Environmental scientist by day, team connector also by day! Hallie Hartley has found ways to engage her team using interactivity and thoughtful content. She built a Pride Month deck that's filled with trivia about issues relating to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, queer/questioning, intersex, and allies' community. She's not only bringing awareness to her team, but also showcasing it in an easy, pro-social way that sheds light (and some fun) on one of the important issues of our time.
Hallie put together a fun, two-round trivia game about the history of the gay community. Whether it's June or just time to celebrate every walk of life, this is a great deck to use with your team to promote equity and acceptance throughout your group.
As a designated "Champion" of diversity and equity promotion for her team at large engineering firm AECOM Technical Services, Hallie has the tall task of bringing her group together in acceptance and inclusion. "Our Equity, Diversity & Inclusion program gives employees like me a chance to make a difference. Being an ED&I Champion has become one of my favorite parts of my job.
ED&I efforts are central to AECOM’s vision.
"As a champion, I lead diversity activities, plan events, post on social media, organize community service projects, and help incorporate ED&I into our work with clients. In hosting events, I found Slides With Friends."
- Hallie
Hallie is using interactive tools to inject fun and engagement to her ED&I focused team gatherings. We sat down with her to talk about the best ways to get her group involved and engaged with what can be challenging content.
AECOM’s mission for the ED&I program is to raise awareness, enhance knowledge and promote equity in the workplace through energizing initiatives that inspire all of us to bring our whole selves to work. I try hard, with great help from others on my team, to create educational events and leave my office mates with a feeling of belongingness, allowing them all to thrive and celebrate who they are.
I use Slides With Friends to host trivia events. I research questions (and answers) to ask participants, and as I answer the questions during the game, I also provide background information about the question. I held a Pride trivia event (using the featured slide deck) and a Black History Month event using Slides With Friends, as well.
My trivia events have been a hybrid of in-person and remote. I have tried my best to make the events interactive for those in the office and joining online. I give everyone an equal chance to answer the questions. I also work hard to make the slides aesthetically pleasing to capture the audience’s attention and relay interesting information after providing each answer.
SlidesWith has provided an excellent platform for hosting my trivia events. It is an easy-to-use tool that allows me to interest information relatively quickly once I have developed the content for my trivia events.
I have gotten great feedback about my events, and using SlidesWith has played a major part in that. As an easy-to-use tool, my events are pretty seamless, and when events go well, you tend to have more participants return and/or join for the next event.
As I said, being an ED&I Champion has become one of the best parts of my job, and I am so proud to be one of many in my company. It has forced me to learn about topics I would not research on my own, practice public speaking (which I was terrified to do before taking this role), and connect with officemates I would not have gotten to know otherwise.
