“For DEI to be successful, it’s got to have funding, it’s got to have authority, it’s got to have access to leaders,” said Britt Provost, a chief HR officer based in the Pacific Northwest. So that’s what she and Andre Nellams, the senior director of talent experience and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at health care benefits platform Accolade, set out to secure when they created Nellams’ current role that comprises both talent and DEI.

Provost interviewed Nellams during From Day One’s February virtual conference on bringing substance to inclusion and belonging. Their conversation centered on what makes Nellams’s role so effective.

Working on both talent acquisition and on DEI, said Nellams, gives him direct access to leadership—a must. It was important to him that this role would have tangible, and not just performative, effects on the organization.

Provost said Nellams is particularly well-positioned for the job because he has held so many different types of positions in HR. “You weren’t going to come in and be the recruiting leader, but you were going to be the strategic leader,” she said.

Nellams believes that not fearing mistakes, thinking outside the box, and creating a long-term roadmap has garnered him the trust of senior leadership, which makes his role all the more effective.

But Nellams does not work alone. He has two team members who work with him, one who specializes in DEI and one in talent acquisition, and all three of them work in concert. “All of this is a team sport,” Provost said. “So if you’re thinking about how you have to get funding within your organization, you can’t have just one person do it all because they can’t be the strategic leader and the programmatic leader at the same time.”

What a Powerful DEI Team Can Accomplish

Nellams and Provost talked about two initiatives at Accolade that demonstrate what a strong DEI strategy can produce.

The first are Slack channels where identity groups gather to communicate and stay in touch. The neurodiversity channel, for instance, is particularly supportive of its members. When one participant came looking for support following a panic attack, Nellams said the rest of the channel leapt right in to help with tips and messages of encouragement.

DEI team members don’t participate in these Slack channels; their only role is to monitor and encourage conversation. “They are really owned by the people, not by the DEI team, and that’s the critical component of that,” Nellams said. “I’m very grassroots-thinking when it comes to things like this. You want to empower your people to own your DEI within the organization. Why? Because they’re the ones that are impacted and the ones that can make the change. If it’s left to [the DEI team] to do it all, you will not do it. You don’t have the space or the time or the effort.”

The second is what he called the Allies program—a group of people across Accolade trained to support their peers when they need help finding company resources. For example, someone may not feel comfortable talking to their boss about burnout, but they may feel comfortable approaching a peer.

“They’re not there to solve, they’re not there to really coach,” he said. “They’re there to be an advocate for the employee to ensure that the employee gets what they need.”

The allies themselves are often interested in future leadership positions, so this is an opportunity for allies to get training that can lead to a management role and an opportunity for Accolade to invest early in its future leaders.

The Future of DEI Leadership

“Everything that has happened over the last two years has fast-forwarded the DEI front by years,” Nellams said. “And what has changed about the DEI community is that it’s moving from a place of diversity, equity and inclusion, to a place of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging,” he said, “belonging becoming your focal point, the ability to thrive, your ability to move forward. All will center around belonging.”

Because DEI is about the total human being, he said, appreciation of intersectionality is indispensable. And focusing on supporting employees at all of their intersections is another way for the DEI function to build authority. “You can bring cross-functional and dimensional communities across the organization to come together. Then even if you don’t agree, you have connection and community, which is essential.”

Both Nellams and Provost believe the future of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is its omnipresence in the workplace. “DEI cannot be othered, and that’s where we go wrong with DEI all the time—we other it,” Nellams said. “We make it a separate piece over there. But no, it needs to be embedded in your strategy, an everyday part of business, so that it becomes an integral part and it becomes a second nature, not an other nature.”

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter based in Richmond, VA, who writes about workplace culture and policies, hiring, DEI, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others, and has been syndicated by MSN and The Motley Fool.