Embedding DEI&B with Engineering

Frankly, DEI&B is a growth area for me.

Part of the reason why I have been so limited in understanding the issues surrounding equity and inclusion across our communities is because I didn't know how to begin.

Bringing up these conversations with my peers felt uncomfortable. I was worried that sharing a personal experience would be received poorly. Or perhaps I would ask a question that, in my own ignorance, could be perceived as insensitive.?

Joining Panorama Education has made a big difference in how comfortable I now am beginning to feel in talking and learning about these topics.

One of Panorama's main core values is Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging:?

“We aim for Panorama to be a place where team members from a wide range of identities and experiences are valued, included, and able to thrive.”

This core value is embodied by our teams in many ways. From a multitude of Affinity and Resource Groups that support belonging to having DEI&B embedded in our employee performance frameworks. There are also heritage month celebrations, unconscious bias training, and more intentional candidate pipelines. These are just to name a few.

But the initiative that has stood out the most to me is our engineering team's bi-weekly DEI&B hour. Here are the ground rules:

1. Every other Tuesday we have an optional DEI&B hour on our calendars
2. We commit to learning together as a team, and to helping one another learn
3. We accept non-closure, and understand that this work is a marathon and not a sprint
4. We understand the importance of this work and will push forward thoughtfully but not with unsustainable stress or urgency

Our team members volunteer to facilitate each session. Topics are crowd-sourced via a running list and facilitators have discretion to choose the topic.

Recently, we have been going through the United Way's 21-Day Equity Challenge. Each day's message has information, links to articles, videos, and more about a specific topic. The challenge is for us to spend each DEI&B Hour learning and getting a better understanding of the equity issues we face in our communities.

Topics include Allyship, LGBTQ+, Education, Systemic Racism, and many others.

Through these DEI&B hours I am able to learn from my teammates and the stories that they share. We all have a collection of diverse experiences that open our eyes to the issues in a safe space where many of my initial concerns are no longer an obstacle to getting started. And in fact it has encouraged me to proactively play a bigger role as an engineering manager to continue to create the space to have these conversations in places like my 1x1's so that I can become a better ally to others in our community.

My main take away from this experience has been that if you don't know where to begin, a good place to start can be by simply creating the space for people to share their own experiences.?

The results may surprise you.?

And you may end up realizing, like I have, that when you make others feel heard, learning from each other's experiences becomes easier and can lead us all together to create a community that is much more enjoyable to work in.

Looking for a new beginning like Jairo? Find open opportunities at Panorama by visiting www.panoramaed.com/careers