In this fast-paced opening session, you will get to know your fellow peers, hear their biggest internal communications challenges, and you can also learn a few fun facts!

The year 2020 rocked all walks of life and left communications professionals scrambling to communicate rapid change in topics ranging from COVID-19 to racial and social injustice. During this presentation, UPMC’s team will take a look back to George Floyd’s murder, an event that ignited Internal Communications at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) to speak up and showcase their long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, educate staff about their role in fostering diversity and inclusion at UPMC, motivate them to take action, and show employees’ UPMC’s commitment to creating an environment of diversity and inclusion.

During this session, you will learn how to:

• Leverage your staff’s personal experiences to amplify an inclusive and authentic culture
• Handle the haters and learn how to communicate with them, too
• Define diversity, inclusion, intent vs. impact, and how to keep the conversation going

As you lay the foundations for your diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, it’s important to acknowledge the role of microaggressions in the workplace and how those affect your employees.

During this session, you will learn:

• What microaggressions, microassaults, microinsults and microinvalidations are—and the consequences they have on your work environments
• Things you can do when you’re a witness or a target of a microaggression
• Actions and next steps to make a positive impact

Our cultural and religious traditions reflect who we are. And yet, many organizations shy away from communicating them. Even more often, leaders tend to recognize the holidays that are most important to them, often leaving other employees feeling left out. A group of Mount Sinai employees, including members of the Center for Spirituality and Health, Office for Diversity and Inclusion, and Marketing and Communications department, came up with a plan to communicate religious holidays inclusively and thoughtfully.

In this session, you will learn:

• What to consider when communicating religious holidays
• How to engage your employees in the conversation
• Best practices for building content around religious and cultural holidays

Organizations tend to rely heavily on their intranet and internal email to communicate in respect of diversity, equity, and inclusion, but making tangible progress in their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts needs to focus just as much on the external view. Communicators play a critical role by championing a comprehensive communications approach that can engender meaningful progress. Hear Pearson's journey to communicate their DE&I progress and ways that communicators can advance an organization’s DE&I goals.

In this session, you will learn:

• The role external communications can play
• The importance of partnerships
• The need to think about community visibility

Have you found yourself asking where to start with DEI or the role a communicator plays? We have assembled a panel of communicators who can answer your questions and provide tips on the challenges you’re facing within your organization.

Get back into the event and share a-ha moments from day 1.

Session details coming soon!

Session details coming soon!

The workplace changes quickly these days and that includes how we communicate with our internal colleagues. As internal employee communicators, this means that words, phrases, tools, and processes that had been created, tested, and refined may not work for everyone in this new and evolving structure.

Learn how government communicators can adapt their approach to serving all workers in all environments, including:

• Changing our language, titles, and phrases to be inclusive of all types of workers
• Understanding the genesis of the words and phrases we use so we can avoid causing unintentional offense
• Helping managers learn how to inform and communicate with all staff to ensure everyone receives equal information
• Addressing the evolving culture and helping employees and leaders avoid creating an unintentional bias toward those who are working in less traditional ways

Session details coming soon!

This session focuses on ways leaders can leverage communications to move beyond the growing fatigue of “diversity and inclusion” concepts and prioritize real and genuine experiences. For communicators, this means challenging our leaders to value our evolving world landscape by communicating in relatable and authentic ways beyond buzz words, hashtags and passing trends.

Learn how a government communications team is adapting its approach to balance high-visibility media demands while also fostering an inclusive work environment, including:

• Choosing inclusive language and imagery with careful consideration to phrases, acronyms, and cultural and racial norms
• Engaging in storytelling—empowering employees and the public with their own voice around core agency D&I issues that focuses on real experiences and relays the inclusive story of the organization and its stakeholders
• Amplifying underrepresented voices and helping employees and leaders embrace diversity absent tokenism by sharing experiences in real and genuine ways

What gets measured gets solved. Getting your metrics right is the most critical for DEI professionals and leaders of organizations assess their current practices to produce actionable data for decision making and enacting a robust and sustainable commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice. Gain insights from the Deal Solutions Group LLC., DEI metrics canvas, metrics comparison, metrics scorecard and assessment tools. This training, led by Oshawn Jefferson, RBLP-T, competitive strategist, and diversity champion helps DEI leaders take a big picture view to build sustainable and innovative DEI programs and initiatives.

Learn how a government communications team is adapting its approach to serve all workers in all environments, including:

• Creating relevant and sustainable metrics
• Assessing DEI programs and initiatives
• Evaluating DEI scorecards and assessments