In part one of our "Building Better: Improving Cross-Functional Collaboration in DEI" conversation, we did some truth telling about where we are in this DEI work. Now we talk about where we want to go.
I think DEI needs to show up in everyone's work ─ whether you're formally tasked with running the DEI strategy or not. On LinkedIn I see a lot of questions about where DEI belongs in the org structure, particularly whether it should be an HR function. There's definitely a lot that sits within HR: recruitment, retention, L&D. But there's so much more to DEI. There’s Comms, Marketing, Community Impact, Procurement. The large companies usually have someone dedicated to supplier diversity, but if you're not at a large company and you do procurement there’s a DEI lens to that work.
Bria:
When people ask me what it takes to do business with Honeywell, I always
say a lot. It’s not an easy lift given the size and scope of what Honeywell
does all over the world. My goal is to partner with the procurement function to
incorporate best practices for seeking out diverse businesses (i.e, MBE, MWBE,
LGBT, Disabled, Veteran) to position us to respond to market forces. The
pandemic (and there will be others over time) showed how important it is to
have a cadre of diverse suppliers to combat supply chain issues. Putting all of
your eggs in one basket can be very problematic. Being more intentional about
including supplier diversity in the procurement strategy clears the path to
actually growing small and diverse businesses. It moves the focus from
maintenance, janitorial, catering kinds of contracts to larger, prime
contracts. And our customers (and future customers) expect that now. And so
that’s where I feel like I can be an advocate to inform the strategy (with a
DEI lens) while the procurement organization sets the strategy where everyone
begins exercising their DEI muscles in their work.
Terrence:
Because you brought actual build projects, like you know, the program,
not the cleanup crew that comes after they build out the facility.
Bria:
And that’s the education piece. It’s getting people to be aware of how
their behaviors and habits can negatively affect the workplace goals they’ve
set and help them to make the shift. If you can’t connect your words with
your deeds you have work to do. It’s not enough to say I’m not racist, sexist,
classist, homophobic, xenophobic, it has to show up in your work. And it really
does take leaders to model it.
Katura:
That's like the distinction between being “not racist” and being anti-racist.
We need more people actively fighting against unfair systems, policies,
practices. Simply not being a racist, a homophobe, a sexist, is not enough. I
don’t think enough people understand the distinction.
Bria:
I'm doing a lot of work with our disability employee network and I’m
learning so much from my colleagues that have disabilities. There are so many
opportunities to learn and become an ally. Listening to people who have
different experiences than me gives me the knowledge to think about
accessibility in ways I never have had to think about it. Several years ago, I
spent time with a family member just hanging out and doing cousin stuff. We had
a blast! She’s paraplegic. I thought my awareness about accessibility was
heightened back then, but my colleagues have opened my eyes in terms of how I
can include accessibility even more in DEI work.
Katura:
Listening is key. A disability advocate and writer I follow named Imani
Barbarin, says “nothing about us without us.” I try to apply that thinking broadly
in DEI.
And Bria, your comment also ties into what I was talking
about not siloing DEI. If you’re an event producer or a marketing manager, and
you do events you have to think about accessibility. If you don’t, you're not doing
your job well. I remember bringing that
up when I was doing comms for an event. There was an elevated stage with stairs
- no ramp, no railing. We had an external event producer and they hadn’t
thought of that. That was pre-pandemic. I’m hopeful that we have collectively become
more aware and inclusive in these past few years. Because I don’t even see that
as allyship if you are an event manager. That's just part of your job. How can you do your job well if you don't
have that lens? And obviously you don't wake up one day knowing all of this,
but that's why partnership and having these conversations is so important. You
keep learning.
I remember when social media started getting bigger in corporate
spaces. There were social media strategists of course, but pretty quickly, PR, internal
comms and marketing folks all needed to know how to manage social media. It was
no longer reserved for the just social media team. And to me, that's a bit how
DEI works. It’s not taking anything away from the DEI team who's responsible
for creating and driving strategy. That’s a huge job. But to my point before,
DEI shows up, or should show up in almost everyone's job, almost everyone's
function. And if it's not, you kind of have to ask yourself, what am I missing?
