One of the most powerful things about being a business owner is the ability to create a work environment according to your own principles. So many of us have worked within a company or organization and been disappointed by the way things were run, the way team members were treated. So, we wanted to ask some fantastic business owners and operators how they’ve gone about creating a more inclusive workplace.

Adele Carlsen

The sport and art of synchronized swimming, now known in the Olympic Games as artsitic swimming, has been a predominately white girl sport for years. First of all, most people get into synchronized swimming because they are good swimmers. Swimming has been a predominately white person sport for many reasons in the US, such as historically segregated areas having no or limited access to swimming pools, being too expensive to access swimming pools especially for larger families that need more than one adult per child or need to pay for swimming lessons, having no/extremely few Olympic medalists as role models in the sport because ethnic minority groups were not learning to swim at the very start of that process. Even things such as swimming caps not being made suitable for afro hair, or ridicoulous lies being spread about how the body mass of differnet groups meant they couldnt float as easily. When your parent can’t swim it also makes it less likely that you then wont take your child swimming as so it goes on. Read more>>

Tamantha Bowman

Be open to the unfamiliar. We strongly feel it’s important to embrace all cultures and backgrounds. As kids we grew up amongst diverse communities and the LGBTQIA+. It really shaped our point of view and was a lot of fun. Although we were raised Catholic and both served in the military we never closed our minds to new perspectives. To stay relevant or interesting is really contingent on your life experience and future growth as a person. If you limit yourself to only people that look like you or are only from one sociodemographic group then you are really limiting your audience. One of our favorite things to do is learn about folklore and traditions from other geographic areas in the world. Do you know about Krampus? Or how about the Icelandic Yule Cat? Read more>>

Kalah Smith

Before my HR career started, I remember being on the other side as an employee. I did not have a pleasurable experience with HR that initial changed my outlook of the department. Now, as a Human Resource Professional, it’s important to create an inclusive work environment for employees to feel safe, heard and respected. What shaped my views on the workplace was at my previous employer. Seeing how all departments even on the executive leadership level were actively involved in the workplace when it came to inclusivity, was something I never experienced before. The love and care for their employees brought enjoy to my heart. They were a company that actually lived by their mission statement and it was such a honor to work for such a great organization.  Read more>>