Lyn recently shared with BenefitsPRO some of the initiatives that Oscar has undertaken to recognize its Black employees and other minority groups in the workplace, as well as share some advice for other organizations looking to take on a more proactive role in addressing diversity and inclusion in their own workforces.

LaToya Lyn, vice president of talent strategy at Oscar Health.

How can companies engage in inclusive storytelling that highlights Black and BIPOC voices?

Inclusive storytelling has to begin with an inclusive reality. That means that, in order to effectively deliver stories that represent the communities we're trying to reach, we need to see inclusivity realized within our own businesses, at all levels of leadership. When each room is filled with diverse voices, we can tap into inclusive storytelling that is both compelling and impactful because it comes from personal experiences, not preconceived notions.

Oscar was founded in 2012, and we've gone through a period of hypergrowth over the past three years, including doubling our headcount. As our employee base grew, it was important for us to establish a Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DI&B) function, including dedicated headcount and resources for building out Oscar's DI&B program.

Following this year's terrible and emotional events, which were particularly difficult for the Black community, we realized we needed to treat DI&B like our other business processes, and focus on prioritization and accountability.

Since then, one area we've prioritized is inclusive storytelling. As part of our ongoing #FacesOfOscar social media campaign sharing employee perspectives, we've created a process and content stream devoted to posts highlighting members of our Melanin Employee Resource Group (ERG) and other Resource Groups that represent underrepresented communities. And, Oscar has proactively launched a survey of our members that aims to better understand our member populations and their needs at a more local level, so we can better serve different communities and ensure that DI&B is in the DNA of our external-facing member programs.

What are businesses missing out on when they silence Black voices?

Whenever any underrepresented communities' voices, Black voices especially, are silenced, businesses miss out on exceeding their full potential. They miss out on culture, art, tradition, celebration, and, as a result, they limit themselves to the status quo of what they know to be safe and productive.

Most importantly, they miss out on innovation and talent within organizations. Not only is it harmful to the black community, but also harmful and disruptive to businesses and their growth. Additionally, black voices will always find a way to be heard. If our voices are silenced, then you will get the message through our clothes. If you put us all in uniforms, then it will be in our dance or movement. If you stop us from moving, it will be buried in our eyes and deep in our souls.

What can companies do to create a culture that highlights Black experiences?

Company culture is defined and maintained by its leadership, as well as employees. To highlight Black experiences specifically, companies can create employee resource groups dedicated to the Black community and observe holidays tied to the Black community. For example, this past summer, Oscar officially recognized and implemented Junteenth as a company-wide holiday. In internal communications, we made sure to recognize the historical significance of Juneteenth and why we believed it was critical to acknowledge and celebrate this day. And, we made sure to partner with our Melanin @ Oscar ERG, including sharing a message from the lead of Melanin @ Oscar on our internal channels and on the company blog.

Cultivating a culture that highlights Black experiences requires a holistic approach grounded in key factors like 1) leadership making this a business priority that is built into businesses processes, with trackable metrics like any other company goal and 2) employees having forums and platforms to raise their voices, and for us to listen and respond when they do.

As mentioned earlier, Oscar has an ERG, Melanin @ Oscar, whose mission is to create a community for employees of color to share ideas, learn from each other, and to grow personally and professionally. In addition, Melanin produces goal-focused events that educate the larger employee population and support inclusion efforts within Oscar. These events have included sessions on advocating for yourself during performance reviews, a celebration of African culture during Black History Month, and a collaboration with outside companies in celebration of Juneteenth.

How can creating the space for Black voices ignite activism and change in business?

People like to share – share thoughts, ideas, experiences. But we all do our best sharing when we feel a sense of security and know we're in a safe space. When we create safe spaces for Black voices within our companies, we dig deeper. We get more real. We learn. We inspire change.

Following numerous recent tragic events of racism and police brutality this spring, Oscar leadership formed an internal task force dedicated to DI&B and created small group roundtables for employees to share their experiences and perspectives. We recognized that we needed to take care of our employees first, listen and learn about the issues, reflect on what it means to function differently, and do the work.

And since then, we have seen great ideas and collaboration come from the task force. For example, we are currently working on a Black physicians network that aims to provide more detailed background on in-network providers to our members, in order to help our members find care that is culturally sensitive and meets their unique needs, and deepen the connection between our members and providers.

How can leaders respond to employees resisting engaging in these conversations?

Here at Oscar, we recognize that we have teammates with a wide range of perspectives, and we don't anticipate that everyone will always have the same view. This is when companies should go back to their values–one of ours is "differences strengthen us."

To us, "differences strengthen us" means that we value rich debates and dialogue. We make sure employees understand the importance of holding and continually engaging in these conversations. But another part of "differences strengthen us" is something we recognize together as a company: that there is no place for racism within our community.

And, we put that into practice. We recognize that achieving sustainable change requires every Oscar employee to learn–together–about diversity, inclusion and belonging. So, we've created a series of trainings and sustained educational resources for our employees that raise awareness about the importance of diversity, inclusion and belonging in creating a healthy and sustainable work environment.

These resources help our employees establish a shared understanding of unconscious bias, identify key barriers to inclusion in the hiring process, equip them with skills for managing bias and fostering inclusion in hiring, and provide specific skills and strategies employees can use to incorporate inclusion into their work.

We also emphasize to employees that, while training and education are a critical step, these resources will only be effective if we commit to learning, internalizing and consistently practicing these skills and strategies, together.

Read more: 

• Building diversity and inclusion: A modern guide
• 'Small acts of courage': Hershey General Counsel Damien Atkins on driving diversity
• Will remote working affect corporate diversity and inclusion efforts?