Collaboration Space (People & Culture Topics): Demystifying DEI: Moving from Strategy to Action

We invite you to bring your challenges and questions to the group to explore and solution together. Let’s use the rest of 2022 to help each other create a plan for 2023.  What’s your company’s new year’s resolutions?  What do you commit to doing differently? And what will you stop?

Some things that we are hearing and are seeing (in our own companies and in others).  Please bring yours and we will dive in and help you work it through.

• Employees and leaders don’t think they have experience or training in DEI…but they do. We all are part   of the workforce and can provide a perspective on how to feel included and respected.
• How do I create an environment where people really feel comfortable being themselves? And what is the difference between “being professional” and “being yourself?”
• Our DEI strategy is so high level that I don’t know what to do to make a difference.
• Our DEI strategy is so complex that it feels overwhelming and impossible to achieve.
• We have DEI goals, but are they helping or hurting our intended efforts?  Are we creating unintended consequences?
• Employees are asking to leave work to see their therapist and are being asked to take PTO.  Since mental health is health, do we need to rethink our PTO policy and/or how can we support or employees?
• We need refreshed talent that thinks outside of the box. But are we truly ready, willing and able to embrace differing perspectives and diverse talent? If not, what do we need to do to get there?
• What are the leadership strategies of the past that we need to reconsider and/or retire?