Reposted from MSN

Two Brummie Muslim men visiting the British Museum have spoken out about their appalling experience after a member of security staff singled them out to ask them 'where the ticker was' to set off a bomb and the 'stick of dynamite'. The questions shocked the pair who levelled an accusation of Islamophobia at the guard. 

Altaf Kazi, Birmingham based head of partnerships and community engagement the Blood Transfusion Service, and colleague Umar Malik, the organisation's partnerships manager, were on a work 'awayday' to London when the shocking encounter happened. (Thursday 30 June) Their bags were being checked when the security guard asked each of them in turn about 'bombs'.

Speaking to BirminghamLive, Mr Kazi, 37, said: "There were four colleagues waiting in a line. Two of my colleagues went before me and checked their bags in, with no questions asked. 

"When it was my time to put my bag on the table, the security man opened my bag and said: ‘where’s the ticker?’ He then said: ‘You shouldn’t be killing all of humanity but saving all of humanity’."

His colleague Mr Malik then walked up for his security check and was asked: “Where’s the stick of dynamite?” In a post on his LinkedIn profile, Mr Kazi said he was stunned to be quizzed like this.

"Both of us walked away totally shocked at what had been said. Literally, we laughed and discussed 'did that just happen?' Once we got over that shock, we reported it to the information desk and spoke to management. They were mortified about what we had just experienced and acted on it immediately."

He added: "Another colleague saw how we responded and then told us how, on a stall yesterday, he was told to go back to where he belonged. Same s**t, different day."

Altaf Kazi Altaf Kazi and Umar Malik were with colleagues visiting the British Museum after a work 'awayday'

Mr Kazi, from Handsworth Wood, said: "After the incident happened me and my colleague were discussing whether we should raise this as an issue or not. Then we remembered this quote: "What you're willing to walk past is the standard you accept." 

"This made us speak to the information desk and raise our voice. Even the lady at the desk was mortified of what she was hearing. Our first reaction was disbelief and then it settled in. We need to make sure we are always reporting these incidents no matter who you are and what you do.

"We were thinking that if we walk past this incident what does that mean for us, do we accept it? And we shouldn’t."

Today the British Museum said they apologised for the incident. “On Thursday 30 June, visitors to Museum experienced inappropriate behaviour at our search facility. They immediately reported the incident and a senior security manager swiftly attended and discussed the matter with them, apologising on behalf of the Museum.

"Whilst they chose not to make a formal complaint, we took the matter seriously as we do not tolerate inappropriate behaviour and took rapid steps to address the situation with the employee concerned. The Museum is an inclusive space for all communities and we would like to reiterate our sincere apologies for their experience.”

The exchange triggered a shocked response when it was shared on Twitter and LinkedIn. Saidul Haque Saeed, Citizens UK Birmingham community organiser, replied: "The brazen nature of this. Not an ounce of worry about the consequence of saying this to someone." While communications consultant Hasan Patel added: "British Museum, I do hope you take action and look into what took place. Any form of racism is not acceptable." 

A recent survey into public attitudes towards different ethnic and faith groups by the University of Birmingham found Muslims are the UK’s second ‘least liked’ group, after Gypsy and Irish Travellers, with 25.9% of the British public feeling negative towards Muslims.

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Reposted from Security Management Magazine

Facing discrimination at work shakes your confidence, no matter your gender. But the psychological consequences of gender discrimination affect men and women differently.

According to research by the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, as published in the Academy of Management Journal, gender discrimination affects women’s self-efficacy—one’s confidence in the ability to carry out work tasks—by reinforcing perceived assumptions about women’s lack of competence or suitability for leadership roles.

The researchers found that low self-efficacy is associated with low motivation, disengagement from work tasks, and other negative outcomes that can impact women’s careers and outcomes within the organization.

Disengaged workers have 37 percent higher absenteeism, 49 percent more accidents, and make 60 percent more errors, according to a study by Queens School of Business and the Gallup Organization.

Approximately 42 percent of U.S. women have experienced discrimination at work because of their gender, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center report, and women are more likely than men to believe they have been treated as if they are incompetent, earn less pay than male counterparts for the same work, receive less support from senior leaders, or be passed over for important assignments.

The Marshall School of Business research found that men also experience perceived gender discrimination at work, although the majority of cases resulted from a belief that organizations are likely to discriminate against men to reduce discrimination against women—passing over a qualified man for a leadership position in favor of a woman candidate instead, for example.

“Anyone who is not confident in their abilities will never likely achieve their ultimate potential, feel proud of their contributions, or grow their skills to the extent they could,” Deb Boelkes, author of Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership, told the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). In addition, she added that if gender discrimination goes unresolved, it could create a toxic work environment that could undermine the organization as a whole.

