I had the opportunity to visit the Uber office here in Santa Monica yesterday to celebrate Diwali with their Asian Heritage ERG (employee resource group). I wasn’t able to be home for Diwali this year so it was so nice to be able to celebrate such an beautiful holiday with the Uber team!
As you might remember, I visited the Uber HQ in San Francisco a few weeks ago and was able to learn so much about the Asian Heritage ERG. You can find more about that here. It’s one thing to learn about it all and it’s another thing to actually be able to see and to witness Uber’s mission with their Asian Heritage ERG come to life. For Uber to host such an incredible cultural event a) takes so much time and effort and b) really goes to show how much they care to embrace diversity in their office. At the event, they had a mehndi artist, all the Indian food (including mango lassi), and a performance by two women from the Bhangra team at UCLA. The girls even went out of their way to teach us how to dance!! ☺
I also explored the Uber LA office a bit while I was there! What I loved most about their office was all of the inspirational and motivational quotes throughout the building. I took a couple of shots below!
During the event, I had the opportunity to chat with Pallavi Mathur, who works on Uber Eats partnerships here in LA. She is one of the Asian Heritage members that helped put together this entire event! We bonded quickly over our cultural similarities and I quickly realized how there is such an inherent intersectionality amongst Asians all over the world. Being a woman and Indian, I truly appreciate Uber’s Asian Heritage ERG. There’s something so magical about being yourself, sharing your cultural stories and embracing all of it in a workplace with so many different cultures around you. It’s so valuable to see these cultural celebrations in a workplace. Not only because employees are free express their cultural identity with their coworkers, but open expression of one’s culture helps spread awareness of different beliefs and ideas. What’s better than that?
When companies hire diverse talent, employees are able to experience a range of cultures and, as a result, a range of thoughts and have a heightened awareness across the organization as a whole.
Thank you Uber for not only talking about + including diversity amongst the workplace but also putting everything to practice with events like these. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the Asian Heritage ERG in action at the Uber LA office and can’t wait to see more!
Chat soon, xo!
This post is sponsored by Uber. As always, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for always supporting me as partnerships like these make Next With Nita possible.
