Multiculturalism: Cultural Competence, Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Fellows Corporate Consortium, LLC (FCC) ® an Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Development, Change Research and Consulting firm, partners with organizations to (1) build capacity in organizational and people performance, (2) build congruence in organizational strategy & action and (3) conduct and utilize research that informs the organizational and human decisions to ensure success and sustainability of client systems.

Fellows Corporate Consortium, LLC (FCC) ® believes Cultural Competence: Multiculturalism & Inclusion in client systems are best embraced and enhanced by ensuring values, beliefs, and assumptions driving organizational strategy are aligned with the cultural norms, values, history, and perspectives of partnering clients; instilling value, respect, collaborative participation, and added influence to build congruent systems that are sustained for the long term in business.

Cultural Competence
Our firm approaches the creation of Cultural Competence through a data-driven approach to people and organizational performance in six categories: governing board principles, formal policies, procedures, human resource characteristics, change management strategies and cultural-diversity norms. Based on the findings of a researched driven instrument, strategies are developed with the client to "close the gap" between the desired outcomes of the partnering organizations and the human dynamics that allow for completion of all organizational outcomes.

Upon identification of the critical dynamics and identification of strategies that allow for success, our firm builds: (1) training and development systems for cultural competency development, (2) mentoring and executive coaching services to ensure success of each leader and manager, (3) simulation strategies to build requisite skills among teams charged with achieving international, local, regional, and diversity goals of the organization, and (4) new research projects to enhance the knowledge base of the client system. Follow-up with organizational clients occurs three, six and nine months after the initial partnering interventions with strategies crafted to ensure long-term success over a four year period.

Follow-up with organizational clients occurs three, six, and nine months after the initial partnering interventions with strategies crafted to ensure long-term success over a four year period.

Anti-Racism

We help organizations critically examine Anti-Racism by helping you take an anti-racist approach, which requires organizational leaders to scrutinize the systemic racial bias that is endemic within our society. Further, it calls upon organizations to look within their own workplace culture, policies, and practices to identify and uproot racial biases inherent within their operations.

Workplace diversity, on the other hand, refers to demographic variation within an organization’s staff and leadership. Diversity efforts are a noble goal. We help organizations proactively seek out and hire diverse staff and leadership across many attributes – race, gender, age, sexual orientation, personality type, etc…, which results in increased levels of creativity, innovation, and effective problem solving.

Addressing Language Barriers
In the context of addressing language barriers: Becoming competent in language is an easy skill for firms and organizations to maintain based on programs for language immersion. What is difficult, yet a strength of our firm is the ability to craft meaning from the "usual language barriers" to ensure successful communication among client systems. Many members of the firm speak multiple languages. At this writing, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Hebrew, Swahili, and English are the languages of fluency within the firm.

Language; however, is a misnomer when one thinks of diversity. It is the understanding of the cultural rules, norms, and imperatives driving thinking and action that become critical for the successful alignment of values, beliefs, and assumptions driving professional and personal choice. We are a firm committed to ensuring all cultural factors driving thought and action are understood and actualized in organizational planning.

Strategies for Communicating with Employees with Limited English & Literacy Skills
All members of the firm are experienced and seasoned professors and educators; having learners from over 90 countries. Each member of the firm is well versed in multiple communication strategies. We are each focused on movement beyond Bloom's Taxonomy for learning, change, and growth. We practice skills critical to successful communication with persons from varying ethnic groups, cultures, and age groups on a daily basis. Our strategies are face-to-face, electronic, simulation, case study, and non-verbal in accordance with cultural norms and mores. We have been successful in every venue undertaken.

Compliance Evaluation Process
A member of our firm is always appointed "Chain of Custody and Compliance Evaluator" for every project undertaken by the firm. This process is initially crafted in conjunction with the client organization to ensure they are cognizant of the steps utilized in Analysis, Planning, Intervention, and Maintenance, and are aware of the steps of decision authority arising from dialogue and contractual arrangement prior to any decision occurring on the part of the consulting entity. All presentations to the client system will include the compliance evaluation process; including project-managed chart; allowing for easy follow-through of all parties.

