EWEB Board of Commissioners — June 14, 2023

0:11 to go all right then I will do the facility safety Awareness Week Logistics briefing uh okay there's nobody basically the exits through here and there and the restrooms are through there so it's mostly for historical benefits in case of an emergency we go out to fly store at the back of the room an alternate emergency the alternate emergency exit is there and we follow staff's instructions there was any other problems to go on and you have virtual we do a virtual participants so the meeting room will be muted during the break decide oh there's no break today virtual participants on screen and public concerns needing severe conversations

1:02 okay now I'm going to turn it over to Morgan Monroe and Megan O'Connor and let you run the meeting thanks so thank you thank you for inviting us this evening my name is Megan O'Connor um I am privileged to be Morgan Monroe's partner in Hathaway Monroe organizational development and strategy we have been in business for just completed our sixth year in business we survived the pandemic and we how are we do business has changed since it started in the beginning we thought we would do classes for both and what we've ended up doing is a lot more change management a lot more Strategic

1:49 Management training with Executives and it's about adult learning that's that's what we do we work with adults change is hard and so if there's a niche for us in the market because we help work through that a little bit of background I'm a born and raised Oregonian I'm a fourth generation Oregonian Morgan is a born and raised through Oregonian so we're familiar with uh Oregon's Bounty and perfect house and so we're going to kind of talk a little bit about some of those tonight so to get started your agenda pretty much you have a notebook you probably won't need anything else because it isn't too elaborate this evening

2:36 the first element is to remind folks about how people learn and as I said learning is hard and stages of learning do not come overnight when you're small you learn through all kinds of things all the time with all lots of inputs when we get older our brains and our bodies and our minds and our experiences bring us down to more refined ways of learning there's an unconscious incompetence we don't know what we don't know is conscious and confidence it's like oh gosh we don't know that let's learn it there's conscious confidence we can do work if we think about it and then there's a time where we just do it without thinking about it I would guess

3:21 most of you got to experience that driving here tonight because at one time you didn't know how to drive and you probably didn't think about driving to this meeting tonight reason I bring this up is because the work that we're going to start to do and some of the things that we're going to talk about this evening do not fall into number four any of us or any number of reasons they probably fall into one and two you probably okay I need to address that I don't know what I don't know and I don't know although I'm here to teach this subject and to help you learn it there's a great deal I don't know and I don't pretend to know and I continue to study and to learn and to be open to what's available to learn about diversity equity and

4:06 inclusion because it changes every day we'll talk a little bit more about that later but in your packet there's a terminology notebook that was not current the moment it came off the project it's changed since it was printed and that will continue I do have some conscious incompetence now I realize there's a lot I don't know and there's a lot I can learn there's a lot I can learn from you and there's a lot I learned every time we walk through this talk so the glossary of terms we'll go through it a little bit but this is this is work in social change and the trends have been around for a long time some of us are a little long in the toes and I really as I look back on this

4:52 started some of this work really but we want to take a deep dive into that but that's when I begin to look at some of the changes in Oregon and across the nation and how this kind of work affects us um and so that kind of kicks off where we are there are some underlying assumptions for this training they're written down on page two I won't read them to you you're all quite capable of reading but I think that I continue to go back to them because there is no statements and I have to go back and remember that those are true that those are the assumptions that I need to have every time I stand up talk about this subject

5:37 to talk in front of a group of people and to help work through some of the emotional and mental issues that deal with strategic change and it is strategic change it comes with policies plans and actions around making a workplace that is open welcoming reverse Equitable inclusive and gives a sense of belonging the web has been known for decades as an employer of choice in Lane County to keep that reputation some of this work has to be done um and so I think that's that piece to recognize that what also this is is

6:22 ongoing work right this is stuffy web's been doing for decades the words might have changed a little bit some of the frames might have changed a little bit but try to figure out how to be a great place to work try to figure out how do you serve this community is what uweb has been doing for a very long time and so I think that's some of the pieces when we think about some of the Tei stuff there can be a real Temptation for someone to want to say this is all brand new this isn't all brand new this is continuing those chapters of how we do this and how we work with each other and then we keep getting better now we keep understanding that there's areas oh we could do better here we could do better over here right and that's a big piece and so we wanted to make sure to highlight that fact because you know often part of things that I know you've seen them in various board packets along the way of the years of

7:07 work that eweb has been doing and so one of the things I want to do is take an opportunity to go around and have introductions you all know yourselves sort of enough right but let us know who you are um and also if there's something you have a specific question about or something you're hoping we get to in the training so yes we love a whiteboard what is the number with the Whiteboard I'll get written on um and so can I start with you madam if you would introduce yourself and let us know if there's a specific topic or question I want to make sure we touch them to me Carlson and um

7:52 I'm just open to the process so I I know I will have questions but I'm gonna keep open mind and see what gets answered great thank you Matt McCray also on the board and I don't know specific things are hoping John Brown and I have several questions so I do things for a reason or try to and I assume that we're doing this because there's something we should be doing that we're not doing and who's identified that and when did they do it and what's your qualification to do it then the second question I have it's a broad range but things about determining do you mind White if I am what are the bases are you making that statement I I need to

8:37 understand the determination of how you identify somebody in that race I mean is his skin color is it Heritage is I mean what is it and we talk about historically marginalized communities makes that call and is that based just on eweb's perspective or Community perspective so I got a lot of questions I I really think this is important to do but I just want to understand our rule so thank you um I'm John barowski I'm also a commissioner um I guess one of the questions that I would have is I think that I'm looking at this exercise on a couple different levels on a personal level learning it growing but then I also want to know how

9:26 myself as a policy setter Implement that into an organization I think that that's probably different than that let's say Frank or Rod who has to it's enforce about or not enforce a policy but if you know make the policy live within the organization we set the policy I'm not making sure that the policy is living so I guess learning how other policy or boards go through this process and give that direction to to the the people who have to implement

10:17 here at one of my role is as the client of policy and website advisor and I'm here because I'll be supporting some of the implementation of this work so I'm excited to hear the conversation and I don't have any specific questions tonight good evening I'm Frank Lawson the general manager I report collectively to the board and I think part of my interest in this process is to determine how the oversight occurs in this area and how that is best captured in policy of which can be implemented through my role and and others within the organization

11:03 I'm Mindy schlossberg and I'm also a board member and um some questions that I have are um I'm curious how we can how we will be able to apply some of the things that we learn to how we function as a board so at the board level how can we Implement some of these things that we're going to be thinking about um and also uh how I have confidence that whatever policy we set the organization is really good at following it but what really what is our role as important how do we make sure that um policies get implemented but also that we're well informed

11:49 to be the ones to say whether or not it's good they're getting implemented and then the last thing is something that I'm looking forward to with this tonight is that we're all learning together about this and I know that everybody's kind of on a different page or comes from a different place and I think that it's really valuable to have everybody together learning this way uh my name is Rod price I'm an assistant general manager and kind of similar to Frank and comments and I'm interested in sort of how do we and I kind of like what you said how do we serve the community and make this a great place of work how we remain relevant in today's uh

12:40 society and culture split in the past so we need to have people who are here to make all that happen and so how do we best set ourselves up to the geologist and yes please um I'm curious the person who's online is that many others those other pieces good thank you where I love this list because many of them are part of the training already which feels great as

13:25 someone who put help with the agenda together um and so we'll come through most of these um some of these may end up things where we say that's a thing we'll follow up with that in that space um this is a public meeting which means we want to make sure that we aren't having some conversations which as a facilitator I love small group discussions um is something that I'm feeling my way through and so we're going to have group discussions uh with a lot of these topics and I really appreciate folks willingness I willingness ask the questions that are online really nice to be here and learn together I think you have a really important job in front of you with this policy and for a lot of places it's a new policy and it's a new way to do these things for Ewa and so the fact that you're sitting out here saying how do we do it really well I

14:12 think is a really important um and what's bringing us to this is so I'm really excited that those are pieces that are on your mind if as people as we go through if you do have questions you can raise your hand if people are all talking at once we'll figure it out um but if somebody anybody else has anything before we move on to the next I want to just do that pause and check in with that great um so words matter right under this work words matter and also in this work words are keep being created and so on page two we start looking at some of those words and some of that meaning with the purpose also but why does this work matter and

14:58 why are Oaks doing it um and I think some of those words are particularly shifting because of that top number one on page two that we're getting better at recognizing some the whole person uh we're getting better at recognizing and seeing the whole person and also Society is increasingly amenable to the fact that people are getting to bring themselves to work or into life or into society um without having I think there was a pretty narrow band of what was acceptable you know 20 years ago 50 years ago 100 years ago and Society has opened its mind a little bit to that and so we're increasingly widening that space to be able to say you know that's something you can yourself in that space in this way um and that's okay and that's a pretty big shift and it's gone relatively

