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August 19, 2021

The role of the CEO is changing and many Americans approve, new survey finds

Martin Whittaker, just capital — Martin Whittaker, CEO of Just Capital, conducted research into how Americans feel about corporate America’s leaders.
Martin Whittaker

In August 2019, 181 CEOs said the goal of a company wasn’t just to make profit, but to help society.
Two years later, JUST Capital polled Americans on how they view CEOs.
The survey found most Americans think CEOs are helping society.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Two years ago, the business world’s view on capitalism took a decisive turn. 181 CEOs – including JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Walmart’s Doug McMillon – embraced “stakeholder capitalism.” In a public letter, the leaders wrote that their companies exist to “benefit all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders.”

The CEOs who signed the letter are part of the Business Roundtable, an association that discusses and advocates for policies they believe will benefit American business. The group’s first statement of purpose was to reject “shareholder primacy,” an economic theory popular since the 1970s that states a company’s sole purpose is to generate profit for shareholders.

But does the public feel companies are following through on their renewed sense of purpose? The Harris Poll and Just Capital, an independent research firm, polled over 2,000 Americans and found that the majority of Americans think companies are doing a good job when it comes to serving society. In 2019, 45% of respondents said that CEOs are creating an economy that serves all Americans. That number has since jumped to 65% in 2021.

“I think this data is recognition of the positive role many companies have played and the prominence of CEOs during the tumultuous period of 2020,” Martin Whittaker, CEO of JUST Capital, told Insider. “We talk to a lot of business leaders, I do believe that CEOs, for the most part, are trying to do more.”

The coronavirus pandemic and the murder of George Floyd contributed to the uptick, Whittaker said. After Floyd’s death, executives spoke out on racial justice and pledged to double down on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion for their employees and customers. JPMorgan Chase and other financial giants pledged billions of dollars to help underserved communities.

At the same time, executives realized how many workers were struggling to make ends meet when businesses shut down or hours were reduced due to the pandemic. Many leaders added new benefits, raised wages, or donated to community centers. CEOs were expected to help care for their workers and the communities in an unprecedented way.

As JPMorgan’s Dimon previously told Insider, “Watching the events unfold after George Floyd’s murder, we understood that we, as a company, could do more to serve and lead. It was a moment when many companies had to decide or recommit to what they stood for.”

That sense of urgency felt by CEOs to help lead not just companies but society continued well past June 2020. In May of this year, HP, Salesforce, and other major companies spoke out against restrictive voting bills and laws in Georgia, Texas, and other states.

A 2019 survey by the Brunswick Group, a corporate-leadership firm, of about 2,000 US employees found that over 50% of workers said they identified a leader’s stance on social issues as an important consideration when weighing a job change or joining a new employer.

“I think this time of crisis in 2020 showed the role of human beings in business,” Whittaker said. “CEOs realized this time wasn’t about memos or statements, it was about deeds. We’ve seen companies do things differently.”

Whittaker pointed to an increase in board diversity across many companies, the NASDAQ’s recent addition of rules requiring companies to have diverse boards, and increased investor proxies urging diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“I’m very optimistic,” he said. “If I felt this was really just for show, I would be disillusioned. But I don’t sense that.”

While many Americans see progress in how CEOs are impacting society, most still think that companies are serving shareholders more than they are serving employees, communities, or the environment, the survey found.

“From our research, Americans want CEOs to invest more in their workers, pay a livable wage, invest in upward economic mobility,” Whittaker said. “We’re in a show me world, show me what actions you’re taking.”

Read the original article on Business Insider

August 9, 2021

The first Indigenous poet laureate in US history reflects on her mission for equity for Native American people

Monday is World’s Indigenous Peoples Day.
It’s a time to celebrate Native American culture and to recognize the injustice they have endured.
Insider spoke with Joy Harjo, the country’s poet laureate and the first Indigenous person to hold the title.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Joy Harjo has perhaps one of the most interesting leadership positions in the world: to serve as the US’s ambassador for poetry and art. She is the nation’s poet laureate and the first Indigenous person in the country’s history to hold the title.