Bria:
Terrence, I'm curious now that you're not in corporate spaces ─ how
do you see DEI informing the work you're doing with your clients? Are you helping
them access talent in a different way?
Terrence:
I've been in business eight months, so [I’ve been focused on]
understanding the landscape and having some great conversations. What I'm
working on with my clients is understanding why they are having so much
turnover in these particular roles? Then talking more about their diversity
initiatives and what they envision for their company. What are their business
goals? What is their team make-up right now? Then providing additional coaching
to them on how they can be more intentional about the diversity aspect of recruitment
and what I’m doing as a staffing company. I'm bringing you diverse candidates.
So like it or not, you're going to get a diverse candidate pool when you're
working with me. We're going to definitely make sure that we have quality, we
understand what it is that you're seeking. But at the end of the day, it's
going to be a wide range of diversity that I present to your organization.
Katura:
So we all come from all these different perspectives. What do we think
is working well in terms of DEI and our collaboration? And what’s not?
Bria:
One thing I think is working well is Comms/Marketing/PR. That function
is more attuned to telling stories from diverse perspectives. Now there's
plenty of work to be done, especially with who’s telling the stories. What’s
not working is I think some people understand DEI to be charity or a favor. It’s
important to undo that perception. Like “these poor Black and Brown people or
these poor women need us to get them jobs.” Or “these HBCU students can't get
internships.” Yes, they can. Half of the Fortune 500, let alone the Fortune
100 are absolutely investing in HBCUs and their students. So, the work is
shaping the story to ask do you want to miss out on top talent?
I think what is working between DEI and HR is that we're
using data to inform decisions. I’d like to see more intentional use of the
data instead of focusing solely on demographic data. It’s looking at the
movement of diverse talent holistically. Where is diverse talent falling out of
the recruiting process (i.e., application, interview, etc.) How can we action
the data? How are you capturing experiences of diverse talent before they leave?
Terrence:
I agree with that. Then it gets to the percentages or trying to get to
an actual number for me. My thing is let’s be fair and equitable across the
whole process and get the best talent needed. You have a lot of groups asking
what is success in diversity hiring? Is
it 5%? Why are we putting a number to it? Why don't we look across the board,
open up and be more intentional about where we seek talent. As we talked about
before, expand to student organizations within these campuses, open up more internship
opportunities, partner with HBCUs. As a Black guy coming from a PWI, when those
companies come to our campuses to recruit oftentimes, we are not their target. We
have to truly be exceptional to be on the radar. Or because of their diversity
quotas, they're reaching out or recruiting at HBCUs. So getting out of a quota
standpoint and just being intentional about more equitable hiring overall is a
big thing for me.
Katura:
I like what you're saying about looking at processes practices and
making sure that they're equitable ─ not just getting stuck on a number.
And yes, to more intentional storytelling and using data to
inform decisions. I think about the amount of DEI work that’s been done without
data. People deciding almost in a vacuum that we need a certain program. But
based on what? What does the initiative support? What challenges is it helping
us address? There is no copy paste in DEI. So just because X company has eight
ERGs doesn't mean that you need that too. We need to ask what is our company
strategy? What are our challenges, what are our opportunities? What's happening
in recruiting or retention or operations – and how can DEI play a role? I think
companies are making good progress there, but we definitely need more.
Something that’s not working is hyper focus on recruiting to
improve diversity with little to no focus on retention. Terrence, I know
recruiting is your lane so I’m really interested in your thoughts.
Terrence:
So we had this initiative focused on bringing in more diverse talent,
and it was a zero sum game. Because as soon as we were bringing them in, we
were losing those two- to three-year employees who had been uncomfortable
because we did nothing to help develop them. They didn’t have people speaking
on them in rooms that they weren't in, so they left. We were always chasing
numbers – and at the end of the year we were basically at net zero.
