(Editor's Note: This article is part of Club Industry’s ongoing series on diversity, equity and inclusion in the fitness industry. You can read more articles in this series by going here.)
For many, yoga is a healing practice. Personally, I started yoga for that reason but soon learned the practice provides more than that — it is about unity and self-awareness. When I joined CorePower Yoga as CEO last January, I knew that as a company we had the opportunity and responsibility to democratize yoga and encourage everyone to come to the mat regardless of race or gender. As a leader, that mission was clear in my mind.
I’ve been encouraged to see many companies and organizations make diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) a priority. 2020 was a catalyst for change for many, and an incredible inflection point for those of us who are leading DE&I strategies. As we navigated a pandemic and global movement for racial justice, it was clear we had to shake things up and accelerate our mission to create a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment where everyone feels welcomed and respected — both inside our organization and in the communities we serve.
I’ve been asked how to set goals and where to start. My first response is it’s a journey, but I can share a few tips that have guided our strategy at CorePower Yoga and what we’ve done to achieve our goals.
Listen to your stakeholders and find your gaps. At the start of my tenure at CorePower Yoga, I made a commitment to our employees and teachers that I would be transparent, communicate regularly and listen. As part of that commitment, I held sessions throughout the year with all employee groups, including yoga teachers, across the country to listen and learn where improvement was needed to create a stronger and better organization. These insightful conversations helped frame our DE&I strategy.
Set your areas of focus. It’s important to approach your diversity and inclusion strategy like any other business strategy and prioritize where to focus first. At CorePower Yoga, we focused in four areas: making our company, studios and community more inclusive and diverse; how to foster a more racially and ethnically diverse teacher base; the role we can play in making yoga more accessible to BIPOC communities and how we can use our voice to support key issues that impact underrepresented groups. We started by implementing initiatives that centered on our team.
- Last summer, we worked with an outside DE&I advisor, Denise Robinson, to develop an updated DE&I strategy. We identified the core initiatives and established a DE&I Council. This group of leaders and teachers from across CorePower has job responsibilities that reflect the key areas of focus and represents a diverse range of perspectives and expertise. They work hand-in-hand with our senior leadership team to drive this important work forward.
- We expanded and restructured our senior executive leadership team to reflect our company commitment to revamping our recruiting, hiring and promotion practices to ensure objectivity in the process and bring in more racially and ethnically diverse employees.
Institute access to learning and advancement. Now more than ever, employees expect companies to create a more inclusive and equitable workplace — one in which they can learn and grow. This was the case for CorePower Yoga in 2020, and we implemented programs that addressed both areas.
- We launched the CorePower University platform with foundational courses in DE&I and trainings related to creating an inclusive work environment, implicit bias awareness, cultural appreciation over appropriation and inclusive teaching.
- We also launched a BIPOC Teacher Training scholarships program to help diversify the yoga teaching community, covering 100 percent of tuition for BIPOC members to participate in our Online Teacher Training program. Since its inception in June 2020, we’ve awarded 1,200 BIPOC scholarships and are continuing to expand this initiative.
Create opportunities to listen, learn and share experiences. In order to remain steadfast in your commitment to driving this work, it’s important to engage directly and create opportunities to listen, learn and share experiences. At CorePower Yoga, we understood our employees and teachers needed an avenue to be heard and seen, so we created the following programs:
- Monthly BIPOC Employee Chats to better understand the specific needs of our BIPOC community. These chats create a safe space for our BIPOC employees to provide feedback about how we can improve our organization.
- Ongoing series of Power Hour panel conversations with internal and external voices that are dedicated to listening and learning about how to make yoga more inclusive, accessible and equitable, and about CorePower’s role in this effort. For example, we brought in outside experts to educate and discuss important DE&I topics such as the history of Juneteenth.
- Off the Mat video series to spotlight and celebrate the diverse voices and experiences of CorePower Yoga teachers across the country.
Hold yourselves accountable and be transparent. Your diversity and inclusion goals should be reviewed like any of your company’s other performance metrics, with leader accountability and regular reporting. At CorePower Yoga, we provide regular updates as well as consistent reporting on our DE&I initiatives through our internal company town halls and regular end-of-week updates from myself to our employees and teachers. And we added a DE&I page to our website that is updated regularly.
I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made at CorePower Yoga with the development and implementation of a more comprehensive DE&I strategy last year. The progress we’re making every day in this effort, the team we’re growing and the steps we’re taking to build a more inclusive and diverse yoga community has been incredible. It’s a continuous improvement effort, and there is more we can and will do. Most of all, I’m so grateful to our employees and teachers for their commitment to this important work. It’s because of them we’re advancing our mission of making yoga more accessible to people everywhere.