The racial reckoning of 2020 was a catalyst for countless individuals and organizations to claim they want to dismantle racism. And now, enough time has passed for us to see who is following their public show of support with actual steps toward change.
Medallia is one of those companies that made a commitment to both acknowledge and combat inequality, and it’s continuing the work.
Medallia is a leading customer and employee experience platform. They empower brands around the world to create seamless experiences driven by the voices that keep businesses going – the employees and the customers. Take a page out of the Medallia playbook and do the work. Here are three ways you can make good on your company’s pledge to support Black employees.
Listen to your people.
A core value at Medallia is “Every experience matters.” One way it actualizes that value is by enabling employees to provide feedback about work experiences at any time, rather than waiting to respond to an employee survey. Don’t think that your employees only have feedback during review time. They’re having experiences and talking about them year-round. And listening to those experiences as they come up might be a significant way to show and not just tell your employees you value them.
In addition to having an always-on feedback channel, Medallia uses pulse surveys and Crowdicity, its idea management platform, to source feedback and ideas from employees about topics such as support during the pandemic or how to create more work-life harmony. So when employees were candid and told ’em how they really felt, Medallia understood the assignment and responded by introducing a sabbatical program and quarterly mental health days.
Give employees what they need to do the work.
Employee resource groups are great, but investing time on group projects can sometimes feel like having a part-time gig to juggle alongside full-time responsibilities. If you want ERGs to help the company become a force for good in a local community or around the world, provide them with resources and support to do it and watch them work. Medallia, for example, provides its nine employee resource groups with $25,000 in funding to advance the missions of each group. In 2020, the Black at Medallia resource group was able to donate $200,000 to four impactful nonprofits.
Additionally, Medallia implemented an ERG leader program that recognizes and compensates up to four leaders per community for their contributions. You read that right. These ERG leaders are paid for their time. This program also arranges quarterly impact meetings with the chief human resource officer and offers performance feedback from the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging team providing a more direct line of communication.
Invest in your communities.
Medallia made sure things were good at home by providing support to its employees, then turned its efforts toward the broader community. Medallia recognizes that partnerships outside the company can lead to greater impact, so in 2021, it connected with organizations to effect positive change in communities across the globe.
During its annual Global Week of Giving, more than 600 employees volunteered with nonprofits to help people in 20 countries by providing skill-based assistance, such as resume proofing for tech job seekers and donor survey redesign.
Medallia.org, the social impact arm of Medallia, awarded Black Girls Smile a $40,000 grant. The nonprofit provides mental health care for young Black women and will use the grant to help pay for therapy sessions with licensed mental health professionals.
Medallia is also partnering with the Race Equ(al)ity Project. Entrepreneurs Mandy Bynum McLaughlin and Dion McKenzie founded the organization to help tech-industry companies assess and improve equity and inclusion in product design and company culture. (Be on the lookout for more information about the partnership right here on AfroTech.)
By setting intentions and following through with action, Medallia continues to be a leader in the DEI space for businesses and models how the tech industry can do the same. It’s giving us equity in action, and we love to see it! Learn more about how to become part of the work Medallia’s innovative and inclusive teams are doing.
This editorial is brought to you in partnership with Medallia.
