Each year at Gaspar’s, the executive management team sets Annual Initiatives that we feel is important to put into place. Those initiatives set our intention for the year on what we want to achieve or make a big impact on moving the needle on issues we feel important to our culture. One of this year’s Initiatives is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
In that vein, our Director of Finance, Human Resources and Operations, Sue Erb, set out at the beginning of this year to take an intense 16-week course to obtain her certification as a Certified Diversity Consultant. Sue has recently achieved this goal and obtained her certification and quickly moved into action.
The first action piece is creating a DEI Committee. Over the last few months a team of volunteer Gaspar’s employees have started meeting to create this team within our organization. This is where we share what we are learning about DEI and discussing how we can increase awareness of what Diversity, Equity and Inclusions really means.
Our first ah-ha moment relates to communication styles. Realizing that the way different personalities and cultures communicate, we felt that it is an important element to revisit within our team on how to effectively communicate and understand each other. So this month, we are diving in as a team to learn more about the DISC Assessment results that each of us take, which shows snapshot of our own communication style and how to better communication to our team mate’s style. Understanding this is key as we continue to grow in Diversity. And creating of culture of Inclusion by having a cohesive team is extremely important at Gaspar’s.
Keep watching out for more updates on what we are doing here at Gaspar’s as we increase awareness to our team on DEI in hopes to continue awareness within our communities we work, live and play.