Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences: On working with leaders, co-workers, to create a culture of belonging

By In the Loop • June 15, 2023
Wendy Thon and Emmett Oldham

In this Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences conversation, you will hear from Emmett Oldham, a care management assistant, and Wendy Thon, a development officer, as they discuss their experiences working with their leaders and co-workers to create a culture of belonging at Mayo.

Mayo Clinic is a unique place: the culture, the values, the people. "Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences" explores the experiences of Mayo Clinic staff as they navigate life personally and professionally. Sharing these perspectives increases understanding of others and ultimately contributes to finding connections, belonging and inclusion at work.

In this episode, you will hear from Emmett Oldham, a care management assistant, and Wendy Thon, a development officer, as they share their experiences in finding support of their leaders, and taking action in their work units to encourage colleagues to learn about equity, inclusion and diversity. Oldham, they/he, talks about being to Mayo and the support he has had from leaders to bring more equity, inclusion and diversity conversations to his work unit. Thon, she/her, shares her perspective in being the assistant chair of her department’s Equity, Inclusion, Diversity Council.

Listen as Oldham and Thon discuss their experiences:

Read the transcript:

Narrator: Hello, I'm Dani and this is the Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences podcast, where we build trust and belonging through the authentic storytelling of our Mayo Clinic staff. In this episode, you will hear from Emmett, a care management assistant, and Wendy, a development officer, share their experiences with equity, inclusion and diversity and how, with the support of their leaders, they take action in their work unit to promote belonging.

Oldham: My name is Emmett. I have been with Mayo for about 8 months now. I started over in the Department of Nursing as a care management assistant. I am a nonbinary, trans person. I use they/he pronouns. When I started, I got really into diversity work within the department. Upon my initial interview, I told them that diversity, equity and inclusion work is my passion and what I want to be doing. And I was told right away, "That's what we need."

Thon: My name is Wendy. I've worked at Mayo Clinic for 12 years. I am a fundraiser in the Department of Development, and I have voluntarily served on our Equity, Inclusion, Diversity Council for the last year. This year, I serve as our assistant chair. My pathway to that is somewhat unique in that, for the last three years, I've co-chaired our social committee in the Department of Development. Through that experience of leading virtual activities and working with the team to create fun activities, it really opened me up and brought me into this shell of helping to promote engagement and relationship building and stepping out of my comfort zone.

Oldham: When I started here, I got straight into networking. I reached out to our Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to really get to know them. I got the green light from my leadership to start doing some diversity, equity and inclusion work. We started with monthly celebrations and awareness emails to now where I'm presenting on a monthly basis to the entire care management team — little educational, step-by-step definitions of diversity, equity, and inclusion to gender and pronouns. I'm hoping to gather momentum with the whole department. I've really enjoyed that, and I had a lot of support from leadership since the beginning with that.

Thon: I'm on our Central One team and there are about 10 of us, with my supervisor and my colleagues. We've gotten together monthly for the last two years, and we have a conversation about equity, inclusion and diversity topics. I think these conversations, which have been voluntarily led, have really helped us to grow into a better team. We sign up to talk about something to help us all to learn. All of those conversations have also helped me to where I'm at today, along with the EverybodyIn Conversations. I have prioritized those every Friday for the last two years. I love those conversations, and our leadership very much supports those. We're trying to take whatever the Office of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity is doing and helping to push that out so we can foster growth and conversations in our department. Leadership is really excited, and I'm glad to be a part of that.

Oldham: I'm in the LGBTQIA+ MERG at Mayo, and I am an officer. I walked into that a little early. It really got my foot in the door. I wanted that, and that was the whole point. But it's been a really great learning experience because I've been able to work with the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. The opportunities have been endless for great skill-building. We have been working hard on getting our Pride events ready for this summer. This will be the first time that Mayo will be attending Twin Cities Pride, which is expected to have over half a million people attending. We're getting a lot of help. Community Engagement has been a huge partner with us for that. And we really appreciate that kind of sponsorship and cooperation.

Thon: That's awesome. I think it's important for us to talk about, Emmett, the transparency of how many groups or departments at Mayo Clinic you are communicating with to help share that message. We're all individuals here at Mayo Clinic, and we all make up one Mayo. But it's important to communicate what we're doing to make the world a better place. One of the things as far as leadership that was impactful for me was that last year, I attended the RISE Conference. The whole experience was awesome, and I can't say enough good things about it. but I will share that one of the first presenters was Dr. Farrugia. For me, that made a difference that he specifically took the time to be there in Chicago. Also, there was a table and for me it was like the most famous people in the room. They work for the Office of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity that hosts the EverybodyIN Conversations. I don't follow a lot of movie stars, but I just remember thinking, "Wow, look at all the famous people down there," because that's my world of famous.