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Reposted from Whyy

Visiting a museum can have measurable mental health benefits, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

Penn’s Positive Psychology Center has been analyzing a wide swath of psychological research associated with arts and culture, showing museums – in particular art museums – are good at reducing anxiety and depression.

“We’re seeing that going to an art museum is really effective at reducing your stress,” said postdoctoral fellow Katherine Cotter, who recently published her results in The Journal of Positive Psychology. “If we think about the stress hormone cortisol, there’s been a few studies examining if you just go for half an hour to an art museum and measure people’s cortisol levels before they go in, after half an hour it shows the kind of recovery time [normally] equivalent to a few hours.”

Cotter reviewed about 100 published reports from various disciplines related to arts and psychology to find research consensus that attending art museums – as opposed to experiencing art in the street, in a classroom, or online – can have mental health benefits.

“When we enter a museum, we’re entering it with an intention. We’re entering this particular space that has unique art, architecture, and has unique things that we’re going to be seeing whether it’s an art museum or another form of museum or cultural institution,” she said. “We engage different mindsets and different cognitive processes. Once we get into the meat and potatoes of the museum visit, we see ourselves more concerned communally, thinking about how things are interrelated in the world more broadly.”

Positive Psychology is a relatively young field of science, largely spearheaded at Penn by Dr. Martin Seligman, that focuses on accentuating the positive over reducing the negative. Cotter was brought in to work on a particular initiative, Art Museums for Well-Being, but was temporarily thwarted by the widespread museum shutdowns caused by the pandemic.

Instead, she plowed into the existing research to analyze what was already known. Cotter found that research tended to fall into particular categories: stress and anxiety reduction, alleviating pain, measuring emotional well-being, and – what she found most interesting – loneliness.

“It wasn’t just, ‘I look at this artwork and it makes me happy,’ it’s thinking about broader things that facilitate other well-being and flourishing outcomes,” she said. “We know that loneliness and social isolation is a precedent to a host of negative health consequences and outcomes.”

Cotter hopes to use the research analysis to lay a foundation for further work. She said much of the existing research on the benefits of engaging with culture tends to focus on repairing damage to a person’s mental health, i.e. fixing a negative, whereas more work could be done to investigate how arts and culture can cause people to flourish.

“What are the positive things, the positive side of the ledger, that can come from engagement in arts and culture,” said James Pawelski, the Positive Psychology Center’s director of education. “Things like positive emotional states, a sense of resiliency, a sense of meaning in life, a connection with one’s own strengths, a connection with one’s community.”

By casting a wide net into the mental health benefits of museums and analyzing the findings, the review of scientific literature could also help museums put the science to practical use.

“One trajectory that we’re very much interested in is exploring the types of programs that art museums tend to put on, and what trends are emerging for new types of programs that might be implemented,” said Cotter.

Cotter is particularly interested in the way museums have pivoted hard to digital programming during the pandemic. The flexibility of online activity could allow museums to more easily implement behavioral health elements.

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Reposted from Next Pittsburg

Lucy Stewart loves to meander through the Carnegie Museum of Art, stopping to take in something she never noticed before, or just to rest and let her mind wander.

It’s one reason that Stewart, the museum’s associate curator of education, created Mindful Museum, which gives visitors over age 55 access to early morning programming on Wednesdays. The monthly agenda through December includes art paths with meditation stops, drawing, chair yoga and art history classes — offered on site and virtually.

“It’s an idea I’ve had for a while, thinking about senior audiences and creating a series of programs that could coalesce as one overall experience to support the social, cognitive and physical needs of our aging public,” says Stewart. “It ended up being the perfect moment to do so, as we have experienced Covid and a lot of what seniors have experienced with isolation.”

Mindful Museum began in May and at least 100 people have signed up already, about half of whom show up on any given Wednesday. The one-time registration fee is $80 — museum members pay $50 — but scholarships are available for those who can’t afford the cost.

“We do not allow that to deter someone from coming,” Stewart says. “You can drop in and out. We have a variety of experiences, depending on which Wednesday you select. … People are very hungry for content and being able to connect with each other.”

The museum opens at 10 a.m. so the early access provides “beautifully quiet galleries where people can sit and look and enjoy, and not feel rushed,” says Stewart. She devised the walks with meditation stops after noticing that many older museum visitors typically stop to rest and ponder. Meditation recordings the museum offered during Covid remain popular.

“We have to think about what’s there for [older adults],” says Stewart. “In Pittsburgh, we have a higher demographic of older people. In the half-mile radius within walking distance of the museum, there are more than 20,000 people over 55 — that’s Oakland, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside. It’s a large number and it continues to grow.”

Among the 992,084 adults in Allegheny County, 226,124 are seniors. Nationally, the Census Bureau projects that by 2034, the number of Americans age 65 and older (77.0 million) will outnumber those under age 18 (76.5 million).

