Transcript

Welcome to pops the show that shows you how to shift from human resources, paperwork to people, operations for the new world of work. How by answering one question at a time today to help answer your question. Here’s Nadene Evans, senior manager of organic growth marketing at benefits. Hi everybody. I’m here today to talk to you all about Juneteenth, the holiday that’s coming up.

I’m here to talk about some ways that your business can help celebrate the Juneteenth holiday and support Juneteenth within your organization and help your DEI efforts by doing.

A little bit of background on Juneteenth. It’s the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. So the emancipation day celebration June 19th was in 1900 was the first image that they ever had of an actual Juneteenth celebration. You can find that on Wikipedia.

If you look. Little small facts. So for most businesses, June 19th might seem like another Workday, but if you check your calendar, you’ll find that June 19th is a holiday and it’s called Juneteenth. It’s a day of celebration. It’s actually the oldest known holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States, but it’s really not widely known by Americans yet.

And actually it just became a federal holiday last. So by taking the time to understand the deep historical and emotional significance of Juneteenth and incorporating those into the workplace, you can further support your business’ diversity and inclusion initiatives. So again, the history of Juneteenth is very interesting.

So it is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the. And it dates back to 1865. So on that date, on June 19th, union soldiers led by a major general landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslave were now free. So that was two and a half years actually, after president Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation.

So it’s interesting that there was quite a gap there. So when grander issued the above order on June 19th, he had no idea that in establishing the union army. Authority over the people of Texas. He was also establishing the basis for this holiday. So by the time Grainger assumed command of the department of Texas, the Confederate capital in Richmond had fallen.

Lincoln was dead and the 13th amendment was well on its way to ratification. So today Juneteenth is the most popular annual celebration of emancipation from slavery in the United States. And that might be. A big message that you want to talk about when you’re telling your workforce, when they ask you what is June 19th?

That’s a nice nutshell description of the holiday. So it’s a combination as you probably figured out by now, if the words, June and 19th, and it’s also known as freedom day Jubilee day and cell liberation day. So in 2018, again, the Senate bill that was introduced passed, and it designated June 19th. At that time as Juneteenth, I.

Day. So it’s, that’s in the recognition of the 1865, June 19th date on which slavery legally became no longer legal in the United States. How can your business celebrate Juneteenth? So there’s a couple of ideas that we had and one of them would be celebrating at work. And inviting a guest speaker, for example.

So you can incorporate June 19th celebrations into your business by maybe decorating your workspace with the June 19th theme to acknowledge the day and bring employees together and give them an opportunity to learn. And some of them, if they choose to, to explain the history of the holiday, just like we just did.

And then if you, uh, if you’re so inclined or you have someone in mind, maybe a guest speaker could come in and talk to your. You could also have them participate in local Juneteenth events. This is also a good opportunity to perhaps maybe, uh, sponsor a local event. Um, a lot of communities across the us do host Juneteenth celebrations.

So now I wanna look in your local paper or local websites or Facebook pages of your town. And just so I use the hashtag Juneteenth and just see what might be out there near you, that your employees and your business could participate in. But be careful though, because of COVID 19, you wanna be. Cautious and, uh, conscientious that some celebrations may have moved or your employees might not be comfortable participating in them, but they can still perhaps watch online or have some other ways to participate and, uh, help out or even, you know, just spread the word or participate from afar.

You could also give your employees a paid day off for volunteering and celebration, and it might not even be June 19th specific that you do this for it could be, but it could just be a way to give back to the local community as, uh, their way of celebrating Juneteenth. The last thing I wanna point out is that Juneteenth is an observed holiday in 47 states in Washington, DC, but it’s not a mandated federal holiday.

So Texas was the first state to establish Juneteenth as a holiday. New Hampshire was actually the latest state to recognize the Juneteenth holiday. And that was true. As of about a year ago. It might have changed a little bit, but Congress did designate Juneteenth as a national holiday, which states don’t recognize Juneteenth.

As of right now, we found Hawaii North Dakota and South Dakota do not, but even if you have a business located in these areas, it’s still a good idea to talk about Juneteenth and why it’s important and how people might wanna celebrate. Anyway. So some other interesting facts, the official colors of Juneteenth are red, white, and blue, just a American flag symbolizing and the slaves and their descendants, uh, were all Americans.

They were too. And the star in the middle plays hoish to Texas. So if you look at the flag for June 19th, it’s actually very interesting and it might be something you might wanna consider incorporating into your messaging throughout the work. And then yeah, for the last thing, just make sure that your employees feel comfortable talking about Juneteenth, make sure they feel comfortable sharing their experiences, how they feel about it.

There could be even some negative experiences or thoughts around it. You know, that’s natural. Everyone has an opinion, but our hope is that by helping you learn a little bit about Juneteenth and think about some ways that you could celebrate all of us here at benefits might help your company be a little more informed and, um, more interested in Juneteenth as a total way to have everyone.

Enjoy a new holiday. Thank you for listening. I hope this was helpful. Have a great day. Do you have a question for our experts? Click the link in the show notes, or if you’ve got other ideas and feedback about our show, send them to [email protected].