Oldham: They are superstars. I was given the opportunity to attend the forum on Workplace Inclusion Conference. When I sent that application, I was like, "I'm brand new here. They're not going to pay for this. There's no way." When my leadership came back and were like, "We want you to attend that. We want you to bring back what you learn and share it." I had other departments reaching out, "Can you share your experience?" And I was kind of flabbergasted, to be honest with you. I have never gotten this much positive reinforcement back from leadership, other departments, or even just the opportunity.

The future of diversity, equity and inclusion that I'd love to see within my department — I feel like we've been creating building blocks of education. Now I want to start kind of getting into those harder conversations. I find that those harder conversations are much more uncomfortable but when people have the language to talk about it, they thrive. I also tell people that you've got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, especially in diversity, equity and inclusion spaces and education. It's OK to feel uncomfortable. Let's go learn and grow.

Thon: I know a year and a half ago, there's no way I would have said to my supervisor, "I want to serve as the vice chair of our Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Council." I wasn't in a place at that time with that role. I'm growing into it yet. I still have a lot to learn, but it's great to have that support of leadership and colleagues, like you have, to help learn and grow and work toward having uncomfortable conversations and turning them comfortable.

Oldham: Being willing to step up and lead, I'm going to learn while we do it together. It's the biggest thing you could do. You're taking that step forward to continue bettering yourself and others around you, which I always commend.

Thon: Agreed. I'll take it another way in that I think the work that we are doing for our Mayo Clinic colleagues within this space and trying to make conversations more comfortable, it helps our patients as well. With all the initiatives that we're doing, and research and education and our clinical care, I think we're all working toward making the world a better place, one patient at a time and one person at a time. This is really where my heart is at with these conversations, as well. Just the power of kindness and learning.

Oldham: I agree. I have a job that's patient-facing. I also have a lot of co-workers who are patient-facing. When I joined the department, it was a learning curve for some people. But I have seen and heard back from some really awesome patients who are like, "My case manager came in and they were just so respectful of my pronouns." I love that because we had to have those conversations. We had to learn together. And seeing that growth from my co-workers is huge. I appreciate that. That was something that leadership helped me establish when I started. My welcome e-mail was my name, my pronouns. My first day, my supervisor sent me the workplace transition and gender identity toolkit. It blew my mind because that is such a show of allyship that I've never experienced before. I've experienced, "You just sit down in the corner and do your job and go home." It is such a breath of fresh air when you can come into a workspace and be yourself and leadership just starts with that. I love it.

Thon: That is so inspiring to hear. Truly, it is. It also kind of makes me want to cry a little bit just to know that there is somebody supporting you that much. I think there are people who are eager for more conversations. The foundation has been laid really well here at Mayo Clinic to say, "I want to do more. I want to meet with others who are not like me and have a different perspective, and it can help me learn and grow.’

Oldham: A great part of that sponsorship is Mayo Employee Resource Groups. I always highly recommend joining something that looks interesting to you. It's a great way to get out and meet people as well as make some friends. That's where a lot of relationships start.

Thon: I'm on two Mayo Employee Resource Groups. I feel like sometimes I talk about the RISE Conference a lot, but it really was instrumental to me. Dr. Sharonne Hayes did a presentation on mentorship. It was very impactful. I remember thinking to myself, "I want my colleagues to hear this presentation." So, I brought it forth to the Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Council last year to say, "I think there's an opportunity for me to share a little bit about RISE." I hosted a watch party. I did an introduction, and we watched her presentation from RISE. It was awesome, and I had lots of feedback from it from colleagues on the impact it had on them. I'm trying to think about different ways to be creative. Again, I think people are eager to learn and eager to do things, but they’re not sure what to do.

Oldham: That's true. That's the biggest question, "What can I do?"  When people ask me that it's, "Is there something that you're passionate about? What gives you joy? What drives that passion for you?" Everyone that I've ever talked to usually has an answer for that one. So, I usually could start steering the conversation a little bit more with that. Some people don't know. But I think it's always important to take that time to learn about yourself and learn about the cultures and other experiences.

Narrator: Thank you, Emmett and Wendy, for taking action and supporting these efforts. Sharing experiences like these increases our understanding of one another and ultimately contributes to finding connections, belonging and inclusion at work. For more stories, subscribe to Mayo Clinic Employee Experiences on popular podcast apps.

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