Stewart cites studies that demonstrate the benefits of art therapy for seniors, such as a report produced for the American Alliance of Museums in 2021 that found museums help immensely to reduce loneliness, risk of dementia and premature death among older Americans. And a study published in 2019 in the British Medical Journal by researchers from the University College London found that older adults who visited just once a year had a 14 percent lower risk of early death (31 percent lower for those who took in exhibitions regularly).

The feedback from Mindful Museum participants is heartwarming, Stewart says.

“We’ve had incredible, positive feedback — more than I could have imagined,” she says. “People are interested in staying active and they want to meet other people. One gentleman whose wife recently passed always says how much she would have loved it, so he’s coming for himself but also for her. Another gentleman brings his wife who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, because it’s something they can still share.”

In 2008, the Carnegie Museum of Art started In the Moment, tours for visitors with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Museum staff make certain that people can enjoy art no matter what their limitations may be: ramps make the two floors of exhibitions accessible to those with disabilities; guided tours with rich descriptions and hands-on materials assist the visually impaired; and for those with hearing limitations, there are tours in American Sign Language.

As the Mindful Museum participants engage in activities, such as group drawing or chair yoga, “people are remembering each other, which is lovely,” Stewart says. “So it’s supporting all of those different needs.”

Stewart ensured that Mindful Museum had a virtual component for people who can’t visit in person. The museum’s CMOA From Home also has a daily art agenda to encourage art immersion.

“There are seniors at home who cannot or will not, for whatever reasons, leave their home, so I feel that online and on site are equally important,” Stewart says. “Online will always remain a part of what we offer.”

Those who have been showing up on Wednesdays are beginning to tell their friends to come with them, she says.

“I always say, ‘If you have someone who’s on the fence about it, bring them along,” she says. “The museum is a place where I learned to draw, and it’s a place where I’ve spent 27 years [as a curator], where I’ve learned to be me,” she says. “People can embrace that statement and fill it in — hang out, walk, be me, whatever the case may be.

“Museums are places of conversation and dialogue and coming together. We need to foster that and the idea of connecting with someone.”

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Reposted from Security Management Magazine

History has an odd way of repeating itself, for better or for worse. Just as the 1918 influenza pandemic contributed to the Great Depression, the world faces an eerily similar situation with the coronavirus pandemic leading to the Great Resignation, or what some are calling the Big Quit.

The Great Resignation describes the phenomenon whereby employees of all levels are voluntarily leaving their jobs in response to COVID-19. According to an August 2021 survey by Bankrate, 55 percent of employed Americans are likely to seek new employment in the next 12 months. Whether due to burnout, recruitment, or poor company culture, the Great Resignation has driven leaders all over the world to take a step back and reconsider what it takes to retain employees during such a tumultuous time.

Of course, navigating the new hybrid workplace model can make retention even more challenging, as employees working both remotely and on-site have different needs and preferences. Staff are also holding employers to higher expectations than ever before. This certainly includes fair compensation, but employees today are asking for much more than bigger paychecks. According to recent survey results from IBM, employees are also prioritizing work–life balance, career advancement opportunities, benefits, and employer ethics and values.

Given this information, what approach can companies take to keep their staff from joining the millions of Great Resignees? To put it simply: implement a people-first mind-set within your hybrid business model. Companies that follow this strategy have seen positive results in terms of talent retention and employee satisfaction.

But what does a people-first approach look like, and how can it be implemented? Below are the do’s and don’ts for businesses looking to transform their company culture and retain staff.

Don't Forget to Lay Down the Foundation at the Top

In a people-first organization, being a successful executive manager means being acutely aware of employee morale and—especially—their happiness. This is not an easy job, which is why it is essential for businesses to hire self-aware, empathic executives and set expectations for them on day one.

A people-first mindset is a companywide commitment, beginning with a rock-solid foundation. This must originate from top executives and those in leadership positions. A people-first organization must communicate with all leaders that their performance will be evaluated, in part, on the satisfaction and retention of those they manage. If they are not on board from the start, a people-first approach will never be successful, especially in a hybrid environment.

Don’t Be the Leader Who Is All Talk and No Action

It is important to highlight that leaders are not exempt from the above standards. There should be no delegation from the top executive when it comes to fostering a people-first culture. On the contrary, people-first leaders play the biggest role in cultivating and perpetuating a positive, welcoming environment. Leaders need to be walking the talk and actively demonstrating that they are putting in the effort each and every day. This means reaching out—prioritizing people above everything else—and being flexible enough to make changes so others don’t feel lonely or marginalized.

