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Meet Katee Van Horn

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Katee Van Horn.

Katee, before we jump into specific questions about your work, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in a small town in Ohio. My parents were both educators and I am the youngest of seven children. In the summertime, we would pile into the back of our van and travel all over the United States. I traveled to 30 states by the time I was ten years old. This sparked two things in me: wanderlust and a huge interest in people and cultures. We moved to Arizona when I was still in grade school and continued to explore.

My wanderlust has continued throughout my life and brought me to where I am today. I love traveling the world and being able to do it while working on creating awareness in people. I love learning about people and how similar we all are to each other, even when we seem very different.

After working for 20 years in Human Resources in various industries, I decided it was time to go out on my own and start something new. This was one of my scariest adventures. It has been hard and lonely at times to build a business, but it has also been a beautiful exploration of setting goals, doing the work, and making those goals real.

Has it been a smooth road?
Ha! Smooth sailing the whole way. Everything has been perfect! Just kidding. I think the work I have done throughout my career brought me to this place. I did not make every right decision and there were many times where my mistakes slowed down my career progression. But through those mistakes, I learned a lot about fairness, respect, and listening to others. When I have made mistakes or chosen the wrong path, I have learned something new.

But here is the thing. I took chances when others wouldn’t, which put me in rooms I would not normally have been in. I was asked to support a reduction in force (RIF) for an organization early in my career. This would impact over 500 people who depended on these jobs for their livelihood. It was the scariest thing to know what this RIF would do. But I reached out to my support network to understand how to take the right actions. I made sure I had the right steps in place so the impacted employees had resources right away. I fought to make sure they were paid through the holidays. And the team announced it in the most respectful way possible. These are never easy to do but I was taught early on that when it becomes easy to terminate someone’s employment, you need to leave HR. I couldn’t agree more.

I was also the person to raise my hand when new projects came along. Whether it was creating new policies, keeping HR human, holding a leader accountable, or creating an entirely new compensation structure without any prior compensation knowledge. I jumped in with two feet and gave it my all. It didn’t always end perfectly, but it helped me to learn and grow. And the adventure along the way always leads to great stories!

Tell us more about your work.
VH Included Consulting and Coaching is a consulting firm focused on Inclusion, Diversity, and Belonging. We help organizations design practical solutions for their particular inclusion, diversity, and belonging challenges. From building balanced teams to leveraging the differences of the team to drive innovation. This means spending time interviewing teams, using an engagement survey & other employee data, understanding their current HR technology and learning about the current culture of the team. We ask the right questions to understand what it’s like to work at an organization. Bringing all of this together and working with the leadership team, we make practical recommendations. We implement these solutions together.

I am most proud of the impact we continue to have in so many different industries and organizations around the globe. There is so much to think about when we discuss Inclusion, Diversity, and Belonging and the conversations can be tough at times. We do our best to create awareness, without judgement, to help bring people along on their journey.

We focus heavily on inclusion because we know that’s where we can see the greatest change and impact. We help build a culture of inclusion, where everyone can be themselves respectfully. We want employees to have an equitable experience at work. Fairly and consistently. We are different because we know that changing the world means meeting people where they are and giving them the tools to find their voice and change their minds.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Diversity and Inclusion have become a business imperative. I think in the next five to ten years the need for a focus on diversity and inclusion will become more apparent to companies. Research is confirming that diverse perspectives help to grow market share and drive innovation. Unfortunately, we have seen many examples of organizations not taking diverse perspectives into account while building their products. This leads to an exclusion of certain customers and possible markets. A change in awareness has already started.

It is no longer okay for organizations to say they are committed to being inclusive if they aren’t putting budget towards this work. Truly inclusive environments, where people feel seen and valued and experience a true sense of belonging will be a critical competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting and retention. There will be even more of a need for people like me to show organizations how to be more inclusive to drive representation from diverse groups. And we will need the right technology to advance the conversation and create real change.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Headshot- Carly Weekley <carlyweekley@gmail.com>, One Community Institute and Automotive News</carlyweekley@gmail.com>

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