15:44 rapidly in the scale of human history um how quickly that has shifted in some cases and that's also where the language comes in um and so that's something to keep in mind because it really can create not just new language and the volume of new words for people that have joined the Lexicon but also the complexity of what those terms mean and the Nuance between different terms and that can be a space that causes a lot of stress for people I'm trying to figure out here's what I think I mean and I'm trying to convey this with full politeness and I'm also concerned that perhaps my term is 20 years out of date and how someone going to take it right and so that's something that I think a lot of people wonder about and work through and we'll talk some more about that when I think about the terms that my grandparents used out of full

16:29 politeness um that you know when I would hear them as kid being like I don't think we use those words anymore um right like I kind of hope Society keeps advancing well that my grandkids subject get to say to me grandma I don't think we say those words anymore we have these new better words right and may language be alive in that way I think that would be really exciting at all and so that's the space and I think here particularly as we're going through this as an opportunity if you've got that question ask it if you want to ask Megan or ahead later and say hey particularly this space but here's what I might have said what could I say today right how could that go over we're very happy to help with it um and then we're number two for that is really trying to help make Society more

17:14 fair right and so we start getting into some of these definitions and how they get applied when you start thinking about diversity or Justice or Equity or inclusion if you turn to page three we have some incredibly short definitions there are many places of people that have very long definitions for this for the purpose of today and for tonight right we're hoping that these will suffice um and so it's that space of thinking about what might diversity mean or equity mean or inclusion mean um and then what how do they interplay with each other and at the bottom of page three you can see that space where diversity asks something and then Equity answers in a response sort of in that column response phrase to help people see how those words can interact with

18:00 each other and what that can mean and what they think um does anybody have any questions about those terms uh anything else as you take a moment and absorb that I think part of this when we say the reason for the work comes back to exactly what's here in I I did a demographics check today and we had in the 40 in the 30s 40s and 50s such a homogeneous demographic that language around work and Ethos didn't change much

18:46 the change and and numbers in other spaces in those places didn't change much for example approximately 90 percent of the population of the United States in those three decades not of all 89.8 percent was point the 2020 census says it's 61 percent that's a big difference and help people identify themselves today is quite different there are more spaces where we're identified in the 2025 and as Morgan said bringing your whole self to work today is certainly not something I did

19:36 it wasn't safe I wouldn't have done it and I couldn't I experienced things that are now illegal all through my work life I did payroll and was paid less than half of what a man doing the exact same job that I was doing was paid that wouldn't happen today so things have changed and I think my the point is the reason for this work is because we started this process a long time ago when we began to look at this work and changes have happened they continue to happen and I think the necessity here is to identify the need for the change because if we if we don't change we die we die as a community we buy as a society and we die as a peop a people who are

20:23 wanting to bring the best to a community and to one another uweb provides the most essential services that a first world country provides clean water power on demand and a sense of community where you know that you can rely on Clean Water and Power on demand those are those are first world issues I lived in the third world for a while believe me I never look at a washing machine without being very grateful but again those are the changes that have come along and the changes that I've experienced so this isn't new work it's work we've been doing all along and we need to step in and reach to step into this going forward is so we continue to have a

21:10 viable engaged thoughtful committed Workforce and so as we think about diversity and you think about inclusion there's different ways for those words to be grouped like there's State the state has protected classes regarding employment law federal government has protected classes when you're looking at discrimination what are you looking at toxic workplaces when you're looking at bullying right there's some governmental definitions some of that's different categories and on page four we have a totally non-governmental list of a ton of different um that can really impact somebody's identity they can describe somebody's identity they can describe some that

21:55 he's experienced this list we keep adding to because we keep finding more bullets that we don't have um but really it's part of what we're hoping to represent with this is to show that there are going to be aspects of this list for somebody that a really really important to how they view the world how they've experienced the world and to what it's like for them when they show up to work when they show up to a meeting when they go to the grocery store when they need to pay a bill right and often those aspects are Beyond some of those governmental categories and so that's part of why we put this list forward and we would ask you to help us add to this list if there are things we're missing if there's terms on this list they are like what does that one mean we'd love to answer that question

22:40 specific Camp um so take a look at it as you look down this list either to something jump out at you do you have things in folks or categories you'd love to see included in different ways okay I'm unfamiliar with neurodiversity sure so it's a term that's growing in acceptance and use and it comes it sort of came I I don't know if originally is the right word but I've just I heard of it more and more from folks who are sort of in the autism spectrum space and has

23:25 grown to really include other aspects of cognitive difference so ADD ADHD um just calculate dysgraphia dyslexia and so it's really in that how people cognate and how you bring information in which I would say is different often from cognitive abilities which is sort of IQ and independence level often is how that would go and so those are those two pieces where we're seeing a lot of this in schools and also in how work is being set up um background noise over stimulation spaces for people some of that's coming out as people becoming more and more aware of how the support and diversity and folks who are more nervous

24:16 we keep adding to it what do you mean by stature oh yeah oh um that's what I think I mean is that what I mean great that's what I mean um and so but it's a factor right there and you actually can have for folks who have a significant difference in stature right someone who's incredibly tall someone who's quite short um is going to have a different space on some of these as you think about what um height are your chairs right what are the stairs that you're requiring um and so some of those pieces as well with it the ones that was interesting to me when we first went through this is division one and so um I had to explain this a little bit but the answer was less interesting to me

25:03 than how she's applying it so um 14 point font is my default font not 12. and so when you really think about how how well people see and when I'm asking you to read a handout right our default font is generally 14 point font in all of our handouts and things because that makes a huge difference in Access for people and it's also going to help folks who are dyslexic just so there's not so much on the page it's going to help folks who arms are not longer like it seems easier to push your page out than find your reading glasses right those um but that's at the piece of some of those ways to apply what that looks like and I thought about how he distributes information there's language but then

25:49 there's also you know read a building right so I've never thought about the font particularly that was well and also font Choice like we generally default to Ariel which is a very functional font but I wouldn't say it's the most beautiful font because of readability um and so that's another piece with that is looking at if we're going to expect reading to be a part of the training what are some ways that we can handle that and do that and we also ask before the training like do we know of anybody who has dyslexia do we know about the folks about Vision issues because we'll print on a different color paper white paper with black ink is hard often for folks who want dyslexia but if we print on a slightly different colored paper it makes a huge difference right and so those are some of those

26:34 pieces that we'll ask going into a training so that we can understand have support the folks yeah this is really an observation a little bit of feedback for the board whenever you're talking about Dei subjects you tend to really focus on protected classes and race in particular some of the employee survey results that we got recently highlighted some of the job classification differences um just in how they responded Union versus non-union for example the type of work so and this was really highlighted in there are different views on telework um and we have a really large percent of it percentage of our organization is in

27:20 a Here and Now response mode 24 7 365 keep the lights on keep the water flowing and their home mentality is around this instantaneous response and it drives their culture at the same time we have a significant part of our utility that is doing planning work and compliance work and designs and things not about the here and now but about the tomorrow and the next day and the next year and it creates a lot of polarization and diversity on how different views in how different things and the utility are viewed and so yeah when I think about diversity and inclusion um there's really important things around the typical ones

28:06 but in our organization there's also a lot of reasons from operational and a functional perspective to look at this things like you know Union versus because if you're a field based or facility-based worker you hate telecommuting you just hate it if you're in a position where your product allows you to do that you love it and in fact it came through in our in our employee survey that Dallas totally polarized across the utility and it had to do with your job classification I'm not diminishing any of these others I think part of diversity is you look at across you know across the different

28:51 demographics that you have but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that we have an organization that it has its own forms of what has to highlight itself and come to the surface in how we operate that's all those thanks and I think that's a nice Lean Into You know the different aspects of identity and experience are generally neutral but we as a society or we as an organization or we as a group will assign value to them because that is what humans do and the question is are we doing that appropriately and fairly is the next question I like to ask but when you're starting to say we have folks folks who can tell who are queen of this who when is the meeting scheduled does it have to be in person who gets to do that work

29:36 who's able to do drop of a hat work can you do that as a single mom like can you do that those are some of those questions or I think when you start recognizing the inclusion the exclusion and the power differential where this stuff really becomes so very very important because on the page some of this I might think I might be like oh this particular bullet if somebody's yes to that that's great you're like if somebody's yesterday right and we have different personal opinions about that but then we also start recognizing that as a group we can assign power and benefit to different aspects of it and we can also diminish power or you know assign judgment a negative judgment

30:22 and that's where I think it really comes to life in an organization's culture is how that goes and how you see that and you know you asked a question John about race and like what what is white right and part of the I mean as someone who likes language I'll say part of the weird part is that why do the totally made up idea um and we have a huge amount of rules around it it's in the original Oregon Constitution about white um but it was an idea that was made up so that people could justify Channel slavery and figure out who was an indentured servant um and who was some an object that was owned um but it wasn't really a concept that existed very much before that we just had it for so long and it plays such an important role in American society