For example, when the pandemic was spreading in March 2020, my company began to see a trend of selective layoffs and terminations across the region. Our employees were worried about their jobs. As the leader in the region, I immediately addressed those concerns with a series of internal communications that responded to employee concerns in an honest way. I encouraged people to keep working from home since we were still open for business—even though we were 100 percent remote. Then I worked with our finance team to apply for a U.S. government Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan to ensure that we had adequate cash on hand to keep our personnel employed. We have since paid back the loan, and we never had to lay off a single person. Our strategy paid off—employee morale and loyalty were maintained throughout the pandemic.  

Leaders should approach people with authentic empathy and understanding so they can mitigate a lot of employee stress and anxiety. When leaders commit to the people-first initiative, it will signal to their employees that they are valued as individuals, making them happier workers. And happy workers, as studies have shown, are more productive workers—13 percent more productive, to be exact.

Do Select Core Values that Foster Team-Building and Openness

Let’s face it, even daily team-building happy hours are not able to fix deeply rooted issues within an organization. A successful hybrid organization must establish core values that foster a culture of inclusion and openness—and live by them. If a company wishes to successfully move to a hybrid model, it has to select core values that permit such a model to work in the first place. Core values that center on reliability, openness, innovation, and flexibility must be widely visible to employees both on- and off-premises.

Leaders have to double down with clear actions to put those values front and center in their employees’ everyday working lives. Similarly, organizations must re-visit, prioritize, and showcase their mission statement, and ensure that current and prospective employees align with it.

When the big-picture goals are clear and prominently featured in day-to-day work life—and these align with an open company culture—employees will have a much easier time committing to an organization’s objectives and purpose whether they are geographically together or not.

Do Provide Your Employees with a Channel for Open Communication

Employees should feel empowered and welcome to have open and honest conversations with colleagues of all levels—anywhere from an entry-level person to the CEO—no matter where they are. Nobody should be off-limits to anybody within a successful hybrid organization. Having an open-door policy with a remote/distributed workforce will break down barriers and encourage constructive and healthy conversations to occur, enabling problems to be solved before they become overwhelming.

These open lines of communication not only ensure that all voices are heard, but also build trust among employees. When employees feel heard and trusted, they are more likely to stick around for the long haul.

Do Implement Policies that Align with Your Core Values

If you select core values that center on reliability, openness, innovation, and flexibility, then your policies need to showcase these values. For example, you could arm your personnel with notebook PCs instead of desktop computers and give them a flexible working environment so they have the freedom to work from wherever. You have to make certain that you put procedures and technology in place that ensure your business will be unaffected by your employees moving around.

For example, when the pandemic hit, we were already prepared and our staff could work remotely. We had installed cloud-based telephony (not just Microsoft Teams, but PureCloud for our call centers). We also had webcam capabilities for all laptops and external webcams for home office setups. TeamViewer for remote support work was already up and running, and we had already upgraded our Global VPN infrastructure which enabled us to have the capacity to handle over 1,000 users simultaneously across all regions. Finally, we were using cloud-based technologies to handle everything from project management to reporting to IT ticketing. The transition was seamless because we were already operating in a quasi-hybrid working environment prior to the pandemic.

In short, when you establish and foster company policies that enable a successful hybrid environment, you’ll be contributing directly to a people-first culture and aid in maintaining employee happiness and tenure.

Do Encourage Employees to Prioritize Their Mental Health

Work–life balance and mental health have been at the forefront of business conversations over the last two years, and for good reason. Research suggeststhat the majority of employees have experienced burnout at some point in their career, and businesses that wish to maintain a happy and motivated workforce must actively promote flexible workspaces and work–life balance. People are more than just the work they produce each week—business leaders must not only understand this, but treat it as a lens through which they view every aspect of the organization.

Companies that value their staff will put forth resources such as meditation or free counseling, encourage mental health days, and have open conversations to prove their commitment to employees. This is particularly useful in challenging times like a pandemic, and it can help support employees who may not easily adjust to the hybrid model. When employers spend time, money, and resources on creating an environment with a people-first mindset, they not only help to retain their staff, but they can also recruit new talent.

Retaining staff has never been more important than in the era of the Great Resignation. Although a healthy company culture does not guarantee employee retention, it aids in combating unhappiness and attrition. Company culture isn’t just about happy hours, a snack bar, or games in the office (although those perks may help); it’s also about a deeper, heartfelt philosophy. This is where the people-first mindset in a hybrid workplace comes into play. If executed properly and genuinely, businesses may avoid the Great Resignation and prosper in their own era of the Great Retention.

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Reposted from Artnet News

An astonishing scene unfolded at the Louvre on Sunday when a man in a wheelchair wearing a wig hurled a handful of cake at the Mona Lisa.

