to be more vocal and to contribute to societal issues as a discipline and profession. A definition that encompasses the systems that promote inclusion in organizations is needed.
• As we consider structural and systemic issues, we need to consider how broad or focused our approach to inclusion is and how this relates to the changes we are trying to make. In the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and broader attention to systemic racism, it has become clearer that a focus on inclusion can be used to promote racial justice and equity along with inclusion of other dimensions of diversity, but it can also be used to avoid difficult discussions about racial dynamics in organizations. This can be seen, for example, in organizations that focus on increasing “diversity of thought” and yet simultaneously ignore entrenched processes that disadvantage and hold back Black people and other people of color. Or they may focus on addressing gender inclusion without paying attention to intersections with race and other dimensions of diversity, thus, in effect, advancing White cisgender women to the exclusion of women from other groups.
• Simultaneously, along with this macro-level approach, it was emphasized that inclusion may mean different things for different people and groups, particularly at the individual or micro level. Thus, expanding our definitions of inclusion itself, to go beyond “not discriminating” and “counting diversity ratios,” is a good first step. Inclusion work needs to be customized to context and person.
• Intersectionality (i.e., intersections of multiple identities, such as race and gender) is another theme on which more research and evidence-based practical recommendations are needed. While some work and I-O psychologists may already incorporate some of those ideas in our work (e.g., through a focus on trust, psychological safety, expanding how we measure and define demographic categories), we need to be more intentional about adopting an intersectional lens in our research and practice on inclusion.

Key Insights for Us at SIOP:

• Looking inward, it is clear that we need a greater focus on inclusion because SIOP itself is far from being sufficiently diverse or representative of the population at large. If SIOP truly seeks to be a global organization, we need to make more efforts to reflect the global face of work and organizational psychology. Even within North America (currently the majority of SIOP members are from the U.S.), SIOP membership shows the classic pyramid distribution when it comes to racial diversity—people of color are more highly represented among student members, but the ratios start to skew as we start to look at higher membership levels. For example, SIOP Fellows are mostly men, mostly from academia, and mostly White.
• It is also high time that we look critically at theory and accepted practices based on scholarly research that itself is centered on majority groups—making it potentially biased, sexist, racist, and colonial.
• Research on and practice of diversity, equity, and inclusion are themselves not diverse—an unfair burden of this work falls on the shoulders of members of the very groups that are fighting for more inclusion, and this needs to change. Work on DEI should be imperative across SIOP and a fundamental competency in the discipline and its practice.

• Work and I-O psychologists must help organizations and their leaders who are looking for quick fixes to realize that inclusion requires intentional and sustained effort. This sometimes involves uncomfortable conversations, difficult decisions, and critically questioning one’s own privilege and position in social hierarchies. For example, if organizations continue to hire, develop, and promote employees in the ways they have become used to, while making public statements about their commitment to diversity, it is unlikely that they will see actual change in their workforces or in fostering truly inclusive cultures. Even in academia, faculty and researchers must raise and address uncomfortable issues, intentionally take on diverse perspectives, have courageous conversations, call out inequities, and be prepared to listen and be held accountable for results.
• The long-standing aspiration for the field of work and I-O psychology to follow a scientist–practitioner model requires more intentional focus—especially for work on inclusion. Research on DEI needs to center on the lived experiences of those who have been marginalized for too long and take into account the insights and perspectives of DEI practitioners.
• SIOP needs to make our science and practice accessible and applicable to everyone—especially from a cultural and socioeconomic perspective. To that end, the pandemic has actually brought new possibilities (such as the virtual or hybrid model for future conferences) that could simultaneously achieve many ends: accessibility and inclusion for those who would not otherwise have attended the conference, reduced carbon footprint and financial burden, and enhanced access for groups that would have been sidelined or hesitated to participate fully (e.g., people from different countries, students on a budget, people with disabilities, introverts, or those who prefer virtual/tech-enabled interactions).

Key Insights for Us at SIOP:

• There has been a resounding realization that I-O psychology has historically focused on white-collar workers in the corporate world—but the majority of the world’s work is done by others (i.e., those outside the organized corporate world of work). Shifting focus to the unorganized workforce, blue-collar or gray-collar workers, forced labor, the incarcerated population, migrant workers, and the so-called "low-skilled" work sector (which often ironically calls for very specialized sets of skills that are in danger of being erased by technology and exploitative labor economics) must be a priority for work and I-O psychologists as we expand our notions of inclusion and, indeed, of work itself.
• The Black Lives Matter movement has found echoes around the world and brought issues of institutional discrimination to the forefront. As Eden King mentioned during the online discussion held during the SIOP Virtual Conference, it is time to end the “400-year pandemic of racism in our country.” This could include I-O and work psychologists partnering with different disciplines. (The SIOP session organized by the Blacks in I-O group about police relations is a great example of this.) Our research on DEI, conflict resolution, culture change, and even core I-O topics such as selection and training can be brought to bear on these issues by reaching beyond the I-O world to the spheres of influence that matter.
• As the world seeks to recover from the pandemic, our notions about work are changing in permanent ways. Our field has an opportunity and a responsibility to inform these pandemic-induced changes—from how layoffs and hiring freezes are handled, to virtual work and its impact on those who don’t have equal access to the required infrastructure, to how we treat essential workers, to leading a vulnerable and insecure workforce inclusively. This is especially important for those on the margins, for whom the impact of the pandemic has been disproportionately and unfairly high. The approach to this healing requires uncomfortable conversations through an intersectional lens, leading with human rights values—in which inclusion is key.

Key Insights for Us at SIOP:

• As must be obvious by now, an emerging theme from the Theme Track sessions is that SIOP and the field of work and I-O psychology in general need to adopt more of a systems and social justice perspective to truly address inequities at work. This requires a shift in what organizational leaders are doing as well as in what we are investigating and how we present our results. Specifically, it can no longer be the sole responsibility of members of marginalized or excluded groups to fix the systems; leaders, especially those from dominant groups (e.g., White cisgender men), must make active changes from the inside out and exercise their influence in new ways.
• A new emphasis on studying, understanding, and eventually influencing the lived experience of employees at work is important. DEI efforts must therefore move beyond the current emphasis of the business case and financial bottom-line impact of diversity and inclusion to the experience of psychological safety and belonging and to the implications of cultures of respect and authenticity, with a heightened focus on inclusion in the experience of work.
• Finally, we must recognize and accelerate the efforts SIOP has already initiated—from the newly announced Anti-Racism Grant to announcing Derek Avery (Rice University) as SIOP’s first Diversity and Inclusion Officer. From getting work and I-O psychology into more introductory psychology textbooks, to finding new ways to partner with organizations and those from other disciplines and to translating our research in inclusive and accessible ways, we must leverage the great resources SIOP already has to ensure that a focus on inclusion becomes integral to the world of work for all of us moving forward.

Overall, the Theme Track sessions provoked rich dialogue and garnered new insights regarding what SIOP and our field as a whole must do to enhance inclusion in organizations. Although this is no easy task, we are encouraged by the conversations that took place during our sessions, and we hope that the SIOP members continue these discussions with their research collaborators, colleagues, and clients. When it comes to inclusion, the time for silence is over. We hope that our Theme Track sparked new ideas and solutions for addressing inclusion in our lives, at work, and in society at large.