31:07 um but that's part of the question right that Irish didn't used to be white Jewish people didn't used to be white right and the understanding of American history and what does that mean um but most people I would say would see somebody and have that judgment and say like you can be white and Hispanic now in the census even right that sense of what those words mean keeps shifting them and part of it shifts with social power and political Capital that people get and then part of it shifts when somebody decides that I would like that other group even less so I'm willing to let you all my take and so those are some of those tough factors of some of this language um where it does mean different things right I think it might yes please so who

31:52 makes a call on that because I I've got a lot of Asian uh Heritage of my family and all of a sudden now the NAACP says they were no longer protected class or no longer a minority because they're called the white aligned because they're so affluent and they're so uh they they make too much money and they're too smart basically to cut to the chase so so the state law they listen to who assess the rules for this stuff so at the state level the state decides and so for the state level for projected classes that would still be a protected so it's legislature but when you're talking the question is we've got all these different rules at different levels right so the federal government sets the federal rules um the state sets the state rules um and then it's also going to be how people use the words about how they then enter and maintain

32:37 the Lexicon right like somebody's what if you call somebody a square my kids will not know what that means right that meant something to my grandparents there was not a legislative body that determined what slang meant um it was how it was used and so I think with some of these pieces there isn't an adjudicator beginning to say yes or no on this but you can say at a state law level this is what this means this is how we use that word that's why legislators argue so much about how the words are used and what they need and so that's a big challenge with it right because there are going to be social groups or political groups that want to say this group counts this group doesn't count anymore into this category but at a state and federal law those who

33:22 both still considered but my experiences I found it very challenging because I spent eight years making policy foods and all that and I had trouble that one time when I said well let's just brought back it we'll get together tomorrow I had my apology because I used that term that was 10 15 years ago and when you don't know the rules how can you play by The Game and that's what's frustrating to be is to is not know the rules I'm trying to be respectful but apparently I said to the Hispanics table because of the brown bag term um you know I didn't know right but but I said it and so you get called out on that you get you know you it that creates me to push back and say now who's who's the PC police and and that's challenging for somebody

34:08 that if you've been involved in a lot of all these things and you know who writes the book and where's the rule book and I'll go by the rules but I can't go by the rules but I don't know what they are and nobody tells you that they're reactive instead of proactive and so that's why I think this is important to do that and it's a living document but it's very frustrating when your intent is to be insulting or just derogatory or anything else you know sometimes you know the old school you know what it's like you know there's a lot of terms we use in grade school that you wouldn't use today and uh trying to retrain you know there's so many different Generations around this table it's it's challenging for people to stay engaged and not feel that you're offending somebody

34:54 and I think that's a space where I generally try to default in life like my objective is to be welcoming right and if I offend somebody I want to know so I can work um and so I think that they're going to be environments where someone like terminology just lies under the radar nobody catches and you're offended by something another room is where somebody is so I think there's a difference between wanting I don't know that there is such a thing as a clean tidy rule book because I agree with them in a minute that sucker's printed they're like I don't I I don't know what has become offensive because of tick tock in the last two minutes but that space of recognizing that if the key is if I offended somebody I want to know something apologize right and that's that space that's

35:39 important I'm glad you did because that's important to the folks who um and I think it's easier to be able to say these are some terms of the sad space of understanding that what part of your language keeps changing the latest question a little bit for Frank as well but um based on your answer you talk about the stage many of our structures and rules Come From the state of Oregon

36:25 So based on your answers a good reference point to start with I think when you start looking at the state if you look at the city if you look at the camera right those are some spaces that we exist within and I think are great places to start you'll notice in your binder you will find the state of Oregon to eat I actually paid me a dollar fine right and the Lane County Equity tool okay brother top four um I guess we wanted to see that you know the amount of time it would take to go through and be like here's what they have on page three but providing those examples to you to feed this is what the state is all ready to do this is what the county is already doing um to see some of those pieces that have

37:10 some of those examples or because it's a really nice example of the policy and the state one is both the policy is policy doesn't plan and the county one is much more about putting action State policy and federal policy but more so is going to be the very base level and is obviously not as reactive or responsive to the changing Workforce that we want to recruit or need and so being a more Nimble organization you should above and beyond that and to figure out ways that we can stay on top of that changing language because that's what we need to do to serve our customer base and recruit set yeah

37:57 yeah and so I think that's that piece where this is I mean I think this is you know the state plan was 20 2021 right and then the county plan was most recently updated in August of 22. right and so these would have been worked on for years before that and so that piece to get to see that this is what they're doing but also that this is definitely not the Leading Edge but since you guys are starting new like this is a great place to have us references thank you I think it was I was going to say something similar to Sony I think they're that this board not too long ago we were talking about a policy I think it was a safety related policy and we said that being compliant isn't necessarily just what we're trying to do

38:42 here um you know speaking from the operational side we are highly regulated in in the industries we serve and also in the fact of our size and structure and location okay and those are if the policy said be compliant okay there's one there's like a whole bunch of things that that fall into that already and and you know that and that helps to Define some of the terms actually because you have you have to have an understanding of that to be compliant and so but I think we're also looking for a piece that ties in

39:32 with our mission and our values so uh at all I guess I'll be balance so it's just been playing with our mission to me is is just an example so our missions basically states that we're here to improve the Vitality of our community Through the products that we serve as we see in water consistent with the values of our community and that consistent with the values of our community is where there's an opportunity for this to fit we've also said within our value statement there's certain things that we we value we value diversity of perspectives for example treating each

40:17 other respectively there's there's the basis there's some jumping things here that go beyond compliance to your it's compliance by itself we could have a one sentence policy and say be complicated but that's honestly already there because we have otherwise I'd be looking for jobs I just want to acknowledge what you brought up because it is really tricky like language changes so fast and it's really hard to know like what's acceptable and what's not acceptable and you know there is no dictionary no slang dictionary or no diversity dictionary or anything um and

41:02 it's really confusing sometimes because we do have words or things that we've used our whole lives and have a certain understanding of it and then you can use it and somebody suddenly tells you that it's offensive and you didn't mean it to be offensive but they might have a home why that is and so I totally get what you're saying I mean me I have a daughter who's young enough who is up on on language I mean really it's like the young people that are the most current on the terms that are acceptable or not acceptable and she calls me out on stuff all the time and I just think hate that unacceptable but it is so anyway I just want to acknowledge how you're feeling because you're not the only one and it's really it is really

41:47 confusing well I just thought the old curmudgeon was coming out in me but uh you know it's it is what it is I've tried not to be disrespectful but it happens the other reality that we deal with related to that Mindy is our Workforce is not all young we we have people ranging from say 20 through 70. and and they all come with different understandings yeah and at some point intent matters also um so I think creating a culture that is

42:39 tolerant and has some Grace around intent is is important yeah Kelly I want to just say that that question brand new answered your own question for number one right you wanted to know the reason for that for the work and the fact that this is changing and that we need to give staff tools on both how to call somebody out if they say something that could be offensive even if they didn't know to react when we get called out how do you take that in how do you change Behavior how do you apologize and then how do we prevent that from having to happen by having the education even though it's constantly changing and we'll need more education but I think that that

43:24 is a lot of kind of some of the basics for reasons for the work and as the language and as terminology can continue to grow and also at home but people or if people see themselves differently in different terms right if I'm working with a group and I'm talking about like demographics I will often use Latino Hispanic and latinx because they all mean slightly different things and they all include slightly different people and they all as far as I know are still polite and respectful ways to describe your Geographic demographics of people but there isn't one tidy word and so I generally default to figuring out what

44:10 are the words that generally get me close enough and can I use them not interchangeably together with each other so the folks I'm talking with are get hear themselves in this old part right um and so that's one of the ways that I've tried to manage that because often like we're doing these trainings often for very large groups right and so it's that space of where it's especially important um and so I will go ahead and use a variety of terms that because I recognize that one person identifies as black somebody else identified with African-American right somebody else identifies as bipoc um and I have no idea that which is which and how I don't they need to take a show of

44:56 hands but I'm going to recognize that I'm going to use off the terms over the course of talking about something because someone is going to find one of those terms and yeah so I guess I'm going to fall back to my question about how do we implement this into policy and kind of go to you know this is the the base level you know that is legislative right as opposed to how much do we want to include here at a policy level and and the reason I'm thinking of that is because if we include everything at a policy level then what how does that manifest itself in like HR complaints

45:43 you know when somebody says I'm sorry you know I was discriminated again because the wrong pronoun was used for me and now since there's this fast list in our power you know that we've drawn from to make the policy does that make hr's role unfulfilled and so one of the pieces I think is that balance where recognizing that there may be multiple aspects of identity and experience in this world as an organization you're going to prioritize certain categories and I would strongly encourage you at least service state and federal protective class right um and so those are some pieces to look at and then also HR is going to always

46:29 ask the questions is this a pattern right and because that's a very different thing somebody yes I was like I'm Gonna Let You Go for this one if I'm heading off in the wrong direction but like that's a those are some big pieces with retards always going to want to understand that because there are certain infractions in an HR assistant if somebody comes to work loaded and punches somebody that doesn't need to be a pattern right um that punched anybody received there are some pretty interesting models out there to look at and there are some areas

