As an organization seeking to make a positive impact toward racial justice and equity, we know reflecting on the past is an important part of impacting the future. Our organization recognized the importance of giving team members the space for reflection on an individual level, as well as opportunities for learning and growth in the workplace. In 2020, Grow created the Inspire Day, a floating personal day that team members were encouraged to use to recognize and celebrate Juneteenth. (Do you want to learn more about the history and significance of Juneteenth? Visit juneteenth.com.)

Chief Human Resources Officer Kimberly Woollard said, “We changed our time-off policy because we wanted the days off to be more substantive and meaningful. We wanted team members to have dedicated opportunities for reflection, celebration, assessing areas of self-improvement and planning the future.” In addition to their Inspire Day, team members also have two new paid volunteer days annually, and these personal days provide guaranteed time for reflection, celebration and community service.

For the first Inspire Day, team members were asked to use the time off to reflect and encouraged to share with our CEO, Thomas Feindt, any thoughts, feelings, perspectives or ideas related to positively impacting the communities we serve, particularly in the area of racial equity. Ideas and personal stories poured in, with many individual contributions progressing the conversation around inclusivity and equity. Throughout the course of the last year, we’ve implemented several improvements internally, including enhancing unconscious bias training and hosting weekly Town Hall dialogues among our CEO, other members of the leadership and all Grow team members. These practices and more have become an ongoing part of our culture, with regular opportunities for dialogue and learning happening across the enterprise, championed by our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. Round tables, book clubs, panel discussions and other events continue as our team collectively seeks to impact positive change.

Woollard, who also serves on the Board of Directors for the Florida Diversity Council, said, “The Inspire Day is a day of reflection — a chance for us all to think about what we could do in this current world we live in to impact positive change. How can we each contribute to making the world a better place? What inspires us? How can we keep moving forward?”

 

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