An organization’s commitment to diversity shouldn’t just be limited to the month of June, but it can set the foundation for long-term inclusivity. Reusing the same ideas every year can send the wrong message unintentionally. This doesn’t just imply a lack of creativity—it also shows a lack of commitment.
If you want to do something special to foster a sense of community among your workers, this post is for you. Here, we’ll discuss how to celebrate Pride Month at work with some engaging ideas that showcase your commitment to inclusion!
Why Celebrating Pride Month at Work Matters
According to a SurveyMonkey study, 64% of our LGBTQIA+ colleagues believe that Pride Month celebration at the workplace is just performative. Not only does this come off as disrespectful, but it also reduces the work engagement you get from your LGBTQIA+ employees.
The workplace shouldn’t discriminate against employees based on their gender identity, gender gender expression, or sexual orientation. After all, everyone just wants to be seen, heard, and treated fairly at their work. Their voices matter just as anybody else’s.
This is why celebrating Pride Month at work matters.
You’re not just creating an inclusive and safe space for your diverse employees, but you’re also listening to their feedback and appreciating what they bring to your work culture.
Beyond this, Pride Month offers a chance for everyone to understand, reflect, and improve their understanding of how society functions today. It encourages open conversations and provides deep insight into how we can fix the issues running rampant in our society.
Fun and Meaningful Ways to Celebrate Pride Month
If you don’t want to fall into the band of companies that celebrate Pride Month as a performance, there are ways to make your employees feel genuinely safe and heard.
Organize Pride-Themed Office Decorations
How you decorate your office can set the tone and theme for the entire month. It’s not just about flags—add posters and displays that celebrate the power of the LGBTQIA+ community. You can also ask your employees to come together and decorate common areas to add to the inclusive spirit.
Your virtual spaces can also be decorated through Slack themes, Meet or Zoom backgrounds, and digital bulletin boards.
However, let’s bear in mind that while the flags can be a great signal for inclusivity, it’s more about the symbolism behind the flag itself.
Host Educational Workshops and Speaker Sessions
69% of respondents in SurveyMonkey’s study believe that educational workshops and panels are the most authentic way to celebrate Pride Month.
This gives every employee an idea about this segment of society and how they can contribute to ensure that everyone feels safe and engaged. You can also invite influential speakers to share their experiences, stories, and learning to add more oomph to your initiatives!
Support LGBTQIA+ Charities and Nonprofits
It’s not all about celebrating with banners and flags. You can showcase the value your organization brings to the community by supporting LGBTQIA+ charities and nonprofits. Sponsor events in your local community, and volunteer with your employees at nonprofits to raise awareness for their wellbeing.
Implement Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
Employee Resources Groups for brands provide a community and give you real insight into where your organization’s inclusion gaps lie. They’re able to amplify the voices of our LGBTQIA+ colleagues and create a safe space for conversation and progress.
Create Inclusive Policies Beyond Pride Month
If you truly want to be considered as an equal opportunity employer and an inclusive organization, your policies must extend beyond Pride Month. This will show your commitment towards the community-driven cause and ensure that every member of the society feels seen, heard, and adequately represented at the workplace.
From benefits covering same-sex partners to anti-harassment policies protecting LGBTQIA+ members, your initiatives will set the standard for an inclusive brand.
Engaging Employees with Interactive Video Marketing
For creating a long-standing connection, pair your Pride Month celebration with interactive video marketing. Interactive videos take your viewers from passive observers to active participants, ensuring engagement and an emotional connection.
Here’s how you can use this to amplify underrepresented voices during Pride Month:
The Power of Video in Diversity & Inclusion
Video goes beyond mere words on a page and highlights authentic stories that connect with your audience. When you’re using video for diversity and inclusion, you enable every employee, regardless of their gender orientation or sex, to share their experiences.
These videos can be used to break down and explain complex topics. You’ll be able to communicate effectively when it comes to Pride history, inclusive language, and more.
Create Employee Storytelling Videos
Expanding on the previous point, videos (especially the interactive kind) help every worker share their story and reflect on how their unique experiences have shaped their experience in the workforce. These build trust and credibility, sharpening your brand’s image as one that has a positive influence on the community at large.
Hosting Virtual Pride Events with Video Content
If your brand’s employees are spread over different parts of the country (or even the world), they deserve to be recognized and celebrated as well. With interactive videos like Live Q&As or company-wide events, they can join in and celebrate Pride Month with their colleagues.
This eliminates the limitation of inclusion only at a physical workspace, and ensures that every worker is treated equally, and with respect. You can also host live events with the leaders of the LGBTQIA+ community, and create highlight reels to showcase your brand’s impact.
Promoting Inclusive Company Culture via Social Media
Social media is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal as a brand. How you portray your brand through platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok creates a long-lasting impression.
Post brand messages that celebrate Pride Month, inclusivity, and diversity. Give shoutouts to standout performers, upload educational reels, and give insights into how your brand ensures that every worker has equal rights.
