How do you define inclusion?
Can you recall particular experiences at work when you felt included?
Based on those, can you now describe what inclusion looks and feels like to you?
Inclusion and exclusion do not occur in isolation and are not absolutes. On a day-to-day basis, employees’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion often coexist. This report explores inclusion and exclusion in more concrete terms by examining employees’ daily workplace experiences and finds:
- Invisibility: Experiences of inclusion are often invisible—challenging to describe, difficult to pinpoint, and, yet, in many workplaces, the expected norm.
- Salience: Experiences of exclusion are more salient, immediately recognizable, and are more readily recalled.
- Coexistence: Experiences of inclusion and exclusion often coexist in day-today interactions, reflecting both the complex and seemingly nebulous nature of inclusion and vivid experiences of exclusion.
Leaders will learn how to make inclusion visible, interrupt exclusionary behaviors, and manage inclusion’s and exclusion’s coexistence.
Research Partners: Abercrombie & Fitch; AT&T Inc.; Bank of America; Bloomberg; BMO Financial Group; The Boston Consulting Group; Chevron Corporation; Credit Suisse; Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; Dell Inc.; Deutsche Bank AG; EY; Halliburton; Hewlett Packard Company; IBM Corporation; KeyBank; Kimberly-Clark Corporation; McDonald’s Corporation; Novo Nordisk; PAREXEL; Sodexo; State Street Corporation; UPS; Verizon
How to cite this product: Nugent, Julie S., Alixandra Pollack, and Dnika J. Travis. The Day-to-Day Experiences of Workplace Inclusion and Exclusion. New York: Catalyst, 2016.