Building an Inclusive Workplace: How Companies Are Prioritizing Diversity

I’ve spent 25+ years in HR, and EnformHR has supported over 400 employers across industries, many multi-state or global. My rule is: don’t start with a trendy benefit; start with your workforce’s locations, roles, schedules, life needs, and actual employee questions.

One specific example: for a multi-state client, we rebuilt the handbook so leave, remote work, anti-harassment reporting, pay practices, and benefits eligibility were not written from a “headquarters-only” perspective. We added state-specific requirements, plain-language explanations, and clear reporting channels so employees knew what applied to them.

Then we rolled it out live, answered questions, and had employees acknowledge receipt. That last part matters because inclusion is not just having the policy; it’s making sure people can find it, understand it, and use it without feeling like they need a law degree.

I also like employee surveys, exit interviews, and benefits questions as early-warning systems. If the same confusion keeps coming up, that’s usually not an employee problem; it’s a policy design problem.

As a Certified Corporate Wellness Specialist and Mental Health Ally, I’ve learned that an inclusive workplace begins with listening. Every employee has unique needs based on their life stage, family responsibilities, health concerns, and personal experiences. Creating a benefits strategy that recognizes those differences is essential to building a healthier, more engaged workforce.

One example is encouraging employers to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to employee education. During open enrollment and throughout the year, we recommend offering multiple ways for employees to learn about their benefits, including in-person meetings, recorded educational sessions, one-on-one consultations, and easy-to-understand resources. This approach helps employees with different learning styles, work schedules, and comfort levels access the information they need to make informed decisions.

We also encourage employers to promote resources that are often underutilized, such as Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), mental health services, wellness initiatives, financial wellness resources, and preventive care benefits. When employees understand that these programs are available and feel comfortable using them, they are more likely to seek support early, improving both individual well-being and workplace engagement.

Inclusive benefits are about more than offering a variety of programs. They are about creating a workplace where every employee feels valued, supported, and empowered to thrive. When employers take the time to educate, communicate, and listen, they build a culture that benefits both their people and their organization.

My team works across two languages every day, and early on I noticed that our Spanish-language staff were getting left out of internal updates, training materials, and even HR documents that only existed in English. So I started requiring that every company-wide policy document, every benefits summary, and every onboarding packet be produced in both English and Spanish before it goes out. Both versions have to be complete before anything is distributed.

Once we made that change, people on my team stopped asking the same clarifying questions about PTO accrual or health coverage because they could read the details in the language they think in. The dual-language requirement also surfaced gaps I hadn’t caught. One benefits FAQ assumed every employee had a Social Security number on file, which didn’t reflect my workforce’s documentation situation. We rewrote that section to be accurate for everyone.

Every new document now gets checked automatically. My HR coordinator flags anything that’s English-only before it reaches the team, and that small gatekeeping step has kept us consistent for over two years.

I learned this the hard way when one of my best warehouse managers quit because our health insurance didn’t cover fertility treatments. She never said anything until her exit interview. That conversation changed how I think about benefits.

Here’s what we did at my fulfillment company that actually worked. Every quarter, I had anonymous feedback sessions where employees could submit what they needed. Not what they wanted in some dream scenario, but what would genuinely help them stay and thrive. One request kept coming up from our night shift workers: childcare support. Traditional 9-to-5 daycare didn’t help them at all.

We partnered with a 24-hour childcare facility and subsidized spots for night shift employees. Cost us about $1,800 per month per employee who used it, but our night shift turnover dropped from 47% to 11% in six months. The math was obvious. Replacing a trained warehouse worker cost us around $4,500 between recruiting, training, and productivity loss. That benefit paid for itself immediately.

The bigger lesson? You can’t assume what people need based on your own life. I’m a straight white guy who didn’t need fertility coverage or overnight childcare. If I’d just designed benefits that worked for me, I’d have lost great people.

At Fulfill.com now, we ask directly and often. Our team is remote, so traditional perks like free lunch are worthless. Instead, we offer a monthly stipend people can use however they want: coworking space, home office upgrades, therapy, gym membership, whatever. Some people use it for internet upgrades. One team member uses it for eldercare support.

The specific example that matters most: we track which benefits get used and by whom. If a benefit has zero uptake after six months, we kill it and redirect that budget. Inclusion isn’t about offering everything to everyone. It’s about listening, adjusting, and being honest when something isn’t working. Most companies design benefits once and never revisit them. That’s how you end up with ping pong tables nobody uses while people quietly struggle with real problems you could actually solve.

