It’s been quite a busy year here at Tanenbaum and as Manger of Programs I have had the pleasure of working on much of what we accomplished during 2009. Religious Diversity in the Workplace gives me very real reasons to be proud – we worked with corporations and conferences across the country and the world and expanded into new training modalities, all to further our mission of helping organizations effectively deal with the religious diversity in their work environments.
We continued to provide training nationwide, including for the Hospital Corporation of America BD Corporation, Epstein Becker Green, SHRM-New York’s first Workplace Panel, the Chief Diversity Officers Forum, the Boston College Center for Work & Family and Out & Equal’s 2009 Workplace Summit. We helped organizations work through holiday issues, the National Day of Prayer, religion and LGBT issues and more.
Tanenbaum’s President, Dr. Georgette Bennett and Executive Vice President & CEO, Joyce Dubensky, also took Religious Diversity in the Workplace overseas to the UN Alliance of Civilizations Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, where they presented our work to a global community of activists interested in advancing intercultural understanding. (You can check out our EVP’s dispatches from Istanbul here and here).
From our New York offices, the Workplace program conquered new technological ground and conducted its first two webinars. One was an overview of key topics in religion and the workplace, while the other helped explain the competing interests at play and gave real strategies for facing the December Dilemma (which I wrote about a few weeks ago). I am pleased to report that both were highly successful and we look forward to hosting more webinars on other hot topics in 2010.
In addition to all our presentations, trainings and webinars, the Workplace team continued to research the current and future trends affecting the diversity and inclusion field and spoke with our Program Advisory Council to collect expect advice. Through this work we have identified several keys issues that will shape the workplace in 2010, some of which Rachel has already written about in “Christianity – the New Minority?” and “Let the Games Begin”.
Looking forward to 2010, I am also pleased to share that our groundbreaking Workplace manual is in the process of coming to you live on the web. Over the past year we have been busy editing and updating this resource to make it even easier for managers to use – be sure to stay tuned!
Reflecting on this year, I’m proud of the Religious Diversity in the Workplace team and all of our staff for all their hard work. I look forward to 2010 and the potential it holds! And we look forward to continuing to be of service to you.
A Happy and Healthy New Year to you,
Mark