Expert Panel: Building DEI skills in the workforce

To foster an inclusive environment, leaders must focus on refining specific skills, from addressing unconscious bias to developing cultural competency and utilizing inclusive language. 

This recorded webinar shares keen insights on DEI learning from a panel of DE&I experts:

• Diana Navas-Rosette - General Manager of Global D&I Solutions, Communities, and Activation, Microsoft
• Amanda Grow - Director of Customer Success, ETU
• Khalil Smith - VP, Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement, Akamai Technologies
• Singleton Beato - Global EVP, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer, McCann Worldgroup
• Moderated by: Lydia Dishman - Senior Editor, Growth and Engagement, Fast Company

Questions answered during the session included:

• What are the most innovative and immersive ways to build DEI skills, and how can leaders gauge their success?
• How can leaders move beyond conventional learning exercises to catalyze behavioral change and foster genuine inclusion within the workplace?

The full recording of the session follows below. 

DEI simulations & skills data at Microsoft

Diana Navas-Rosette: We do use a data-driven and evidence driven approach where we look at the D&I capability across the organization. We use various sources of data similar to what you were talking about: employee surveys, focus groups, and we also get feedback from our employee resource groups. Definitely looking at the learning analytics that we have available to us as well.  That helps us identify what are the strengths and what are the areas of improvement.

The skill sets that we've been trying to build for our employees are actually being observed by their peers in the organization and that based on that data then we can develop a capability framework that helps us outline the core competency and the learning outcomes that we are expecting from our employees. The other thing that it allows us to do is to just build some accountability in the system as well in terms of expectations that we have for employees versus the expectations that we have of managers versus the expectation that we have of senior leaders.

There's a couple things that we leverage. We do have the partnership with ETU. Through the simulations, we start to get a little bit to that personalized level. Once someone goes through a simulation they get a report and they'll be able to see, “here the things that I need to work on, and here are some of the resources that the company does have available to me.” We also have some learning pathways – again some of them are personalized and so I get to go in and do a bit of a self-assessment to understand what is my level of knowledge and awareness and a specific topic or dimensional identity and then based on that I get an offer of specific resources that are tailored to my needs and to my gaps.

Simulations are used to develop power skills in a wide range of programs. Select a sample simulation to try out the learner experience for yourself.