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The Work is Not the Workshop
Many companies and organizations hire consultants or external facilitators to educate and train their employees on diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) related topics. Common training topics include: bias in the workplace, microaggressions, recruiting talent, and creating an inclusive culture within the workplace, to name a few. While we provide training on all of these topics and believe that they are important to discuss within the workplace, we also understand that the workshops themselves are not responsible for individual and institutional change.
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5 Ways To Incorporate Community Care in the Workplace
A Recap from our DEI Meetup – From Self-Care to Community Care: How Can We Show Up for Ourselves and Our Colleagues? Panelists: Adriana Black, Associate Director for Diversity and Inclusion Education at Tufts University Chloe Davis-Carden, Senior Director of People and Culture at BetterLessonJaylee Momplaisir, Talent and People Strategist at Sendwave and CEO/Co-founder of You Good Sis? At our first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Meetup in Boston, we explored the concept of community care and what it would look like to incorporate it within the workplace.
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Beyond Self-Care: Understanding Community Care and Why It’s Important
“Shouting ‘self-care’ at people who actually need community care is how we fail people.” – Nakita Valerio You’ve probably heard the term ‘self-care’ in some capacity– perhaps from a friend, colleague, or even a supervisor telling you to take care of yourself in a number of different ways. While this term has become popular in today’s world and derives from feminist theory, the question that remains for some of us is: what if self-care isn’t enough? In April of last year, community organizer and researcher Nakita Valerio stated that we needed another form of compassion: community care.
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2019 By and Beyond the Numbers
We’re about to head into a brand new decade and are so honored to receive your continued support as we grow and find new ways to support you! Below are a few numbers showing our growth this year, but that’s just a minor representation of how Inclusion Geeks has grown. We’ve offered more types of programming on diversity, equity, and inclusion, hired new staff, and took the biggest leap of all for us – hosted our very first day long Summit! We’ve got some news for 2020, too!
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Why Women+ Focused Events Are Important
About two years ago, we wrote an article called “Why Women-Only Spaces are Important.” We still very much agree with everything in the post, but as we evolve, so does our work and our approach to community. Last year, we began opening up some of our events to all genders, except for our monthly Networking Events (now called monthly “Geek Outs”!), which are our flagship events. We’ve been hosting this type of gathering since 2013. They frequently sell out and are considered a fun and welcoming event.
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Recommended Books to Start a DEI Book Club at Your Workplace
Creating intentional space and time to discuss topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace can be difficult. One of the reasons why might be because your company believes there aren’t enough resources to create or support a DEI initiative within your workplace. One small but impactful way to start or continue the conversation around DEI is through a book club! An employee-run book club can be a great way for coworkers to share information, personal stories, ideas, and discuss DEI topics in depth, especially as it relates to the workplace.
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Understanding Intent vs Impact
This is part one of two. Read part two: Intent vs. Impact: 5 examples of how your support for Black lives (or lack thereof) may be causing harm I recently came across a Twitter thread which seemed to have started off with two women in tech speaking about diversity and inclusion with regards to programming and coding. Aimee Knight, a White software architect tweeted the following (now deleted): “Grateful I didn’t start my programming in 2019.
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Six Things You Can Do Today To Be More Disability Inclusive
In our last post, we highlighted a few companies that have been recognized for embodying disability inclusion in their workplaces. Inspired, we decided to create a list of six things every workplace can begin doing today to be more disability-inclusive. It’s important to recognize that this is not an exhaustive list and that each individual with a disability/disabilities will have their own preference(s). It’s also equally important to name that I am an able-bodied individual writing this, and have used my knowledge and sourcing of information to create this list for you.
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Five Companies Working Toward Disability Inclusion
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (‘NDEAM’), and it’s only been a little over 70 years since our country officially began recognizing and celebrating the contributions of people with disabilities in the workplace. While much has been done over those years, we know that there are many opportunities for growth in the workplace (and beyond) to create more and better inclusive spaces.
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Inclusive Team-Building Exercise Ideas
An egg drop. The human knot. A scavenger hunt. Am I describing an average day at summer camp? Maybe. But these kind of games aren’t just for kids. Activities like these are common among all sorts of environments and age groups because they allow groups of people to practice working together. Yes, we know that might sound weird, but collaboration is a skill that improves with practice, just like any other. Research agrees: studies have shown that when workplaces conduct team-building exercises, they yield positive results nearly 70% of the time.
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How to Be an Ally in the Workplace
Last Wednesday, Inclusion Geeks co-founder Felicia Jadczak led a webinar on the fundamentals of how to be an ally in the workplace. Armed with research and statistics, Felicia challenged participants to question our understandings of what allyship means and why we need it. The role of an ally is to be actively working to end oppression. Even those of us who consider ourselves “with it” on matters of diversity and inclusion have been known to dismiss allyship as a social justice buzzword or an unnecessary label. It’s easy to think, “Of course I’m an ally!
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Why You Should Add Supplier Diversity to Your Inclusion Strategy
When thinking about your diversity and inclusion strategy, it’s commonplace to start with what’s most present in your day-to-day – your employees. The people that work with and for you are top of mind and you want to ensure that they are reflective of the country, your market, and your customers (current and future), and that they feel a sense of belonging when they come to work every day. What may be less apparent is how you think about your procurement processes.