Recommendations

Overview

The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) has a unique opportunity to leverage data collected from Inclusivity’s assessment to chart a course forward that centers Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within the organization. Across, the organization, stakeholders generally understand the “bottom line” value of DEI even though in some instances survey participants were uncertain about the exact meaning of DEI principles within an organization. The leadership is strong at MFA and strong leadership is the basic predicate for organizational progress in the DEI space. There are multiple areas for action and improvement in the DEI work ahead for the MFA. Inclusivity recommends the following directions and L&D action items for MFA to move forward in addressing these challenges in collaboration with the team at Inclusivity.

The path forward will include the following touchstones for the DEI work ahead at the MFA:

Board/Leadership Positioning and Learning:  Governance, Oversight,  Roles and Direction – clarifying role in hiring practices, learning about equity and inclusion, redressing interactions with staff and developing equitable approaches to staff interface  Develop S.M.A.R.T.I.E. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Inclusive and Equitable) goals to measure the progress and return of diversity program investments.

Leadership Track

 Cultural Competence: High Performing Teams  This is a leader workshop to support the retention and development process when leading a team that comprises multiple dimensions of diversity.  Inclusive Recruitment  This leadership workshop discusses bias in the recruitment process, how to recognize it and to take steps to mitigate it.

Organizational Culture & Cultivation:

Strategy development

 Define the value of diversity and develop a definitive plan for creating a diversity-based organization through a series of facilitated workshops.  What does Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mean to the MFA?

Learning and Development

 Introductory content: Complete cultural competence curriculum for entire organization

Organization-wide

 Inclusion Begins with I

 This workshop is focused on the individual perspective and what personal experiences shaped that perspective creating our own cultural bias.  Cultural Competence: The Case for Community Impact  Focuses on why cultural competence is so important to our society and how it drives innovation and

community impact.  Generations in the Workplace  Describes the characteristics and tendencies of each generation and how to work better together.  Blind spots: Unconscious Bias (2 sessions)

 Considers the first node of the cultural competence continuum and how to identify these tendencies understanding that we all have bias. It also provides tools to work through the bias and evolve along the continuum.  I can’t talk about that: Courageous Conversations (1 session)

 Creates the context by which difficult or uncomfortable conversations can occur to open more opportunities for collaboration, productivity and innovation.  Allies, Actors and Accomplices: Engaging in Turbulent Times

 This workshop focuses on how you show up in conversations specific Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. It also explains why Equity requires more.

Community Interface: • Learning about the surrounding the community • Continuing to present art that engages the community • Overcoming socio-economic status biases about the community

Talent Management (diverse staff)  Creating an inclusive environment for staff  Cultivating a transparent promotional and hiring infrastructure

 Talent Management  Change performance management process (PMPs) to clearly communicate whether employees are meeting expectations, or not, and put more emphasis on a discussion of the areas where an employee fails to meet expectations, and how they can improve.  Allow Human Resources to conduct the promotions process and conduct a blind review of the performance reviews to avoid bias.  On-going analysis to determine if any interactions exist between race/ethnicity, gender and age that are contributing to barriers at all phases of the employee life cycle  Create transparency within the promotions process  Determine impactful professional development opportunities to mitigate real or perceived gaps • Develop a mentorship program including the development of incentives to act as mentor  Augment recruitment strategies with a policy for hiring that requires those demographics that are disparate to be in the final candidate pool  Expand the candidate pool for each new role/position