What Can You Do “Right Now” to Help Your Organization Manage Through These Current Events

Organizations are wrestling with the reality of current events COVID-19 and the recent George Floyd incident and how it will impact their workplace.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: I encourage senior leaders, leadership teams and front line managers/supervisors to reach out to their black, brown and other impacted employees as soon as possible and ask, in a genuine and authentic way, the simple question: “Are you OK and how can we support you?”

I had this conversation with my sons yesterday and they were shocked none of their long-time, non-black or brown friends had reached out to see if they were OK. It is this level of awareness and sensitivity we need to bring into our personal and work lives to drive the necessary changes.

In my view, this is the best place to start today. There will be a time to start the broader systemic organizational assessment of your opportunities and build action plans for improving your inclusive employee culture.

I encourage senior leaders to NOT make this another routine D&I exercise and delegate it to the HR and D&I team. Yes, they can play a role but real senior leadership is necessary to drive the change required to move and sustain the organization. This leadership should come from the C-Suite with Board of Directors visibility supported by HR and the D&I teams.

John Hawkins is the President and CEO of Management Performance International dba MPI Consulting, a Cincinnati OH based strategic consulting company.

MPI Consulting (established in 1974) has 45 years of experience helping organizations improve their capability development by providing expertise in Human Resource consulting, Employee Relations, Labor Relations, Compensation/Total Rewards and Leadership Coaching and Front Line Manager Skills Training.

John is an internationally experienced executive, keynote speaker and corporate trainer. John has worked with hundreds of companies helping them to accelerate their business performance by improving their strategies, developing their people and developing pragmatic implementation solutions.