The month of February acknowledges the importance of Black History month and LGBTQ month, while at MEC we incorporate these thoughtful actions into our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives, recognizing and supporting everyone’s need to be seen and feel heard.
What is the difference between diversity and inclusion?
Diversity and inclusion are two interconnected concepts—but they are far from interchangeable. Diversity focuses on representation or the make-up of an entity. Inclusion is about how well the contributions, presence, and perspectives of different groups of people are valued and integrated into an environment. An environment where many different genders, races, nationalities, and sexual orientations and identities are present but only the perspectives of certain groups are valued or carry any authority or influence, may be diverse, but it is not inclusive.
A diverse and inclusive workplace is one that makes everyone, regardless of who they are or what they do for the business, feel equally involved in and supported in all areas of the workplace.
A genuinely inclusive workplace doesn’t just have a diversity of people present; it has a diversity of people involved, developed, empowered, and trusted by the business. Diversity efforts must go beyond a companywide memo, and for Medical Eye Center, it shows through our practice. Our employees are encouraged to participate by sharing open feedback and engage in problem-solving surrounding current initiatives or issues facing the practice via our Employee Advisory Committee (EAC). At the EAC meetings, our employees establish a specific agenda focusing on optimizing one particular department, hosting employees of all levels and across all departments. The cohort of employees sit on the EAC for 3-4 months, helping to surface and solve issues that might not be apparent to executive leadership. The EAC has further nurtured our high feedback culture where everyone’s voice and opinions matter.
What is the difference between diversity, inclusion and belonging?
The difference between diversity, inclusion and belonging is that diversity is the representation of different people in an organization, inclusion is ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute to and influence every part and level of a workplace, and belonging is ensuring that everyone feels safe and can bring their whole, unique selves to work.
What is the Great Place To Work For All™ definition?
The goal of the For All approach is to create a consistently high-trust workplace experience for everyone, no matter who they are or what they do for the organization. It’s being able to create spaces that celebrate diverse backgrounds and inclusive cultures. Medical Eye Center promotes the For All approach through the work of our EDI committee, a volunteer group comprised of employees, doctors, and managers across all departments. The EDI committee works to expand awareness of different lived experiences, backgrounds, and identities with the aim to cultivate a robust culture of Allyship in service of our patients, employees, and our community.
With technological and social elements changing daily, we rely on our employees’ vital contributions to ensure that all our people’s human judgment, empathy, passion, and creative qualities are being met. Because of this, we strive to find a place where conversations can educate employees from all walks of life to see each other’s perspectives and do so in a healthy, safe, and constructive setting.
For February, we are celebrating our awareness with the launch of new pins available to any of our employees. Calling it our “You are safe with ME” initiative, employees that work to be pillars of our EDI standard’s will be able to showcase it on their uniforms, proudly displaying that they work to protect your safety and respect any of your designations. What you tell our employees will be met with understanding, compassion, and confidentiality. Next time you see one of our employees displaying one of these pins, feel free to speak to them in confidence and know that you will have an Ally in them.
Sources
https://www.greatplacetowork.com/resources/blog/why-is-diversity-inclusion-in-the-workplace-important
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/05/17/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-in-the-workplace/
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