Monday marks the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. It’s an important time to reflect on Harjo’s vision for representation and equity for Native Americans in the US.

Harjo, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, was reappointed in November for a third term to serve as poet laureate for 2021. Selected by The Library of Congress, the poet laureate serves as the official poet of the United States.

In the past year, Harjo published a visually mesmerizing online interactive “poetry map” showcasing the poetry of 47 Native Americans’ work, as well as a book of her own poetry, “An American Sunrise,” which highlights the suffering Indigenous peoples endured because of forced relocation in the US.

“We are really one person,” Harjo said of Americans. “My poetry helps remind me, poetry of others, helps remind me of this.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. It was originally published in November 2020.

The role poetry plays in national healing

We’re in difficult times. Has the coronavirus pandemic inspired any new poetry for you?

I actually haven’t written any poetry recently. I’ve been busy compiling a poetry anthology for the Library of Congress, working on a music album, “I Pray For My Enemies, “coming out in March, and have been working on a memoir, “Poet Warrior, A Call for Love and Justice,” to be published in September.

So I haven’t had time to write poetry. But the interest in poetry and the need for poetry as solace and direction has really emerged during this time.

Poetry can be found during times of grief, times of transformation. I’ve been in touch with experts who tell me that readership of poetry has gone up.

People go to poetry for solace. A poem can hold things that ordinary language cannot. And that’s one reason I wound up in poetry because four lines, 10 lines, even an epic poem can carry history, can carry a moment of social unrest and perhaps point in a certain direction or shift meaning in a way with metaphor and language in a way that political rhetoric cannot.

Have you seen an uptick in the number of people reaching out to you recently?

I’ve seen a lot of people come to poetry, write poetry because of what it offers especially during times like these, amid multiple storms. It’s all coming together and we need these places that carry wisdom and insight.

I’ve been getting a lot of letters and emails and requests. A lot. I don’t know if it’s because I’m the poet laureate or because of the times we’re in – perhaps it’s both of those things combined – but I’ve gotten a lot of requests and emails recently. The nature of the requests are more attuned toward wanting something to help get them through this time, or writing about how important my work or the work of others to help them move through these turbulent times, almost like a rudder, almost to say, ‘Here’s where we’re going. Here’s how to get there.’

Raising awareness of Native American culture

What does it mean to be the nation’s first Indigenous poet laureate?

It’s opened a tremendous doorway for Native People. I heard it was widely celebrated, and it still is, that there’s a Native person in this position. It brought a much larger awareness to indigenous peoples in this country, and that we’re human beings.

What do you hope to accomplish in your third year as poet laureate?

We just launched the poet laureate project, “Living Nations, Living Words,” a story map of 47 contemporary Native Nations poets reading and discussing their work. There is an educators’ toolkit in the works. I will be promoting this project as well as continue my ambassadorship on behalf of poetry in this country.

How did you first come to poetry as a form of self-expression?

I came to poetry as an undergraduate studio art major at the University of New Mexico. I was impressed by the preciseness of language required in word constructions you could carry with you anywhere. Poems could hold almost anything. I heard and met my first living Native poets there, including Simon Ortiz, Leslie Silko and many others. They reminded me that the art of poetry is a crucial ingredient to questioning and growth, that the roots of poetry are oral. They were tools of transformation as we fought for Native rights.

How old were you? Do you remember what some of your first poems were about?

I was around 22 or 23 years old. My first poems were centered in the southwestern landscape and in what was going on in our Native community.

The need for poetry and the importance of diversity

One of your poems, “Remember” really stands out to me. It reads, in part:

“Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.”

Tell me about it, it seems especially relevant today.

We are really one person. Even as we are individually incredibly diverse peoples and languages and poetry, we’re still, at the same time, one. That diversity of experience goes into making one solid whole. My poetry helps remind me, poetry of others, helps remind me of this. I think that poem speaks to a universal need or urge to remind people that it’s the diversity of experience that makes this life so rich.

Why does the world need poetry right now? Why should people take time out of their day to read or write it?

