27 Oct Perceptions of diversity and inclusion in your own workplace.

After watching the video and reading the Medtech case, discuss your perceptions of diversity and inclusion in your own workplace. You do not have to identify your organization.

 https://www.ted.com/talks/rosalind_g_brewer_how_to_foster_true_diversity_and_inclusion_at_work_and_in_your_community?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

Case Study: Having trouble sharing case study to this thread.

(My workplace is in Healthcare (Physical Therapy Setting)Example Given by professor below…

I’ll start….I have faced issues of diversity in almost every job I have ever had. When I started my career, many women were staying home to raise their children and not even entering the workplace. After college, I started a design firm with four others, two men and one other woman, so we hade diversity. When we hired people, we really didn’t consider diversity, we merely hired good salespeople, good designers, and good artists. The only diversity-related issue I ran into was that if I was in the lobby and someone came in asking to speak to the owner, they assumed I was the secretary (no, we did not yet use the term administrative assistant). You can imagine how my meetings with those individuals went!

When I went to the University of Illinois (1990), I once again faced diversity issues. I was the only woman out of the 8 admitted that year, and the only U.S. Citizen. The others students were largely from southeast Asia. I was actually thankful for those men. I would cook them American food and they would help me through my high-level statistics courses. It was a good trade.

When I came to WVU and the College of Business & Economics, there were four women on the faculty (2001). This was out of 70 faculty. I would say this was largely a reflection of the times. The men who I disrespectfully called the “good old boys club” ran all of the committees, were in all of the administrative positions, and got all of the resources. It took years, but I eventually went into administration and was in charge of hiring many of the faculty you now have in the program. You will notice that the College is very diverse, racially, ethnically, genderwise, agewise, and I’m sure diverse in terms of sexual orientation. We have diversity committees and make sure we have a diverse hiring pool when we bring in new faculty.

The process of become diverse and inclusive took years, and it was not without battles, but has been worth it.

Thank you for your time and help!