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I will admit that my day job is forcing me to re-example some ideas I… well, in all honesty, I accepted without much inquiry. It’s a little exhilarating, I promise. One of those concepts is that of “belonging” at work. For years, we’ve heard variations on the idea of “bring your ‘whole self’ to work” which is intended to imply (for example) that black people can bring their black experiences (good and bad, and lately its a lot more of one than the other) to work and that we can’t expect people to leave those experiences at the door. We assume that we want people to feel like they belong at work, which encourage them to speak up and engage. But we haven’t always defined what we mean by “engage” or “belong.” So I was really interested when Josh Bersin broke things down on his site about what it takes to create that feeling of belonging. I would suggest that for a lot of people, the feeling that their work matters, that it contributes to a company’s success drives a sense of belonging as establishing an ERG or setting hiring targets.

For my money (and I’m no expert), the litmus test for doing useful D&I work with your employer brand, isn’t to solve for the easiest cases (women make less than men, but they still tend to get hired, albeit at a lower rate), but to solve for the toughest. As one of the least “accepted” groups, perhaps if you solve for trans people, you end us solving for a lot more audiences. And Google’s got some ideas on how to do exactly that.

That said, here are a bunch of resources on building more inclusive language.

My pet bug bear these days is surface-level D&I work. These days, there may be no more important issue we grapple with than making sure all people are treated equally, so you’d think I’d love articles around eliminating bias in job postings. My issue is that it supports the flawed perspective that we can “process-away” bias and inequality. When a “non-biased” process meets an intentionally based person, the person wins every time. My fear is that by leaning on these “safe” measures, we feel good, like we’ve done something to move things forward, when what we’ve really done is provide a smokescreen for biased intentions and behavior. Non-biased language on a job posting doesn’t stop someone from being sexist or racist from and making sexist or racist hiring decisions.

Meaningful progress toward diversity, equity, and inclusion requires action. Whether you’re a startup or an established company, salary transparency can help.

Like a strong brand, diversity isn’t a project or campaign. It has to be something a company (and leadership) embraces and invests in quarter after quarter and year after year.

Are you putting data at the heart of your EVP? Here’s a nice long article (from three people I rather respect and like) that tries to connect some dots between EVP and data. With the exception of thinking about your EVP as a catalog of your company’s traits and features instead of as an idea that aligns to and supports someone’s worldview, it suggests that we all still have a long way to go to really open our doors wider to all the different kinds of talent out there.

For recruiters and talent acquisition experts, the old normal may be gone for good.

A state-by-state analysis of where companies should recruit — now that employees can work from anywhere.