When people ask how I ensure our company’s benefits and policies are inclusive, I always start by looking at the real situations employees experience rather than assuming one policy fits everyone. Building software that supports leave and workplace accommodations has shown me that every employee’s circumstances are different, whether they’re caring for a parent, recovering from surgery, welcoming a new child, or managing a long-term medical condition. One change that made a meaningful difference was reviewing our leave-related processes to remove unnecessary complexity and make information easier to understand. We found that employees were more comfortable asking for support when the process was clear, consistent, and applied fairly across the organization.

One example that stands out is when feedback revealed that employees were confused about their leave options because different managers explained policies differently. We standardized the guidance, documented every step, and ensured the same information was available to everyone regardless of role or location. That reduced uncertainty, improved consistency, and helped managers focus on supporting employees instead of interpreting policy on the fly. My advice is to treat inclusivity as an ongoing process: listen to employee feedback, look for patterns in where people struggle, and be willing to revise policies as your workforce evolves.

I start by actually asking people what they need, rather than copying a one-size policy off the internet and assuming it fits a team spread across three countries and several time zones.

My clearest example is public holidays. Instead of locking everyone to a single country’s calendar, I let people take the holidays that genuinely matter to them, which means my Nepal team can properly observe festivals like Dashain in a way a fixed Australian calendar never would.

The same thinking shapes how we work day to day: rather than forcing one set of office hours across wildly different time zones, I let people structure their day around when they actually do their best work and when their family needs them, then build our async habits around that. It costs me almost nothing and means a great deal to the people it affects.

Real inclusion, in my experience, comes from flexibility and from bothering to ask the question, far more than from a glossy policy document nobody requested.

I’m Runbo Li, Co-founder & CEO at Magic Hour.

We’re a two-person company that’s built a platform serving millions of users. So when people ask about “workforce policies,” I have to be honest about what inclusivity actually looks like at our scale. It’s not a benefits PDF. It’s a philosophy baked into how we build the company itself.

Here’s my specific example. When David and I designed Magic Hour’s workflow, we made a deliberate decision: we would never require location, time zone, or schedule conformity for anyone who touches our business. Our contractors, advisors, collaborators, they work from wherever, whenever. We pay based on output, not hours logged. That single decision opened doors to people who would be excluded by traditional employment structures, parents with caregiving responsibilities, people in countries where U.S. office hours don’t align, folks managing health conditions that make 9-to-5 impossible.

One contractor we work with is based in a completely different hemisphere. They deliver exceptional work on AI model fine-tuning. Under a traditional policy framework, we’d never have found them. They’d have been filtered out by a timezone requirement on a job posting.

But here’s the deeper point. I think the most inclusive thing a company can do is remove artificial gatekeeping from who gets to participate in economic opportunity. That’s actually Magic Hour’s entire mission applied inward. We don’t ask where you went to school. We don’t ask for a resume with the right logos. We ask: can you do the work?

The old model of inclusivity was about adding policies on top of a rigid structure. The new model is about making the structure itself flexible enough that policies become unnecessary. When you build async-first, output-based, and globally accessible from day one, you don’t need a 40-page DEI handbook. You just need to not build walls that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Inclusivity isn’t a policy. It’s an architecture decision.

I once thought that fairness meant giving each person exactly the same treatment. As a relatively early point in my career, it seemed like the most straightforward path for managing a team. Give everyone the same set of rules. However, through experience and especially after over 12 years of managing engineering tasks and technology teams, I learned that the same set of rules doesn’t necessarily lead to the same outcome. Everyone has their unique set of obligations, time zones, and working styles. This was an experience lesson rather than reading anything about management.

The most significant change we have undertaken was that of switching from rigid working hours to flexible working hours, having some collaboration overlap hours. Rather than forcing everybody to log into their systems simultaneously, we have created some overlap hours wherein everyone will be free for any kind of meeting and discussion, and decisions will be taken quickly. Out of these hours, individuals can decide how to manage their day. The only thing that remains unchanged is the deadline to be met with clear communication and high-quality output.

One such case, for instance, was that of an employee juggling family duties and being productive in a different time zone. Previously, they would always find themselves stretching their time to be able to cope with the team meetings, leading to fatigue and inefficiencies. Rather than considering it to be a temporary exception, we made it a permanent change to their schedule without changing anything about the expected project outputs. They are currently working according to a new schedule that caters to their daily needs while participating in a common time window.

What was different was reliability. This employee had become reliable in his/her delivery, not unreliable. No one felt any disturbance in the team due to the predictability of this structure.

