Global Diversity Awareness Month: Women of Vonage
As shared by Siobhan Lettice, VP, Global Solutions Engineering and Women of Vonage Leadership Team.
Leading up to Diversity Awareness Month, I started to think about how the Women of Vonage Employee Resource Group (ERG) can promote diversity awareness throughout the organization Diversity awareness starts with – awareness. All of our events are crafted to bring awareness to a particular issue centered around women. This is very intentional because we want to encourage women and allies to be conscious of biases and the privilege they have if they are part of certain demographics.
I believe being conscious and reflective are the first steps toward being a true ally, and allyship is a fundamental part of creating a more diverse company. For example, our kick-off event in January focused on a McKinsey report examining the broad spectrum of issues women are facing in the workplace - burnout, work/family balance, lack of leadership opportunities, microaggressions and more. During International Women’s Day, we learned how to identify and overcome unconscious bias, highlighting practical ways we all can act to be more inclusive, especially when making decisions at work. Looking ahead, we hope to run a course in 2023 dedicated to allyship. These examples are just some of the ways that the Women of Vonage tries to raise awareness in the area of diversity with our members and attendees of our events.
I truly believe the work we are doing is helpful in our goal of promoting change at Vonage through our ERG. One of the ways we support change is through our discussions and by shining a light on the common issues and challenges facing women in the workplace. It is through these discussions we hope to inspire women and allies to be more inclusive. This helps to improve diversity in everything we do at work including our meetings, projects and hiring, all aspects of the business are impacted by our work.
Outside of work, I continue to celebrate diversity through volunteering as a mentor to women. Sharing our experiences is one of the ways we can help the generation coming up after us and reinforce that when one of us wins, we all win.