47:15 that I think become pretty natural from a policy perspective you know and I'll give you one for example we want to incorporate uh Dei into our recruiting and hiring processes okay we want to include it in our compensation we want to include it in our opportunities to advance in the area I mean there's there's different different aspects that you can look at and you can see using some of the other examples that incorporate well into a policy but then don't drive yourself specifically that you lose your opportunity to to live and implement it right and so I think

48:00 there's because I think that and we're actually that's that's an an area that we always kind of look at right um isn't creating the environment where you can actually develop Solutions and provide the right environmental culture for your organization at the same time providing appropriate guidance and a direction right so and writing it broadly enough that it survives and writing it specific enough that it's useful right and that's the magic Sweet Spot I'm on the charter Review Committee for Lane County there's some things that were written and there are some things that are it's a much easier application to say 50

48:45 years from now this seems like it will still be relevant right and so I think there's some of that balance because the policy does not need to include your implementation plan right the policy is a policy and then staff are looking at what does that mean life how do we apply that to where we are now how does that then get us to where we want to be in two years how do our efforts change in two years right so the policy is a piece of the work that then is also going to exist in partnership with plans with efforts with tactics right like and that's I think that piece where it can be so tempting to want to be like well do we need to have this in the policy sometimes you you can have a very

49:30 oh it can be generic but it can be Broad and some really important useful ways but then the question is where them being sure to add the meat to it understanding what your metrics are understanding what the rollout looks like and the benchmarks and the deadlines right those are some pieces that go into play and that's part of that temptation to sometimes want to be like I want a four-page policy this may not be a place where you need a fortnight careful it's like if you want a former page policy talk but I mean all right those are some of those pieces then it Works hand in hand so I hand out the gender unicorn in part to point out how language and Society shift and acceptance right so

50:15 um transgender issues and pronoun use and identity are things that are growing in awareness and growing in acceptance I think for lots of places we're seeing some parts of this country that are having a very Progressive backlash against that we're seeing parts of this country that are in a very intentional acceptance of that and so this terminology is really sort of Timely there's also terminology that in some communities have been used for 50 years or 20 years right it's just that space if it's entering the mainstream and it's then showing up at work or at school distance how do you respect somebody's religious belief when they really have a problem with this tell me well because there's a lot of people that won't even have this discussion and says

51:01 you want more information you go to a trans student.org and everything else and they it's a very fundamentalist people that find a fancy even have this discussion even having that that uh image of unicorn and things such as that and flag how do you how do you maintain respecting their religious beliefs and still have this discussion if they work it you have but I would say at work we call we called announce that they've identified as theirs well let's just say in this body there was somebody here that had really strong religious beliefs that found this offensive how would you continue to have this discussion and not offend them well I think that's a really interesting question [Music]

51:47 because for the members of the employees who are transgendered they also that's great and so I think that's a great space on a question where this work is really going to bring those questions to light and to say is an employer where we expect employees to use other colleagues preferred pronouns or call it by the name or not and if you are then my name is Morgan my pronouns are sheet Herbert and I'm excited to look next to you the same way that if I would call you Bill do you think your name was William because you asked me to call you Bill that's how you show respect for me I'm not necessarily going to go argue if you only just text with you right but at

52:33 work we treat people professionally and if we're asking people to treat people professionally we're going to do that like there's plenty of there's all I mean are you going to force the dining hall to be kosher I mean there's lots of different religious beliefs that can come into play with that so I think that definition for eweb to say this is how we treat people profession Ally expect that I think it's a space where organizations have a lot we see a lot of organizations very comfortable one thing that I I wrote down down when we had a um this same discussion with the executive team was what she just said which is there there will be come

53:18 times here when we have to decide as an organization whose Comfort are we trying to preserve and part of that goes back to something I've struggled with which is when we talk about we want people to bring their whole their whole selves to work my question is what if part of themselves as a jerk they want you to bring the good parts to work not the jerk part we want to leave we want that lifted at home and there are times when the parts of the holes have conflicts and as an organization and this is probably part of the implementation not necessarily the policy but we're going to have to make some conscious choices

54:03 around how some of these Thanksgiving and that's not necessarily going to be easy in today's society because there's very in some cases very rigid Roots around and so that when in our first meeting I walked away going okay there's the policy is probably going to outline why and what and the how becomes the organizations and that how is going to be in some cases challenging so that's what I walked in other than that other than the fact that you said general managers don't have a sense of humor or something I remember that one do be careful when you're the boss and how you evaluate that whether

54:48 people are laughing because it's funny that's right I am genuinely confident this is the power dynamics example right power dynamics matter um and then says I want to follow up like and I'll say that comfort and safety are different if your example is it a trans person doesn't have a room to exist and so I think that's a space when you look at policy it might be uncomfortable do this but otherwise do not do it with the threatened solution and it's tough if you're someone who's never this is the first these some of these topics are the first times that's

55:33 experienced for someone or they've never told us they've never been the only person like there are other folks who spend most of them looking at a decision between preparing someone's safety of course if I think someone's safety to preserve someone's purpose it's a really important time to take it okay I think our priority is working on the last year really tough to do that and it's really important okay so we have our uniform right um and part of this is to point out just those spaces with gender that it's multiple different factors someone

56:19 because someone might be transgender and still attracted to this gender or that gender or like they they don't all go hand in hand somebody can transition from male to female but still like women they can transition from male to female it's not like men different question writings about the identity of someone not necessarily who you would love as a romantic partner and so that's part of what I enjoy about this because it fully sort of disaggregates some of these factors and can show how these terms mean different things and we're talking about really specific terminology and sort of what that means um and so that's another piece where kids can really come into play um and where some of these questions do

57:04 come up so that I've asked had people ask they say well I have an employee who transitioned still married to a man what does that mean and I'm like tell you what pronouns they want used yes does it matter to you who your employees are married to I said no go with their product right like sometimes again because we don't know and so it's tempting to want to say I want to understand all of this the level of nosiness but it's not necessary and sometimes wild new isn't that space to say that's your name and that's your pronoun stuff like more wait I know how to talk about you in the third person to a colleague when I write an email right to say and so those are some of those pieces where it can be

57:50 the opposite also applies there's people who bring stuff to work that I don't want to hear that I mean I have I want to focus on the work and the professional interaction and you're bringing too much to me so it does it does apply both ways well very much so and I'd say that's also on the employee maybe I should sort of determine where that is and also a colleague can say hey I really want to focus on the project where we're and that's often an okay thing to say if you're then saying we're working on I'm going to extensively research the name you were born we call you by it even though I've only known you as this person that's not okay right on some of those spaces with it it

58:35 really is that piece of figuring out where our food how do you have an important question and it's not that there are going to be and that's that piece where it generally isn't a policy that it generally is at the execution level at HR at staff level understand sort of work so I mean I asked to have um because I wanted to show that hey I may screw up that's a little bit I want you to know that I'm excited that's part of the being inclusive and welcoming and I think there's a belonging so even

59:22 though it means it's for me it's just it's a sign to show that I cared about myself but I think a lot of people do that and they show that that's what you see increasingly tags a little easier if I offer mine interested in offering yours I also think that's a space where you also want to make sure that you're not demanding um one of the inadvertent things you can do is force somebody to out themselves in that space in anything I want to be and they'd much rather have someone misgender them and have them to actually out themselves and so it's that piece of letting folks decide if you want to share for sure if you don't want to share them don't well someone shared you their pronouns would be suspected

1:00:10 yeah so um we so here's some examples so we've got a couple of sentences and a couple of different examples there of how different folks might use their programs or share their parents too um and you'll notice that we've got one of them on there that she hurt Ella hey yeah and that is from an indication where folks will sometimes use pronouns to display to communicate more than gender identity also will sometimes use it to demonstrate culturally right so um somebody who's by cultural somebody who's Hispanic or Latina we've seen that increasingly showing up where people are indicating that not only do they speak Spanish but they're also like in space and so it's a way that they in Latina religion and that's part of that piece where there aren't necessarily

1:00:56 hardened past rules but the key with that would be making sure that the pronouns that you're sharing are sexual is the fact that other people seriously and that's where you'll see there was quite a bit of flag after an end a few years ago with people who were making up different words and using them as pronounseling office people um making fun of people who are transgender not as people are actually represented so I think that's that space are we doing this to make fun of somebody or are you just in a question on what do you think that must be like I need a special need cooker and at some point does it become

1:01:41 a name I mean it's at some point is there in our future is there an acceptance of just I would say if we think if whatever we think of as average gets inclusive ly enough maybe what if that's that piece right if you think of okay I'm thinking about average employee or average customer and so that's that space I have to wonder about right it's that's in the Navy then in a lot of Science Fiction what you do is people have different jewelry that indicates gender or things that indicate culture right and so I don't necessarily mean to think that that's exactly pointless but they've

