Meni Koulakiotis

President

A recruitment professional with over 13 years of full-cycle recruiting experience in a variety of industries. During her over a decade long career, Meni celebrated many successes in agency as well as corporate environments for temporary, temp-to-permanent, and direct hire placements.

Latest jobs by Meni Koulakiotis

Austin

Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)

55.00-60.00 USD (US Dollar) Per hour, Salary Negotiable

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United States of America

Big Data Engineer - Lead

150,000-165,000 USD (US Dollar) Per annum, inc Benefits

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Cary

Data Scientist

60.00-60.00 USD (US Dollar) Per hour, inc Benefits

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United States of America

Solution Architect

65.00-65.00 USD (US Dollar) Per hour, inc Benefits

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Mammoth Lakes

General Manager - Mammoth Lakes, CA

Salary Negotiable

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What's happening...

Coaching for intersectional inclusion
9 mins read

Coaching for intersectional inclusion

​Everyone has multiple layers to their identity, and no one is one label. There are other aspects of their identities to consider, and no one should be put in a box. Many businesses, which celebrate Pride Month, for example, are perceived as not doing enough for people who are underrepresented in more than one way.

Recent research by Culture Amp in ‘The Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Report 2024’ found disabled women and black women are more doubtful of their employers’ equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging (EDI&B) efforts than any other group.

This is likely because women might feel their entire identity and additional barriers aren’t being considered, if they are part of more than one underrepresented group. Some employers’ initiatives provide a base-level overview of inclusion for women, but they might only explore the perspectives of white women, for example, or women in general, with no specific solutions explored for LGBTQ+, disabled or black women, for instance. Each may have very different experiences of what it means to be a woman.

Coaching people within your organisation can help leaders and employees gain a deeper understanding of intersectionality and why it’s important. We interviewed Mary-Clare Race, CEO of Talking Talent, for her insight and best-practice tips on all things coaching and inclusion.

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Q: What's the difference between coaching, mentoring, and other types of training, especially when it comes to equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging?

A: These terms are often used interchangeably in the world of talent development, but we see a clear distinction between them that is especially important when it comes to EDI&B.

In a training situation, the primary goal is typically to transfer knowledge from the facilitator to the participant, to raise their awareness and understanding of a particular topic or skill and provide them with practical tips on how to put that skill into action for themselves.

In a mentoring situation, there is also an element of knowledge transfer, but in a more personalised, relationship based, one-to-one situation where the mentee is paired up with a more experienced mentor who is there to provide them with support, advice and guidance.

Coaching takes the relationship-based approach one step further and focuses on supporting and facilitating the coachee to actively step in and facilitate their own outcomes. It is not about giving them the answer but rather supporting them to find their own answer, their own way forward.

At Talking Talent, we favour a coaching-led approach because it enables a deeper level of behavioural change. The coachee must be actively engaged and motivated to do the inner work on themselves and the coach is there to hold them to account. However, there is a role for all three approaches when it comes to solving EDI&B challenges and real power in combining all three.

Q: How can coaching help businesses become more inclusive and diverse?

A: If you look at what it takes to really move an organisation forward with their EDI&B strategy, we believe you've got to take a systemic approach and build inclusion into your culture and in how people behave every day.

There are several ways coaching can help with this:

Leadership behaviours: by working with a coach, leaders become more aware of their own biases, preferences and how their own identity shapes how they show up as a leader. The coach can help them develop the skills needed to foster a culture of inclusion and hold themselves and others accountable.

Developing talent: in many organisations there are pockets of talent who have been overlooked because of some aspect of their identity. Coaching-led programmes can support under-represented talent to thrive and overcome what may be holding them back so they can fulfil their true potential. And by offering coaching-led programmes that address the unique needs of underrepresented individuals, organisations demonstrate their commitment to supporting the needs of all their employees - thus driving retention and engagement levels up.

Improving culture: at the heart of culture change is the need to move behaviours forward at an organisational level. We believe coaching is the most powerful way to do this for an organisation - by helping individuals and groups develop the self-awareness, emotional intelligence and relational competency to work effectively in diverse teams and build inclusion into the culture.

Q: In your experience, why are diversity and inclusion initiatives so important to organisations and their talent attraction and retention?

A: In our industry, there's been significant backlash against EDI&B eff