According to videos and eyewitness accounts shared on social media, the perpetrator, who has not been publicly identified, stood up from a wheelchair and approached La Gioconda, first attempting to break the glass before finally deciding to smear cake all over it. Damage to the painting was prevented by a sheet of bulletproof glass installed permanently in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic work.

A video posted online shows the perpetrator speaking to visitors in French as he is escorted away by security.

“There are people destroying the earth,” said the man who wore a ball cap over a black wig. “Artists come now to tell you to think of the earth, all artists think of the earth, that’s why I did this.”

The attack occurred while the gallery was brimming with tourists late Sunday afternoon. One social media user who was there described what he observed: “… [A] man dressed as an old lady jumps out of a wheelchair and attempted to the smash the bullet proof glass of the Mona Lisa,” he tweeted.

Artnet News wrote to the Louvre to confirm whether the man was detained and whether the work was damaged, but did not hear back by publishing time.

This is not the first time the Mona Lisa has been attacked. In 1956, a man threw sulfuric acid at the painting, damaging it. At a Tokyo exhibition in 1974, a woman in a wheelchair unsuccessfully attempted to spray red paint on it, in protest over the work’s lack of accessibility to people needing ramps. In the summer of 2009, a Russian man threw a cup of tea at it.

Since 1960, the Mona Lisa has been protected by a sheet of bullet proof glass, which now includes a sealed enclosure that consists of a 1.52-inch-thick glass able to withstand permanent temperatures of 43 degrees Fahrenheit and 50 percent humidity.

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Reposted from Security Management Magazine

Organizations are facing unprecedented challenges when it comes to globalization, risk management, and market volatility. This makes it of paramount importance that businesses and government entities pursue every competitive advantage, especially where public safety, law enforcement, and security are concerned.

The public and private sectors must remain constantly agile, able, and willing to recalibrate and realign mission goals and objectives to address ever-changing vulnerabilities and risks, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the methods an organization can bolster its competitive advantage is through the application of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) principles designed to enhance leadership’s strategic thinking around complex problem solving. Many successful organizations recently made workforce DE&I initiatives a critical priority. Such campaigns strengthen teamwork, collaboration, and innovation throughout a workforce. The overall added value of continued operational growth and development from these initiatives has seeped into upper echelons as executive-level management positions have even been established to advance DE&I concepts within the workplace.

Embracing DE&I principles not only supports the workforce and strengthens ethical and strategic leadership—it is also a catalyst for constructive organizational change in the 21st century.

DE&I in a Nutshell

The concept of diversity focuses on characteristics, similarities, and differences considerate of an individual’s national origin, culture, heritage, language, race, color, abilities, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, veteran status, and family structures. It also considers an individual’s upbringing, unique life experiences, and way of thinking.

The concept of equity focuses on fundamental fairness and respect for all individuals, where the application of processes and programs are fair and impartial to provide the opportunity to achieve equal possible outcomes for all. It also ensures legal obligations are upheld related to civil rights laws, including reasonable accommodations and equal employment opportunities.

The concept of inclusion seeks to establish an organizational culture, which fosters a sense of belonging and collaboration within the workplace where thoughts and perspectives can be shared in a safe environment. It also mitigates groupthink, or the practice of making decisions in a group setting that discourages creativity and diversity.

There are various tangible benefits for advancing DE&I within organizations. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) identified three key examples in its Diversity and Inclusion FAQ as to how DE&I advances social responsibility within communities, cultivates innovation, and increases return on investment for organizations:

Serving our communities and being socially responsible. “Diversity and inclusion increase an agency’s capacity to serve and protect people who have different experiences or backgrounds and enhance its ability to be receptive to different traditions and ideas. Law enforcement officers present a good example of the critical need to have civil servants who look like the people and communities they serve.”

Fostering innovation. “Increased creativity is another byproduct of capitalizing on differences. Research has shown that effective diversity management coupled with inclusive work environments improves organizational performance and innovation. Employees from varied backgrounds bring different perspectives, ideas, and solutions to the workplace that result in new products and services, challenge to the status quo, and new collaboration.”

Generating a return on investment. “Diversity and inclusion initiatives improve the quality of an agency’s workforce and are the catalyst for a better return on investment in human capital. One of the biggest budget items in any agency is the amount it spends on human resources in the form of salaries, benefits, training, development, and recruitment. In order to get a healthy return on investment in human capital and maximize competitive advantage, an agency must engage in recruitment and retention efforts that focus on acquiring the best and the brightest talent.”

While the OPM is a U.S. federal government entity, the benefits it identified resonate worldwide. As globalization continues to be a driving force impacting diplomatic, information, military, and economic elements of national power, organizations must successfully leverage and apply DE&I-related principles, concepts, and themes within their business strategies and operational frameworks. This is especially important where worldviews have an impact on negotiating agreements, managing expectations, understanding cultural norms, and forecasting business decisions in the open international market. Such practices should not only empower innovation, but they should help shepherd novel organizational changes that ensure more agile business enterprises are ready to address new challenges in a global environment.

