Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Certificate Course for Communicators
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Certificate Course for Communicators
1/17, 1/24, 1/31 • 1-3 p.m. ET
Register for this three-part certificate series to better your DE&I communication efforts, manage more inclusively and combat DE&I fatigue.
Bridge culture gaps • Promote empathy and understanding • Draft an inclusive DE&I comms plan • Found, support and guide employee resource groups • Engage with a committed and knowledgeable workforce • Amplify your leadership communication skills • Measure results for C-Suite
This dynamic three-week virtual and interactive course addresses the concerns communicators face with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in 2024, including fatigue and budget cuts. Learn how to create, contribute to and communicate an effective strategy built for a deeply divided and burned out workforce. This transformative curriculum will deliver insightful lessons from top leaders who will help revise and revitalize your DE&I plans into intentional, measurable, robust and dynamic initiatives that resonate with your audience – and C-suite.
Take this in-depth and practical course and learn how to strategically advance DE&I goals within your organization!
Secure Your Seat Today!
Included in this class:
- “Office hours” to consult with your instructor.
- DE&I assessments for yourself and your organization.
- Interactive breakouts and networking with fellow attendees.
- Interactive Q&As with expert guests who lead DE&I programs in their organizations.
Advance your career, experience and values today,
register now.
AGENDA
Refine, adapt, and develop your DE&I communications plans with strategies you learn from seasoned DE&I industry experts.
Update your DE&I communications plans to prep for a changing, deeply divisive world is not just beneficial, but essential for your organization's continued growth and success. But before you’re able to improve your DE&I strategy, you must learn how to evaluate it. This module will equip you with the skills needed to listen attentively to your stakeholders through solicited employee feedback, surveys and panels, as well as tools you’ll need to set clear objectives, implement inclusive policies, and establish data-driven accountability mechanisms. By the end of this course, you will be empowered with the knowledge and materials required to act as a catalyst for positive change within your organization's DE&I initiatives. You’ll learn:
- Anatomy of a DE&I plan: The elements of a successful strategy, including inclusive policies and training, data-driven accountability, commitment from leadership, diverse recruitment, ERGs, and transparent communications.
- SMART goal setting: How to create specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals for each step of your revised DE&I plan.
- Listen, connect and engage: Tools you can use to gather feedback from employees and organizational stakeholders, including employee surveys, focus groups, anonymous feedback channels and online polls.
- Consistent monitoring, measurement and accountability: The best benchmarks to evaluate and assess progress and hold the organization accountable.
- Plus: Sample DE&I strategies from small and large corporations as well as nonprofit companies.
Light Homework:
- Take the Implicit Bias Test.
- Check Your Privilege Quiz.
- Evaluate your DE&I Strategy using the worksheet.
- Bring the before and after.
CLASSROOM MATERIALS:
- DE&I communications plan outline.
- DE&I evaluation worksheet.
- Sample DE&I strategies.
Your DE&I strategies should encourage and develop an inclusive workplace culture for all employees, not just those of different racial backgrounds. In this second module, you’ll learn how to create safe spaces like employee resource groups (ERGs) that support vital conversations, accommodate employees’ unique diversity needs, including neurodiverse individuals and those of different gender and religious backgrounds, and how to tailor your DE&I messaging to your organization’s unique goals. You’ll learn:
- Understanding and implementing ERGs: Enhance employee engagement, promote diversity, and support an inclusive workplace culture by developing ERGs of interest. You’ll learn how to identify areas of interest, form committees, set clear objectives, and establish communication channels for company-wide awareness and participation.
- C-suite buy-in: Techniques to recruit sympathetic executives to become internal champions of DE&I, including joining ERGs as sponsors.
- Policies and procedures: How to develop anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, clear procedures for reporting and addressing incidents, and strategies to share with your organization.
- Training and education: How to assess training needs for employees, develop tailored content or evaluate potential externally-provided courses or materials, and strategies to roll out across your organization effectively and with minimal disruption to employee’s work.
- Recruitment and retention: Steps to take to revise non-inclusive recruitment strategies to attract a more diverse talent pool, how to socialize changes among employees, and initiatives to implement to help retain diverse talent.
Light Homework:
- Take the DE&I vocabulary quiz.
- Complete DE&I ERG exercise.
CLASSROOM MATERIALS:
- Inclusive language checklist.
- ERG best practices worksheet.
- DE&I Employee Resource Group template.
Over the last few years, employees have been increasingly overwhelmed by initiatives that have failed to connect with them personally. Added to that, internal communicators are being forced to do more with less amid budget cuts to DE&I programs. In this final module, you’ll learn how to leverage storytelling techniques to effectively – and inexpensively – rejuvenate employee engagement with your diversity efforts. You’ll learn:
- Storytelling amidst crisis: How real-time updates, empathy-driven leadership messaging, and support and resource sharing can highlight how a business is addressing specific needs during a time of crisis – and how ERGs can help you communicate the message effectively.
- Making your DE&I strategies unforgettable: Tips and tricks to get your messaging to stick, including interactive content like quizzes and surveys and visual elements like videos and infographics.
- Low budget strategies: How to use your existing communications tools and channels, including emails and newsletters, virtual meetings or town halls, and physical or digital bulletin boards like intranets to encourage DE&I conversations.
- Employee generated content: Ways to encourage employees to share their personal narratives and diverse perspectives in cost-effective employee spotlights, internal podcasts, or in short-form video interviews.
- Communicating during division: Strategies to promote open, respectful conversations where different perspectives can be shared and heard, while avoiding partisan messaging and neutrality in communications – plus, tips for training managers in the art of active listening.
- Plus: How to integrate your DE&I plan into your company’s broader culture and values, making it a natural and ongoing part of organizational life.
