City of Minneapolis Division Of Race & Equity
Training Strategy
Situation
The City of Minneapolis Division of Race & Equity was formed in 2017 and is focused on integrating racial equity concerns into all levels of City policy and practice. In July of 2019 the Division rolled out Strategic Racial Equity Action Plan (SREAP) with the purpose of putting race at the forefront of strategic planning. A core component of the plan is the implementation of the Racial Equity Impact Analysis (REIA) which every department city-wide must integrate into their program review or policy recommendations. The Division of Race & Equity has been having issues with departments not filling out the REIA, failing to understand the importance of this mindset shift and failing to incorporate the REIA into their work. I was tasked with researching the existing REIA process and creating a new strategy for City Of Minneapolis employees to embrace the positive change that the REIA will have for the Minneapolis residents.
Partner
Tools & Methods
Comparative Analysis
Journey Map
Personas
Zoom
Keynote
Primary User Research
Research
My team started off the project by having an initial kick off meeting with the City Of Minneapolis Division of Race & Equity. We then reconvened and created a survey that was sent out to current City Of Minneapolis employees with the intention of gauging how their work place was being impacted by the REIA process. The majority of employees felt that racial equity issues were not being addressed properly in their work environment. Only 12% of participants ranked Minneapolis as being effective in addressing racial equity. My hypothesis was that the City Of Minneapolis genuinely cared about improving racial equity issues for its employees but that a gap in training existed between the city’s vision and department leadership in charge of providing this knowledge to those in their departments.
After conducting a dozen remote interviews with City of Minneapolis employees I found that the majority felt that their leaders did not make race and equity concerns a priority. Many employees felt that they did not have a voice in the office and that the few that have spoken up have not been taken seriously. The city employees that I spoke with have a shared fear of retaliation from their leadership. This prevents them from being more vocal regarding these issues. The majority of them have heard of the REIA but have not seen it implemented in their work. To better understand their experience I broke down the individuals impacted by the REIA into three personas: Imani working in IT, Maria the college student and Steve the senior manager. I used these personas and created journey maps for the way that they would be impacted by the new initiative and any obstacles that they would encounter with it.
Proposed Training Strategy
I created a training strategy that would consist of a one-time remote conference where all City of Minneapolis leadership would provide a detailed breakdown of the mindset shift that would be part of the REIA. Moving on from the conference there would be monthly training for division leadership led by 3rd party partners in order to standardize the training and avoid bias. The third step would consist of accountability meetings led by 3rd party Minneapolis organizations. These meetings would consist of reviewing prior, current and future REIA. The final step would be to increase visibility with BIPOC communities living in Minneapolis. In doing so the city and the residents that live there can have a more intimate connection and keep each other accountable for upholding the values of race and equity.