Leveraging DE&I has proven to also increase strategic leadership capabilities by allowing decision makers to comprehensively assess issues from various frames of reference. This facilitates more informed evidence-based decisions, which consider second- and third-order effects of the available options. Many executive-level training programs, such as U.S. military war colleges, focus on strategic studies where students examine and assess the interrelationships between politics, economics, diplomacy, and the military from a global perspective. Such an analysis helps to ensure that senior-level decision-making processes apply a multifaceted analytical approach and that pivotal decisions are not made in a vacuum.

The application of DE&I can also play a key role in talent management initiatives. This not only focuses on recruitment and retention efforts, but also plays a role through succession planning to prepare the next generation of leaders within the organization.

Incorporating DE&I within a Business Strategy

Many government and business entities have already established strategies incorporating a DE&I-focused framework. Some organizations have reimagined their vision and mission statements to incorporate DE&I concepts. Other entities have included these concepts in their annual and five-year strategic plan documents, which serve as roadmaps for how an organization will strive to meet its strategic mission goals.

Some forward-leaning organizations crafted and implemented leadership tenets and associated foundational talking points as part of their professional development programs. These are intended to enhance employee collaboration and dialogue, cultivating critical and strategic thinking throughout the workforce. Such deliverables have been calibrated to address and further explore DE&I principles, themes, and concepts in support of building new and strengthening existing coalitions. (See “An Investment in Employees,” Security Management,October 2018.)

Substantial DE&I inroads are also being made at the interagency level, demonstrating a commitment toward advancing DE&I across U.S. government entities. In the second quarter of 2021, the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency established a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group. It collaborates with more than 25 Offices of Inspectors General (OIG) to advance the Inspector General community’s commitment to promoting positive office cultures and oversight work while supporting DE&I principles. Some initiatives of focus include the enhancement of the “lifecycle” experience of OIG employees from an enterprise talent management perspective and how to bolster oversight work by weaving DE&I principles into its audits, investigations, and evaluations in a manner that ultimately benefits everyone in the United States.

Leveraging DE&I in Training and Development

With organizations implementing DE&I within the workplace, significant advancements have been made by government and business entities seeking tailored training opportunities. Several organizations and companies—such as OPM’s Center for Leadership Development and consultant and training firm FranklinCovey—have been integrating DE&I concepts into their programming to focus on increasing self-awareness and identifying and internally processing unconscious and implicit bias and microaggressions. Curricula can also focus on the positive impacts DE&I can bring to an organization, and how constructive and diplomatic dissent can usher in novel changes for the betterment of the organization and its stakeholders.

Professional associations have also played an integral role in broadcasting the need to embrace DE&I principles within organizations. ASIS International established its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Community on the ASIS Connects platform, allowing security management practitioners to share their thoughts and ideas on DE&I-related discussion boards and advance collaborative professional development.

Affinity groups often host DE&I-focused regional and national seminars, workshops, and conferences. For instance, in May 2022, the Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC) is hosting its annual National Leadership Training Program (NLTP). May also marks Asian American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which this year is themed Advancing Leaders Through Collaboration.

This year’s NLTP focuses on OPM’s Executive Core Qualifications, which provide a professional development framework for employees to build upon their leadership and managerial skill sets that will ultimately increase organizational competitive advantage.

Several academic institutions, such as Southern New Hampshire University, have also conducted noteworthy curricula reviews to ascertain whether undergraduate and graduate course content should be reimagined using a DE&I-focused perspective as it relates to artifacts and deliverables employed, and whether additional progress can be made to further diversify authors of such content.

For example, several educational institutions in the California State University System—including California State University, East Bay—promote the benefits of undergraduate and graduate internships. These opportunities provide the university’s students with significant professional experience, allowing them to develop cross-cultural skills while working in diverse settings.

Youth organizations have also been crucial in promoting DE&I to develop young people to become better global citizens. In support of such efforts, the Boy Scouts of America (Scouts BSA) announced in November 2021 the creation of the Citizenship in Society Merit Badge, enabling scouts to learn about DE&I and ethical leadership and understand why such tenets are not only important in scouting, but necessary in a global society.

Securing the Advantage

For organizations to successfully navigate challenges in a dynamic operational environment against the backdrop of increased globalization, it is essential their leadership leverage critical and strategic thinking, which is grounded upon DE&I concepts, principles, and themes.

The implementation of such a framework throughout the workplace will not only manifest increased agility and resilience to respond to rapidly changing priorities, but it will also cultivate innovation and bolster talent management initiatives within the organization. To truly pioneer and lead change, successful organizations must strive to be fully invested in including DE&I in business operations. Otherwise, such a pivot in branding can be perceived as a hollow sound bite that does not manifest any value added to the organization, its employees, and stakeholders.

