The Culturally Responsive Workplace™: From Classroom to Boardroom - Building Bridges to Sustainable Workplace Equity View Digital Media

Workshop Presentation
Kristen Magni,  Marcus White  

Culturally and linguistically responsive curriculum has been gaining traction over the last few years in academic environments that serve diverse student populations. Unfortunately, the assumptions, practices, underlying behaviors, and accountabilities that support student success within this framework have not been carried into the workplace to support sustainable success and upward mobility. The Culturally Responsive Workplace is a business pedagogy that makes the realization of talents and potentialities accessible for the workforce in ways that are becoming more familiar to our labor market’s next generation of workers and leaders; a generation that is extremely diverse, globally connected, digitally integrated, and socially responsible. It is an employee-centered approach to establishing and sustaining an organizational ethos that respects and affirms all employee cultures. It is achieved through reflective and inclusive practices, employee feedback, high expectations, and accountability for every employee, particularly those in leadership roles. As a result, opportunity gaps can be identified, relationships fostered, and levels of engagement increased. Leaders create culturally responsive workplaces through their consistent approach to employee engagement and their commitment to equitable leadership practices. In this workshop, attendees will be introduced to The Culturally Responsive Workplace™ framework. They will be challenged to explore the current state of their organizational DNA and leadership accountabilities and work through scenarios to support operationalizing the framework both systemically and behaviorally.