What Cultural Competency Looks Like at This Colorado Company

If you felt like you couldn’t meaningfully connect with your leaders or colleagues, how long would you stay at your current employer? 

This is a question professionals from diverse backgrounds may face if they’re in a workplace that lacks cultural competency across the organization. 

The term refers to a person’s ability to internalize and respect the worldview, experiences and traditions of other cultures while being aware of their own. It focuses largely on the individual: how a person thinks, listens to and connects with others from different backgrounds. Building cultural competence across an employee base is often the first step in creating effective diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) practices and welcoming work environments for employees.

Creating greater cultural competence within a business — and more DEI initiatives — often starts with a conversation. Director of HR Amanda Qualls said Location3, an enterprise digital marketing agency, is relying heavily on candid discussion to build more competence and address biases with its team. Qualls said new communication channels and cultural competence training are helping to evolve the culture at Location3. 

Amanda Qualls

Director of HR • Location3

What’s one step your team has taken to help employees improve their cultural competency?

We have always strived to have a culturally competent team and company, but last year forced us to up our game. The pandemic challenged us to think about what was really important and the Black Lives Matter movement forced us to acknowledge our weaknesses. We have always had a culture where employees are passionate about social issues. Last year, we put a greater emphasis on stepping back to listen to our team. Our most significant action was to create an outlet to start discussing and acting on diversity, equity and inclusion more consistently. We provided an outlet for open communication with leadership, more specifically the CEO and HR director.

We put a greater emphasis on stepping back to listen to our team.”

How does Location3 celebrate cultural diversity in the workplace? 

We created a diversity and inclusivity committee and had 18 employees volunteer to join. We aim to celebrate diversity at Location3 and in the broader community while making DEI work an everyday part of what it means to work for the company. 

The committee is focused on initiating internal and external DEI efforts. For instance, we’re partnering with Denver Public Schools to conduct virtual events with middle schoolers and high schoolers about what we do at Location3. Over the summer, we’ll be bringing in high school interns to expose them to digital marketing and let them know whether it’s something they want to pursue after graduation. We’re also hosting a DEI speaker who will facilitate safe and productive conversations about cultural diversity with the entire company.

Related reading:80+ Diversity in the Workplace Statistics You Should Know

How does cultural competence show up in the ways your employees communicate and relate with one another? 

We are talking about culture more than ever. We are all more aware of how we communicate and relate with one another. We also recognize the impact we can have through these communications and we approach conversations with more care. Employees feel comfortable coming to the leadership team with recommendations and questions around culture and we do our best to let them know they are heard. Cultural competence is now part of our manager training. Our CEO is also speaking about cultural competence and diversity more. All of these acts are paving the way for us to transform our culture.