The DEI Team Turns One
August 12, 2021
Our TechLife team recently turned one, and now our DEI team is celebrating their own first anniversary. When our DEI team was formed back in July of 2020, they chose to focus on “bringing awareness of the veterinary industry to underrepresented groups and creating a welcoming environment within our practices.”
Since then, their mission has expanded, and they’ve done a great job delivering a message of diversity, equity, and inclusion to VetCor employees, veterinary students, and young people who are still trying to figure out what they’d like to do. They’ve worked with multiple Historically Black Colleges, highlighted the importance of using chosen pronouns, and more.
Here are a few things they’ve accomplished this year:
- Hosted this presentation on careers in the veterinary industry to high school guidance counselors from across the country.
- Created and promoted several presentations about diversity, equity, and inclusion for both students and professional organizations (you can hear Dr. Bruno speak about these challenges on this podcast).
- Worked with eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as organizations like Pawsibilities, to help provide mentorship opportunities to underrepresented groups.
- Added resources to our company intranet to aid our practice leaders in creating and supporting a more welcoming environment.
This year, the DEI team further focused their efforts and created this mission statement:
Life is better here because we are all here. We support employees in bringing their whole selves to work, inclusive of race, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, and ability. VetCor cultivates its culture by embracing the uniqueness of our community, both internal and external, and by building upon its strengths through education, mentorship, and meaningful communication.
They continue working alongside Pawsibilities and the AVMA, plus they’ve hosted multiple training sessions for both our vet leaders and our operations team to great success. In fact, they’ve heard that lots of other VetCor employees are interested in future training, so we hope to have an update on that soon.
If you have questions about the DEI team or you’d like to get involved, you can join their Facebook group or send them a note at diversitymatters@vetcor.com.
