Amplifying DEIB efforts for both employees and members

This blog is part of a 4-part series on creating DEIB in the workplace, talking about diversity among colleagues, and what sorts of initiatives companies, managers, and employees can take to amplify those discussions. You can read the previous three DEIB blog posts here. 

Lauren Collins is the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Director at Premise Health. She’s a licensed clinical social worker and a certified Daring Way facilitator, which is based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown. Sonic Boom Wellness is a Premise Health company — we caught up with Lauren to ask her many questions about how to integrate more DEIB programs and dialogue into any work environment.

Sonic Boom Wellness: Can you speak to the initiatives that Premise Health is taking to increase DEIB conversations?

Lauren Collins: Right now we’re working on supporting our clinical members in feeling more comfortable collecting clinical data, specifically race and ethnicity. These questions are really important to ask in order to take care of our clients. We also just collaborated with the LGBTQ+ care committee to produce a care guide for our providers, and we’re hoping that’s the first in a series of care guides for certain public health populations. They’ll include demographic information, tips, things to look out for, things to keep in mind, ways to communicate, glossary of terms, etc.

We also really formalized our program. We have newsletter series that goes out every month and focuses on a different group. That’s available to everyone and has thought questions listed to start those conversations. We’re also developing our own internalized training, where existing employees will be retrained, and all new hires will take it. It will include modules for leaders for some Premise-specific trainings. We’re also launching ERGs (employee resource groups), something Premise Health didn’t fully have in the past. They can really help bring people together who are siloed and broken up geographically in such a large company.

The other thing we’re working on is a team member-wide survey. I’ve been doing dialogue interviews with people about the DEIB sentiment, and we want to have a survey go out toward the end of the year that everyone is able to complete. We want to make sure we have our finger on the pulse of what we need and what we are lacking.

Premise Health is the parent company of Sonic Boom Wellness. If you’re interested in hearing more about how we can help improve the wellbeing of your awesome employees, request more information here.