You could also share employee experiences on social media. This creates a great impact through authentic stories from real employees, and can work well for talent acquisition too!
Virtual and Hybrid Pride Celebration Ideas
Bring people together during Pride Month, even if your employees are spread over remote, hybrid, and on-site roles. In fact, it’s relatively easy to create meaningful experiences for everyone involved, and here’s how:
Organizing Online Pride Webinars and Panels
Webinars and panels are a great way to discuss stories, experiences, and changes in an inclusive workplace. Ask LGBTQIA+ leaders, activists, and even your own employees to share their lived experience on the panel and create an open space for communication and conversation.
Add in Live Q&As and enable your employees to participate through polls, surveys, and feedback forms. This will help you understand where the gaps lie in your organization and what can be addressed.
Hosting Virtual Pride Parades and Watch Parties
Not everyone is able to attend Pride Parades, either due to their personal commitments or limitations. With virtual Pride Parades and watch parties, you give them the opportunity to participate in something that deeply impacts their lives.
You can also stream movies centered around LGBTQIA+ history and experiences. This not only provides a much-needed break from work, but also educates other employees about the resilience and lived experiences of their LGBTQIA+ colleagues.
Encouraging Employee Social Media Participation
We’ve already discussed the benefits of social media in contributing to an inclusive organization. However, people want to see your brand walk the talk and prove your values.
The best way to do this is to encourage your employees to talk about their D&I experiences at your organization. They can post behind-the-scenes videos, write about their contribution, and upload testimonial videos that authenticate your commitment to fostering an equal opportunity workplace.
This not only builds brand trust and credibility, but it also gives your employees a chance to voice their workplace experiences and how your D&I policies have supported their success.
Measuring the Impact of Your Pride Month Initiatives
Your Pride Month initiatives can transform your employees’ and audience’s attitudes towards the brand. But how do you measure the impact that you’ve created? Let’s find out:
Gathering Employee Feedback
The easiest way to understand how your actions have impacted your employees is to gather their feedback. You can do this through forms or polls embedded on interactive videos.
Do they feel more included? Are the brand’s policies accurately representing their interests? Are your anti-discrimination measures robust enough to protect their rights?
These are all essential questions that can be answered directly through the employees, giving you insights on how well you’re doing to provide equal representation.
Tracking Engagement Metrics
Interactive video platforms like Life Inside provide analytic tools to measure engagement metrics. You can check engagement rates, watch times, clickthrough rates, drop-offs, and more.
Based on this insight, you can improve your video campaigns. Apart from this, track ERG programme participation, Slack engagement, and event attendance.
Long-Term Commitment to Workplace Inclusivity
Pride Month isn’t the start and end to workplace inclusivity. It should either start or create momentum for D&I to be maintained all year round and beyond.
But the initiatives you take during Pride Month can serve as the foundation for the changes you need to make in the future. From forming an ERG committee to updating your policies for inclusion, there’s plenty of data to be used to create a workplace culture that suits employees from all walks of life.
How Life Inside Can Help You With Your Pride Month Initiatives
Life Inside is an interactive video platform that helps you create, collate, and automate the deployment of your interactive videos. You can use it for your website landing pages, newsletters, email campaigns, and social media.
At Life Inside, we are committed to providing equal opportunities to employees, regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, racial identity, or background. We wholeheartedly support diversity, equality, and inclusion through our D&I initiatives, and can help you solidify your stance on workplace equality.
While Pride Month and long-term D&I initiatives aren’t about creating or sending videos, we believe that interactive videos can help organizations bring about real change. This video format can help you highlight the stories of real people impacted by marginalization or discrimination, and educate everyone to do better.
With our platform, you can create engaging interactive videos, from Live Q&As to employee testimonials, showcasing your commitment to the cause. Our tool is also easy to use and integrates seamlessly with your marketing tech stack.
But in this case, it’s less about the medium, and more about the cause.
To harness the power of interactive video for employee engagement in your Pride Month initiatives, sign up for Life Inside today!
Bonus Tip: Always remember to address your employees by their preferred pronouns, as this goes a long way in creating an inclusive culture at the workplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why should companies celebrate Pride Month at work?
Every employee deserves to be recognized for their contribution, struggles, and experiences. Misrepresentation or underrepresentation of employees can give the impression that your brand does not value D&I initiatives. Celebrating Pride Month at work ensures that you not only create a safe space for your LGBTQIA+ employees, but that you value their representation, experiences, and contributions.
2. What are some LGBTQIA+ nonprofit organizations companies can support?
The Human Rights Campaign, GLAD, and The Trevor Project are some of the nonprofits that your organization can support to highlight your commitment to a long-term cause.
3. How can leadership foster a year-round inclusive company culture?
Pride Month can set the stage or foundation to gather momentum for constant improvement in D&I initiatives. Measure the impact of your campaigns, gather feedback from employees, and implement these changes to your policies and benefits to adequately represent every member of the organization.
