Equity in 2021: A Step Up in Numbers
Bias education was the new frontier when Step Up: Equity Matters received Madison Magazine’s social innovation award based on our unique approach towards DEI. Since then, we have been evolving to deliver on that promise of change: a more equitable and inclusive workplace experience where diversity is truly valued.
2021 was yet another successful chapter for Step Up. Now that we have tested our innovative approach, we have filed for IP protection for our bias education program. As a woman of color-owned business, the development of our approach, curriculum, and practices required a great deal of investment of time and resources that are not easily accessible to us.
We want to thank our clients for believing in us and giving our approach, methods, and practices the chance to prove to be effective. Our business premise was that leaders and organizations would find the solution to their DEI challenges once they fully comprehended the problem. For this reason, we invested in assessing, training, and coaching methods. It is encouraging and humbling to see all the solutions from our clients as they innovate in their own space. We will be sharing them across our footprint to inspire the growth of our ecosystem of committed organizations.
Besides seeking to protect our IP, we had a very fruitful year laying a solid foundation for the growth of our DEI advising, training, and coaching.
The Year in Review
We launched the Uprooting Bias Online Challenge on a new platform, which automated our analytics and will help us provide current and future clients with comparative views of their organization’s DEI development needs. Over 1,000 people participated in our latest version of UBOC in 2021.
We designed and delivered the Equity Accelerator curriculum and workshops, conducting nine Equity Accelerators in 2021. That is a combined investment of over 2,000 hours to upskill DEI teams and leaders to spearhead change within their organizations
Following the successful model of the Uprooting Bias Online Challenge, we also designed and delivered an effective Uprooting Microaggressions Online Challenge curriculum that helps organizations start their work towards a microaggression-free workplace.
We have also become authorized partners with Everything DiSC and their library of workplace assessments to help us increase self-awareness within teams and support effective and impactful collaboration across people and teams.
We also added two more positions to our team and hired four new people: Gautam Jayanthi, Aissa Olivarez, Jeannine Bindl, and Ariana Saravia Coira. While Gautam’s time with Step Up was short, we appreciate his contributions during an important chapter in our organization. We plan to rehire this role as HR expertise with an equity lens is fundamental to our effectiveness. We also had to say hasta luego to our team member Adrianna Mena, who decided to pursue a different career path. Adrianna was instrumental in developing our hybrid delivery learning methods and analytics automation. We will miss her dearly, but thankfully she will stay close to our network and continue to be part of our larger ecosystem.
We have updated our website to better reflect the services and programs we offer. Visit our page for Step Up updates and client testimonials!
Thank you for your support and commitment to change; together, we have and will continue to dig deep and lay new foundations for a stronger, more equitable, and inclusive workplace experience.