Description

What is the Featured Panelists Spotlight?

Our Featured Panelists Spotlight will be held every first Wednesday of each month. During the Featured Panelists Spotlight, we invite guest panelists to share their experiences, insights, tips and strategies that they have found to be effective in their professional or personal lives when tackling the featured topic for the month.

July Featured Topic – Recognizing and Addressing Microaggressions

The term “microaggression”, first coined by Harvard University psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in 1970, is used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.

In some cases, people who commit microaggressions might not even be aware of them or intend to cause any harm, yet their actions or behavior can be hurtful to the other person experiencing them and may adversely impact that person’s ability to do their job, sense of safety, and happiness. 

According to Medical News Today, some common examples of microaggressions are:

• treating someone as a second-class citizen because of their gender, race, or sexual orientation
• complimenting a person born and raised in the United States on their English simply because they are not white
• telling a thin person that they should eat more food
• making assumptions about someone based on their religion, age, or class
• deliberately not using a transgender person’s preferred pronouns

Our panelists will discuss how microaggressions can occur in the workplace, specifically micro assaults, microinsults and microinvalidations done in a verbal, behavioral and environmental manner, and if we have been unintentionally engaging in such microaggressions, learn how to commit to changing our micro aggressive behaviors. If you are experiencing microaggressions at work, our panelists will share their strategies, approaches, and interventions to address such microaggressions.

Panelists

Devi Sandu, M.Ed, SHRM-SCP is an HR professional with 15+ years of experience who has consistently applied a DEI lens throughout her career. She is currently the Director of the Career and Culture Division with King County’s Dept of HR where she oversees Learning and Development, Career Services, Organizational Development and Engagement. Before that Devi was the HR Operations Manager – People and Development with Snohomish County HR, during which time she managed Compensation, Learning, Wellness and Talent as well as identifying and implementing functional and technological improvements for the Central HR team.  At UW Bothell, Devi held the role of Talent Manager during which time she created and implemented the equitable hiring process in response to the Diversity Action Plan she contributed to as the HR Liaison to the Diversity Council. This work established actions and standards that increased staff diversity inline with the larger UW goals. Devi has also worked in HR in the private and nonprofit sector in both Washington and California.

Jennifer Broadus is delighted in her role as the Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Manager for the King County Information Technology Department. She has been serving King County for 15 years and was a former army military veteran before that. Prior to moving to the Seattle area, Jennifer was a native of the Washington, D.C. area and has traveled extensively around the world. When she is not being a professional disruptor she spends time in her community in various leadership and training capacities. She thrives on creative energy, social activism, martial arts, and fun.

Location/ Date & Time

Online via Zoom only:

*****Zoom link will be provided in the RSVP confirmation email*******

Date:  Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Time: 12pm – 1:00pmPT/1pm-2pmMT/2pm-3pmCT/3pm-4pmET

Who Can Attend & Fee

Public Event – Open to all members and non-members of The Koa Club