Our new blog series, “Small Efforts, Big Impact,” highlights employee-led initiatives around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that have sparked change at their organizations. Employers are always looking for authentic and organic ways to make DEI part of their organizational commitment to their employees, customers, and communities. We want to amplify those stories to show how a small act can spark important conversations and effect change.

In February, during communications with our client Businessolver, we noticed their email signatures had changed. Businessolver created customized email banners linked to educational resources in celebration of Black History Month. This communications effort received widespread support, internally and externally, and contributed to the company’s greater conversation around cultural competence. We talked to the employees responsible for creating the banner to discuss the idea behind it and where they see DEI at Businessolver moving forward.

How did the idea for the email banner come about?

Jamon Harrell, Businessolver Client Onboarding Lead: With everything that transpired last year, I felt like there was an opportunity to bring more awareness to what's going on, especially being a Black individual in the business world. Starting those conversations and having various people start to participate has exploded into what we're doing now. 

It’s really been an organic path to where we are now, as we just started with pure awareness. We presented to everyone, “Here’s what's going on. Here are some small stories that we’ve shared up to this point.” It really started growing from there, which ultimately led to more of us thinking, “How can we get involved?” That’s how Adam [Quinn] and I connected. The most amazing part of this is that we have a platform to put it out there.

Adam Quinn, Businessolver Team Lead: It was the beginning of Black History Month and as I was scrolling on social media, I started to see what other companies were posting. We’re a forward-thinking company, so I started thinking about how we could put something together. My leader connected me with Jamon, and we just bounced a couple of our ideas around with the marketing team.

I think from the moment the email signatures were rolled out, a majority of Solvers had added it to their email list or their email signatures. I was really happy to see a small idea spiral into something so much more and then take off so well.

Has Businessolver done anything like this before?

Carrie Clogg, Businessolver Foundation Director: We have a committee that plans events around certain holidays and months. In May, for example, we put a spotlight on Mental Health Awareness Month because that's something that's very important to our company, so we made a banner for that. Black History Month is important, too, of course—but there was admittedly more of an awareness gap. What was great about the Black History Month banner was that you could click on and it took you to resources. 

We’re just starting our DEI journey and a lot of it has been organic—which is good because employees are more likely to lean in and engage when they can see the effort is organic and genuine. In the end, we just want our employees to feel comfortable talking about their journeys.

What was the feedback like internally and externally?

Jamon: You immediately saw there were more people with the banner than not. That spoke volumes about the positive reception. Each Monday, our leadership team gets us together as an opportunity to reach everyone at the company. The banner was promoted there and they showed you where to find it and how to use it. They made it easy for everyone. A lot of the success was because it came from top down. 

I heard from one of our team members that one of the clients that they were working with really loved the banner. It’s been great to hear clients celebrating the fact that we took the initiative. It was powerful both internally and externally.

Carrie: It was purely up to the employee to take the initiative, to get it on their signature, and the number of people that did it really proved that it was important to them.

Have you seen a shift in awareness about DEI and cultural competence at Businessolver? 

Adam: The big thing I've noticed is that my team is a lot more open to talking about diversity—including their history, their background, their heritage, and everything that comes with it. I know the company has facilitated a lot of our morning meetings, but we also have our normal team stand-ups where these conversations can happen naturally and organically. It’s totally different than when I started four years ago.

Carrie: By people saying, “Here's my story, here’s who I am,” it helps me be a better colleague because I know a little bit about their background or where they're coming from. It's that empathy that makes the difference.

Where do you hope efforts like this will lead?

Adam: I hope small actions like this can contribute to making a world when people can speak respectfully to one another. Showing this and educating a little over a thousand people, it's a great start, but it will take those thousand people to educate several more.

Carrie: We have a lot of momentum right now. We also currently have a lot of goals around our hiring process and retention process. I'm excited to see how we do as a company with those goals because I think those will be very important in helping us become a more diverse company.

For more information about Black History Month, read Jamon Harrell’s blog post “Exploring Black History Month - The Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity.”