How to engage and inspire your team to Be the Change this June
At Pivot, one of our core values is Be the Change. This means we embrace change, face issues head-on and adapt quickly. We practice this core value year-round, but June is a particularly important month to provide opportunities for our team to get involved and embrace growth.
There are many diversity, equity and inclusion dates to celebrate or acknowledge in June, including Pride, Juneteenth and Alzhiemer’s and Brain Awareness Month. See the full list below and download here.
If you are looking for meaningful ways to engage your team this June (or any time of the year), borrow Pivot’s action plan to get started.
Organize Action Days for your team to get involved or learn something new
Host Action Days to amplify your team around a specific cause or initiative.
In June, Pivot’s Action Days aim to educate and encourage conversations about Juneteenth and diversity, equity and inclusion.
The annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War is an important holiday that everyone can recognize. Want to learn more about Juneteenth? Check out this New York Times article to learn more about its history.
Juneteenth Action Day ideas:
- Watch a film that explores the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion and facilitate a discussion with your team afterwards. Here is a list of Oscar-recommended films and documentaries to watch in observance of Juneteenth.
- Attend a virtual team-building discussion or live-stream tour related to Juneteenth. Unexpected Virtual Tours hosts virtual site visits and discussions as an engaging way to learn and bond with your team. Their Juneteenth event includes a team building experience and two live-streamed, immersive site visits. They also send gift boxes to your entire team with items from 100% Black-owned small businesses.
- Volunteer with your team at a local organization that supports diversity, equity and inclusion in your community. You can use VolunteerMatch.org to find organizations based on location and cause.
Action Days are a meaningful way to engage your team for important discussions and educational opportunities around a specific topic. They help foster team engagement and a positive growth environment across your organization, while allowing your employees to Be the Change in their communities.
Turn initiatives into a fun challenge to encourage team participation
Similar to our Sustainability Challenge for Earth Day in April, several Pivot team members have organized a Be the Change Challenge in June focused on DEI in our communities to emphasize that we can make a positive impact when we come together to Be the Change.
We encourage you and your team to follow along!
Employees can choose from a list of activities that challenge them to use their voice, time or resources to learn something new or make a positive impact. Each activity is worth one point (bonus points if you post a photo completing it on social). The entire team is working toward group prizes such as attending a baseball game together or enjoying a team picnic.
#BeTheChange Challenge Activities
- Spend an hour volunteering in your community.
- Donate to a nonprofit organization focused on social justice and/or Civil Rights.
- Virtually visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
- Research the indigenous land that you are on using native-land.ca.
- Explore various cultures by trying a new recipe.
- While out in your neighborhood or another public location, analyze whether the environment is accessible to all. If you find opportunities for improvement, contact management, city’s representatives, etc.
- Support a BIPOC-owned business.
- Read a book by a BIPOC author: 100 Must-Read Classics by People of Color.
- Watch a movie with a friend exploring themes relating to diversity, equity and inclusion. Discuss the movie and themes afterward.
- Visit a cultural restaurant you haven’t tried before.
- Read a thought-provoking book that explores themes around diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Contact your representatives to advocate for equal rights for all, including people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.
- Start following a diversity-, equity- and inclusion-centric organization of your choice on social media.
- Start, or join, a DEI book club with your colleagues or friends.
- Attend a Pride event in your community.
- Dress up for Pride; wear your rainbow! Don’t forget: bonus points for sharing photos!
- Review the 5 Things You Can Do Today To Support LGBTQ Youth list and put the suggestions into practice.
- Have conversations with five people in your personal circle about Juneteenth. Use these resources to initiate and inform your discussion:
- Juneteenth: The History of a Holiday – By New York Times
- The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth – By the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
- How to Keep Juneteenth Alive All Year Round – By American historian and Harvard professor Annette Gordon-Reed
- 13th – a documentary by Netflix
- Host or attend a multicultural movie night. Many cities host movie in the park nights.
- Watch a movie from this list: 13 LGBTQIA+ Movies to Stream Now to Celebrate Pride.
- Browse a list of free learning opportunities and/or explore free university courses. Here are a few that we recommend:
- Free Online Classes for Diversity & Inclusion – By The Muse
- Wide variety of free university courses through EdX (check out the Law and/or Social Science sections)
- Consider adding your pronouns to email signatures, Slack profiles or LinkedIn pages to create a culture of inclusion and psychological safety for all colleagues. Here is a useful article from Medium about how to input pronouns on many different technology tools.
- Learn more about yourself by taking an Implicit Association Test.
- Sign up for a language learning platform and spend some time learning a new language.
- Get involved with the Special Olympics.
- Watch this powerful example of privilege walk, and then take the online privilege walk quiz. The goal of the exercise is to help participants recognize how privilege can affect our lives.
- Take the Move for Mobility Challenge.
- Visit/attend a cultural event or location (e.g., art fair, parade, museum, etc.) in your community.
Make sure your challenges can be completed by team members across the globe to allow your entire team the opportunity to participate. Team challenges are a fun and engaging way to bring your team together to make a positive impact, no matter where they live.
Employee engagement should be at the heart of your company’s core values and initiatives – because when your team is engaged and thriving, your entire organization succeeds. Moreover, when your team uses their collective voices and power to make a positive impact and Be the Change, your entire community succeeds.
Planning action days and team challenges is an important and exciting way to engage your team, but employee engagement goes far beyond that.
Need help fostering employee engagement throughout your organization?
Pivot Strategies consultants are experts in internal communications and change transformations. Learn more about how Pivot can support you.