Poetry demands that we listen, that we open the door to a deeper awareness that is always present in every moment, even in the ordinary. To read and write sharpens the skill of listening, which is crucial to any art or endeavor, including any aspect of business. It is in listening you gain knowledge, go all the way around a task, a question, or a problem instead of running past a moment or quandary towards an easy or unsatisfying fix.

Read the original article on Business Insider

August 4, 2021

Companies often make 3 common mistakes with representation in marketing – here’s how to avoid them

body diversity — Representation in marketing is only the start to being an inclusive brand.
Getty/Luis Alvarez

There are some common representation-in-marketing mistakes that prevent brands from seeing results.
Don’t make representation feel like an afterthought or an obligation to check a diversity box.
Go beyond photography, and build an inclusive brand by starting with internal teams.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Over the past year, a lot of brands have started to do a much better job when it comes to representation in their marketing. Whether it’s in diversifying the speaker lineup at conferences or ensuring the visual imagery portrayed in ads and photography looks more like the people who are attending the conferences and or consuming the content, there is a noteworthy positive change.

For instance, a few months ago, I talked to the chief marketing officer of one brand whose team had even gone so far as to put clear metrics in place as to what representation should look like, by matching it to the latest population demographics of various groups from an ethnicity standpoint, and noting that negative stereotypes should be avoided.

Even though there’s plenty of progress happening on the representation-in-marketing front, there are some common mistakes being made that prevent the brands creating them from getting the results they seek.

1. Including the token diverse person

When you’re looking through a conference lineup, and you see the same usual speakers and then one person who is part of an underrepresented group, it feels like the brand did it to check their “diversity and inclusion” box. As a consumer, it feels kind of insulting.

Same goes when you’re looking at the makeup of a brand’s internal team, and they’ve got one person who looks different from all the rest.

If you really want to signal to your customers that they belong with you, particularly your diverse and niche consumers, don’t make representation feel like an afterthought or something you have to do.

Instead, focus on diversifying your network and circle of influence so you’ve got plenty of diverse talent to feature for events and to work with on your team.

2. Thinking that photography is enough

I recently conducted a representation-in-marketing research study with more than 1,000 consumers. One thing that came through loud and clear was that consumers want more than just representative photography from a brand.

Your customers want features, storylines, and more in-depth content from people who look like them and have backgrounds similar to theirs.

That may mean featuring more diverse experts in your educational content, spotlighting the stories of your customers from a number of different backgrounds in your ads and social media content, or showcasing testimonials from your diverse and niche consumers on your sales pages.

Photos can be bought, but real stories and expertise from real people cannot.

If you want to make diverse and niche consumers feel like they belong with you, go deeper than the photos. David’s Bridal does a great job of this. They feature a lot of user-generated content on their social channels that features a broad variety of customers. And on their website, they feature the wedding stories of an impressive cross-section of their diverse customers.

3. Not building a truly inclusive brand

Increasingly, consumers are looking beyond just a brand’s marketing in terms of the products, services, and experiences they deliver to determine whether or not they are truly representative.

They’re turning their attention to the internal teams and board of directors to see if they’re representative as well. If representation only matters in your marketing, and not in your team building, then consumers get the signal that diversity, inclusion, and belonging aren’t as important to you as you would have them believe.

The fix is to build an inclusive brand from the inside out. Your customers, particularly diverse, niche, and marginalized consumers, want to spend their money with a brand that aligns with their values. They prefer to steer clear of the brands that are only being representative in their marketing just to get diverse and niche consumers to spend money with them, and those they don’t feel truly value or care about those who are a part of their community.

Representation matters. More and more, this is becoming accepted. But not all representation is created equal. Avoid the mistakes above to ensure your representation efforts are seen as authentic and by the customers you want to serve.

Read the original article on Business Insider

July 21, 2021

Employees aren’t as optimistic about company diversity efforts as managers. Consultants explain why, and how to change that.

Shot of a young businessman looking stressed while using a smartphone during a late night in a modern office — Getty Images

One year after a wave of civil rights protests pushed CEOs to double down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), Insider surveyed workers on how they think corporate leaders are doing to fulfill their promises.

