Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Leadership Conference

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

8:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. CDT (Virtual)

Learn ways to harness the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion in your organization's culture. Discussion topics include retention, nontraditional talent, employee resource groups, mental health, culturally competent leaders, and difficult conversations.

Sessions will be recorded and available after the event to all registrants.

3.5 HRCI and SHRM recertification credits applied for.

Session 1: Princess Found: You Are More Than Your Title

Princess Sarah Culberson

Raised in West Virginia by her adopted parents, Sarah Culberson had little knowledge of her ancestry. She grew up in a loving, white household, but she had questions about her identity and biracial roots that led her to hire a private investigator. When she began her unforgettable journey to find her family, she never imagined what she would discover or how it would change her life: she was related to African royalty. Her biological grandfather is the Paramount Chief of a village in Sierra Leone, West Africa and Sarah is considered a Mahaloi, with the status of a princess.

Princess Sarah will take you on her journey from princess to humanitarian. She shares that everyone has to earn their title, whether it’s that of being a mother, a company leader, or new team hires. The title alone does not give a person success. Sarah’s talk focuses on core values that attendees can use personally and professionally:

• Build a community and culture
• Empowerment
• Embrace diversity and inclusion
• Overcome your fears to live your dreams

Princess Sarah will present all attendees a challenge to make their own discovery of self-identity and transformation.

Session 2A: The Value of Employee-led Groups in Advancing DEI Efforts

Employee-driven DEI groups have many different names: employee resource group, affinity group, business resource group, or council, just to name a few. They also look different depending on organization size and structure. These groups are one of the best ways to engage employees and make significant inroads with your DEI efforts. This session will provide actionable steps, regardless of company size and industry, to promote and foster DEI-focused employee-led groups within their organization.

Session 2B: Mental Health & Belonging: Creating a Healthy Workplace for Employees

Mental health and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are strongly intertwined. The last few years have presented challenges leading to new conversations around mental health within the workplace. Mental health is one of the underlying drivers for people exiting the workplace or looking for new opportunities. It is increasingly important to be aware that how we talk to each other, express our opinions, and approach topics have strong and lasting impacts. This session focuses on educating and empowering leaders with best practices and practical solutions to creating a workplace that incorporates mental health into their corporate culture and daily processes.

Session 2C: Best Practices to Make Your Affirmative Action Program Come to Life

Affirmative action programs are a requirement for many organizations. While they can be time consuming and challenging to prepare, they contain a lot of valuable information that can help with DEI efforts. This session focuses on several practical ways you can leverage the data in your AAP to complement existing DEI efforts or use it as a framework to develop DEI within your organization. During this session, the speakers will share practical guidance to help you turn your required compliance into a way to help with recruiting and retention.

Session 3A: Culturally Competent Leadership

A culturally competent leader possesses the skills, knowledge, and attitude necessary to create authentic relationships with those from different cultures. These resources can help leaders become aware and let go of unconscious biases and be open to understanding different cultures.

Session 3B: Leaning Into Difficult Conversations

Attendees will explore conversation frameworks and guidelines to help facilitate constructive diversity and inclusion conversations in the workplace.

Session 3C: Maximize Your DEI Efforts With Meaningful Data and Metrics

Measuring the effectiveness of DEI programs can be challenging, but you don’t need to have a degree in statistics or be an Excel whiz to prepare meaningful metrics for your organization. We will discuss key metrics that will help you on your DEI journey, whether it is the beginning stages or the need to dig deeper. While there are certain protected categories that can be collected, many dimensions of DEI are a lot more challenging to gather. The speakers will explore qualitative and quantitative data that can help you map progress. Measurements beyond collecting protected information and this session will give you some ideas on how to look at data and use it when making decisions.

Session 4: When Generations Connect: How to Facilitate Knowledge Transfer

Phil Gwoke

In the midst of an era where it’s necessary to focus on racial, ethnic, gender, or similar lenses of diversity, there is a tendency to overlook how much our generational identity informs us about all aspects of our human dynamic.

There are very real generational differences that will directly impact your workplace, and we want to help you work through them. In this session, Phil will cover who this young generation is and, more importantly, why they approach work differently from their generational predecessors. And we’ll show that neither Millennials, Xers, nor Boomers need move over for Gen Z, because there’s strength in a cohesive, multigenerational team.

Attendees will walk away with:

• Understanding of the evolution of specific milestones such as civil rights, women's rights, and other social reform movements over the decades. Attendees will gain an appreciation for the unique experiences that have shaped our expectations around DE&I in the workplace.
• Value for the unique strengths that each generation brings to the workplace and a desire to seek out the innovative ideas that are found in the diverse perspectives that coexist within your organization. We will share what those strengths are and how to tap into them.
• Acceptance that all lenses of diversity can show up with different expectations of their ideal environment. We will explore how all individuals can contribute to making your organization a better place to work and to make sure everyone feels heard, respected, and represented.

Live Stream Conference:

Member / Nonmember: $100 per person.

Sponsoring MRA events is a tremendous opportunity to bring your message of business value to our growing membership of organizations HR professionals and business leaders. Our members represent all industries including manufacturing, service, distribution, finance and health care! 80% of event attendees are new at each event offering you the opportunity to network with new contacts. We are very excited about the event this year and hope you can join us!

For more information on corporate sponsorships, contact Kim Mitschke at 262.696.3505 or [email protected].

Thank You to our 2022 Sponsors!

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