In this episode of Reimagining Company Culture, we spoke with Jesyka Simpson, founder of 10k Collective. Jesyka builds community, workshops, and cohort programs for mid-career women of color, and she has spent the last decade thinking about what actually embeds inclusion inside a company versus what makes inclusion feel like an annual event. Her view is pragmatic, and it is grounded in the lived experience of the people most often overlooked by standard inclusion programs.
The argument she kept coming back to is that inclusion work only embeds when it stops being special. When the same conversations that happen in an Employee Resource Group show up in performance reviews, in calibration rooms, and in the way managers handle a tough case, inclusion is embedded. Until that point, it is still a program.
What It Means to Embed Inclusion and Belonging
Embedded inclusion is what you have when the organization's default processes produce equitable outcomes without extra intervention. That includes hiring rubrics that resist bias, promotion criteria that reward underrepresented contributions, benefits that actually match the lives employees are living, and a case process that treats everyone fairly without requiring advocacy.
The research points consistently in the same direction. BetterUp's work on workplace belonging found that high-belonging environments produce 56 percent higher job performance and 50 percent lower turnover risk. Gallup's culture of belonging research shows that the manager accounts for about 70 percent of the variance in team engagement, which means belonging lives or dies at the team level more than the company level.
That is why embedding matters so much. Strong programs help at the edges. Embedded practice is what determines whether an employee's day actually feels different.
Jesyka made a separate point about pace. Organizations that try to embed inclusion everywhere at once usually produce a messy result and a team that is burned out. A tighter approach is to pick two or three systems, embed there first, and use those wins to build momentum for the next wave. That sequencing protects the team and builds the credibility needed to fund future work.
She also pushed back on the idea that embedding requires an enormous overhaul. Most embedding moves are small changes to existing processes: a revised calibration agenda, a new question in the promotion packet, an extra column in the ER dashboard. The cumulative effect is substantial. The individual moves are boring.
How Embedding Actually Happens
What does embedded inclusion look like in hiring?
Structured interviews, consistent rubrics, diverse interview panels, and a bar for what counts as a qualified candidate that does not reward the same network every time. If your best candidates keep coming through the same three referral channels, your pipeline is not embedded in the inclusion goal.
How does embedded inclusion show up in manager coaching?
Managers receive feedback on how they handle inclusion moments, not just on whether they attended the training. They discuss unconscious bias as a normal part of performance conversations, not as a quarterly special topic.
What Actually Works When Embedding Inclusion
Principle 1: Put inclusion into existing rhythms
Do not create a new meeting. Add an inclusion data point to the ones you already run. Weekly team reviews, monthly business reviews, and quarterly talent reviews are all candidates. The discipline is consistency, not novelty.
Principle 2: Use case data as a ground truth
When inclusion survey scores diverge from case data, trust the cases. Cases are behavioral. Surveys are perceptual. Both matter, but cases will tell you where the gap between aspiration and experience is widest.
Principle 3: Train for response, not recognition
Bias recognition training is common. Bias response training is rare. The real value is helping managers know what to say and do in the moment a bias signal shows up on their team.
Another common barrier is the hidden cost of keeping two parallel systems. When inclusion lives in a separate track from core HR operations, every process change has to be made twice and kept in sync. Embedding eliminates the dual maintenance cost and frees up bandwidth for more strategic inclusion work.
Strong ER data also protects managers who are doing the work well. Managers often feel that inclusion expectations are invisible and unmeasured. Embedding them into standard operating data gives those managers credit for the results they are actually producing, which is a retention lever in its own right.
Where Employee Relations Fits
Inclusion embedding is incomplete without a serious ER function. Employees raising concerns about exclusion need a path that takes them seriously and handles the case consistently. A strong workplace investigations workflow plus a DEI-informed operating model gives the organization both the process and the analytic visibility it needs.
ER drill-down: connecting inclusion signals to action
Watch for cases citing microaggressions, exclusion from key meetings, or unequal access to growth opportunities. These cases often do not reach a formal disposition, but the pattern is the point. ER leaders who share the pattern with DEI and CHRO partners monthly turn quiet signal into action. The inclusion work lives or dies on whether that loop closes.
Finally, embedding inclusion changes the kind of conversation HR has with the CEO. The metrics become operational rather than aspirational, which gives the CEO a clearer lever to pull when the results slip. That alignment is often what turns an inclusion program from a reporting line into a strategic capability.
Frequently Asked Questions About Embedded Inclusion
Is an ERG the same as embedded inclusion?
No. ERGs are a valuable complement, but they cannot carry the weight of embedding inclusion alone. Without executive sponsorship, budget, and operational influence, ERGs often become an unpaid second job for employees from underrepresented groups.
How do you measure embedded inclusion?
Pair survey-based belonging scores with behavioral data: promotion rates by group, turnover by manager, case themes, and time to resolution for cases involving sensitive issues. Multiple signals beat any single score.
What is the biggest barrier to embedding inclusion?Middle managers who have not been given tools or accountability. Executives can set direction and ERGs can create community, but the embedded layer is managerial practice, and that is where most programs thin out.Does embedding inclusion slow down other HR work?
Short-term, yes, because it takes effort to adjust existing processes. Medium-term, it speeds up hiring, performance, and case work because fewer exceptions and escalations show up downstream.
How should small companies approach embedding?
Pick two or three existing rhythms and add one inclusion data point to each. Resist the temptation to build a new program. Embedding beats expansion for any team under a few hundred employees.
Additional context from BetterUp's belonging research quantifies the business case, with high-belonging workplaces seeing significant lifts in performance and retention. Embedding the practice inside daily operations is how those outcomes actually show up.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Jesyka's frame is a useful corrective for HR teams who measure inclusion progress by the number of programs launched. Programs alone do not embed anything. The teams that produce real change do the unglamorous work of inserting inclusion data into the meetings that already happen, training managers on response rather than recognition, and using ER data to hold up a mirror to the organization.
That is not the most exciting story to tell at a conference, but it is the story that produces outcomes. It also makes the next DEI budget conversation easier, because the results are visible in metrics executives already track.
The biggest risk for HR leaders is getting stuck at the program layer. Programs are useful as starting points. They are not the endpoint. The endpoint is a workplace where inclusion is part of how the business runs, not a quarterly campaign.
See how AllVoices helps HR teams embed inclusion into the workflows they already run.
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