Corporations Compassion Culture

Provides guidance on creating a sustainable, inclusive, equitable, and compassionate business model that will thrive in businesses globally

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are a must for today’s corporations, yet many corporations worldwide have failed to establish real equality in an actionable, measurable way. Corporations Compassion Culture: Leading Your Business toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion takes a new and more effective approach to driving equity and inclusion in the corporate world, focusing on how a culture of compassion can lead to more vibrant, higher performing teams. You’ll learn how many standard corporate activities actually damage employees’ well-being and engagement—and how to dismantle those practices. You’ll also learn how to build a new and better corporate environment that responds to all employees’ needs and meets shareholders’ demands for stability and risk mitigation.

Author Keesa Schreane delivers insight into what it takes for businesses to drive real social and corporate change toward inclusion and equity, while sharing her personal story about the challenges of being a woman of color in today’s corporate environment. Through hard work, talent, and—you guessed it—compassion, she has risen to become one of today’s luminaries in the area of responsible leadership in global corporations. Business executives, HR directors, diversity and inclusion professionals, and sustainability leaders will value her direct, no-nonsense approach. Learn to:

• Identify behaviors, practices, and activities that may be damaging your employees’ well-being, engagement, and productivity
• Measure and continuously evolve culture promoting risk mitigation, reputation preservation, employee retention, customer satisfaction, and profit generation.
• Adopt new approaches to treat employees, customers, and shareholders compassionately and equally, and dismantle the old ways
• Retain the best talent and survive new realities, all while creating tremendous loyalty, innovation, and financial payoff

This book will enable you to create strategies and tactics for integrating racial, cultural and gender equity, inclusion, and compassion into businesses in a way that enriches society, employees, and the corporate entity itself.

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1: Inclusion, Equality, and Compassion in Business: An Overview

Chapter 2: Uncomfortable, But Necessary: Connecting Racial History to Racial Injustice in Corporate Structures

Chapter 3: Women’s Corporate Leadership: Past Perceptions and Current Realities

Chapter 4: Evolution of Companies Post-Covid

Chapter 5: INCLUSION AND THE BOTTOM LINE: A BROKEN STRUCTURE

Chapter 6: GENDER EQUITY AND COMPANY GROWTH

Chapter 7: Elements of a Compassionate Corporate Culture

Chapter 8: Your Plan for Creating Inclusion Through Compassion: What Works

Chapter 9: Your Plan for Creating Gender Equity Through Compassion: What Works

Chapter 10: The Future: Compassionate Corporate Culture and Sustainable Business

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KEESA C. SCHREANE is Global Partner Director at Refinitiv where she focuses on supply chain risk and environmental, social, and governance data and partnerships. She is also host and producer of Refinitiv Sustainability Perspectives Podcast.

Few global corporate trends are as notable and vital as the relatively recent push for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Unfortunately, while many organizations have been willing to put out optimistic press releases about their commitments to those ideals, words haven’t always been followed by actions that result in quantifiable change within companies.

Corporations Compassion Culture: Leading Your Business Toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion delivers a thorough examination of how corporations have largely failed to enact the culture change necessary to realize inclusion, ethical treatment, and racial and gender equality within their organizations. Author and consultant Keesa Schreane identifies problematic behaviors and practices that reduce employee well-being, engagement, and productivity.

The book teaches approaches that help companies enrich employees and improve communities and the environment while increasing profits by recognizing that employees, customers, and shareholders should be treated compassionately and equally. These companies will be best placed to attract the best talent and survive the new, socially conscious breed of discerning consumers.

Learn to create specific and actionable strategies and tactics for integrating inclusion, racial and gender equity, and compassion into businesses in a way that enriches society, employees, and the organization itself. Discover how companies that embrace these strategies will reap the rewards of a more equitable society, increased employee loyalty, innovation, and sustainable profit. The book shows readers how to build companies that allow for greater corporate stability, sustainability, and enhanced risk mitigation in an increasingly unstable and dynamic world.

Perfect for executives, managers, and company owners and founders, Corporations Compassion Culture will also earn a place in the libraries of anyone interested in the intersection of social justice and employment. The book is an insightful and original take on a key issue that affects everyone in the workplace.

Praise for CORPORATIONS COMPASSION CULTURE

“Keesa Schreane turns on a light for so many organizations that need to dig deeper to do what’s right. Work is personal, and a commitment to more compassion unlocks who we can become.”
—Seth Godin, author, The Practice

“Keesa Schreane is a powerful emerging voice in business; she represents a generation of innovators, especially women of color, who demand more from the brands that we buy and support. This book celebrates businesses that successfully evolve with social change, while cautioning those that maintain outdated cultures.”
—Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code; author, Brave, Not Perfect

“Few issues are more important than diversity and inclusion. And few books offer a more practical guide to the topic than this one. Corporations Compassion Culture shows that treating employees with fairness and compassion isn’t a detour on the way to profits. It’s the only path.”
—Daniel H. Pink, author, When, Drive and To Sell Is Human

“Keesa Schreane provides a well-researched and thoughtful argument for a people-first approach to business that is necessary for transforming the nature of work. By focusing on the importance of humane and respectful approaches to work culture, Schreane provides real solutions to the challenge of culture change.”
—Marcia Chatelain, Professor of History, Georgetown University

“Schreane delivers a powerful and timely call to action for corporate leadership—revenue alone is not enough, companies must deliver both profits and progress to their employees, shareholders, communities, and the environment. Schreane lays out a framework for how to get that done by investing in a people strategy grounded in compassionate leadership.”
—Alejandra Villagra, Financial Services Executive