Diverse Workforce Strategies
Framing the business logic for diversity by moving beyond mandates: Our firm utilizes a multi-faceted Strategic Planning process centering on mission, vision, performance gaps, contingency plans, and functional performance outcomes; similar to traditional strategic planning methods. However, we additionally build into the plans belief and thought styles, diversity plans, values, and assumptions in a fifteen-part system of congruency development for people and systems.

Strategic Linkage
Critical to this strategy is the linkage of strategic, operational, and performance plans for each person within the organization in a collaborative-modeled tiered plan for change and performance.
Recruiting, retaining & developing a diverse workforce: Valuing Diversity through creating an inclusive environment: Recruitment, selection, and training/development systems are a mainstay of our work in human resource development and planning. We consistently create plans that are unique to organizational missions and goals and use a four capital model of retention and development that allows the organization to achieve its goals. We have provided these services to numerous client systems; private, non-profit, and government.

Diversity Councils and Affinity Groups
An effective tool for diversity enhancement: Although diversity councils and affinity groups are often used for diversity enhancements, we have found the breakdown of the group's effectiveness is based on their special status. Thus, we have devised diversity projects that required collaborative modeling of the diversity and affinity councils with mainstream units of the organization, and include the creation of educational, socio-economic, cultural, and spiritual dynamics; increasing awareness within the organization.

Employment Law as Diversity Law
Our work with client organizations often have them re-evaluating their plans, policies, procedures, and practices to reduce the incidence of employment and labor law violations. We simultaneously create training and simulation programs to "shore" the skill sets necessary for successful compliance and "beyond compliance" strategies. These issues are also different in varying international environments. Thus, we help organizational members understand appropriate actions available when in other environs.

Effective Communication: Men, Women, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y “Millennials”, Gen Z through Retirement
Communication is different for men, women, baby boomers, gen-xers, and gen-yers or “millennials”, gen-z workers, and how they value and view their priorities in the workplace. We provide training and development activities to help all groups hear and respond to, rather than react against one another in the workplace. These actions have substantively increased the team-based actions of our client organizations.

Workplace Mental Health Strategies
Our firm, in a myriad of ways, has responded to issues of mental health within organizations. From Employee Assistance Programs, Executive Coaching and Mentoring Programs, referrals to Clinical and Organizational Psychologists, and program monitoring for the organization to reduce their overall risk have been key to our work with client systems. Training and development strategies have all been used to guide the overall improvement of skills and knowledge of the management and leadership of the organization to recognize and alter current operational strategies.

Attracting New Customers through Diversity Strategies
Diversity strategies that best attract customers are those strategies potential customers see as congruent, inclusive, balanced, and fluid. To that end, the strategies that balance the values of a community or marketplace with the visual and written look of inclusion are those strategies that attract most. Our marketing staff, in alignment with our consultants, can create strategies marrying the values of the company with the inclusion critical to the attraction of new customer streams.

LGBTQ+ The New Face of Diversity
Gender and sexual identity inclusions are becoming more difficult when public outcries occur within communities where your organization operates, and the public views will change based on the differing locations. Nevertheless, there is an ever-increasing pride and acceptance of people's sexual orientation, such that organizations are recognizing it is good business sense to be inclusive of all persons in the workplace. Our firm has always been challenged to be responsive and engaged in understanding the sexual nuances driving personal and organizational action. We have created numerous strategies that have "healed the rift between people and systems" and can co-create with any organization strategies honoring the values and beliefs of the organization.

In terms of strategies offered centering on the aforementioned areas impacting the workplace, we offer strategies in the area of organizational psychology, organizational development, organizational behavior, behavioral management, mentoring, executive coaching, training, development, and retention. In many cases, these different strategies can be applied to the aforementioned areas we have listed.

Contact us to schedule your consultation. From our headquarters in Foster City, California, we serve public, private, and non-profit clients across the country and throughout the world.