As part of a series called Cost of Inequity, Insider conducted a survey of over 1,000 professionals, the majority of American workers think business leaders are motivated to improve DEI in the workplace. However, managers are significantly more hopeful than rank-and-file employees.

About 74% of managers said they think their employer’s executive team cares about improving diversity, compared to 63% of workers.

As corporate America faces increasing pressure from investors, employees, and customers to make good on DEI promises, addressing the gap between manager and employee sentiment is crucial. DEI consultants said that leaders who drive employee engagement around DEI goals will be more successful in their goals.

Why managers feel more engaged

For Kerryn Agyekum, DEI principal at consultancy The Raben Group, the findings were not surprising.

Individuals who are largely at the worker or individual contributor level are more likely to be from historically marginalized groups, she explained. Data shows managers and leaders, across a variety of industries, are more likely to be white.

“It’s not surprising that workers, individuals who do not have that power or privilege like managers do, have a very different perspective around whether or not an organization’s diversity, equity, or inclusion efforts are having an impact,” Agyekum said. “They are waiting to see results.”

There will be a gap in sentiment until managers are able to really bring about change in their organizations, the DEI consultant said.

Cynthia Orduña, DEI consultant at consultancy Peoplism, credited the gap in enthusiasm to a communication problem. Oftentimes leaders communicate their DEI efforts to managers, but not to all of their employees, so employees aren’t as up to date, she explained.

Leadership can be very scared to be transparent about what’s going on in the background in terms of new diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives…They’re afraid of not getting things right. Cynthia Orduña

“Leadership can be very scared to be transparent about what’s going on in the background in terms of new diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives,” she said. “They’re afraid of not getting things right.”

If employees aren’t aware of what’s going on, however, they’re more likely to think that their executive team doesn’t care about DEI efforts.

Orduña said that 63% of workers thinking their executives care about DEI was somewhat disappointing.

“It’s more about, how do we get that number to be 75% 85%?” she said. “If a good chunk of employees don’t think their executives care about DEI, that’s a story.”

Managers were also more likely than their direct-reports to say their company has clear channels for participation in DEI efforts. Some 76% of managers said there were distinct ways to get involved, compared to 68% of workers.

Agyekum said that many managers are being tasked with changing their behaviors, reaching new DEI goals, and having new conversations with their employees. They feel there are concrete ways to participate in DEI efforts, she explained.

However, employees may define “concrete ways of participating” differently. They may be waiting to see more people like themselves in positions of power, they may be waiting for their salary to increase as a result of a pay equity report, they may be waiting to be compensated for their ERG work.

“I think the differentiator is in the definition,” Agyekum said. “Managers and workers may define ‘concrete ways of participating in DEI efforts’ differently.”

When asked about the results of their company DEI strategies, respondents gave a mixed range of outcomes:

Increasing employee engagement

In order to increase employee buy-in on DEI efforts, leaders and managers need to drive results, Agyekum said.

DEI consultant Cynthia Orduña said managers need to communicate their diversity efforts more to employees.

Ana Ochoa courtesy of Cynthia Orduña

She explained that a “war room approach to DEI,” where diversity is treated just as importantly as profits, will communicate to employees that diversity is truly a core tenant of a company’s values.

“If you have managers that are doing well on diversity and inclusion, hold them up as the gold standard and reward them accordingly,” the DEI consultant said. “At the same time, hold folks accountable for not making progress.”

At the same time, leaders and managers need to increase the level of communication around DEI.

More leaders need to be vulnerable and share their DEI journey with workers, Orduña said. Keeping employees informed of what’s going on and sharing ways to get involved in the process will drive engagement. Insider’s survey also found that 50% of respondents said their managers are not incentivized to hit DEI goals and/or hire more BIPOC employees. The other half indicated a mix of bonuses and promotions for making more diverse hires.

There’s a lot of strength, I think, in admitting to people that you don’t have all the answers Cynthia Orduña

“You can even say ‘We don’t have all the answers, but we’re going to work as a team to figure it out.'”

In addition to communicating your company’s future plans, it’s important to make sure your employees stay informed on what you’re already doing.

