Inclusive Workplaces

Belonging at Work: Building Safety Through Inclusion and Authenticity

Psychological safety is often talked about as being “nice,” “open,” or “supportive.” But for accessibility and inclusion leaders, that framing doesn’t go far enough and it doesn’t deliver results.

Date: 12th March 2026

Time: 1:00PM – 2:00PM

In March, Marissa Ellis will join us to reframe psychological safety as a performance-critical capability: one that determines whether people can speak honestly about barriers, risk, and lived experience or whether those truths stay hidden until it’s too late. You’ll leave this webinar with a clearer understanding of why even well-intentioned organisations struggle to hear disabled and marginalised voices, and what it really takes to change that.

A woman in glasses and a red blouse holds a microphone and smiles whilst standing in front of a presentation screen and a fintech event banner, embodying workplace inclusion and belonging at work.

Inclusive Workplaces

Why Belonging Depends on Psychological Safety and What Gets in the Way

Online
Thursday, 12th March
1:00 - 2:00 PM GMT

For many organisations, accessibility and inclusion efforts stall not because of a lack of policy, ambition, or talent, but because people don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth.

This session explores what psychological safety actually is (and isn’t), and why it plays such a critical role in accessibility, representation, and organisational decision-making. Marissa introduces the four layers of psychological safety – Inclusion, Learner, Contributor, and Challenger – and shows how gaps at any layer can silence disabled employees and other minority voices, even in organisations that believe they are inclusive.

You’ll examine how majority vs minority experiences shape risk, voice, and authenticity at work, and why disabled employees are often forced to filter their reality, consciously or unconsciously, in order to keep themselves safe. This filtering creates what Marissa calls the Truth Gap: the distance between what leaders believe is happening and what people are actually experiencing.

Most importantly, we’ll move beyond theory. Gaining practical strategies to strengthen inclusion, enable authenticity, and close the Truth Gap, so that your organisation can surface issues earlier, make better decisions, and create conditions where accessibility isn’t something people have to fight to be heard about – becoming a truly Inclusive Workplace.

And the biggest takeaway? High performance is limited not by talent or ambition, but by how much truth your organisation can safely hear.

A woman with long blonde hair wearing a bright red blouse looks at the camera against a plain, light background, embodying authenticity and confidence.

Marissa Ellis

Founder @ Diversily

Marissa is a strategist, advisor, speaker and best selling author. She is the founder of Diversily, an inclusion consultancy, and a thought leader in ‘inclusive intelligence’. From well-known names such as Reuters, Barclays, SWIFT, lastminute.com to high growth start-ups and accelerators, Marissa has spoken on international stages, led teams, launched market leading products and delivered complex programmes. Drawing on over 20 years of experience, she helps forward-thinking teams evolve beyond outdated ways of working, putting people and purpose at their heart to get better results. Marissa also runs Amplify: The Inclusive Innovation Collective, a community working together to make inclusive innovation the norm not the niche.

Inclusive Workplaces

What to expect?

A clear understanding of what psychological safety really is and why it goes far beyond comfort, niceness, or good intentions

Insight into the four layers of psychological safety (Inclusion, Learner, Contributor, and Challenger) and how breakdowns at each layer silence truth

A deeper look at how difference and power dynamics (majority vs minority experiences) affect risk-taking, voice, and authenticity at work

Practical ways to identify and close the Truth Gap, enabling more honest information flow, better decisions, and stronger inclusion outcomes

Is this for you?

This webinar is for people who are serious about building workplaces where belonging is real, not just stated in policy.

Accessibility, Inclusion and EDI Leaders who are responsible for creating environments where disabled and marginalised employees can speak honestly about what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change
HR and People Managers responsible for retention, wellbeing, and progression of diverse talent
Anyone passionate about accessibility and inclusion

If you’re navigating the tension between compliance and culture, trying to surface issues earlier rather than firefighting them later, or struggling with silence, resistance, or filtered feedback despite good intentions, this session will resonate.