The overall lesson is very easy to comprehend. Policies need to be formed based on consultations, not assumptions. With time and growth of the business, assumptions regarding requirements of employees stop working properly. Communication becomes much more valuable than policy books. Set up clear expectations, but allow people to perform in a way that corresponds to their lives. If a good employee has to choose, your policy fails.

Inclusive policy making starts with the understanding that scale amplifies small unfairness. A benefit can look generous at leadership level and still fail in practice if access depends on confidence, geography, or manager style. I rely on policy audits tied to retention, internal mobility, and usage gaps across teams, because inclusion should be verified through behavior, not assumed through intent.

A specific example came from performance review timing. Employees returning from extended leave were being evaluated against timelines that did not reflect their actual ramp period. We adjusted the review framework so assessment windows restarted after reintegration milestones, not calendar dates. That change protected advancement fairness and sent a clear message that life events would not quietly distort career progression.

I ensure our benefits and policies are inclusive by advising employers to plan for diverse needs across life stages, including caregiving and aging. One specific example is incorporating aging-in-place cost planning into benefits design when I work with clients. That approach explicitly considers home modifications, ongoing maintenance, in-home support, and healthcare expenses to reflect real employee needs. Bringing this long-term perspective to plan design helps employers better support employees with caregiving responsibilities and older workers.

I run Big River Roofing in Western PA, so our policies have to work for crews on roofs, office staff handling claims, and customers watching the job. Inclusion starts by not making safety or communication depend on who is most senior or most comfortable speaking up.

One specific example: our crew completed Lancaster Safety Consulting training in 2026 covering OSHA standards, fall protection, PPE, and jobsite procedures. That is the baseline for everyone on a roof, not a perk for certain crew members.

That matters because people come in with different backgrounds, experience levels, and confidence levels. A newer worker should not have to challenge a veteran to get a harness, an anchor point, or a clear procedure.

My rule is: write policies for the quietest person on the team. If they can understand the expectation and access the same protection as everyone else, the policy is probably doing its job.

Perhaps the most high-impact area where we moved the needle on inclusion was by updating our promotion process to provide a ‘transparent path’ for people of all backgrounds to see a fair and equal way to grow. What’s weird is that before we applied our transparent and structured promotion process, we used to hear talented people, especially women and people from outside the western cultural sphere, practically say ‘not sure if I’ll be here in a few years, maybe yes, maybe no’ – a statement that sometimes manifested into attrition.

We realized that there was a lack of trust in leadership and ambiguity around promotion requirements and dates, so we went back to the drawing board and re-designed a rational and transparent promotion policy based on three factors: 1) published and practiced objectively measurable advancement criteria known to all employees, 2) clearly defined and effectively communicated promotion round dates and processes, and 3) structured assessment where each advancement criteria key competency (e.g., demonstrating cross-team project leadership, contributing impactful work, embodying our values, etc.) is scored separately based on a shared rubric – so no one will ever have a promotion depending solely on how well they’d ‘fit in’ with our culture.

We build inclusive benefits and policies by listening to employees’ real circumstances and making sure our rules have enough flexibility to meet different needs without stigma. A specific example is our “Life Happens” policy, which gives employees added flexibility and support when they are facing personal hardships. In one case, a team member dealing with a family crisis was encouraged to take the time they needed, while we reassigned work and checked in on their terms. The goal is to remove pressure and protect dignity, so people can step away when necessary and return without feeling penalized. That approach helps our policies work for a diverse workforce because it recognizes that life challenges look different for everyone.

As the founder of Evolve Physical Therapy in Brooklyn, I have spent nearly two decades building a practice that rejects the high-volume, impersonal “churn and burn” clinical model. To keep our diverse team supported, we design benefits and policies that meet clinicians at whatever stage they are in their professional journey.

Specifically, we actively recruit both brand-new graduates and highly experienced therapists, offering a tailored mentoring program for each. While new grads receive clinical excellence training to build confidence, veteran therapists get direct pathways to learn clinic management or launch their own specialized performance programs.

We back these diverse career tracks with strong upward growth potential, competitive salaries, PTO, health benefits, and 401K plans. This ensures that every team member, regardless of their experience level, has the tools and security to thrive on their own terms.

