1. Office of Equity and Diversity

2. Office of Equity and Diversity
“Counting People” Americans With Disabilities Act Affirmative Action Discrimination Complaints Monitoring Hiring
Diversity
“The People Count” Training Bridging Diversity Newsletter ERG Work D&I Committee/Team Work Executive Inclusion Council Alternative Dispute Resolution
Inclusion
“The Outcomes Count” Listening Sessions Data Collection/Analysis Reporting Infrastructure Changes Policy Development/Analysis Consultation
Equity
The three cannot operate in a vacuum, they must work in tandem to meet the needs of our changing demographics and make sure MnDOT accurately reflects the population we serve.
Diversity alone risks a focus on Counting people, counting heads—representation only, outcomes vary
Inclusion is about making people count—making people feel welcome, valued, and able to contribute their best Equity is about making outcomes count—focusing on structure and systems change
The three together inform our comprehensive approach

3. What and How Training/Development/Support
Policy / Compliance / Dispute Resolution
ADA/Reasonable Accommodations
Monitoring Hiring and Selection
Development of Unified D&I Plan
Investigations
Dispute Resolution/Intervention
Consultation
Climate Assessment
Policy Analysis and Design
Identify & Eliminate Systemic Bias and Barriers
Training/Development/Support
D&I Training and Facilitation
D&I Leadership Development
D&I Mentorship/Sponsorship
ERG Development and Coordination
Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)
Diversity Committee Development & Coordination
Internal Consultants for D&I Agency Wide
Respectful Workplace
Harassment Prevention
D&I Feedback/Strategic Development Process
The Purpose of the D&I Unit is development and implementation of MnDOT D&I strategies; Partnering with and assisting offices, groups and committees to effectively carry out agency goals.
The Purpose of the Compliance Unit is development and implementation of Anti Harassment and Discrimination Policies, Investigating policy violations; Partnering with and assisting offices and districts to uphold Agency and Enterprise standards.
The two units work in close collaboration

4. How We View Intercultural Competence
Presence of differences
Diversity: The Who
Leveraging differences to increase contributions & opportunities for all
Inclusion: The What
“How” to achieve Diversity representation & Inclusion goals
Intercultural Competence: The How
These assessment strategies can provide organizations with a “snapshot” of how well goals in each of these three areas are being met.
Meeting Diversity goals in organizations is assessed by looking at representation statistics; how many people from group X are in the organization, at what levels, etc.
Making the organization more inclusive is about developing more culturally appropriate recruitment, retention, performance evaluation, promotion, rewards, and leadership practices and policies.
Assessing the level of intercultural competence or capability is done through the use of our training series.
Assessed by representation
(e.g., how many )
Assessed by outcomes
(e.g., climate, tenure
turnover, conflict)
Assessed by D&I development work
© IDI, LLC used with permission

5. Intercultural Competence Development Focuses on . . .
Eliminating interpretations & behavior based on bias & stereotypes
Evaluative overgeneralizations, personal traits assigned to group
Stereotypes support less complex perceptions & experience of cultural differences & commonalities
Increasing interpretations & behavior based on cultural generalizations/frameworks
Neutral, relative descriptions of a group’s preferences
Cultural generalizations support more complex perceptions & experience of cultural differences & commonalities
Stereotypes refer to overgeneralizations where personal traits are assigned to culturally different groups and individuals from those groups.
Stereotypes do not invite the individual into a deeper understanding of oneself or the other. Rather, Stereotypes reduce deeper inquiry into the experience of the other because they support less complex perceptions of what constitutes a cultural difference or commonality.
 Cultural generalizations are more complex and value-neutral generalizations of cultural patterns of difference (e.g., individualism/collectivism; direct/indirect communication patterns). As a result, cultural generalizations or frameworks encourage deeper inquiry into the experience of the other and result in greater understanding and more authentic adaptation to cultural differences and commonalities.
© IDI, LLC used with permission

6. Unified D&I Plan What is a unified plan? Why a unified plan?
Best practice and evidence-based plan in which all goals and strategies are pointed in one direction with no redundancy
Why a unified plan?
Institutionalize Diversity and Inclusion through all systems making our practices “the way business is done everyday”

7. Questions?