1:02:26 predicted some pretty interesting I don't mean to average I mean just range employee I mean is there something that captures that in the future or is this is that just unrealistic well I think for someone who doesn't see themselves as included in the work on someone who feels like they're constantly fighting space and so we don't have that and that's the Human Condition so probably the answer to your question is you know right well

1:03:17 we had a full list because I've never heard I have not seen since that's um and so I'm curious if you're shortens because these are the most likely ones and there's still one or two that's pretty odd that's rarely used terminology myself my judgment right so with different non-gender protons there has been there for years where lots of different non-gender pronouns that people were drawn to that small smaller pockets of the population might use in good thing about is it makes it easy to broadcast this great variety also leading to language getting narrowed pretty quickly because a few terms continue to get used and so like

1:04:02 we don't have the same Regional terminology and also with non-gender pronouns we don't have the variety and some of the stuff I've read and thinking about part of that is because of the way the internet works for people of hearing things so you don't have a water cooler and a bubble or meaning different things as a drinking fountain depending on where you are country um and so for proteins um now on gender pronouns are increasingly used as plural pronouns so they them has really come to be the dominant use of a non-gender pronoun in English that word that I'm seeing that we're seeing out there there was an attempt in some communities and spaces to have a singular non-gender pronoun right and so that was C Shea it

1:04:48 was a couple of things that were single hormones um but they them has really taken off um and I'd say has a if this is for marketing they'd have a huge amount of the marketplace right so they them has really become I'd say the dominant non-gender pronoun which is confusing for some because it's plural traditionally but in that space it is used as both a plural or a singular which is not like English languages happens a surprising amount of time for those of us who are most English speakers but um that's what I've really seen I think most of us have really seen take off is they them but use in the singular format this

1:05:36 I got a couple questions but one of them is I see the use of pronouns shifting to meeting more than the pronoun if you use if you identify and say I have to use my Pro I want you to use certain pronouns that could be liberal or conservative you know if you're asking to if you're asking to use pronouns a lot of times that may be a liberal or a progressive thinking person and if you're not asking for it it it leads towards a you know a conservative or a you know I'll say in this review you're a trump you know

1:06:21 you're a Trumper or you're a Biden right if you're if you were asking to use and and I see it shifting into that Dynamic right and I I don't like that but I I see it you know there's certain things in our in our community that have become political you know you go back to wearing a mask or not wearing a mask right so that that was got away from being a health issue and got into being a political issue I can see that happening with pronouns as well that it's it's going away from being a safety or a recognizing issue into being a political issue and then the second question I have is

1:07:10 you say they them I'm still not sure how I use that in a sentence we get to edit sentences so well let's use them in those sentences right and so you'd use it in place of a singular pronoun or a plural pronoun so I think we have an example on there to be propagated Paradise all right so we've got that sentence he ordered a burger fries in a milkshake oh yeah good can I just elaborate on what I think he's saying so if I know I'm going to read your sentence and it says he ordered a burger fries and a milkshake yeah now you could say they ordered a burger fries and a milkshake but without additional context you don't know if they refers to a plural group of people or a single individual so it doesn't

1:07:56 give you just by changing the pronoun in a sentence don't get the full context of what you're trying to answer so how else could you edit it well I would go a burger fries and a milkshake was ordered but then I did that with Kelly and she said well who you you're losing the person in this and then then well John ordered a burger fries and a milkshake so I mean just the use of the pronoun where it's going to yeah yours just the changing of a pronoun doesn't give you the full perspective sure but generally we're not just having one scent and we're not just you know editing you know the pen of my aunt is on the table right we're in a room we see someone there's a table we know how big the group is right

1:08:42 so this is that sense for us to practice it yeah and also if it's really important like you want to emphasize using people's preferred pronouns you might say um I'm just gonna pretend you say you would say uh John ordered a burger and fries and they also won so you're just kind of reinforcing that those are the preferred pronouns but I just also wanted to speak to your point um about your comment about like political distinctions me it's really an age distinction like if you were to survey young people today this is not a big deal for many of them this is like this is what they do they they talk about pronouns they identify

1:09:27 themselves by pronouns they're very um they're much more open with exploring different pronouns too and I think for people my age it can be can be challenging because it's a pleasure fully understand but um bless you but but I do think that if you were to like go into a high school college or something like that so you kind of be shocked yeah I mean I guess if I if I put into a zoom meeting and I don't have my pronouns next to me I almost feel like oh he's he doesn't understand right and I'm not I'm not or judging you

1:10:13 they're judging me because I don't feel the need I didn't at this point I don't feel that I have the need to put him in there right and maybe that's that's wrong but you know it's it's a with the zoom thing and identifying yourself it became mandatory that you have to put in your pronouns and I don't know when when that happened and now I'm seeing pushback again left and right about those issues so so why is it anybody else's business what my preferences my problems are absolutely and I think that's that space where

1:10:58 I as assess I-80 we've decided gender members as a society I'd say we've decided gender matters we say ladies and Gentlemen please say Mr I've been called on using female and human and all that because it has the word man and it has the word mail in it and all this other things and so again the old guy's confused but I'm just wondering why is it important why would anybody in this room care if I use he and him or she or here or or they in them why does it matter I mean for me it's if it matters to that person who has been marginalized or they need to be in a box or not felt like they were accepted for me I'm I'm only putting it out there not to offer any of you or judge you for not

1:11:45 doing it I put it out there because I'm recognizing that they've gone through a lot and that's a hard space to be in and so it's not and I'm not expecting just like she said earlier I'm not expecting others to put it out there or not because it might out them or make them uncomfortable to do that so you know for me it's about creating a space that if somebody wants to share that they feel welcome to do that so that others can treat them how they want to be treated it's not about the Golden Rule if we we treat others how we want to be treated that's great but not everybody wants to be treated in that way so it's it's kind of that next level of how do we treat others how they want to be treated and invite them to share that if they want to and if they don't want to or don't feel comfortable

1:12:30 that's okay and this is a space where we have that ability to to do that or not and I think that's the key is that if somebody wants to show them they can and they but if you don't you don't need to right and that's that space where particularly if your gender presentation matches the pronouns you prefer I mean you can choose me you're much less likely to be misgendered and if you don't mind being misgendered then it especially doesn't matter right like if you don't mind being called she or you that's you can do whatever because it's not a it really is a rule as much as it's that space to say if somebody told you my name's Morgan and my pronouns are he him it would be polite of you when

1:13:16 you talked about me to say you did a good or bad training right like because like that's what my problem um but I think that's that piece and then recognizing again if I'm if it supports me to pronounce someone else's name right This falls into that category for me it's for me it's a way to show that I respect we are that this matters to you and I'm willing to extend the effort to pronounce your name right I'm willing to extend the effort to get you to pronounce it you want to share it as an organization our size we have to make that person feel comfortable and we have to make John also be able to use your example feel comfortable for not yeah

1:14:03 in propagation but not just the fact that we have 500 people that the fact that we interact with another 200 000 people that we have to we we can't at the same time make you feel uncomfortable because of using an a we have to balance that with the respect and inclusiveness we show to those who do for whatever reason it could be a reason like Sonia's or it could be a reason that's very personal to the to the the one who's how they want to be recognized so it's I think we have to be able to handle both of them and I'd say the line for me continues to be not to informs people to share their pronouns that's not something I want to do but if I know someone's pronouns that I

1:14:49 use that to the piece what's your default oh uh it depends it totally depends um on a host of factors I generally go with gender presentation body and large so if someone yeah if someone is or but how they do that right if someone's wearing a skirt and earrings and has long hair I'm probably going to go with she heard but I also might ask right so it kind of depends but so often I do the shortcut of gender presentation if there's situations where I'm not sure I ask I often I'll just volunteer my own and not ask I'll say oh and Morgan my pronouns

1:15:36 have she heard and I leave it up to the other person right hopefully they tell me their name in it that I use their name I think Negan really likes hamburgers let's get them one right and I might even default to neutral right with my kids I live in South Eugene the names of my children's school friends I have no idea right and I also don't like I don't know how they identify let alone what's on their birth certificate I default of them by and large and so and I'll ask my kids I'll be like and they're like no no this week they look great or this person is this I don't look great I'll go with that um so I think it's that's basically being kind and open right Kelly did you have something yeah I mean I think one of the other interesting spaces is that

1:16:23 what do we when we interact with the public and we don't have any gender presentation and we here we get an email from somebody and it just has a name right I don't want to assume that a Morgan is a male or a female I don't want to assume that a John is a male or female right and so for me a lot of it is trying to get more comfortable with not going with any gendered thing in especially in that instance where you have very little opportunity to ask and very few other Clues yeah we did some work work light where we did the entire thing using no gender pronouns at all right and it involves stories and involves Workshop examples and switching into that space took a minute but once we were there it actually a lot

