Page 8 - The MILConnection: Fall 2021

MIL Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) effort updates

In 2020, MIL took the opportunity to assess how our employees perceive MIL’s diversity and equity
practices. Many of you participated in the core working groups to provide valuable, honest feedback
to the MyHR consultants who facilitated each group while most of you participated in the online
survey regarding DE&I issues. The results of the assessment were on point with our leadership’s
impressions: good, is not good enough. After a deeper dive into those results, MIL is ready to kick off
its companywide efforts to improve and engrain practices and policies which will formalize our goal
of providing a culture of diversity, equal opportunity, and inclusivity. If we stake the claim that our
people make the difference, we should ensure those people know how much they are valued—by the
company leadership as well as by their peers.
» While making a workplace more diverse and inclusive is simply the right thing to do, there are
also measured business cases for how such efforts actually create better working conditions.
According to Indeed.com studies, the five greatest benefits of diversity are:
» Diversity increases innovation, creativity, and strategic thinking. Teams of people who come
from different backgrounds, ethnicities, races, and genders are able to draw on a greater degree of
unique solutions and ideas.
» Diverse groups make better business decisions than non-diverse teams up to 87% more of the
time because they process facts more carefully.
» Diverse teams are more productive and generate greater profit margins. In fact, 55% of job
seekers look for companies that prioritize diversity and inclusion. Additionally, companies in the
top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams are 15% more likely to generate above-
average profitability.
» Employees feel comfortable and happier in inclusive environments where their contributions are
recognized and respected. This leads to higher rates of loyalty and employee retention—which
builds stronger bonds among team members.
» Companies who promote and engrain diversity, equity, and inclusion into their culture and
strategic ethos are seen as more relatable, socially responsible, and human which improves brand
reputation, stronger customer relationships, and new market opportunities.
We look forward to sharing more with you as the DE&I Core Working Group creates the strategic
plan for creating a more inclusive workplace. If you would like to join us and develop meaningful
changes at MIL, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at DEI@milcorp.com if you
are interested.

Zero trust = 100% security

On September 13, 2021, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a draft of the
federal government’s Federal Zero Trust Strategy for public comment. The federal government’s
development of a “zero trust” model is a direct result of President Biden’s Executive Order (EO)
14028 issued in May of this year, which is aimed at improving the nation’s cybersecurity posture.
According to the Zero Trust Reference Architecture developed by the U.S. Department of Defense,
“The foundational tenet of the Zero Trust Model is that no actor, system, network, or service
operating outside or within the security perimeter is trusted. Instead, we must verify anything and
everything attempting to establish access. It is a dramatic paradigm shift in philosophy of how
we secure our infrastructure, networks, and data, from verify once at the perimeter to continual
verification of each user, device, application, and transaction.”
In short, Don’t Trust, Verify.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also released its draft Zero Trust
Maturity Model to accompany OMB’s Federal Zero Trust Strategy. According to CISA, their
model is designed to provide agencies with both “a roadmap and resources to achieve an optimal
zero trust environment.”
The federal government’s sweeping, government-wide initiative reflects a more pragmatic view
of the scope, magnitude, and maturity of the cybersecurity risks faced by the Nation. With a goal

8 | The mil connection | Fall 2021