Ask & Share session on DEI

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is not just about policies or compliance—it’s about people, empathy, and real stories.

Ask & Share on DEI at L&D Studio!

In an inspiring Ask & Share in our L&D Studio community between Dr Joanna-Eugenia Bakouni (Maersk Training) and Georgina Stergiopoulou (Allwyn Lottery Solutions) coordinated by our Antigoni Paouni, Ioanna & Georgina explored why DEI must be deeply embedded in Learning & Development strategies.

📌 Some of our takeaways:

🗨️Traditional, text-heavy e-learning often fails to engage diverse learning styles, especially for neurodivergent individuals.

🗨️Many personality or promotion tests are not designed with neurodiversity in mind, leading to exclusion rather than inclusion.

🗨️Beyond overt discrimination, microaggressions—like assumptions about women’s life choices—can be just as damaging.

🗨️Leadership engagement remains a key challenge. While awareness sessions exist, true impact requires leaders to show up and set the tone.

🗨️Empathy must be at the heart of DEI: awareness is just the starting point, but the real goal is to empower people to support each other and build inclusive cultures.

🗨️There are sectors, like shipping, where there is a gender imbalance and respectively a structural inequality (our thought: is it something that should be changed or is it a reality to be accepted or embraced?)

💡What stays with us from this Ask & Share, is what Ioanna and Georgina highlighted: to embrace diversity and to enhance equity and inclusion, the power of human stories is what changes minds and hearts.

Our thought: L&D for diversity and inclusion needs more than learning (and goes far beyond training) It requires a culture and a constant cultivation of empathy, acceptance, curiosity, and active allyship.