As both a co-founder of a Digital Marketing Agency and the creator of a Christian Meditation Platform, it has been my commitment to create an inclusive work culture where every team member gets to decide how they will best care for their own creativity, wellness, and energy. One way I have done this at our company is through creating a Flexible Wellness Stipend. The wellness stipend gives each employee the opportunity to spend money on whatever brings them peace (and therefore rest) — whether that be a gym membership, some form of counseling, or even some kind of resource to help with spiritual contemplation. Learning about developing our Christian Meditation Website, helped teach me that rest for your mind looks very different from one person to another – especially when you are also running a business. By having a Flexible Policy regarding wellness stipends, we allow our diverse workforce to feel supported in all areas of their life which creates a strong sense of collaboration among our employees; promotes a healthy working environment; and fosters a creative and innovative workspace.

My view is that inclusive policy design should protect dignity instead of only offering more choices. We have seen that many companies provide many benefits but still expect employees to explain personal situations in detail. We believe this creates unnecessary stress and discomfort for people. We try to build policies that make support feel normal instead of something people have to request.

We expanded our time off policy to better recognize different family care responsibilities. We included partners, chosen family, elder care, and other important caregiving needs. We also trained managers to apply the policy fairly and consistently for everyone. We believe inclusion works best when people feel respected without having to explain or defend their personal situation.

The most inclusive policy we have at Eprezto is not a benefit, it is how we decide who gets hired.

Most companies treat inclusion as something you add on top, a benefits menu or a policy document. That matters, but it does not change who makes it through your door. We changed the filter. Instead of screening on degrees and prior experience, which quietly favors people who already had advantages, we hire with a paid working test on a real task. Everyone is judged on what they can actually do, not on the pedigree of their resume.

Here is what that produces. Several of the people doing the most valuable work here would have been screened out on paper by a traditional company, because their background did not match the expected profile. The working test let their ability speak instead of their credentials. That is inclusion with teeth, because it changes outcomes, not just intentions.

On the benefits side the principle is the same, meet real needs rather than signal. We keep policies flexible and we ask the team what actually helps them instead of copying a standard package. When someone proposes something the company can support, we support it.

The mechanism is simple. Bias usually hides in the filter, the resume screen, the pedigree check. Remove the biased filter and a diverse team builds itself.

If you want an inclusive workforce, look hard at how you select people before you look at your perks.

Our office is inclusive in its approach to how we do business by conducting an informal annual review of our operational language and policies. By regularly reviewing these, we can assure our communications will be professional, welcoming, and understandable to each member of the staff.

An example of the type of change we implemented as a result of doing this was modifying our continuing education policy. We modified it to allow for both continuing education credit from self-study programs with certification and attendance at evening courses. The modification, allows for each of the administrative coordinator positions to have equal opportunities for professional development. As a result of making this change, there is a great deal of job security within our internal team, which has also maintained a very high level of unity.

In order for us to continue to create a workplace environment that is inclusive to all employees, we are attempting to develop a common language for communicating with one another by developing a common channel, (i.e. email) for communication in order for each employee to have an opportunity to participate equally.

Each employee on our administration team will have the opportunity to suggest improvements to workflows based upon their own comfort level as an introvert or extrovert.

For instance, we created a digital suggestion box for suggestions from employees to improve our workflows; which also allowed for anonymous submissions.

Employees could submit suggestions either through the digital submission process online or via face-to-face conversation at our weekly huddles.

Providing both options allows employees to communicate in a manner most comfortable for them, which provides the greatest benefit to their overall morale, while providing our background coordination teams the ability to provide safe and effective feedback to help improve our day-to-day operations.

We don’t see inclusion as a separate initiative; it’s a principle that shapes how we hire, develop, and support people every day.

Our workforce spans more than 30 countries; our team speaks in more than 60 languages. So creating policies that work across different cultures, backgrounds, and life circumstances requires flexibility rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.

One example is how we redesigned parts of our hiring process using AI. As we scaled globally, we wanted to reduce unconscious bias without removing human judgment. We introduced AI-assisted candidate assessments and anonymized elements of the evaluation process, allowing recruiters and managers to focus on skills and potential instead of demographic characteristics. Human oversight remains essential throughout every hiring decision, ensuring technology supports fairness rather than replacing it.

Inclusion doesn’t end once someone joins the company. We continuously measure team members’ engagement, belonging, and career progression, while managers are evaluated on their ability to build inclusive teams. This data helps us refine leadership practices, improve communication, and create equal opportunities for growth across functions and geographies.

This approach has also been externally recognized. In 2025, we received the Outsourcing Impact Award for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion from Outsource Accelerator, recognizing our commitment to building an inclusive workplace where technology, fair processes, and human-centered leadership work together to create meaningful opportunities for people.

