Diversity and inclusion techniques for your company to help understand and appreciate each person’s differences and abilities.
Vision | Mission | Objectives | Return to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
TRSA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Vision and Mission Statement and Objectives
Diversity and inclusion are a company’s mission, strategies, and practices to support a diverse workplace that incorporates a variety of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences that improves decision-making and leverages the positive impacts of diversity for a competitive business advantage. The top diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) priority is the recruitment, retention and support of diverse employees including race, color, religion, sex/gender, national origin, age and sexual orientation.
Recruiting and employing from a diverse pool of candidates means a more successful and collaborative workforce. A diverse and inclusive workplace improves retention and helps businesses avoid employee turnover costs and fosters a more creative and innovative team and working environment.
Seven ways to support DEI in the workplace:
- Be aware of unconscious bias defined as the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that people hold about certain groups. People often form judgments based on these stereotypes. This process happens automatically, outside of one’s conscious awareness. When unconscious bias goes unnoticed, it can cause an individual to make ungrounded assumptions that lead to discrimination (which is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of someone based on their perceived association with a certain group). Building awareness and understanding of your own unconscious bias is a first step towards real change
- Communicate the importance of managing bias
- Implement diversity and inclusion programs and training that are accessible to all
- Acknowledge important cultural holidays
- Encourage and remove obstacles for participation in employee resource groups (ERG) or affinity groups
- Create diverse, equal and inclusive teams
- Foster a workplace culture that is inclusive and safe for all employees to share their experiences.
Vision
To operate an association that:
- Is as free as humanly possible of prejudice based on various personal characteristics including, but not limited to, race, color, religion, sex/gender, national origin, age and sexual orientation
- Actively promotes opportunities for all without regard to the above/referenced characteristics
- Assists its staff and membership through accessible training and education to help eliminate all biases based on personal characteristics and perceptions
- Employ a diverse team that is reflective of our community, environment and the organization’s values
- Promote and recognize based on merit and performance
Mission
To make this vision a reality, TRSA is committed to taking action in the following areas to help our organization, our industry and society at large address the problem of prejudicial attitudes among ourselves and others that place barriers to the hiring, advancement, and overall success of people due to social perceptions, rather than merit and performance including:
- Becoming aware of unconscious bias and internalized prejudice based on social characteristics and create a safe, trusted environment to discuss and hold each accountable for the change to root out any traces unconscious bias
- Raising self-awareness of one’s own background and self-identifying how perceptions and attitudes towards others formed over time and consciously working to accept and understand people who have had different experiences based on their race, color, religion, sex/gender, national origin, age and sexual orientation.
- Strengthening TRSA through DEI by promoting and accepting different experiences and knowledge which can help the organization and its employees to operate as successfully and collaboratively as possible
Ultimately, as a global organization, we seek to develop a sustainable association that reflects all the constituents we serve by:
- Seeking to recognize, recruit, retain and promote diverse talents
- Seeking to provide diverse members of our organization with paths for advancement and success
- Working to ensure that TRSA, in all programs involving staff and/or members, provides a welcoming, safe, and collaborative environment for people of all backgrounds to help them reach their maximum potential
- Working to foster an organization that respects and values all its employees and members of the industry by recognizing and understanding the variety of experiences
Objectives
Internal (TRSA)
- Improve Communications by
- Understanding the impact that tone, words, and phrases carry
- Fostering opportunities for difficult conversations appropriately and hearing what is being said during those conversations with the intent to listen consciously to create awareness and take appropriate actions
- Highlighting the value of diverse perspectives
- Understanding the diversity of how individuals communicate and comprehend
- Generate Awareness and Educate
- Creating an awareness of unconscious bias and actively work to minimize its impact
- Develop a resource center with books, articles, movies, and other forms of media to educate independently such as a DEI Bulletin Board
- Identifying educational resources to further define and understand DEI
- Create awareness and help educate co-workers
- Develop an openness that allows others to be receptive to different ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving without feeling challenged or threatened
- Create a safe and trusting environment for holding each other accountable on each other’s actions and words
Initiatives – Internal/External (I/E)
The achievement of a work environment and industry in which all individuals are treated fairly and respectfully, have equal access to opportunities and resources, and can contribute fully to the organization’s success.
- Identify resources to assist in educationng and training
- Consultant to work with TRSA staff
- Research and develop list of member contacts and schedule Zoom with member D&I and HR professionals – Cintas, Milliken, Ecolab, UniFirst, Aramark
- Mandatory DEI training courses
- Regular, ongoing communications about the value and benefits of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI)
- Monthly column in Textile Services magazine
- Incorporate into professional development programs including webinars, virtual and in-person events
- Develop effective strategies to create a more diverse workforce by recruiting and attracting applicants and employees of various backgrounds
- Develop effective strategies to create a more diverse leadership staff by recruiting and attracting a more diverse representation of constituents for leadership positions
- Develop, improve and/or modify training materials so that they are culturally sensitive and accessible to all
- Develop and foster a productive, healthy and safe work environment that is free of bias, microaggressions, harassment, and bullying
- Create resources such as web pages, documents, forms, etc. that are accessible to all
- Establish metric to measure internal and external impact of initiatives
- Identify and retain an unbiased third-party resource (consultant) to assist staff with internal questions, problems, or concerns