Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Dix.Hite + Partners
About a year ago, our firm set out to ensure that our practice attracts people from all backgrounds, that our staff feels supported and safe, and that our designs work to build community and inclusivity. A group of employees formed a committee dedicated to researching and organizing thoughts around the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Since then, we’ve learned so much about each other and the world we live and work in.
Book Club “Lite”
The DEI committee benefits the entire staff by providing venues for expression and opportunities for education. But perhaps their biggest impact this year came from Book Club “Lite,” a monthly get-together to discuss articles, podcasts and other short-form media surrounding topics relating to race, gender, design and beyond!
Discussions during the book club are open, casual and often humorous. Some topics (like mental health) bring more in-depth conversations while others (like systemic racism) are still a bit too uncomfortable to dive into deeply with co-workers. But no matter how deep we get into the conversation, they’re always incredibly valuable. Our session about gender identity, for example, led some folks to add their pronouns to their email signatures and LinkedIn profiles. Our chat about burnout resulted in a company-wide effort to rethink our scheduling and project procurement processes. And our talks around racism made us all feel more devoted to making our profession more equitable and inclusive.
Our full list of topics and resources is below:
November: Black Landscapes
December: Public Outreach
January: Redlining, Systemic Racism
Video: Segregated by Design
February: Black History Month
Our staff shared their favorite African American designs, designers and historical figures
March: Women in the Workplace
Podcast: Women at Work HBR “Make Yourself Heard”
April: Mental Health (in the Pandemic)
Article: “China Long Avoided Discussing Mental Health. The Pandemic Changed That”
Article: “Young Adults Report Rising Levels of Anxiety and Depression in Pandemic”
May: Mental Health in the Workplace
Podcast: The Anxious Achiever HBR Podcast “Designing the Mentally Healthy Workplace”
June: Gender Identity
Article: “A Guide to Gender Identity Terms”
Article: “Why I Put Pronouns on my Email Signature and You Should Too”
July: Environmental Racism and Justice (+ Intersectionality)
Regional/Local Examples: “Environmental Racism in the Southeast”
Article: “The generational rift over 'intersectional environmentalism'”
September: Preventing Burnout, and Community Care
NPR Life Kit: “Burnout Isn't Just Exhaustion. Here's How To Deal With It”
Article: “Community care as a radical act…”
October: Latin American Identity
Podcast: NPR Code Switch "Who You Calling 'Hispanic'?"
Personal & Professional Development
Throughout the year, we held internal training sessions to break down barriers and help us build trust with each other. An “Interrupting Unconscious Bias in the Workplace” training session shed light on some of the biases we carry and ways to overcome them. And a workstyles training helped us understand our individual motivations, work styles and communication styles (and learn ways to better support one another).
We also created a list of professional development books that we’d discuss in our daily team meetings. The aim was to give us all common ground on important topics, to provide a venue for staff to lead conversations and gain leadership skills, and, of course, to teach us all some valuable skills!
One of the more impactful books we read was Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, which taught effective ways to work through tricky conversations by “starting with heart” and ensuring our emotions aren’t getting in the way of progress when we’re trying to reach consensus on a difficult issue. We’re currently reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and learning how temperament can shape your professional and personal life. (We highly recommend this book for designers—apparently many of us are on the introverted side!)
Overall, it’s been an incredible year and we’ve learned a lot along the way—not just about diversity, equity and inclusion, but also about keeping staff members engaged in this (sometimes contentious) process. These aren’t easy topics to discuss, and it’s not easy to be vulnerable in your workplace where there’s extra pressure to be perceived in a certain way. Although providing opportunities to have these conversations is a great first step, the way we communicate these opportunities is key. And ensuring that employees feel confident in their choice to participate or not is essential to building trust and equity in the workplace.