For us, inclusive policies are successful when they help people feel respected, supported, and able to build long-term careers. That’s also why we believe diversity and business performance are closely connected: when people have equal opportunities to contribute, teams become stronger, collaboration improves, and customers ultimately receive a better experience.

We are continually enhancing our internal organization tools to support an inclusive environment within our organization through active expansion of formats. During the recent review of our general office operations, we identified our traditional text-heavy policy handouts as contributing factors to the high amount of confusion experienced by new employees during the onboarding process. In response to these issues, we have transformed our key procedural policies into visually driven checklists and fully-searchable digital documentation. Our ability to provide our coordinators with the option to view our work-related rules in a manner which is most beneficial to their learning style will reduce the number of times a day they make formatting errors, and prove how important it is to have simple, well-written documentation available for all staff members to maintain a happy, productive working force.

As co-founder of INE I’ve spent over twenty years building technical teams across networking and cybersecurity, so shaping benefits that actually work for varied backgrounds and life situations comes directly from that hands-on experience.

Our “Get Hungry, Get Certified” program removes cost and access barriers by giving every employee full platform access plus exam fee coverage and achievement bonuses. This structure supports people at different career stages or with different financial realities to advance at their own pace.

We also offer flexible PTO combined with paid family leave and Talk Space therapy coverage. These options recognize that employees balance caregiving, mental health, and personal needs differently without requiring special requests or justification.

Inclusive benefits and policies are most effective when they are designed through continuous dialogue rather than one-time decisions. One valuable practice is reviewing policies with cross-functional employee representatives before implementation to identify gaps across different career stages, work arrangements, and personal circumstances. This creates policies that reflect real workforce needs instead of assumptions. According to Gallup, employees who feel their opinions matter are significantly more engaged, while Deloitte has found that inclusive organizations are better positioned to innovate and adapt. Lasting inclusion comes from regularly listening, measuring outcomes, and refining policies as workforce expectations evolve.

We started by asking our ADHD clients what they actually needed, instead of assuming we knew. That’s when we found out traditional PTO policies don’t work for people with ADHD. We switched to flexible “recharge time” rather than fixed vacation days. Sometimes someone needs a mental health afternoon on Tuesday, not a planned week off in July. This isn’t just about accommodation, it’s good for business. Our team’s productivity went up because people could work with their brains instead of fighting them. The main lesson? Real inclusion means getting rid of one-size-fits-all policies. Ask your neurodiverse employees what flexibility means to them, then trust them to use it well.

The first step to inclusive practices with a staffing-based workforce is understanding that “diverse” means diverse work arrangements as well as diverse backgrounds.

A network of crew members in different cities are working different schedules, different contract types, and have different life situations at any given time. Policies centered around one idealized office employee just don’t cut it most of the time. What does work is building your benefits and support systems with flexibility as the foundation. Someone should not lose access to tools and resources because of what market they’re working in or how frequently they get deployed. Likewise, communication shouldn’t only work for people who are in the office every day.

A great example of this is ensuring crew have a direct hotline to HR/Support regardless of their assigned city or production, instead of making them funnel everything through a regional representative. Having that option cuts down on barriers for people who may not otherwise have direct access. Inclusion in this type of workforce is less about checking off benefits, and more about ensuring where someone works or how often they’re visible to leadership doesn’t impact their access to those benefits.

One way I ensure our company policies are inclusive is by focusing on fairness rather than hierarchy. A clear example is our work-from-home policy. We don’t determine WFH eligibility based on role or designation. If an employee has a genuine need, whether it’s a family emergency, a health issue, a caregiving responsibility, a travel disruption, or any temporary situation that makes commuting difficult, they can request approval regardless of their position.

This matters because a diverse workforce comes with diverse life circumstances, and a policy that only accounts for one type of employee ends up working against everyone else. Removing hierarchy from the approval process has helped us build a culture where employees feel they are treated fairly and trusted as individuals, rather than according to their position within the company.

As the founder of Sure-Fix Remodeling with over twenty years in residential construction, I manage a diverse team of field carpenters, project managers, and showroom designers. Ensuring our policies are truly inclusive means addressing the vastly different physical demands and career stages of our crew.

We address this through our “Field-to-Showroom” career transition policy, which allows our field craftsmen to transition into design, estimating, or showroom consulting roles as their physical needs change. This ensures we don’t lose decades of elite craftsmanship experience just because a team member can no longer handle heavy, daily job-site labor.

True inclusivity in the trades means building policies around physical longevity. Providing a clear pathway from the toolbelt to the design desk keeps our seasoned veterans empowered, respected, and employed.