DICE’s Community Celebrations

Ensuring everyone feels seen and heard is intrinsic to our DEI mission at DICE. As the DEI Community Manager, it’s my responsibility to work with our Employee Community Groups (ECGs) and build out the Global Belonging Programme in all of our territories. 

Since joining in March 2023, we’ve seen a significant increase in our ECG committee participation from 20% to 85%. It’s been fulfilling to work with so many individuals who strive to be a part of the positive change here at DICE, and with this, we have been able to put on more educational and celebratory activities this quarter.

Building community doesn’t happen overnight. This requires a collective effort from our internal stakeholders. We launched …Just For Vibes, a series of breakfasts each quarter “just for vibes,” to increase the vibrancy and connection in our global offices. 

Since launching in September 2023, we have seen a significant rise in engagement, with over 160% increase in people attending, hanging out, and getting to know one another over breakfast.

Our first …Just For Vibes of 2024 was a welcome back that allowed us to collaborate with our Product & Engineering team by catering their Product Summit. Our London office neighbours, Albers, supplied a delicious spread. In March, we worked with our Women/Femme ECG for a special …Just For Vibes International Women’s Day edition, where we spotlighted local women/femme-owned vendors. Our breakfasts took place in our global offices; London, NYC, Paris, Milan, and Barcelona, to ensure our global community felt included.

The Culture Collective ECG (representing our vast range of cultures and backgrounds at DICE) set things in motion in our US territories with inspiring events for Black History Month. This year's theme of “African American Contribution to the Arts” gave us an exuberant space to build from.

Our US ECG members organised: 

• A Black History Month Trivia Night during Happy Hour. Teams delved into the impact of Black culture across the arts, hosted by our Talent Lead, Jozik Benitez. 
• A Book Club Discussion on The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin provided our employees with an opportunity to learn more about the late great writer and his reflections on early life in Harlem and his experience in America as a Black man. We invited NYU Associate Professor, Matthew D. Morrison to lead this captivating discussion where he shared additional context to Baldwin’s era and dived into themes within the book whilst drawing on its influence to the arts.  
• An outing to Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys at the Brooklyn Museum gave our employees a moment to enrich themselves within the art of this generation and pasts and learn through the unseen works of Jean-Michel Basquiat to Gordon Parks and Kehinde Wiley to Lorna Simpson. 
• We hosted a panel on The Joy of Black Artistry with five panellists spanning many art practises, immersing our employees into an enthralling dialogue between Bertram Knight, Tiffany B. Chanel, Steven John Irby (aka Stevesweatpants), Donna Rizzo and Tochi, hosted by our DEI Program Manager, Nzingha Crusoe. 

Through this rich and thoughtful collection of events, we captured an honest depiction of the African American experience and spotlighted the Black community we have here at DICE.

When our Global Financial Operations Manager, Richie Quinto, shared that he wanted to celebrate Lunar New Year 2024, we jumped at the chance to create an authentic experience for employees.

For the Year of the Dragon, our Culture Collective ECG and our East Asian employees organised: 

• Gift vouchers for boba delivery sent in traditional red envelopes, conveying good wishes, blessings, and symbolising the essence of family and community.
• A traditional Lion Dance performance and teachings about why dancing is an intrinsic part of the festivities. We then rounded up the evening by feasting on food from local vendors.
• In our London office, we hired a Chinese musician who specialised in playing the Pipa, a traditional Chinese Lute that symbolises heaven, earth and man. After the transfixing performance, we all tucked into dumplings!
• One of the highlights was our global Lunar New Year call, an opportunity for those who celebrated to explain to us what the Lunar New Year means to them and how they celebrate. This call spotlighted five of our East Asian employees: VP of Consumer Marketing, Andrea Chen; Chief Business Office, Katie Soo; Manager of Global Financial Operations, Richie Quinto; our FP&A Manager, Madeline Delamielleure, and our US Comms Manager, Joomi Park. 

With women making up 49% of DICE employees, it was important for us to celebrate the uniqueness of their experiences this International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. 

Our Women/Femme ECG saw this as an opportunity to talk through the lived experiences of the women/femme leads within our 5 ECGs; Sophie Doherty from the Women/Femme group, Corrie Mclean of Pride 365 represents our LGBTQIA+ community, Kristin Robertson of Family First represents our community of parents and carers, Grace Roche of Neurons represents our neurodiverse community, and Chikka Moyo of The Culture Collective represents our vast array of cultures at DICE. Hosted by DICE’s DEI Partner, Zoé Collins, the conversation explored “Intersectionality”..

As the month continued, our Women/Femme ECG activated many events:

• Barcelona hosted a talk with Safe(r) Amorx, a side project of Me Siento Extraña, an LGBTQIA+ and FLINTA collective that runs educational events and parties.
• New York and London held self-defence workshops in the office open to all, to educate individuals on how to best defend themselves in the cities we live within.
• DICE has agreed to donate a variety of period products to support a local charity in Philadelphia called Homies Helping Homies.
• Paris took part in a Gong Bath workshop to raise the mental well-being of our community, allowing DICE employees to reconnect and realign with themselves.
• Our Milan team had lunch and a talk with Cristina Lazic, a former manager at Google and now an international dance/electronic DJ.
• Berlin supported a local women/femme-owned restaurant, The Klub Kitchen.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week is another great opportunity for us to spotlight our neurodiverse community at DICE and learn how best to nullify the stereotypes and misconceptions of neurological differences. 

Our Neurons ECG’s mission is to advocate for DICE’s neurodivergent team members to ensure they thrive in a supportive workplace. They have built a thriving community through bi-weekly support groups to speak openly about what they may be facing at work or in life, to increase their psychological safety at DICE. 

Eddie Richards, DICE’s Group Finance Director and Neurons ECG’s leadership sponsor, penned an insightful op-ed for Access All Areas on how live events should adapt for neurodiverse music fans.

To educate other DICE employees, our Neurons co-chair, Valentina Camporeale, enrolled the Milan office on a webinar on “The Benefits of Neurodiversity in the Workplace”, which considers how the corporate world experiences neuro-inclusive workplaces and speaks on the benefits of neuro-inclusion. 

This week will mark the end of Ramadan, where we put provisions in place for our Muslim community to have adequate prayer time in our quiet spaces across our global offices. After Ramadham, we will celebrate Eid Al-Fitr with a potluck gathering and a global call to learn about the significance of Eid from our DICE employees.

We’re also leading up to our annual Family Day at DICE in recognition of International Day of Families and planning for Pride Season over the summer!

What’s more, we’re excited to see the results of our DEI Survey 2024. This is an opportunity to hear from our people and understand how we can collectively create an even more diverse, fair and inclusive workplace ahead.