I put together a development program that identified that
subset of people. I worked with our L&D team and we selected 20 individuals.
It was 75% diverse -- ethnically and gender based. This cohort got exposure to
other leaders and other organizations. They got to lead meetings and worked
amongst themselves as a cross functional group. One of the things we were bad
at was African American female representation in leadership roles. It was
almost obsolete at that company. We had a talent management discussions focused
on Senior Managers and above in Operations, roughly 4000 employees. The Senior Manager
and above group totaled 73 and ask me how many of those 73 individuals Senior Managers
and above were African-American female? I'll save the suspense. Zero. We
created some additional awareness and accountability around that demographic of
Black women in the energy space. So yeah, it's the retention piece and being
intentional about allyship and mentorship programs for diverse individuals.
Bria:
I think some of the challenge around retention is being able to hone in
on what is keeping diverse employees from staying. The exit interview doesn't
give you a lot of data. People are always wary to provide information. People
never believe that surveys are anonymous. They don’t believe that surveys are
not being tracked. So, they're even more reticent to give real information in a
formal format.
What does the growth and development piece actually look
like for them? We have sponsorship programs, mentorship programs – but we’re
still not getting enough of that feedback from employees. I want to create safe
spaces for people to say what they’re experiencing.
Katura:
That’s why I think stay interviews are so important. Even during your one-on-ones
– using a few of them as informal stay interviews to find out how your people
want to grow. I spoke to a DEI leader who worked with HR to identify trends in
attrition as they related to underrepresented groups at the organization. They used
that data to begin having more intentional stay interviews with employees from
groups that had higher attrition rates. Great example of strategic collaboration.
Bria:
Stay interviews, exit interviews, one on ones – they may all be
happening. But there are a lot of managers, leaders, other professionals who don't
have the skill sets to have meaningful conversations during those meetings. We
need to teach people how to have meaningful conversations about people’s growth
and development and their experiences, so it’s not a check the box activity.
Katura:
How can we better collaborate? What’s one thing that we can do as HR, Comms,
DEI leaders or business partners in other areas of the business?
From a Comms perspective, it’s important that we clearly
communicate the WHY of our DEI efforts. Not just the business
case for DEI. I mean sharing why we’re launching a certain initiative; what
impact we hope it has for our employees or community; how the initiative supports
our DEI strategy and larger company strategy. We can’t save the “why” for the
post-event article, or the leader’s opening remarks at an event. It needs to be
established and communicated as part of the planning so all parties – DEI, HR,
facilities, procurement, Marketing – are aligned on the initiative’s purpose
and the role they each play in our success.
Terrence:
For me it’s understanding each other's role in the organization. What
DEI is, what HR is, what Communications is, and how can we help get the message
of what we're trying to do to the masses, to the business to help them
understand it – to motivate and inspire people to want to make change.
Katura:
What do we need more of?
Terrance:
More collaboration. More joint meetings where it's not just DEI
talking about their strategy, HR talking about theirs, and everyone sort of
pushing and fighting against what the other one is trying to do. More breaking
down the barriers and the silos of each of those organizations.
Bria:
We have to agree on what success looks like. Yes, it's collaboration so
that we all know [and support] what others are doing. It’s also so that we know
and agree on the outcome that we want to see. If we agree on those outcomes and
everything that we're doing within our respective functions -- that's the
direction we move in. And if I'm doing something that doesn't add to that
success, if I'm doing something that may get in the way of that success, then
we need to stop doing it, right? And I think what's hard for a lot of people is
they don't know what success looks like.
Katura:
More employees and teams in all areas of the business asking: “how
should DEI inform my work?” That's what we need.
Thanks to Terrence for being our first guest on the
blog and for lending his important perspective to this ongoing conversation.
You can learn more about his work at:
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