The Hard Process of Creating a DEI Event Committee
There are many humbling experiences in life like thinking you could handle an hour-long cross fit class after not exercising for 6 months or realizing that you are getting older and the younger generation is better with technology…
One humbling experience I was not expecting was the ups and downs of trying to create a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Event Committee. Now, my definition of our DEI Event committee is a group of employees that gather to plan events around DEI.
To be entirely honest, I thought I could throw out a sign-up sheet outside my office door and there would be a swarm of people waiting to write their names down (Spoiler Alert: This was not the case and I had to start from the beginning).
I started by assessing the problem, which was well, I had no one who wanted to be on my committee. But I had to ask myself why… Was the group unappealing? Do I smell weird? And then it hit me, I had not explained what the committee did, how many meetings there would be, or even what DEI or Culture is.
Then I made my action plan (AKA a physical timeline I drew out of my perfect plan). I removed the infamous red underlined Microsoft Word telling me that “committeeless” is not a word, but I can tell you it is a feeling…
PHASE ONE (6 Months-ish)
1. Culture Identification Activity
I had employees to voluntarily share which culture they identify with to get a sense of the community. This way, when I made a committee, I would have an idea of what cultures we represent. While also getting in some sneaky education – people will understand what culture is!
2. Get in Infront of All Employees
Literally, have them in a room and just talk to them. It worked out in my favor that we were rolling out training for all employees, and it happened to be focused on DEI and recognizing our biases. We were able to explain DEI and promote the committee in one sitting!
3. Fun DEI Activities with Rewards
Everyone loves free things. I chose a weekly scavenger hunt where employees would find pictures around the facility and must answer questions about themselves and I displayed anonymous results. Each week there were two winners with one grand prize. This lasted for 9 weeks.
4. Throw One last Event “Committeeless”
Now, this had to be pretty cool to make people want to join my group. So of course, I used cookies. We made tabletop informational cards about different countries. On the back, I put the message “Want to plan events like this? Join the DEI Committee!”. This helped explain what the employees might do.
The Secret Step Not on the Timeline
Use subliminal messaging by bringing up how awesome your committee is going to be and how cool it would make everyone if they were on it. EVERY. CHANCE. YOU. GET.
PHASE TWO (3 Months-ish)
1. Committee Interest Event
Now, I leveraged our last “committeeless” event by having a sign-up table right outside our cookie event. So, after encouraging employees to sign-up they could.
2. Committee Formation
Seven people signed up for my committee and I did a happy dance, 6 months of activities took me from 0 to 7… and we all lived happily ever after! (That is how is works, right?)
3. First Committee Meeting
I’ll admit I probably took way too long making my slides to make sure they were perfect. But it paid off.
I made sure to cover:
An Icebreaker (My personal fave now, but the bane of my existence in school)
Committee Purpose & Goals
Future Meeting Times
Communication Methods
Our First DEI Event
To ensure I did not overwhelm everyone the first meeting and to tell them to brainstorm ideas for the next month, I planned an event ahead of time to get the conversation started.
PHASE 3 (Ongoing)
That’s where I am now. Check back soon for updates!
Concluding Thoughts
Now, this is by no means me telling everyone my version is perfect and I have not even made it beyond my first meeting… I guess that’s what makes it exciting there is opportunity in the unknown!