For example, don’t just email once about employee resource groups (ERGS), have ERG leaders speak at company events and send multiple emails about their progress, the DEI consultant suggested. When it comes to new trainings you have, incentivize participation in them and have leaders talk about them in town halls.

C-suite executives should also encourage managers to tell their direct reports about their DEI work.

“It’s about creating mini-cultures that foster inclusion and psychological safety,” Orduña said.

Psychological safety is an environment where people from all backgrounds can feel safe enough to be their whole, true selves at work, without fear of judgment or punishment.

“Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable,” she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

July 17, 2021

The Olympic ban on Afro swim caps – and the backlash it has received – is a huge lesson for business leaders

Swimmer Alice Dearing photographed in a Soul Cap — The Soul Cap, which fits over Afros and thick hair, was banned by the international swimming federation. British Olympic swimmer Alice Dearing is a brand partner with Soul Cap.
Luke Hutson Flynn

Soul Cap tried to have its swim caps – which fit over Afros – approved for the 2021 summer Olympics.
The governing Olympic body rejected the request, saying it didn’t conform to the “natural” head.
Fortune 500 consultants explain why the decision is a teachable moment for other leaders.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Maritza McClendon, the first Black woman to make a US Olympic swim team and a 2004 Olympic silver medalist, vividly remembers the sound of her white teammates in high school and college laughing as she struggled to fit her thick, curly hair into her swim cap.

She’d laugh along with them, but inside, she had an awful, sinking feeling. It was one of many microaggressions she endured over the years.

To be Black and a swimmer, she said, is difficult. And a new ruling by the International Swimming Federation, or FINA, makes it even more difficult.

A company called Soul Cap recently tried to have its swim caps – which fit over Afros, locs, extensions, and thick hair – approved for the 2021 summer Tokyo Olympics. FINA rejected the product, saying the caps didn’t follow “the natural form of the head.” Following swift backlash, FINA is revisiting the ban.

In response to a request for comment, FINA pointed to its latest press release on the matter, which said the federation understood the “importance of inclusivity and representation,” and that it would be revisiting the decision at an undisclosed date. As of this writing, no formal announcement has been made.

“It’s just really disappointing,” McClendon said. “The Olympics is the C-suite of sports. What kind of message does this send? It excludes the diversity the sport so desperately needs.”

In addition to calling the ban “ridiculous” and “racist,” consultants who work with Fortune 500 companies on issues of diversity said FINA’s decision is a learning moment not only for Olympic leaders but also for business leaders.

Corporate America has been engulfed in a racial reckoning ever since George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, and many experts said FINA’s swim-cap ban highlights a problematic status quo. Decision-makers must not only welcome opportunities to be inclusive, these experts told Insider, but also question whom these standards of dress and behavior are serving.

“When we talk about something like the Afro cap not conforming to the ‘natural shape of the head’ – Well, the natural shape of whose head exactly?” said Tiffany Jana, the founder of the diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting firm TMI who works with Fortune 500 companies.

A lesson for all leaders

Maritza McClendon portrait in a pool — Maritza McClendon, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist and the first Black woman to make a US Olympic swim team, said the ban excluded diversity that the sport “so desperately needs.”
Cat Harper

The backlash against FINA has been swift.

Soul Cap has spoken out against the ruling, saying it discourages many younger athletes from underrepresented backgrounds from pursuing the sport. And an online petition for FINA to remove the ban has garnered more than 59,000 signatures.

That FINA snubbed the opportunity to be more inclusive is a lesson for business leaders, said Jana, the author of “Subtle Acts of Exclusion.”

Jana, who is nonbinary, called the decision “utterly ridiculous” and “a demonstration of white supremacy.” “What is being stated is that the white standard is normal, that it is best, and that it is what’s acceptable.”

Some writers have said that FINA’s language is reminiscent of phrenology, a pseudoscience from the 1800s involving the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It was used to argue that nonwhite people were inferior because of the shapes of their heads.

