The D&I Digest: June 2021
Featured in this issue: Change Faster update, Pride Month, National Caribbean-American Heritage Month and a special request from the D&I Leadership Council.Â
BR is committed to increasing and retaining diversity of thought, experience and background of our talent base at every level and function, and to actively creating a culture of belonging that embraces all of our employees as they are – because if we’re going to fully serve our clients, we need to show up as our full selves. Our goal is to develop a cross-functional team of employees and agency leaders that celebrates our people, delights our clients, better solves problems, and promotes a passion for diversity and inclusion.Â
Bader Rutter joined the Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce!
The award-winning Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce is an organization of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and LGBT-allied businesses, corporations and professionals throughout the state of Wisconsin, and it is focused on being a strong pro-fairness business community.
As a member, Bader Rutter gets to participate in events that connect us with other LGBT-allied businesses, which allows us to learn and share strategies for making businesses more inclusive places to work. It also gives us an additional avenue for recruiting diverse candidates by posting on the chamber’s job board and being listed in its business directory.
Pride Month
Did you know that Bader Rutter’s client Corteva Agriscience has been named a “2021 Best Place to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality” by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)? This distinction is achieved by scoring 100% on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). The CEI assesses employment policies, benefits and practices pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) employees. Corteva also earned top ratings in the 2021 HRC Equidad MX report, standing out as an employer in Mexico committed to creating LGBTQ-inclusive policies and practices in its workplaces. These recognitions follow the late-2020 recognition that Corteva was named a 2020 Best of the Best Corporations for Inclusion by the National Business Inclusion Consortium (NBIC).
Check out the full news release, here. To learn more about Corteva’s commitment to inclusion and diversity, visit corteva.com/who-we-are/our-diversity.html.
Pride trivia:
Test your Pride Month trivia knowledge with this custom Jeopardy game. You can play alone or with a group. Thank you to Lauren Cook and Ilya Slootsky for drafting the questions!
Want to get involved? Check out these volunteer opportunities:
- Milwaukee LGBT Community Center is looking for volunteers to help with: administration, social media and marketing, event planning, and more! Check out the full list, here.
- Pathfinders Milwaukee is looking for folks to assemble hygiene kits for the youth-focused Street Outreach team. Read more and consider making a few kits, here.
- The Trevor Project provides lifesaving support to LGBTQ youth and are always looking for volunteers. Check out the full list of open roles, here.
Pride T-shirt
Pride T-shirts are here! The winner of the Pride T-shirt design contest was Michaella Hader. Her design seamlessly incorporated the BR logo and has a 1970s feel to it (which was also part of her inspiration).
If you entered a T-shirt size in UKGPro by the deadline, your Bader Rutter-sponsored T-shirt is labeled and waiting for you on your desk.
The admin team has distributed most shirts to employee desks, if there is no shirt on your desk (or you are not assigned a desk yet) your shirt will be grouped with your ecosystem, labeled with your name and will be waiting by the front door area. Please swing by the office and pick yours up!
We were able to raise $1,100 from employee donations to Courage MKE. Bader Rutter matched those donations for a total donation of $2,200.
To learn more about Pride Month, please check out the D&I SharePoint.
Updating Email Signatures with Our PronounsÂ
You might not have updated your email signature since we removed direct phone lines from the office, but even if you have, now is a great time for all of us to consider an optional change in addition to keeping our contact info current.
The Diversity & Inclusion Leadership team encourages to you to add the optional use of pronouns in your email signature. In the email for this newsletter you’ll see an example of an updated signature line indicating the pronouns that you identify with, along with a link to why it matters.
There is much more helpful info at the link about how and why people identify as they do, and why respecting those choices helps us all. We recommend including this line/link if you would like to add your personal pronouns to your email signature.
June also is National Caribbean-American Heritage Month
Updates:
D&I Leadership Council Membership Opportunity
Interested in playing a bigger role in the agency’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging? The D&I Leadership Council is adding two additional members. We are looking for individuals with open minds and hearts, fresh ideas, and a willingness to take an active role in promoting equity and inclusion. In addition to the D&I Newsletter, virtual learning sessions and youth outreach initiatives, we’d love to continue growing our offerings related to diversity, culture and belonging. Whether you’d like to help with an existing initiative or lead a new one, we’d love to have you on our team!
Why should I join the D&I Leadership Council?Â
- It’s a great opportunity to get to know and work with people outside of your ecosystem/function.
- Leverage your strengths and expand your skillset by working on a variety of projects/tasks.
- Gain deeper knowledge of D&I topics and actionable ideas you can take back to your functional team/ecosystem to increase diversity of thought.
- Help BR become an even more welcoming place for yourself and your co-workers.
- Time commitments and expectations are here.
Additional questions are welcome! Please email Devin Martin by June 30 to formally apply.
Also happening in June:
June 14–Flag Day
June 19–Juneteenth (check out MKE black for ways to support local black owned businesses)
June 21–Litha (also known as Midsummer)
Want to help the D&I Leadership Council? Have an idea on something that should be highlighted next month? Send us a note.
Dig in further on our SharePoint site that highlights our four pillars.Â
Learn More: BR supports each employee’s process of self-discovery about topics related to diversity, inclusion and belonging. We do this by providing resources and opportunities for employees to educate themselves.
Listen Harder:Â BR leadership commits to listening to employees about topics related to diversity, inclusion and belonging, and encourages employees to have open and honest conversations with each other. We do this by providing a range of feedback channels and spaces for discussion.
Change Faster:Â BR executes on action plans to become a more diverse and inclusive organization that fosters a sense of belonging. We do this by providing training for our employees, implementing talent acquisition plans and tracking our progress.
Give More:Â BR gives of its resources to support diversity, inclusion and belonging, and encourages employees to do the same. We do this by offering our employees service days, partnering with local organizations on pro bono work and making monetary donations.
