On Thursday, October 22, we kicked off our Workforce, Workplace, Marketplace: Embedding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into the Fabric of Your Organization series. The series itself takes a deep dive into the importance of building a culture that is consistent for your employees, your company as a whole, as well as your partners and customers. The series also seeks to create an understanding that diversity and inclusion are not the same thing, and that building a true culture of inclusivity means that at times you must get uncomfortable; thus, our first session, Getting Uncomfortable.
Getting Uncomfortable
Led by Janet Wu of Bloomberg, our panelists – Stephanie Lajoie-Lubin, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Program Manager, CarGurus; Guy Pacitti, Global Leader of Inclusion and Diversity, Pegasystems; KeyAnna Schmiedl, Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Culture & Values at Wayfair – opened the session with the state of diversity in their companies, which ranged from embracing the reckoning that is happening in the world today as a way to build momentum for programs to understanding that even with mandates and policies the pace of growth and needs to hire outpace DEI program creation.
Throughout the session, panelists continued to go back to the importance of creating a safe space for hard conversations, for making it acceptable to feel vulnerable, and for assuring employees that participation is their choice.
Watch the full discussion here:
For further information, please read the very insightful piece by KeyAnna Schmiedl, Language at Work: Shifting the Dialogue from Intention to Impact.
See posts and videos for the full Workforce, Workplace, Marketplace DEI series:
- Getting Uncomfortable: Embedding DEI into the Fabric of Your Organization with DEI leaders from Bloomberg, CarGurus, Pegasystems, and Wayfair (Oct 23, 2020).
- Creating DEI Program Toolkits: Use Cases with DEI leaders at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, SkillWorks, TrueMotion, and Wayfair (Oct 30, 2020).
- Measuring Success in DEI Programs with DEI leaders at DraftKings, Fuze, PTC, and Wayfair (Nov 9, 2020).