Employee salary, benefits, and training are essentially some of the largest line items for many organizational budgets. As such, it is imperative to enhance the lifecycle experience of employees by promoting DE&I principles within the workplace to assist in increasing employee satisfaction, self-worth, and personal involvement in the organization. If organizations can be successful in the endeavor of leveraging DE&I principles within the ethos of the workplace, not only will such application serve as the ultimate mutual return on investment for organizations and employees alike, but it will truly optimize and advance organizational competitive advantage in the 21st century’s volatile and uncertain environment.

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Reposted from the Seattle Times

As members of the Seattle Art Museum, Alan Akioka and his wife are always sure to see the museum’s special exhibits before they’re gone, even during the pandemic, but they’ve been wary of crowds, continuing to wear their masks in enclosed spaces.

They were happy to discover recently that they could have the best of both worlds at SAM’s monthly mask-required hour.

From 9-10 a.m. last Saturday, an hour before the museum’s regular opening time, patrons could visit SAM and the Seattle Asian Art Museum knowing that everyone in the galleries, including staff and all other patrons, would be wearing a face mask.

“It’s mostly a comfort level thing,” Akioka said. “I’m not necessarily afraid of catching COVID, but I still don’t want to get sick.”

Throughout the pandemic, SAM has aligned with the guidance of public health officials, so masks were required for entry for much of last year. Since King County dropped its mask mandate in March, this new concept will hopefully be a way to bring in people who are otherwise uncomfortable visiting or are more vulnerable to COVID-19, said Rachel Eggers, SAM associate director of public relations.

There will be two more mask-required hours — the third Saturdays in June and July — and SAM is open to providing more if there is good turnout. 

SAM sold 56 presale tickets for Saturday’s mask-required hour, and more than 80% of those tickets were for “Our Blue Planet: Global Visions of Water,” SAM’s special exhibit about the significance of water, which closes Monday, May 30. 

Jill Sells, a SAM member who brought her daughter to the exhibit Saturday, advocated for more than one hour a month of mask-required time, but thought Saturday was a good start. She still wears her mask in public places, though the mandate has dropped.

“It’s a good protective measure against COVID in general, so I don’t see any reason not to do it for now,” she said. “Certainly now with rates increasing here and across the country, there’s no reason to be exposing people more than we need to.”

Melissa Rothe and her husband took their three boys to the exhibit Saturday, the family’s first museum experience since the pandemic began. When they discovered SAM was having a mask-required hour last Saturday, they grabbed free passes through their King County library cards.

Rothe said that more places that are prone to crowds could benefit from a mask-required hour, and her family would visit any museum that institutes something similar. Her son Ethan, 12, seconded that, saying the mask-required hour makes him feel safer when visiting museums, which he enjoys doing.

“I just like looking at all the cool stuff that people have built in the past and things that have happened before us,” he said.

Akioka said he thinks one hour a month is enough and is efficient, allowing people to make their own choice about when they want to attend the museum.

Mikhael Mei Williams, SAM’s chief marketing officer, said the museum initially began discussions of a mask-required hour last summer when the local government temporarily rescinded its mask mandate, recognizing that was a deterrent for some visitors.

“Accessibility and inclusivity are important goals for SAM,” Mei Williams said. “This was something that we wanted to do to make sure that we could give as many people as possible access to the museum.”

Chelsea Leingang, SAM’s visitor experience assistant manager, said the museum has had a lot more visitors since King County dropped its mask mandate, and most of them aren’t wearing masks.

“A lot of people are coming in wearing masks, and then they take them off when they ask us if it’s optional,” Leingang said.

The museum has safety measures in place for staff, like plexiglass at points where they interact with patrons, and most of the staff still chooses to wear masks, including Leingang.

“Absolutely. 100%,” Leingang said. “For my safety and for their safety, and kind of front-line sticking together.”

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Reposted NBC Dallas-Fort Worth

A man accused of breaking into the Dallas Museum of Art overnight and destroying more than $5 million in irreplaceable artwork tells police he broke in and caused damage because he "got mad at his girl."

According to an arrest warrant obtained by NBC 5 Thursday afternoon, a man identified by police as 21-year-old Brian Hernandez was apprehended late Wednesday night at the museum after he forced his way inside and destroyed several items.

The arresting document said Hernandez smashed the glass front entrance to the museum with a metal chair at about 9:40 p.m. and once inside intentionally damaged or destroyed $5,153,000 worth of artwork including several pots and statues.

A guard told police after a motion sensor went off he and another guard went to investigate the concourse and found the man. The guards asked him what he was doing and he said "he got mad at his girl so he broke in and started destroying property." 

