Lori Lizarraga, Murrow, and Emmy-Award Winning International Reporter- Representative Storytelling

Lori Lizarraga is a Murrow and Emmy-Award winning international reporter known for her community-focused reporting in California and Colorado. Her national reporting on diversity in the media drew widespread attention. On Reimagining Company Culture, she joined us to talk about representative storytelling and what it teaches HR leaders about who gets to be visible in their organizations.

Her view is that storytelling is power. Who gets to tell stories, whose stories get told, and how those stories get framed shape how people understand themselves and each other. That principle applies to newsrooms and applies just as directly to internal communications, recruiting, and culture work.

Why Representative Storytelling Matters Beyond Media

Most companies treat internal communications as a logistics function. Memos go out, town halls get scheduled, recruiting copy gets written. Catalyst research found that 76 percent of employees, and 86 percent of Gen Z workers, are more likely to stay with a company that supports DEI. The story a company tells about itself is part of why people stay.

Lori described the trap. When stories about success, leadership, and culture get told only by a narrow set of voices, the workforce learns who is and is not seen. The pattern shows up in promotion decisions, in who gets quoted in customer case studies, and in who features in recruiting materials.

Her framing is that inclusion requires intentional storytelling at every layer. Whose voices appear in all-hands meetings, employee spotlights, and external case studies tells the workforce what kinds of contribution are valued.

What also matters is rotating who tells the story. Companies that always feature the same handful of leaders narrowing visibility patterns. The fix is making space for new storytellers and new framings on a regular cadence.

How Do You Build Representative Storytelling Inside a Company?

What is the first move for HR teams that want to invest here?

Lori recommends auditing who gets to tell stories internally over the past year. Look at all-hands speakers, internal newsletter features, and recruiting materials. The audit usually reveals patterns nobody intended but everyone produced.

How do you handle storytellers who lack media skills?

By investing in training and platform support. Coaching on how to share a story effectively is a skill, not an innate talent. Companies that build this capability across the workforce produce more authentic and varied internal narratives.

What Actually Works in Representative Storytelling

Audit visibility patterns regularly

Tracking who gets featured, quoted, and platformed surfaces patterns that intent alone misses. The audit becomes the cheapest, highest-impact diagnostic for representative storytelling work.

Train and support new storytellers

Visibility without preparation can backfire. Strong programs invest in coaching, technical support, and editorial help so new storytellers feel set up for success rather than exposed.

Reward stories that challenge the comfortable narrative

Some of the most useful internal storytelling comes from people who name what is not working. Cultures that reward that honesty produce stronger learning loops than cultures that only celebrate wins.

Where Employee Relations Fits

ER systems are where storytelling problems often surface. AllVoices' DEI solution and our DEI hotline product give HR a clear way for employees to raise concerns about who gets visibility and whose stories get sidelined.

How does ER tooling support representative storytelling?

It catches the patterns that auditing visibility alone misses. Concerns about whose contributions get credited and whose ideas get attributed to others, when aggregated, reveal systemic patterns that storytelling audits cannot.

Frequently Asked Questions About Representative Storytelling at Work

What is representative storytelling?

It is the practice of ensuring that the people, perspectives, and experiences featured in an organization's communications reflect the actual breadth of the workforce and community.

How does this connect to DEI work?

DEI work is incomplete without storytelling work. Hiring more diverse people but featuring only a narrow subset of voices in internal communications produces an inclusion gap that employees feel.

Who should own storytelling representation?

Internal communications usually convenes it, with HR and DEI leaders co-owning. The work cannot live with one team alone or it stays performative.

How do you measure representative storytelling?

Audit speaker rosters, newsletter features, customer case study subjects, and recruiting copy. Track demographics of who gets featured over rolling 12-month windows.

What kills representative storytelling fastest?

Defaulting to the same handful of leaders for every visibility moment. The pattern compounds quickly and erodes trust across the workforce.

How do you handle storytelling about hard moments?

By being honest about what happened and giving voice to the people most affected. Sanitized stories about hard moments lose credibility quickly.

The Bottom Line for HR Leaders

Lori's framing is a useful corrective for any HR team that has treated communications as separate from culture work. Stories shape how people understand themselves and each other inside an organization, and representative storytelling is one of the highest-impact inclusion investments available.

The leaders who get this right share a few habits. They audit visibility patterns regularly. They invest in new storytellers. They reward honest stories about hard moments. And they treat storytelling as part of culture work, not separate from it.

Companies that hold this discipline see retention and engagement compound across years. Employees who see themselves represented in the company's stories develop deeper organizational connection.

Industry research keeps reinforcing this view. Pew Research on workplace DEI found that a majority of employed U.S. adults still see DEI as a positive thing. The mandate is real, and storytelling is one of the most accessible ways to make it visible.

Across the conversation, the throughline was that visibility is power. Cultures that share visibility broadly produce stronger trust, deeper engagement, and the kind of organizational pride that compounds over years.

The strongest programs also pair internal storytelling with external visibility. Customer case studies, partner spotlights, and public profiles featuring a representative slate of voices reinforce the internal patterns and produce recruiting outcomes that build over years.

Strong programs also tend to produce a quieter recruiting benefit. Candidates research how companies handle this kind of work before joining, and the patterns become known in tight talent markets. The reputation that follows from sustained discipline becomes part of the company's competitive advantage in hiring.

The throughline across the conversation was that real change is operational, not symbolic. Cultures that build the discipline through years of consistent practice end up with workforces that hold under pressure and produce stronger outcomes than cultures relying on values statements alone.

Companies that handle this work well also develop internal expertise that pays back across cycles. The leaders, managers, and HR partners who develop the muscle become more valuable across the organization, and that expertise is what sustains the work through executive transitions.

Programs that hold this discipline also produce documentation and case studies that become useful internal teaching tools. The accumulated learning becomes a resource for future cohorts of leaders, and that knowledge transfer is part of what makes the work sustainable across years.

The companies that hold this work through hard quarters end up with cultures that are recognizably different from peer companies. Employees notice, candidates notice, and customers notice. That distinctiveness is what produces the recruiting and retention advantages that mature programs are known for.

See how AllVoices supports HR teams building inclusive storytelling cultures.