YOU!

You have overcome a lot to be who and where you are. You have demonstrated courage, resilience and ingenuity. Therefore, you want your voices heard, opportunities for growth, to be recognized for your contributions and valued based on your expertise. You don’t want preconceived ideas about where you were born, to limit your professional development, earning power or opportunities to be included.

YOUR CHALLENGES:

As immigrants you may feel pressured to change aspects of your identity, like how you dress or hide your religion or even your accent to be accepted by your peers or to advance professionally. Unfortunately, you may have also experienced xenophobia and microaggressions in the workplace because you are an immigrant or a refugee. As a refugee, you may be stateless or belonging seems like an elusive dream, yet you continue to persevere towards achieving your goals. All these experiences take a toll on you, may foster feelings of isolation, anxiety, frustration and of being misunderstood. Inevitably, these feelings negatively impact your engagement and even productivity at work.

WHAT ACCENTUATE OFFERS:

Storytelling

Accentuate welcomes and celebrates your uniqueness! Its mission is to unmute and amplify the voices of immigrants and refugees by creating a safe space for you to Tell Your Story. Telling your story can be cathartic. According to Psychology Today, “research shows that even brief autobiographical storytelling exercises can have substantial impacts on psychological and physical health even months after the storytelling.” Rachel Freed, a contributor to the Huffington Post, says “telling our stories is not an end in itself, but an attempt to release ourselves from them, to evolve and grow beyond them. We tell our stories to transform ourselves; to learn about our history and tell our experiences to transcend them; to use our stories to make a difference in our world; to broaden our perspective to see further than normal; to act beyond a story that may have imprisoned or enslaved us; to live more of our spiritual and earthly potential.”

Telling your story can also be a compass for others as they navigate the immigration and refugee experience or as they adjust to a new culture. Be sure to read Accentuate! blog posts and listen to the podcasts that capture snapshots of the lives of immigrant and refugee professionals like yourself. You will be inspired and encouraged in your own journey. Accentuate is excited to tell your story. You may be our next feature story to inspire our readers.

Assessments & Coaching

Accentuate also provides an opportunity for you to take control of your own development by diving deeper into you! Career Development Assessments from Hogan Assessment Systems will provide early career, middle managers, emerging leaders or even those starting over with insight into how you show up to work on your good days, how you are perceived on your most stressful days and what motivates you toward success.

The Cultural Intelligence (CQ) Assessment from the Cultural Intelligence Center assesses your cultural competence, cultural values and how it may be impacting your work, relationships and levels of engagement. It also provides a lens through which you can assess your team’s cultural values.

The Career Development and CQ Assessments are highly reputable tools used to zoom in on the core of who you are and how you show up at work. As awesome as you are, there is room for growth. These assessments highlight your strengths and even when your strengths can be a stumbling block.

Coaching provides you with a guide and support as you work towards meeting your professional goals by targeting those areas that may be hindering your advancement. If you are not enrolled in one of the assessments and coaching programs, members will be eligible for on demand coaching.