Emotional Inclusion

Engineering Emotional Inclusion

Episode Summary

In this keynote-based episode of the Emotional Inclusion Podcast, Mollie Rogers explores the urgency of embedding emotional inclusion into workplace culture. Speaking to a room of brilliant women engineers, she draws on personal experiences, compelling statistics, and actionable steps to show that emotional inclusion is not just a soft skill, but a vital strategy for performance, wellbeing, and humanity at work.

Episode Notes

Insights from this episode:

• Emotional inclusion is distinct from emotional intelligence: it’s about integration and practice, not just awareness.
• The average person spends 81,396 hours working throughout their lifetime — making sleep, the one thing we do more than work. Workplaces must make those hours meaningful and human.
• Neuroscience shows that we emote before we even reason; emotions are biological facts, not weaknesses.
• Burnout and disconnection are at alarming levels:
  • 80% of people will experience a diagnosable mental health condition.
  • 60% of employees report being emotionally detached; 19% are outright miserable.
  • 48% of workers and 53% of managers report being burned out.
• Five key actions to engineer emotional inclusion:
  • Prioritize mental health support.
  • Build action-oriented platforms for wellness.
  • Educate teams on naming and regulating emotions.
  • Leaders go first in modeling vulnerability.
  • Challenge false assumptions and create psychological safety.
• Investing in emotional inclusion leads to stronger performance, innovation, retention, and trust.
• Personal wellbeing habits such as sleep, movement, meditation, and micro-moments of pause fuel sustainable performance.

Quotes from the show:

• “Emotional intelligence is the knowing. Emotional inclusion is the doing.” 
• “81,396 — that’s how many hours the average person spends working. Shouldn’t those hours be positive, meaningful, and human?” 
• “Emotions are not soft. They’re biological facts.” 
• “There is no such thing as splitting our home self from our work self — that’s a false dichotomy.” 
• “When leaders open up, they give others permission to do the same.” 
• “If you’re not making a difference in people’s lives, you shouldn’t be in business.” – Richard Branson
• “Workplaces with greater psychological safety and emotional inclusion will make it possible for everyone to contribute and thrive.” – Amy Edmondson 
• “Let’s not just build bridges and technologies. Let’s build cultures of compassion, resilience, and humanity.”

STAY CONNECTED—

*Emotional inclusion:

https://www.emotionalinclusion.com/
https://www.instagram.com/emotional_inclusion/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/emotional-inclusion/

*Get your copy of Emotional Inclusion: A Humanizing Revolution at Work:
https://www.penguin.sg/book/emotional-inclusion/