LYNN — The City Council gathered on Tuesday to discuss the city’s first equity audit, designed to help foster more diversity in workforces throughout the Lynn community.
Back in 2022, Lynn received $50,000 through the Massachusetts Community Compact Grant.
This funding helped Lynn establish a partnership with ReadySet, a consulting firm centered around cultural inclusion. According to Faustina Cuevas, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) officer for the city of Lynn, the goal is to conduct a carefully-targeted audit which would evaluate the organizational culture of the city.
Cuevas came before Committee members with a presentation that offered a detailed approach to tackling the issue of DEI within the community, emphasizing the importance of having a workforce that more accurately represents the community.
Cuevas noted that the city had not conducted an equity audit in the past, but highlighted that the audit offered a rare opportunity to evaluate diversity opportunities within the city of Lynn, both on an internal and public level.
“In order to figure out how well we’re doing, we have to talk to our employees about how they’re feeling about the work they’re doing,” Cuevas said. Earlier in 2024, Cuevas conducted surveys to evaluate employee experiences. She noted that this was the first of many steps toward gaining a better understanding of the issue.
Cuevas added that they are also currently conducting sitting sessions with the public. Two of these sessions were done in English, while one was done in Spanish. Cuevas also plans on doing two additional Spanish sessions.
One key point that Cuevas emphasized in her presentation involved educating public officials on DEI-specific training. This could include intercultural competence and implicit bias, management skills workshops for supervisors, and conflict resolution workshops. Cuevas also hopes to expand awareness and understanding of DEI throughout the community.
Cuevas also brought up the importance of generating a multilingual workforce and employment opportunities for women as critical areas for future development. To more accurately reflect the cultural backgrounds of employees, a heightened focus on heritage celebrations would be worked into the fray as well.
Another action recommended for the Committee to take was centered around expanding DEI initiatives within the workforce. By developing citywide standards for communication, the city can work toward generating more opportunities for community members, with the focus of maintaining a more equitable hiring process.
“We’re very lucky to have gotten the funds to conduct the audit,” Cuevas said. “It’s a very important step for the city to focus on creating more equity in the workforce. This is a great step towards that.”
