In order to achieve our diversity, equity, access, and inclusion (DEAI) goals, we committed to conducting a critical and honest assessment of our DEAI efforts in the first quarter of each year to review Knology’s progress towards our objectives and identify areas for growth. The 2021 audit took place in early 2022.

Workforce

Knology remains committed to embodying DEAI values, with room to continue to improve. In early 2022, staff thought Knology continued to strive to create a diverse and inclusive workforce, and to support and meet the needs of that workforce. Staff recognized that Knology’s current workforce has expertise from diverse academic disciplines and backgrounds, and that the organization could do more to include other forms of diversity. Staff recognized Knology’s current efforts to foster a more diverse workforce, such as using more inclusive language in job postings and submitting ads to a broad range of websites to reach different types of applicants.

We were also cognizant that, as a small organization, this element is furthest from our control. Moving forward, we plan to engage more regularly with our cohort of Fellows, who represent considerable diversity across many dimensions.

Workplace

Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, staff has appreciated that Knology accommodates a virtual working environment and flexible office hours. Knology has held staff meetings to regularly discuss return to office practices, taking into account all perspectives.

Various staff members took leave in 2021 for a variety of personal reasons, and were grateful to others who were able to accept additional responsibilities so that progress on projects was as seamless as possible.

Work Practices & Products

Staff recognized that many of our partners support thinking critically about DEAI issues early on in projects, and acknowledged that this takes time and effort that can be hard to reconcile with tight budgets that do not always value this work. We continue to appreciate engaging with partners and learning from them about how they incorporate DEAI issues into their work.

Across these three areas, action steps for 2022 include:

Cultivating relationships with organizations that have populations of historically & persistently excluded groups;

Identifying new ways to present our work in addition to written text, including creating video and audio of research findings and reports. We plan to test this strategy using content from a single project by June 2022;

Revising templates for consent forms to be no harder than a 6th grade reading level by December 2022;

Developing an accessibility statement for our website to guide improvements going forward;

Making reports and web content available in more languages, particularly when research participants may use another language primarily;

Including a brief DEAI section in each report, which might include, for example:

Reporting on research participant demographics in the aggregate;

A reflection on the project team’s positionality vis-a-vis the project topic and participants; and/or

A critical analysis of whose theoretical models and expertise the project draws on.

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