The guard told Hernandez to sit on a bench while he called the police, which he did. That's where officers found him when they arrived a short time later.

Police did a walk-through of the museum with the director of security and noted multiple art displays and cases had been destroyed.

Surveillance video reviewed by Dallas Police and referenced in the arresting document said Hernandez used a stool to destroy at least two display cases worth $17,000 each along with four pieces, a "Black Figure Panel Amphora 6th Century Greece" pot and a "Red Figure Pyxis 450 B.C." pot that were both shattered. The pots, together, were valued at $5 million. A 6th Century ceramic cup, "Kylix Herakles and Nemeon Lion," valued at $100,000, and the Caddo statue "Batah Kuhuh Alligator Gar Fish," valued at $10,000, were also destroyed.

"The items inside of the display cases that were destroyed are rare ancient artifacts that are extremely precious and one of a kind," police said in the affidavit.

Other items, including a computer, a phone, a bench and signage were also destroyed.

Police said final valuations of the damage done inside the museum may change based on the final assessment by the museum's curator and insurance provider. Photos of the damaged and destroyed artwork have not yet been released. 

"While we are devastated by this incident, we are grateful that no one was harmed," the museum said in a statement. "The safety of our staff and visitors, along with the care and protection of the art in our stewardship, are our utmost priorities."

Hernandez was booked into the Dallas County Jail on a charge of criminal mischief greater than $300,000 and is being held on a bond of $100,000. Police said during an interview with detectives Hernandez confessed to destroying the property. Jail records did not list an attorney.

Though some of the permanent collection galleries were closed due to the ongoing investigation, The Dallas Museum of Art was open to visitors Thursday.

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Reposted from the Antiquities Coalition

The Antiquities Coalition commends Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for the seizure of 5 Egyptian masterpieces, worth over €3 million euros / $3.2 million dollars, from New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”). A search warrant alleges the artifacts are evidence demonstrating “the crimes of criminal possession of stolen property” and “conspiracy to commit the same crimes.” The Art Newspaper broke the story on June 1. 

The seizure is part of a wider criminal probe, involving police in several countries, that has exposed an international trafficking ring operating out of Egypt and war zones such as Libya, Syria, and Yemen. As part of this investigation, just last week, French authorities reported they are also targeting Jean-Luc Martinez, a French scholar and statesman. Martinez headed the Louvre Museum in Paris for nearly a decade and is currently France’s special ambassador for international cooperation on cultural heritage.

“The Louvre and the Met were the gold standard—tarnished now—of museums around the world,” said Deborah Lehr, Founder and Chairman of the Antiquities Coalition. “Yet even as they spearheaded commendable efforts to fight ISIS’ illicit trade in ‘blood antiquities,’ both failed to keep their institutions from entanglement in a criminal network that smuggled millions of dollars worth of cultural treasures from areas of unrest in the Middle East. This disconnect should serve as a warning. If our foremost museums, with entire departments of lawyers and scholars on staff, cannot ensure their collections are not the products of crime and conflict, then there is a clear and urgent need for stronger legal protections in the art market.”

The Antiquities Coalition has frequently warned that the $65.1 billion dollar art market remains the largest unregulated market in the world. Museums have a unique opportunity—as well as a responsibility—to set the legal and ethical standard for all who operate within this wider market. Many are thankfully meeting this challenge head on, but this week’s news shows there is much more that can be done. 

Here are five recommendations that could have a significant impact:

• Hire an independent, outside firm to conduct a comprehensive and credible external investigation.The Louvre, Met, and all other museums implicated in this matter are public institutions. The public has a right to know whether they followed not only the letter, but the spirit of the law. 

• Understand the problem. It is critical to combatting looting and trafficking, recovering stolen works, and ensuring marketplace integrity. The art market and museum community, due both to their unmatched expertise, as well as their unique situation, can help answer questions no others can. There is also a real need to report suspicious activity to relevant authorities when permitted by law. 

• Launch an awareness campaign. As educational institutions, museums have an unmatched platform to help policymakers, the art market, and the general public better understand the threats from cultural racketeering and how we can fight back together. Through exhibitions, lectures and other programming, they could reach a wide audience. 

• Strengthening best practices. Many of the ethical guidelines, national laws, and international treaties we rely on to combat the illicit trade are now decades old. It is time to upgrade our strategies, just as criminals have updated theirs, to protect both our cultural heritage and the legitimate art market. Museums should be at the forefront of efforts to do this.

• Capacity building. Training in provenance research and authentication, as well as having dedicated museum staff to research acquisitions and object history, can make a significant difference. As this case demonstrates, such steps are also needed to protect institutions not only from unethical behavior, but criminal liability.

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