5 Things / Giving Grace
A Note from Bernadette
Hierarchy has come up a lot lately in our focus group conversations and workshops. Specifically, what can I say when someone with more power than me says something I consider inappropriate?
One person shared a story about their manager raging about something, using some nasty words. Twenty minutes later, the manager returned and sincerely apologized. Later, they shared that story with a friend who said, “I would have gone directly to HR.”
The person who told the story preferred to give grace. And they trusted their manager to get it right in the future. Not everyone will make that same choice. There’s no one right move. Giving grace is a choice. HR is a choice. A direct sentence is a choice too, and can be as simple as: “Ouch.” What you pick depends on how safe you feel and whether it’s a pattern.
What’s your one word version?
This Week's Good Vibes 🙌
Salesforce Turns Service Into Skills
Salesforce launched the Missionforce Military Fellowship, a 12-week program built with the Department of Defense SkillBridge program. Service members leaving the military get hands-on training and mentorship to translate their experience into AI and technology careers. Graduates earn a Salesforce certification and a shot at full-time roles with Missionforce, the company's platform for defense and intelligence organizations. Veterans are a diverse group of people and this provides a great path to a corporate tech career.
♐️ Ask a veteran on your team what they led in the service, then ask how it connects to your work.
Period Products Make the Lineup
Columbus, OH, is the first city to provide free period products in restrooms across all of its major sports venues. There are now 165 dispensers in 7 venues. 27 states and Washington, D.C., require free menstrual products in some mix of schools, public buildings, and workplaces, but stadiums are new ground. Access to period products should never depend on luck. Note that it’s unclear whether products will also be offered in the men’s bathrooms to help women with disabilities who receive help from male partners or if women need to use the men’s bathroom during busy events. This also is useful for trans men.
♐️ Check every restroom in your building. Are period products stocked and free?
Tesco Gives Survivors Paid Time
Tesco became the first supermarket to offer paid "safe leave" for victims of domestic abuse. Staff get up to three paid days, taken flexibly, for things like court hearings, emergency accommodation, changing locks, securing childcare, or separating finances. Nobody has to provide formal evidence. Managers across the company's 300,000 employees have been trained to spot the signs and flag them to specialist services. More than 3 million people in England and Wales suffered domestic abuse last year.
♐️ Check whether your leave policy is inclusive of survivors and if it doesn’t ask survivors to prove harm.
Brandon Waives Fees for Indigenous Languages
Brandon University in Manitoba now waives tuition for Indigenous students taking Indigenous language courses. The waiver covers any of the seven Indigenous languages recognized under Manitoba's Aboriginal Languages Recognition Act. President Christine Bovis-Cnossen described it as an act of reconciliation and named the past role schools played in punishing children for speaking Indigenous languages. Indigenous students are about 17 percent of the student body and its fastest-growing group.
♐️ Naming the harm and funding the repair turns a statement into action.
Americans Say Diversity Pays Off
A new Bentley University-Gallup survey of 3,270 U.S. adults found 71% say it is somewhat or completely true that businesses with diverse workforces are more profitable, up from 61% in 2025. Another 75% say diverse workforces make more innovative products, and 72% call promoting DEI a somewhat or extremely important priority for businesses. Belief rose across political lines.
♐️ Key Takeaway: When it sounds like everyone is backing away, check the data.
Good Vibes to Go & Updates
My friend Rhodes Perry has a new program and book called Lead Embodied. He writes: When the path forward is unclear, come home to yourself. Learn more here.