Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work

by Ruchika T. Malhotra

My 2015 book The Diversity Advantage was intended to help company leaders develop research-based strategies to advance gender equality at every level of the workplace—recruitment, retention, and advancement.4 Since it was published, I’ve found that institutional changes like corporate diversity programs designed for women are only part of the puzzle. Strategies must be intersectional; to be effective, they must prioritize the advancement of women of color, who carry the two largest and most visible marginalized identities in the workplace. Without an intersectional approach, changes to support women’s advancement are incomplete at best, and at worst, inadvertently create cultures where women of color are deeply discriminated against—often while white women ascend.