Diversity & Inclusion in the Maintenance Community with Caitlyn Young-Gilbert

It is my pleasure to welcome Caitlin Young Gilbert to the podcast. She is the Chief of Staff at Upkeep.

In this episode we covered:

What type of trends are you seeing in maintenance lately?
The maintenance community’s been going strong for a year now, what prompted Upkeep to start the maintenance community to begin with?
Did you intend to make sure that there was diversity and inclusion built into it before you launched, or did that just happen organically?

What type of trends are you seeing in maintenance lately?

Something I’m noticing is that people really want to hear as many perspectives as possible. I think early we would hear questions that were yes or no answers. The discussions I’m noticing in the maintenance community are now evolving to be a lot more theoretical in nature.

The maintenance community’s been going strong for a year now, what prompted Upkeep to start the maintenance community to begin with?

This was completely born from the COVID 19 pandemic. Before COVID, Ryan and I had been discussing on how to make the most of the maintenance industry. There were a lot of people, customers and non-customers messaging us on LinkedIn and emails asking related questions. People are comfortable with the slack space and knowing that that’s a resource they can use to get knowledge from around the world. It started all from just trying to solve a problem during COVID.

Did you intend to make sure that there was diversity and inclusion built into it before you launched, or did that just happen organically?

I think we always knew that we wanted it to be a global space where people could then sign in what time zone was convenient for them. I think we knew diversity inclusion would naturally follow because of that. We knew that we were blowing those doors wide open and that more people would have access.

What is inclusion and why is it so important to this type of a community?

Inclusion is really being about being purposeful. It is about being very thoughtful of when you see certain populations not presented in our slack space, and reaching out to groups that have those different populations or those industries and bringing them in. It’s making sure that if we notice there is a voice missing or a perspective that could really be included more in our topics going out and finding those groups.

Do you see changing trends in the diversity inclusion in maintenance and reliability?

I think it’s absolutely changing. If you think about the community, you don’t need to be an expert to post a question and start a discussion. I think diversity of perspective and lowering the bar of who is able to be a thought starter on a topic is really changing. And so that when you think about lowering that bar, anyone, any gender, any location can now be that person.

How do organizations promote or continue to support that type of diversity inclusion within not just the maintenance community, but maybe their own facility?

Part of it is making sure that your group is involved in any wider regional networking events or digital societies. The answer isn’t always hiring lots of different people from different perspectives and bringing them in. What you can do though is maybe set aside a budget or set aside time, make sure that the organization is investing in the employees' education.

You started the maintenance community to help share knowledge, to promote the diversity and inclusion. Have you been able to achieve those goals that you set out to?

We have set goals every single quarter after quarter in the maintenance community team. We want to include X amount, more groups into this space. We are specifically going to target historically black colleges or female stem groups, etc. Every quarter we pick one area of diversity inclusion we want to focus on because we can’t boil the ocean and pick specific group and then make sure we hit those goals. So yes.

What else are you guys doing at Upkeep to promote diversity and inclusion?

We make sure that our team is also very aware and educated on the diversity that exists in our field.

I’m also now the host of women in maintenance podcast. Talking in real life with women in the field, hearing their stories, hearing their advice for future generations has been personally so awesome.

How many episodes do you have out right now?

We have one episode. We’ve recorded a few, and so they’re getting processed. The goal is to eventually make it a weekly podcast.

What's the one thing you want everyone listening to take away regarding diversity inclusion, community, all those great things we talked about?

Just remembering that while all these topics can feel overwhelming, try to make sure that you approach conversations with kindness. Make sure that you are including different voices, you’re seeking out different perspectives. That really does make a difference. Success will come when we put that time in.

Is there anything else that you want to talk about events going on and resources you would recommend?

We’ve talked a lot about the maintenance community. If you are not a member yet, please head over to upkeep.org. That’s where you'll find all information about upcoming events. We do lots of fun giveaways and educational resources. That’s how you’ll find ways to join the maintenance community slack group. Please feel free to follow me on LinkedIn under Caitlin Young Gilbert.

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