1:17:09 of people's names right we talked about their title right we said and the engineer walked into the room right there's lots of different ways to identify somebody that have nothing to do with gender it's just where I was certainly brought up to say serenity and when that's what you're taught is the height of respect um or Ms or Mrs not only is that gender but that's Miracle status and that's a lot of information that I was taught to quickly glean from staring at a stranger so that I could be respectful to them right and so that's that space of understanding that some of that some of those skills I don't need them the way I um was taught by my mother who grew up on an army base but this really matters right like I've learned that if my goal

1:17:54 is to be respectful that I can do and now we can use first names Christian names first names uh that wasn't appropriate everything until you were 45 when I was growing up but that that is helpful um just case in point I was drafted because they couldn't figure out if even was male or female and so I had to present my birth certificate to convince them indeed that that was you were not drafted a little more I was not dropped off but at the time calling Mccalla hadn't written The Thorn Birds and Megan was

1:18:40 not one of the most common names in this country but again it has to do with that we also in writing as Kelly said I remember clearly there was a very diff that you were sanctioned if you called Miss isiri Mrs or Mrs Thompson Miss because those distinctions were clear and appropriate and you had to make that decision very quickly and and it was as you know no consequences for bad decisions or bad choices on that part and this has this is just the next generation of those same things uh when we did the same presentation I said one of the things I defaulted to was M period

1:19:26 and last name so when you write it you know when you're writing a letter right it used to be dear sir or madam what's the default well it depends on the environment right if it's if you're a manager and you're writing to your team sometimes I go with team right if you're writing it to a person I say um attention hiring manager right there's lots of different ways it depends on the setting um you can say you know hello and continue or M Smith yeah and so there are there are ways to do that um that don't involve gender but they are sort of different from what we learn when we were taught to write a letter for a lot of you right well and I think that's not space

1:20:12 because it's the premise of Dear Sir or Madam is to start it with respect right the idea when we added Madam to it like the aghastiness of people that there might be a lady getting this formal letter right I mean this has shifted quite a bit over like time with that space um and so like my if you I got British relatives who get annoyed when you say Sir because they're not a knight right like it's just language is funny that way Sonia in the drink well and on the flip side of that I mean somebody who good luck with that the respectful way to talk to them made me Sarah Madden yes because that's the way that they would that they would expect now you'd have to

1:20:58 know more about them but that that might be the you know the appropriate place for that usage because it does really matter right and if you know you're talking to someone who uses male pronouns call them Mr sanzo Right like that's great um it's not to say that you don't ever use gender it's just you're just recognizing that you're using gender is that space yeah well it is you know looking at this long list of various different aspects I mean diversity there are some of those that are other that are driven by profession you know Esquire or doctor or things like that and so there's there's some consideration there just just beyond the pronouns that were

1:21:45 driven by gender or variable status or yeah so there's other things that drive that too I've got in massive trouble with my grandmother because I addressed a letter to my grandfather as grandfather and she sent it back to me and said he did not go to medical school to be addressed this informally so right like titles do matter to people uh that was a lesson for my six-year-old self you know to learn that you adjusted to doctor and I was like I can do that going forward thank you for my Christmas present um um policy level please thank you yeah so uh take a stab at it so to me this policy

1:22:32 will help say that no business inclusive and to the track uh Workforce or you know whatever things like and as part of that then the implementation piece would be the education around terms we also have a behavior policy already in place so we haven't really robust HR policy around behaviors right so behaviors then will be not that John you didn't identify yourself it'll be more around that hey as an organization except both of these and then if there is

1:23:19 a conflict or maybe I heard this from another C member ization that's that's gone through this that people start using those weaponizing them to some extent whether it's politics or or whatever so then that folds into a behavior issue which goes into an HR Performance Management so by doing that and speaking that out loud we have now said hey it's okay reduce their pronouns finding the pool of people that can apply here we're also having people here

1:24:06 feel like the organization will provide any better word that's how I kind of see it kind of coming together but it's uh yeah very much so McDonald's um and these are some of those examples where I think you start to see that individual and then interpersonal behaviors right and then but also how that then builds into ordering relational discrimination or inclusion or systemic discrimination or inclusion right and so this came from an organization called race forward so it is focused on racism but we can also use words like discrimination or inclusion there to get some of those pieces with it because sometimes there can be this sense of

1:24:51 well if we can't regulate how somebody thinks or feels in their heart of hearts like is that what are we even doing here well the point is I'd say is that you're creating an organizational culture that you're talking with people about how they have interpersonal relationships that work when I'm talking to someone I will treat them this way and when we have those expectations that's what can create a fair and inclusive organization um and so that's one of those pieces also I think there's a growing space of understanding where the idea that someone's behavior is discriminatory and at work what we want is to have people you know make discriminant or half discriminatory Behavior

1:25:38 um it's not about legislating what is in their heart or whether they are good or bad it is saying these behaviors you're engaging with are discrimination and that's not okay here so what we need to have you're doing at work are the following this um and that's different I think for a while there was this idea that it was about having like because whether we see this where someone says well they told me I was racist but I'm really a good person right and it's that connection that racism and good person are on the exact same level instead of saying well did I do or say something racist right it's about them it's increasingly thought of it as about the behavior not about the goodness of someone's heart or their character you see they're a really good

1:26:24 person I think right instead of saying well they also continue to only promote white people and they continue to have every person that they have a disciplinary issue with is black I think we need to talk about this right there's a statistical difference here that we need to figure out right and it's not necessary to say this is a good or bad person is to say the results in this department continue to follow racial demographic lines I there's there there and we should figure that out and talk about it it's about those behaviors right and so I think that's that difference and so that's why I wanted to draw that we wanted to bring this forward to show that internalized and then you start interpersonal institutional and structural are really those places where

1:27:10 that policy and that culture comes into play that's how we treat each other is how culture is created who has to follow the rules and who doesn't have to follow the rules it's a really important factor for an organization School it's called how power is moved through an organization how it's disparate how it's privileged how it's compromised how it's punished and those are the kinds of things your policy will not the metrics not the implementation but as you're looking at policy creation but you're trying to extract from that is how to take out the disc the disingenuous discrimination and

1:27:58 discrimination that is targeting someone with or or less yeah when you talked a little bit about sort of the behavior say the result yeah totally um intent matters in an example I think that we talked about which is if someone misuses a pronoun is that harassment and it may not be harassment but if their intent was to go back research and use that for discriminatory purpose

1:28:43 then it does meet that definition so a single outcome without further context doesn't lead you to sort of one yes or no kind of answer either and neither does sort of the term inclusivity so when you when you look at that definition you can provide um so make sure that everyone has equal access to the same opportunities and the so you can ensure that there's equal access that doesn't mean equal outcome

1:29:28 and so sometimes when you jump to the result like you mentioned well they're not higher they're they're only hiring white people well you can have a very Equitable process and your outcome can still be hiring only white people even though it was equitable so it's a combination of the outcome and the intent that matters you can't just look at one or the other say we have a black or white but we know what you mean yeah so part of yes but I add an end of if you if the system seems like it's being fair and you have people of lots of

1:30:13 different races and ethnicities and experiences applying but the only people you're hiring are white men I would question whether really how fair it is the question I have because you're not you have a statistically wide range of applicants but something about either what you prioritize what you're looking for like hiring an expectation that they have a graduate degree and what does that in America who gets to have a graduate degree right like because if there's a larger context to it and so that doesn't mean that it's inherently vile but there's it would make me wonder and I want to start to look into it right and that's

1:30:59 that difference from saying on high I'm going to judge it versus saying I wonder if we could do this better or differently I'm saying I would include equity in the entire process including including the decision maker so yeah I think that the outcome is that you have to look at the outcome as a piece of it but you can't draw too many conclusions and be clear without the full context of it yeah and with a particularly with a small sample set yeah right particularly I will say if you have a large sample set and it walks like a duck and it walks like a duck you should figure out if it's a duck but that's very different from one versus 200. right and so I

1:31:46 think but that's often where 200 tries to get swept under the rug to say but this one was fair and this one was fair and this one was very this one's Fair we just only and I'm saying white men because it's absolutely trite example but that's what I'm using in my trite example to overly generalized um after a while it's really tough to make that case that it truly is when at when your sample is 200 and then still all that's happening that brings up some really important questions about who's determining whether or not it's fair to me but so I mean we get we get demographics of the workforce and our in our quarterly reports and there's certain

1:32:32 jobs in this organization that maybe the applicant pools aren't there I'm thinking live right if you look at the lineman pool and and I'm not saying minority or not minority but male to female okay and that's the one that always sticks out right if Enlightenment and and those types of careers it's not institutional bias it's what's walking in the door by us and is that at the union level who's trading it and it's beyond our control or is it and then I see one of the problems with that is is if it's outside of the organization's control because I've got an application

