Navigating Biases, Barriers, and Belonging at Work

Over the past year, our world took many different, critical paths. Today, we want to discuss diversity and inclusion in our workplace, how the issues have developed over time and the opportunities to pursue for our future.

Our guests are Courtnee Carrigan, CEO & Executive Trainer, Raising the Bar Performance Group, and Tim Harman, Senior Consultant, Workforce Innovation Center.

It seems that the diversity and inclusion discussion always revolves around our differences. But in actuality, what we really need to focus upon are our similarities.

There are many stories in the news today about race, diversity, inclusion and equity. How did we historically got to this point?

Many of us grew up with a definition of diversity being protection and fairness in representation. Our workplaces had initiatives and programs related to race, gender, religion, age because it was “the right thing to do.”

In the past Diversity and Inclusion were sometimes used interchangeably. However, in today’s workplace, Inclusion is defined as creation of a culture which is respectful, supportive and collaborative for various viewpoints to be expressed.

For many of us equity meant equality, where we need to treat everyone the same. But that’s not really what equity is about. Equity means we have an opportunity to recognize our different needs and/or abilities and design differently so that each person is involved and engaged.

It seems that we are fighting injustices that have existed for literally hundreds of years. To close out part one of our two part podcast, Courtnee and Tim put this historic information into context, and give us a better picture to what it all means.

Part two of this conversation will be available Monday June 7, 2021.

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Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle270Media Podcast Consultants.