DEI Series: Addressing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace
Corporate culture is an important topic to most professionals. Organizations are called to recognize and support a more diverse workforce than ever before. As issues in the world and in business have changed, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has been brought to the forefront of what makes up a company's culture. This six-course bundle addresses the ways leaders can connect with employees through mentoring, a culture of inclusion, addressing unconscious bias and more — all of which leads to higher retention and a more efficient workplace.
Losing well trained employees costs significant time and money. Organizations that implement a mentoring culture have an easier time attracting and retaining strong talent, as potential and current employees feel optimistic about their chances to learn and grow. Strong mentorship programs consider and reflect an organization’s culture and goals and work to make sure mentor relationships are a two way street.
The term Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a phrase that is used to describe programs that promote participation of different groups of individuals within the corporate processes. This includes professionals of various races and ethnicities, ages, genders, religions, cultures, sexual orientations as well as abilities and disabilities. Diversity sometimes also includes the range of ideas and perspectives evident in the workforce.
Today’s business world and organization culture has dramatically evolved over the past 20 years. Today, organizations understand there are many variables that will make up how their organizational culture will be perceived. A few of those variables include; generational make-up of the workforce, ethnicity, religious beliefs, societal positioning, gender as issues in the world and workforce change, new concepts continually evolve and this topic of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is the most recent effort that has become a focus of the business world. Even if you understand the meaning of DEI, the actions to be taken to move your culture towards effectively executing these topics can be a challenge.
Organizational leaders in today’s world must be equipped with enhanced skills and traits than had may have been considered as required twenty or more years ago. Leading in today’s world requires leaders to understand concepts such as empathy, equity, diversity in the workforce as well as diversity in policy and execution, generational and cultural aspects of inclusion, societal expectations and social media influences. These are a few of the attributes that will be a portion of an effective Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program. Leaders must learn to enact processes that help shift mindsets, individual and team behaviors, and processes that build equitable and inclusive leadership.
Unconscious bias (or implicit bias) is often defined as "prejudice or unsupported judgments in favor of (or against) one thing, person, or group as compared to another, in a way that is usually considered unfair.” We have all experienced the concept of unconscious bias in the workplace at some point in our career whether we recognized it at the time or not. Many researchers believe unconscious bias will occur as an automatic response of the brain when quick judgments are required. Many unconscious biases in today’s world tend to be exhibited toward minority groups based on factors such as: nationality, class, gender, age, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and disability.
Trust is defined as “a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another”. It is vital to have a high level of trust that encourages discussion and exploration of new attributes like those that contribute to diversity, equity and inclusion within and organization.
Total: 6 courses (12 CPE hours)
