A required leadership training program at retail pharmacy giant CVS asks participants to confess their privilege as part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) action plan, as well as pledge their allyship to various social justice causes, according to documents obtained by The Daily Wire.
The training, titled “Creating a DEI Action Plan,” was given last month to employees in the General Management Development Program, an accelerator program that prepares CVS professionals for careers in management. The training is labeled “GMDP Rotation 2 Curriculum” and demands that participants conduct a personal audit of their biases and commit to pushing the DEI agenda as allies.
“CVS Health’s commitment to inclusion and belonging is unwavering, and our holistic approach to strategic diversity management is inclusive of every one of our colleagues and those we care for each day,” a slide from the DEI training obtained by The Daily Wire states.
The pharmacy giant’s embrace of the DEI agenda comes as corporations across the country have faced backlash to the DEI agenda, with many high-profile companies backpedaling away from the woke philosophy. But others, including now CVS, appear to have doubled down on DEI.
Its embrace comes as it is criticized by the Left for the decision to close stores in blue cities where crime is surging. “What they care about is maximizing profits for their shareholders,” said Jenny Guadamuz, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley in regards to the store closures. “They’ll make any excuse to close lower-profit stores, which are in these Black and Latino communities.”
But in private, CVS appears to be instructing all of its employees to acknowledge that they have biases.
In one slide titled, “My Personal Commitment to Moving Forward – Allyship and Advocacy,” the company demands that those in the leadership training program “reflect on the actions you can take to become a better ally and advocate in the workplace.”
Obtained by The Daily Wire
The presentation asks employees to make three allyship pledges, with a prompt reading, “To be a better ally and advocate in the workplace, I will commit to.” Participants are also asked to outline “specific actions I can take to be a better advocate” as well as why “it is important to create a culture of advocacy.”
“Use the below steps to define your personal commitment to moving forward in combatting biases,” reads another slide from the training titled, “My Personal Commitment to Moving Forward – Biases.” It goes on to ask: “Where are areas that you tend to have biases? What privileges do you have that others do not?”
Obtained by The Daily Wire
The slide asks participants to document “The personal bias I want to address” and “the inclusive trait I want to develop,” also inquiring how “addressing this personal bias will impact the CVSH/GMDP culture.”
“These two slides focus on identifying and combatting our personal biases and steps we can take to be allies and advocates,” the presentation says. “Allyship, advocacy, and combatting biases are major actions we can take to serve as champions of diversity, equity and inclusion.”
In response to an inquiry on the training, the company said it is part of the effort to “promote and maintain a culture and work environment that fosters inclusion, belonging, and engagement.”
“We remain focused on hiring, developing, and retaining a talented workforce that represents and reflects the diversity of the customers, communities, and patients we support,” CVS Health told The Daily Wire.
The training says that one of the “core” capabilities it’s looking for out of the leadership program is “inclusiveness.”
“Specifically in Rotation 2, we focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Involvement,” the training says. “Creating a DEI action plan is a great first step in identifying specific steps you can take to build your involvement in company-wide initiatives or your own daily practices.”
Another portion of the training showcases a “Social Identity Wheel,” calling on participants to discuss their gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity and consider the “identities you think about most often” as well as the “Identities that have the strongest effect on how you see yourself as a person.”
There appear to be other DEI trainings for GMDP participants, with one slide asserting that the exercises give participants “the foundation to engage in the remaining Rotation 2 ‘Inclusiveness’ curriculum items.”
The full presentation can be viewed here.