Allyship At Work
An allyship training program that empowers employees to take meaningful action and build an inclusive workplace culture
Allyship is critical to fostering an inclusive workplace culture.
The right policies alone cannot shift workplace culture. It’s critical that employees become part of the cause. That’s where allyship comes in. Research shows allies don’t just influence one person at a time. They inspire others to act as change agents, too, creating a culture of acceptance and support.1 Simply put, allyship is a powerful force for good.
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But here’s the problem: Many employees are not showing up as allies.
While a majority of employees think of themselves as allies, relatively few white employees are performing basic allyship actions, such as advocating for racial equity or mentoring women of color.2 Allyship at Work helps to bridge this gap by helping employees at every level of your organization identify specific ways they can take action to make a meaningful impact. Companies from adidas to WeWork are successfully using the program, and more than 94% of participants feel more equipped to practice allyship and would recommend the training to a colleague.
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How to bring Allyship at Work to your organization
Download the program materials and join one of our free moderator training sessions!
We’ll walk you through everything you need to run allyship training sessions that empower employees to build a more inclusive workplace.
Inside the program
Allyship at Work teaches employees to recognize their privilege and power to create change, and introduces them to more than 50 research-backed steps they can take to show up as allies. Individual activities, real-life stories, group discussions, and videos help participants develop a shared understanding of allyship and prepare to take action in ways that center impact—and avoid pitfalls like performative allyship or the savior mentality.
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How it works
The program is designed for virtual or in-person teams and consists of two main components: a four-hour workshop that introduces participants to the practice of allyship and three small group follow-up sessions that provide participants with accountability and support as they put what they’ve learned into action.
Half-Day Workshop
Setting the Foundation: Allyship, Privilege, Power, and Action
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Three Monthly Discussion Groups
Practicing Allyship: Ongoing Action and Accountability
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Why (and how) we developed Allyship at Work
It’s critical that companies support women with traditionally marginalized identities, yet too few get the allyship they deserve. Only 16 percent of Latinas report that Latinas have strong allies in their organization, and Black women are even less optimistic about the level of allyship Black women receive.3 Allyship at Work was designed with a deeply intersectional lens to address this problem head-on. And the program goes beyond gender. Employees learn how to show up for coworkers who hold traditionally marginalized identities, including people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community—making Allyship at Work an integral part of fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.
What makes Allyship at Work effective
Specific
and interactive
Guided reflections and small group conversations lead employees to “a-ha” moments about their own privilege and power. More than 50 specific, research-backed actions empower employees with the appropriate strategies and actions to take.
Designed to
engage all employees
All employees, regardless of identity, role, or seniority, discover ways they can practice meaningful allyship.
Rooted in
intersectional research
Designed with a strong intersectional lens to address the inequities impacting traditionally marginalized groups.
Free & flexible
Easy to implement in both large and small groups. The program comes with everything participants and moderators need to engage in productive conversations for free, because inclusion shouldn’t depend on a company’s budget.
Attend a moderator training
Join one of our free moderator training sessions! We’ll walk you through the program materials and provide tips on structuring the sessions for authentic conversations.
Sign upCan’t make it? Sign up to receive everything you need to implement Allyship at Work and stay up to date on Lean In’s company programs.
Running the program is easy
We make it easy to implement the program, no matter your organization’s size. Empower your own HR, DEI, or team leaders to facilitate the workshops in three simple steps.
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1
Learn how to moderate effective workshops.
In addition to our free moderator training, we provide a Moderator Guide with a primer on allyship and a recommended script for running the workshop. -
2
Get everything you need to engage your employees.
Allyship at Work comes loaded with a Company Playbook filled with marketing assets and email templates to get your team excited, a Workshop Presentation complete with educational videos, and a Personal Workbook employees can return to over and over. -
3
Bring employees together virtually.
Allyship at Work is optimized for remote or dispersed teams of all sizes.
Leading companies are seeing results
After participating in the program, 94% of participants feel more equipped to take effective allyship action & 96% would recommend the program to a coworker or another company.
What companies are saying
This program not only provided educational resources and insight, but also tools, best practices, and next steps to evolve individual, and community, allyship practices.”
Ready to build an inclusive workplace?
Become an Allyship at Work moderator.
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Meet the makers of Allyship At Work
We teamed up with academic experts and DEI practitioners to ensure the program is intersectional, actionable, and drives meaningful change.
Daisy Auger-Domínguez
Chief People Officer, VICE Media GroupDaisy has led organizational transformations at Moody’s Investors Service, The Walt Disney Company, Google, and Viacom. Her TEDx talk Inclusion Revolution and upcoming book by the same title call on everyone, from individual contributors to CEOs, to do the work of dismantling inequity in the workplace.
Kimberly Brown
Founder & CEO of Manifest Yourself, LLCKimberly is a career expert whose mission is to help women and people of color navigate the workplace, make more money, and become industry leaders. In addition, her company, Manifest Yourself, provides organizations with tailor-made solutions to hire, develop, and retain women and people of color.
Deena Fidas
Managing Director & Chief Program and Partnerships Officer, Out & EqualDeena is behind the LGBTQ+ movement’s largest corporate public policy mobilization efforts. Under her leadership, the number of Fortune 500 companies with full LGBTQ+ protections rose from less than half to 90 percent. Deena has led inclusion programs on four continents and pioneered the development of corporate benchmarking tools here in the U.S. and across Latin America and Asia.
Dr. L. Taylor Phillips
Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations, NYU's Stern School of BusinessDr. Phillips’s research focuses on engaging traditionally privileged groups in diversity and equity efforts, and identifying methods to increase cooperation between the advantaged and disadvantaged. She has published research in leading social psychology journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Research in Organizational Behavior.
Andraéa LaVant
Founder and President of LaVant Consulting, Inc.Andraéa runs a social impact communications firm that helps brands "speak disability with confidence." She currently serves as the impact producer for Netflix’s Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp and advisor to major brands including Google, Netflix, and Verizon.
We would also like to thank the following people for their contributions to the creation of Lean In’s Allyship at Work program: Ally Hickson, David Smith, Debo Harris, Laura Espiru and Julene Allen.
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Endnotes
- Maureen Scully and Mary Rowe, “Bystander Training within Organizations,” Journal of the International Ombudsman Association 2, no.1 (2009), https://www.bu.edu/fafc/files/2012/05/bystander.pdf; Benjamin Drury and Cheryl Kaiser, “Allies against Sexism: The Role of Men in Confronting Sexism,” Journal of Social Issues 70, no.4 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12083
- LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace 2020 (Oct. 2020), http://womenintheworkplace.com. More than 60 percent of employees consider themselves to be allies to women of color at work, but less than a third of white employees say they’ve consistently taken a public stand to support racial equity. Only 42 percent (4 in 10) advocate for racial equality in private discussions, and less than 10 percent mentor or sponsor one or more women of color.
- LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace 2020 (Oct. 2020), http://womenintheworkplace.com. Only 11 percent of Black women think that Black women have strong allies in their workplace.