MIT offers a variety of resources to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across the Institute.
Diversity and race in the workplace: Engaging with colleagues and direct reports
Many of us have a new awareness of the issues related to race that others have been experiencing for their entire lives. These disparities in perspective make engaging in conversations about race at work challenging. To aid your efforts, we’re including some tools and resources to inform your preparation for, and self-reflection on, these complex and ongoing conversations.
True engagement with these topics requires everyone in an organization to contribute—but everyone’s contribution will look different. As a manager and leader, your contribution will be a key component of success; however, we know you might be unsure of where to begin.
As a first step, we’ve created this Decision Tree framework to help managers and leaders determine team goals, commitment, and support needs. Our aim is to ensure that current interest leads to enduring, systemic change. To dismantle systemic inequities, we must make a commitment to long-term engagement around anti-racism within ourselves and our organizations in order to create inclusive and equitable workplaces.
For a 30-minute consultation on the framework contact Libby Mahaffy at staffdiversity@mit.edu.
Facing current challenges
- Perspective on how to embed DEI into current plans, given the uncertainty of the pandemic: Adapt Your D&I Efforts to the Reality of the Crisis (Harvard Business Review).
- An easily accessible graphic capturing action steps: Race Matters: What Can I Do? (Korn Ferry).
- From the National Museum of African American History & Culture: Tools and guidance to empower your journey and inspire conversation as you begin or expand your self-reflective journey on race.
- A curated set of resources on DEI conversation strategies for a remote team.
Tools
- Affirmative Action data, guidance, tools, and training
- Decision Tree: A framework for engaging in a meaningful local DEI effort
- Defining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is a concise explanation of the concepts of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and why each is necessary in an institution.
- In Human Resources, we use the visual The Four Layers of Diversity to help unpack how aspects of our identity intersect and affect the way we engage in the workplace.
- Creating an Inclusive Workplace outlines a variety of ways to begin addressing DEI within an organization.
- Creating a Culture of Respect addresses how MIT employees and managers can work to make sure all members of the MIT community feel valued, respected, listened to, and heard – with compassion, kindness, and a collaborative spirit regardless of function, level, or aspects of identify.
Ensuring bias-free hiring
Hiring managers at MIT can help ensure that we are creating an equitable and inclusive workplace. Find a diversity posting guide, interviewing do's and don'ts, workshops, bias interrupter resources, and more.
Tip sheets
These tip sheets provide an explanation of concepts and suggestions for effective engagement for both managers and individuals.
Our community partners
- Institute Community Equity Office: ICEO runs a comprehensive diversity resource for the MIT community. Their mission is to advance a respectful and caring community that embraces diversity and empowers everyone to learn and do their best at MIT.
- Council on Staff Diversity and Inclusion: This advisory body is charged with encouraging and informing efforts to use the diversity of MIT's staff to advance the work of departments, laboratories, and centers.
- Working Group for Support Staff: This group brings together support and administrative staff throughout the Institute to address issues of concern to the more than 1,500 support staff employees at MIT.