1:33:19 for Ted lineman and I've got 20 applications and 20 of them are men and I have to fill these positions I have to fill the positions that homogenation then breeds culture in a department and that culture is hard to change it's just a reality and so how do we you know you say it if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck figure out if it's a duck right not that I'm saying it is I think you got you gotta ask when I think those are good questions you're asking right you're saying we do see homogeneous groups let's understand why yeah and maybe it

1:34:05 is the training maybe it is something else maybe I mean we see it report after report and it's not that it's not that the working groups and the hiring people are trying to diversify that working group it's just that they don't have the ability to with the quality for in in this industry there's certain qualifications that you know it doesn't matter if you're black white blue male or female you've got to know how to put a fuse in a 10 000 watt Pole and if you don't have that qualification

1:34:50 I can't hire you and if there's a bottleneck ahead of you in the system that sorts but that's all that rises so that's basically that's a really important question I think another question to then ask is what does it mean to be alignment in an organization right like how does that then work if you're a customer service representative oh I'm I'm going to stereotype and say you've I'm probably surprised if you have more women in customer service than you do as line staff right out in the field um do they have a similar path into management right those start to be other questions I'd wonder about right with those pizza so we're gonna go Kelly and I'll just add two like a lot of things are outside of the control of a

1:35:36 particular organization but it doesn't mean that we couldn't influence things um and so we may not be able to make all the change but if we're doing things to promote jobs where could we promote or if we're developing Partnerships to build pipelines for certain uh job classifications could we partner with the university and could we ask them what are your marketing tools and how are you trying to get representative students across lots of different characteristics into your risks like there's questions that and we can't control them we can't tell them what to do but if we start asking the questions then that might

1:36:21 a matter of understanding the difference between racism and discrimination I'll give you a quick example if the form School Jay 4J decides to build two brand new elementaries in South Eugene one on a two Acre Site which should have been on a 10-acre side spend 80 million dollars and then find another 11 million dollars for a swing school so the kids don't have to double up with anybody else those two areas that they built those schools in happened about 85 percent for all the leverage but the ones that don't YG and Kelly out here in this area the vote against the levees they have to jam those kids in they're all there's 500 of them in 400 capacity is that discrimination or racism so discrimination is going to be a bigger catch-all term in that space when you look at that piece um so it could be that it could be a

1:37:06 disequity issue um it could be favoritism could be lots of different things so racism is going to be a specific type of discrimination yeah did that to me that connotes that it's going to be race I mean it's going to be race-based racism because of voting habitation is Big discrimination is all of these discrimination can be transphobia discrimination can be ableism discrimination can be biased against I mean discrimination is people who don't have English as their first language the Discrimination is the any of it and then there are legal definitions for what that also means for the purpose of the way I think you and I are using that word discrimination is going to be any of that racism is a type of discrimination thank you thank you for asking

1:37:56 the question is why is Florida day's policy letting that happen you look at it man they found 11 million bucks get me on that topic as we were talking about it's not fair for the kids out here we're talking about policies so what can we do as a board to avoids things like that and I would hope we would be aware of it too because it's there's some other examples like look at the samples long up the Beltline what are the expensive homes who has the sound levels yes so this is lovely thank you girl Sonja yes I'm now until the next thing I just want a quick time check so we have 20 minutes left yeah in this I think we have quite a bit more bills that we've been wrong so just so the next one is going to be so Page Six right well oh because but also but we're

1:38:43 almost done with our tab one and the tap the rest is wrapped the rest is a two-hour training well that would for four days together we will get approve the entire binder but for tonight we will get through tab one um and so if you go to page six you see some of those examples that you are asking me to take earlier which what's the role so in this work for the board right not just policy which is really important but also there's other places where the board y'all are and so we have this list and so we have the staff because we got to meet with some folks that we talked about some of these stop level things with we're going to get to talk to the diversity team that's why they're on the list we wanted to sort of show everybody that to her questions we're asking every group and so as the

1:39:29 Board of Commissioners we talked about a lot of different topics it was a ginormous list of identity and experience we've talked about discrimination we've talked very interesting we've talked about policy but these are the places where the broker is going to meet the road and so the question we had would be how might someone's aspect of identity and experience impact how they're going to interact with an experience e-web in these situations and so this is where normally we would say talk to the person next to you but it's a public meeting and we can't do that so instead we're going to say talk to everybody right so let's pick um who wants to pick one off the top where you're like that one in particular I want to be sure we talk about

1:40:16 right and this is where I think sound walls come up this is where I think public comment comes up right like this is where a lot of these pieces what does it bring when you really are talking about what does this look like in the day-to-day work of y'all as a board of commission right pick a bullet let's get started public Outreach I love it great tell us about how might some of these aspects of identity experience really influence how someone experiences that or who you're targeting so much so much where we choose to engage with people what do we choose to engage with people how we present ourselves the type of materials that we bring to share with other people on what staff members are there

1:41:06 yeah right and so because a lot of those spaces when you think about what's access to the space it's in this place where people feel safe right are you dealing with a community that does or doesn't trust the police are you having an event in black community at the country club right like how tone deaf is the situation um do people feel comfortable within that space and where you are um was there literacy level how angry are they right like all of these factors really matters how do people receive public agencies assessments yes right are you sitting on the dice on the stage in that like the the high school theater in Europe here and there down here right

1:41:51 a bunch of this stuff what else do other folks what else comes to mind for other folks that you think about public engagement is there's a a bit of a deference or at least listening to people who are close to a project for example right our public engagement on the water tanks is like focused on the people's immediate neighborhood and we do some Outreach to other people in the rest you know the rest of our thousands of customers but don't tend to hear a lot of them so we get this kind of Amplified sound from the people who are in close Geographic proximity to a project think actually that we do a good job of

1:42:36 trying to balance that but certainly there are many other ways in which we could do Outreach or sort through the feedback we're getting that might help us um better understand the way our decisions impact people recently along that same line if we anticipate that in particular Community might be more vocal than we might go there whereas another community that might not be more vocal with me not and that that like difference I think plays out and as in other organizations that I mean because there's an expectation there but both deserve the same level of

1:43:22 access to give feedback the language we use you know we have some really complex technical subjects and how we translate that and to understandable charms and language independent of specifics of the language but how translation is done of it complex technical subject is a piece of that the other thing that I I would say about public Outreach is there tends to be an agreement bias if someone agrees with us why would they show up and tell us anything they disagree with us they're motivated to have an amplified

1:44:08 voice and so I actually think this this board does a pretty good job to Matt's point about trying to take a step back and go okay what who are we hearing from and does that represent the community at large because ultimately this board represents the community at large just not one particular segment well we have to hear all of them you have to balance that too enough agreement biases in your list of biases but we have a cognitive bias training and there are some recency bias also is a challenging one like who did I hear from most recently well that must right this also shows up a lot for us when we do manager training and they're doing evaluations like what happened six months ago matters as much as last week

1:44:53 we have a last experience bias because you don't have the utility very much and so if that was four years ago and it was a good experience you Harbor that good you became that good experience feeling if it was a bad experience we could have totally changed our processes but that's what you Harbor with you so it's a last experience really yeah yeah what about other folks is there more on this topic or do you want to go to the next one was there something else to add here uh I was just going to move on to approving rates and redesign and budgeting for customer products and services

1:45:38 you know that's one that and as uh board I think that's one of the ones that we struggle with a lot because I think we do it do do a good job of looking at it through the lenses of a lot of different customers you know we look at it through the lens of the people who have a hard time paying their bill and we look at it through the lens of the the people who can afford to pay the bill but we also have to look at longer term and so you know we had we've been I've been forced to vote on some things that may hurt

1:46:26 a segment of the of the our customers that are already there's some disappropriately disenfranchised but for the good of the the 200 000 customer base and the what we have to do going forward I have to do that and that is that's one of the ones where it's you know I would love to be able to keep the rates low for our hardest and lowest income people and we do as much as we can but I have to look at the long-standing viability of one of the most important first world positions that we're in and so that's a balancing act that is

1:47:11 one of the struggles that that I think all of the board members come to when it comes to budgeting and product services that means but the rates and rate design and the product access and you know Equitable product access to Services those are two that we really haven't done worked within our existing construct but that's a construct that's going to change significantly in the next five years I mean that's one that this policy and how we implement it we'll have direct applicability too they're just there's significant work in both of those areas going forward because right now honestly we have crossed subsidies in our pricing

1:47:58 even consumption-based cross subsidies which seems really odd but um if you are a heavy consumer of electricity for example you are subsidizing people who are light users of electricity because we don't fully capture the fixed cost versus the variable cost now that's one that's been in there for a long period of time and it has nothing to do with the customer's income by the way it has all to do because we've also shown that low consumption doesn't mean low income but there are and we're if we offer multiple products and services which is our plan we'll have to to deal with the Dynamics of of our industry

1:48:43 we have to be able to do that in a way that your choice as a consumer doesn't inequitably impact identity as a customer and vice versa so those two areas there's going to be a ton of applicability of this kind of policy going forward along with all the others too but I mean it's like that those two are good there's a significant amount of work and this is grouped together running for office proving rates and budget or recruiting rates budgeting policy governance so it's hard to run for officer it's intimidating and to even

