Department debate on Diversity and Inclusion

“Diversity is about being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to join in and dance”. With these words, Erasmus MC diversity officer Shu-ting Cheng started the department debate on Diversity and Inclusion on December 6. The video that followed confronted us with the head start that most of us have been given in society, compared to many others in the world. With these impressions still sinking in, Shu-ting presented the pitfalls of a lack of inclusion in an organisation.

Fortunately, she also provided us with 5 things we can do to be inclusive:

• Actively invite all to share views
• Ask for feedback
• Be an ally
• Make yourself equally accessible to everyone in your team
• Actively look for similarities

With these tips in mind, we debated different perspectives on hypothetical situations that may occur on the work floor and noticed quite some diversity in our reactions. After the debate, quite a few of us realized we should try to do even better on inclusiveness.