NSCA hosted a DEI workshop this week that served as a follow-up to the keynote at last month’s virtual Business & Leadership Conference on the same topic. The keynote served as a conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion, a topic which is gaining momentum— a good thing for everyone involved in AV and any other industry.
The conversations about the business benefits of diversity, equity and inclusion are not easy to have, and that’s something even those who are considered experts in the topic acknowledge. But just because they’re not easy, that doesn’t mean they’re not important discussions for every leadership team.
Related: Your Employees Can Relate to My DEI Experiences
It’s for every individual company leader and board of directors to decide how they want to handle diversity, equity and inclusion within the walls of their businesses, but the conversations happening in earnest across AV will certainly generate some change in thinking.
How DEI Will Change the Face of AV
We’ve written many times about the AV industry’s lack of diversity. What many in AV are starting to understand, though, is that it shouldn’t be that way and it certainly doesn’t have to be.
Boston-based Loop Lab and Washington, D.C.-based EnventU are two workforce development programs aimed at young people that feature AV exposure and there are more colleges and universities—and even high schools and trade schools—adopting AV in their curriculums.
That will only serve to increase the talent pool of potential future integrators or engineers, but they still will need the leadership teams at AV integration and manufacturing firms to be open to the idea of giving them a shot like the one they got straight out of high school or maybe as a second career.
The AV industry is known for creative solutions that integrators and manufacturers come up with to solve their customers’ problems. That variety of problem solving only comes when people with different ideas come together and talk things out.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are key components of that, so it’s rewarding to see companies making an effort to embrace the concept and incorporate into their day-to-day operations. This isn’t about statistics or ROI. It’s about having difficult conversations and embracing needed changes.