1:49:28 know how to do it and to follow all of the rules and then once you do get on the board for many people the way they run our meetings is not how they interact in the world Robert ruled the order but the terminology um it's really intimidating when you first start because there's a huge amount of information that you have to use it's public so I I just feel like um it really impacts who's willing to do this work which then impacts the work that we're doing yeah the voices um and so I think those are those pieces where it's similar to say well there's parts of that that are somewhat out of

1:50:13 our control right and then there's organizations that are doing some of that work whether it's leadership between Springfield right trying to get people preparing to do some of this volunteering at least whether or not running for offense but it's part of those skill sets but they also then see the positive and Western Community that is starting a leadership training program for folks in the Hispanic on the team to prepare that before traffic reports about those faces so looking at some of that in other communities or Community groups do that as well and so that space where don't have their own ways to support them with that stuff right and as we look at those pieces because it's a big deal to have a representational board in the way we run for office in this country makes it really hard for that to

1:50:58 be true often tournaments are like and it just it's that scale of lifted oh so as far as getting public Outreach and input you know a lot of the people who give public up public input are people who have means as have child care and have the ability to do it I was lucky enough to work it through a process on a city board that I was on that actually rather than soliciting people to to be on a working group you know say hey who wants to volunteer to be on this working group they set out

1:51:44 to everybody random to a random thing and invited them to be on the work offered to pay for child care and offered to pay a stipend basically so that these people could attend it was it was democracy something but it was planning process it was it was the City of Eugene in a planning process and what they got was people who wouldn't normally be in that room and giving input or any number of reasons one because they didn't think that they had input to give which they all did and then the second thing was a lot some of them wouldn't be have the means to do it they didn't have the time they didn't

1:52:29 have child care they didn't have the resources and so looking at tools like that when we're looking for you know we do a customer survey or whatever but if we're looking for customer input that that's a tool that might be out there and I think we're seeing more of that with their understanding than taking the people who show up comment is a really narrow set of population and so that's based on what does outreach look like what does representational outreach and really inclusion I think that they're seeing more and more problems so we're coming at a fun time but do we have any last one that we want either of those bullets or something you look and you're like I think we need another bullet on the same step commissioner stuff where this really comes to life

1:53:15 what did we miss I mean we you know we didn't want to we couldn't put everything but we tried to be like why don't touch us on different aspects definitely so well doing this currently but we have in the past one of the other Keys besides setting policy is hiring and firing just the GM so I hope that you know part of the work you're doing with management because they do a lot more of this work is you know around hiring policies and I see that on the piggy web staff so I'm doing what you're doing but you know eventually that might be a process that you have to deal with and then what is that recruitment process look like and how do you make it so that's fair and equitable

1:54:09 well you win the lottery oh right as they think you'd like to stop that so space but it is an important job for any board right in this space where you're hiring a fire Europe maybe you're also over to your supervisor you have one employee right you have one wonderful employee and he has a lot of other employees but that space where how you support that person how you invest in the training how you invest in that piece you know those pieces really do matter and then that's the same piece that what your teams are doing because they're working with their employees how does that work sometimes it also looks at your pipeline for leadership development right for organizations that it's really important for them that they do internal hires at an executive level it does affect us right and so looking at those questions I think are good to ask I think there's an opportunity when we do sort of all things within the organization to keep

1:54:56 in mind it's applicability at the board level or for example we have you want to be on a hiring committee you have to go through an anti-bias training to be on a hiring committee that's that's a process that that could be easily adapted to other levels so there's a lot there's a lot of things that can be is that something we do know um there's I think there probably are other places where um there are other things we could add to this I'm kind of interested in looking at it a little bit longer um but a lot of our Focus here is on or and

1:55:42 a lot of our focus is on internal hiring and how we work with each other which is super important and I don't want to lose sight of 100 000 people with serving um and so for example under the eweb staff and one of the places where we have a lot of decisions to make my decisions already so on the customer interface you know the type of technology used the languages that we're using all the assumptions we're making about people's access to our services and then just engaging with us in the various ways they can um to just fine just keep that front of Mind as though so many out we buzz you so many outward facing policies that we

1:56:27 can address anymore yeah like in the most so many may know about UFC what it's like to pay a bill to get rid of a body because of that space was at a certain point your website's multilingual another one it stops because the platforms like if they're figuring it out but the platforms don't play together nicely yet so I can get it in Spanish all his way up to this point and then no more Spanish and I and I did ask the question when we had the training I said I went all through the Ukrainian line got through it's clear it's concise it's fine and then when you go to this at the top of your bill your

1:57:12 pay your bill it's in English so and she said yeah the company hasn't gotten to that that piece in it yet but it's coming so that awareness is wonderful it's amazing yes you can because it can get you all the way through there and by the time there's enough context that you're not losing any place but that's amazing that's pretty amazing technology and it's really quite inclusive there's one more thing about the important commission before we leave sorry okay um and and it relates I think directly to the metrics on how how us as a board will figure out if this policy is is working or is is being enforced

1:57:59 um and I think that you know we we say providing public comment and public Outreach but I think there needs to be internal comment and internal Outreach you know from the staff up at some point I mean I know you do you do surveys and those types of things but as a board we interact with I mean we we have one employee we interact with some high-level managers and team members but we have no idea of how this policy is working to the to the person who is going lawn or who is

1:58:46 climbing a pole or who is doing all of that and I don't know how that Loops back in I mean I especially since we're not we're not managing those people but we also need to know that the policies are coming in so is there a is there a mechanism for that in in the implementation though and I think those are great questions to write down as we get to as you get to that next stage with 4K with the policy and understanding what your key performance metrics our indicators are with it and actually by policy that's prevented okay there's a policies that says your only interaction is through me right and so there's there's actually a barrier conflict to what you just described I'm not saying that but I want you to gather

1:59:32 that information and be able to present it to us sure that's what I'm saying yeah I'm I'm not saying I wanna I wanna go out and interact with with the guy mowing the lawn and saying how is it done but but I want to make sure that there's a there's a mechanism for that to come up and for us to see that that's what I'm saying yeah yeah I appreciate that right on state really looks at sort of that role model between policy um and so how that all comes together and so that's the state plan is fantastic we'd encourage you all in your leisure in doing it because it really does go through some of those pieces it talks

2:00:17 about the objectives um and it also then breaks down into strategies right so it's we policy plan to have a keys active right and I think that's that space for you as well for looking at those and saying GM what are what is your robust plan what are those metrics you're looking at it's one of those data points what's your benchmarks and Time rings right because he's the one you can super fast second so that's a nice piece of it um and then I want to point I don't know if you're pointing I ran out of time I'll do other things okay great um and so uh looking under the rest of tab one is provided for information it's a lot of that terminology and some of the he says that you're looking at what do these words mean a lot of those words show up in a lot of this work we've got

2:01:02 that there I'm going to have two we have a nice graphic there talking about the internalized racism ultimate for the structural again these both came from race four words so that's why they focus on repeats you can use of discrimination and think about it more generally as well um the elements of the organizational change is there with the visualizing normalizing operationalizing and organizing there's a McKinsey article that I love that comes out what community eaters do and according to them they're supportive we operate at the results orientation they speak different perspectives and they solve problems properly and to me Dei makes all of it okay because of your job is leadership he wants that work and this is stuff that's going to make that a lot more effective number three is a ginormous

2:01:50 multi-page glossary of terms John it is 15 16 Pages um and it's one of those where as you go through the words are there my friend right so if we're missing a word you let me know um but this is a massive amount of that space to say what does this word mean I've heard somebody use it it's I bet it's on there um four is going to be the Lane County Equity lens toolkit the five is that safe plan so if you didn't want to spend your time by reading this at you and I wanted to remind you that all this is there and please take a look at it please keep thinking and thinking this three there's a lot of this we threw at you in a very short period of time please follow up with us both of our cards are in your room here so send us an email you can check out check in

2:02:35 we'll pick up these pieces um the point of this really the irony is this is an introduction to diversity right like there's so much and we you talked about a bunch of stuff and we went relatively quickly and it's still two hours and so that space of recognizing that you all are talking about the policy level in this giant organization right this was an intended to give you some of that foundational grounding so you have some of this so you have some of that understanding of what this is going and how this is like and to start asking those questions so that as you do the policy work you're doing it with the Dei lens that is the hope our hope is that we gave you some new tools so as you think about doing this policy work you already have so many tools and some questions to say who are we including priorities

2:03:25 so that's that case what do you want to say to wrap up I want to say thank you thank you for being here thank you for your questions and your consideration and thank you for doing this work it's hard and it's going to stay hard and you're all here to do it and you've all leaned into it that is commendable and I will tell you we don't always see that when we teach so thank you we'll stick around but we can end it now so we thank you all very much