CLASSROOM MATERIALS:
- The Implicit Bias test.
- Check Your Privilege quiz.
- DE&I IQ short assessment.
- DE&I communications plan outline.
- Inclusive language checklist.
- Diversity style guide (access to more than 700 terms and phrases).
- DE&I organizational assessment grid.
TRAINERS
Internal Communications Lead—Mercedes-Benz U.S. International
With over 20 years of experience in digital media, communications, design, marketing strategy, and team building, Christina Frantom brings proven knowledge of creative strategy, communication planning, and client management to academic, corporate, agency and municipal organizations through a DE&I lens. Frantom has a long history of DE&I-focused work throughout her communications career. She served on the board of the Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History and Reconciliation Foundation as well as the Invisible Histories Project of Alabama. Frantom is currently the International Communications Lead at Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, a global automotive manufacturing plant in Vance, Alabama. Frantom holds an M.S. in Consumer Quality Management from The University of Alabama and a B.A. in Philosophy from Texas A&M University.
Vice President and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Practice Lead—Vanguard Communications
Crystal Borde is a Vice President and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Practice Lead at Vanguard Communications, a public relations firm based in Washington, DC. She counsels organizations on better communicating their DEI values and actions within their organizations and communities to be more inclusive and equitable. She puts people first, ensuring that audiences — who they are and what they need — are accurately and fairly represented in strategic communications planning, implementation and evaluation. Since joining Vanguard Communications – a Hispanic woman-owned firm — in 2007, Crystal has worked with non-profit organizations, government agencies, foundations, associations and educational institutions in the areas of health, wellness, energy, environment, education and DEI to foster healthy communities and a thriving planet. In 2021, she was recognized by Ragan and PR Daily as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Champion Honoree in the Top Women in Communications Awards and also named by PR News as a Top Woman in PR Changemaker Honoree. Her thought leadership about DEI communication strategies and approaches has been published in Bulldog Reporter and Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) PRSay blog and featured in industry panel events, university lectures and conference workshops. Crystal got her B.A. at California State University, Fullerton — College of Communications. She is President-Elect of the PRSA National Capital Chapter Board of Directors and served as a director on the board and DEI Committee chair for three years.
Senior Leader, Equity, Inclusion & Diversity | North America—Mars
Kimberly Henderson is a Senior Leader, Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Mars leading North America Equity, Inclusion and Diversity initiatives and strategies. Certified by Cornell’s DEI for HR and McKinsey’s Leadership Academy professional programs, Kimberly brings industry learnings coupled with driving daily efficiencies and engagements that maintain and strengthen the true authenticity and culture for all Associates, specifically through EI&D programs geared to distribute the best equitable opportunities within the organization to promote the insurance of perspective, that may differ from the status quo. Kimberly completed her Undergraduate in Human-Computer Interaction and Master’s in Business Information Technology degrees at DePaul University.
Kimberly has been a standing contributor to the eCornell Diversity Symposiums held with faculty and experts brought together to explore today's most pressing topics including equity, unconscious bias, psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and cross-cultural conversations. Kimberly is a member of the DEI Board, known for leading peer insights with some of the world's largest companies and Board Member, Business Department Advisory Council , City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College.
Kimberly is dedicated to promoting EI&D’s bold goals aiming directly to engage with Associates and core business leaders to ensure the actioning of an inclusive and diverse business practices to elevate the multiple levels of the business internally, balancing it with partnerships externally. A proven track record when it comes to being the conduit, being intentional in efforts to nurturing a diverse workforce; Kimberly is leading programs that drive overall employee belonging and satisfaction, specifically building an operational framework to serve as the foundation for aligning purpose, people, process as a collected effort with the North American Associate Resource Groups (ARGs), to support their impactful and inclusive work.
Top skills you’ll master upon completion:
- Strategic DE&I Communication: Develop a strategic mindset and the ability to align DE&I communication plans with organizational goals and values.
- Culturally Sensitive Messaging: Craft messages that resonate with diverse audiences, ensuring inclusivity and cultural sensitivity in your communication.
- Storytelling for Impact: Harness the power of storytelling techniques to create compelling narratives that inspire and drive meaningful change.
- Effective Collaboration: Enhance your collaboration skills to effectively work with diverse teams, fostering an inclusive and supportive environment.
- Measurement and Evaluation: Learn how to establish metrics and evaluate the impact of DE&I communication initiatives, enabling data-driven decision-making.
- Crisis Communication and Conflict Resolution: Develop strategies to navigate challenging situations, handle conflicts, and address crisis communication with an inclusive approach.
- Authentic Engagement: Build authentic relationships and engage with stakeholders from different backgrounds, fostering trust and genuine connection.
- Inclusive Leadership: Acquire leadership skills that promote inclusivity, empower diverse voices, and drive positive change within your organization and beyond.
Top reasons to attend this virtual course
- You’ll receive a DE&I Certificate.
- You’ll listen to and interact with the nation’s top DE&I and communications experts.
- You’ll get access to all presentations and an on-demand recording of the course.
- You’re guaranteed extensive, how-to instruction you can use immediately.
- You can attend this immersive course live or on-demand over 3 weeks.
Secure your seat today for this transformative DE&I Communications course offered by Ragan.
Regular Rate
$1099
Ragan Insider Member
$999
(Not an Insider? You can become one when registering!)
Nonprofit/Gov
$949
Phone registrations and group pricing: For group orders please contact our customer service team at 800-878-5331 or cservice@ragan.com
Get Recognized!
Take the first step towards becoming a recognized leader in DE&I communication. Your dedication will shape a more inclusive future, and with our Certificate of Completion in hand, you'll showcase your expertise and commitment to driving positive change. Your dedication will shape a better future for all!
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