How Design Ops Can Influence Your Team Culture
By: Jason Kriese
Tags: Employee Experience, Designops, Design, Design Leadership, Diversity And Inclusion

As technology and business communities begin to recognize the value of UX Design, design’s influence — and the demand for design talent — has risen. But as demand for design increases, it becomes even more important for teams, and the individuals within them, to have a voice and be empowered to do their best work.

Focusing on an inclusive work culture and helping people work better together to improve the employee experience is the invisible but critical work of creating an effective and efficient design team.

A great work culture requires an inclusive environment where employees of all backgrounds and identities feel safe, appreciated, and respected. Team leaders can guide the way in fostering this environment.

The question is ‘how.’ Enter Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

For some organizations, DEI means a change in recruiting and hiring practices. Though that is a step in the right direction, our Salesforce Design team takes it a step further, shifting from reaching quotas to changing culture.

And, as a Design Ops team, we are approaching DEI with intentionality by embedding it into the day-to-day work of the organization. Fine-tuning small interactions throughout our organization will help to reflect DEI priorities better.

DESIGN OPS AMPLIFYING D.E.I.

Design Ops practitioners wear many hats. We often act as the translator between functions, the keeper of knowledge across teams, and the community support network — for everything from team education and upskilling to the celebration of people and projects.

At Salesforce, we feel that part of our responsibility is to community and company culture building. And the Design Ops team aims to be at the forefront of actively driving DEI values into the way we operate as an organization to ensure that everyone in our organization feels valued.

As a leader, I realize I’m in a position to move the needle. I feel a profound responsibility to be more proactive in driving change across the organization. It doesn’t have to be giant steps. Small, intentional changes can make a big difference.

Great design can only happen when everyone involved in the process feels included. As a Design Ops team, when we are thoughtful about the impact we can have — and want to have — on our organization, we position ourselves to affect meaningful culture change.

For example, focusing on inclusive solutions, Rachel Posman and our Design Ops team identified and documented specific actions that each of us could take to integrate DEI values into our meetings and events. Rachel led the team to produce a series of shareable playbooks to highlight best practices, making it easier to create a lasting impact.

Individually, these solutions are small and are unlikely to shift the organization’s culture. However, when we make these changes collectively and consistently, we can make tangible progress towards a culture of inclusivity.

Following are some changes that our Design Ops team finds useful in being more inclusive in the day-to-day.

Check time-zones. Perhaps the most obvious step in supporting more inclusive meetings, but have you considered the different time zones your team members reside in before scheduling? Teams are now more distributed than ever, so keep an active eye on who’s working from where. For repeated events, alternate time zones to include those who live across or outside of your country.

Account for culture. Confirm that the meeting date doesn’t conflict with religious holidays and recognized cultural events (e.g., Yom Kippur, Juneteenth, Cinco de Mayo). It’s never been easier to add world calendars for your quick reference as a meeting planner. Your teams will appreciate your efforts to work around dates of significance.

Consider your choice of words. When referring to a group of people, instead of using “guys,” use gender-inclusive language such as “everyone” or “friends.” And use “underrepresented groups” or “people of color” instead of “minorities.”

Pay attention to who’s on the mic. When planning agendas, take a good look at both who is presenting and what they’re presenting. As a meeting owner, you have a responsibility to promote equitable opportunities for your team.

Ask these questions:

Does the speaker list include a range of speakers from a broad spectrum of races, genders, disabilities, nationalities, geographies, and life experiences?

Are you providing opportunities for presenting across your team? If you have a handful of go-to speakers that are not diverse, why is that?

Is one topic, stream, subteam, or voice taking or given more time than others?

If you Display it, Say it. Make all information on slides a part of the spoken presentation — describe meaningful visuals (photos, charts, figures, illustrations, etc.). Not everyone in your audience may be able to see or understand the visual aspects of your narrative.

Use Closed Captioning and Speech to Text Translations. Include closed captioning or live transcription for all videos and events. Sometimes, you might question the quality of auto-generated captioning, but it can be immensely helpful to those who are unable to access the audio or benefit from the translation assistance.

These are just a few examples of small changes we can make as Design Ops leaders, and they can add up to make a real impact on inclusion in the workplace. It’s our chance to take responsibility for what is within our control, model change, and encourage accountability.

Transformative work is challenging. It helps to take a step back, look at your organization, and identify potential places to transform your team.

Initially, it may feel uncomfortable to enter into discussions on DEI topics — much less take the lead. But this work really matters.

And when we make different choices, especially small ones within our team every day, we can take part in creating a more inclusive, more equitable, and diverse work culture. We can transform mindsets and help our teams succeed.

To learn more on how to integrate DEI into your team, check out the Cultivate Equality at Work Trail on Salesforce’s learning platform, Trailhead.