Jana said the decision showed a lack of historical and emotional awareness and “overall intelligence.” Kerryn Agyekum, a DEI principal at the consultancy The Raben Group, agreed. Both said it’s no longer OK for leaders to not be aware of how racism has influenced their sector, field, or even company or sport.

Stop policing Black and other nonwhite bodies

There’s a parallel to draw between the ban on the Afro swim cap and the ban, in many professional spaces, of braids, locs, and other ways Black people care for their hair.

Both bans, DEI experts said, are knowingly or unknowingly racist.

“It’s just another expression of how different people, their needs, their expressions, their well-being, and their way of being are not taken into consideration, honored, or privileged,” Jana said.

Oftentimes, the “standard” or “professional” way of doing things – whether in sports or the office – is how white, able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual people have existed, Agyekum said. The US Army has gone through a reckoning regarding what hairstyles are and aren’t permitted, with new guidelines released this year that allow styles such as cornrows, braids, and ponytails.

The CROWN Act, a bill that prevents workplace discrimination based on one’s hair texture or style, has passed in 11 states, including New York and California. Still, there is no law preventing such discrimination on the national level.

But business leaders shouldn’t wait for the CROWN Act. They should question the status quo, Jana said, and stop policing Black and other nonwhite bodies, or making it harder for them to exist in work spaces.

For example, leaders should reexamine workplace rules around presentation, adjust healthcare policies to include trans and nonbinary people, and make sure their offices are accessible to differently abled people.

“Historically, there was a lack of the ability for Black people to actually swim in pools that were for whites only. Now you have this generation of people who don’t know how to swim for that reason. In the present day, now hair becomes the issue,” Agyekum said. “It’s about exclusion.”

Workplace culture and sports culture can change, Jana said, but only if leaders are willing to put in the work. Take, for example, how women have made gains in the professional world. Many companies now have lactation rooms, offer free menstruation products such as pads, and offer paid parental leave.

“This only happened after we stopped and took a hard pause,” Jana said.

Embrace mistakes to usher in progress

No leader or organization will always get things right, especially when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. But it’s what leaders do after they make a mistake that defines what they stand for, DEI consultants said.

“You don’t get from institutionalized slavery and racism to any kind of international, global utopia without tripping, without learning,” Jana said. “What I’m interested in now is what FINA does next.”

In order for FINA to be an anti-racist organization, Jana said, its committee should not only withdraw the ban but also issue an apology and commit to a full review of its practices.

“Show me you’re doing the work,” Jana said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

July 14, 2021

The chief talent officer of enterprise tech company HPE shares her 3 best pieces of career advice for breaking into in-demand industries

Black young businesswoman listening to discussion of lawyers during meeting at office — Maskot/Getty Images

Alessandra Ginante Yockelson is chief talent officer at fintech company Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
She said any aspiring professional can achieve their career goals with the right approach.
Build your professional and personal confidence and champion diversity at every stage, she said.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Each year, more than half of a million professionals apply to job vacancies at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a fintech company based in Houston, Texas. Only 12,000 of these applicants were hired globally in 2019.

Despite the seemingly low odds of landing a position with this enterprise tech leader, HPE’s chief talent officer Alessandra Ginante Yockelson said that nearly 40% of hires in 2019 were gender diverse.

As a woman and immigrant, Yockelson understands that each professional faces unique intersectionalities. She believes that any aspiring professional has the ability to achieve their career goals even if they’re confronted with societal barriers.

“I come from a very humble family in São Paulo, Brazil,” Yockelson told Insider. “I had to overcome a lot of adversities in the beginning.”

She advises job seekers in every industry to follow these three pieces of advice.

1. Build your confidence professionally and personally

“Believe that no matter where you start from – no matter how limited your resources are or how victimized you are by institutionalized racism – there’s a way forward and a strength in you that will show,” Yockelson said.

Experts suggest that low levels of confidence negatively impact your career, especially if you’re a recent graduate.

To build confidence as a person and professional, consider first embracing your past accomplishments, identifying your weaknesses, and strengthening your resume. Other suggestions include:

Learning how to align the skill set, achievements, and knowledge you’ve already developed with the requirements of the role you seek
Highlighting the skills or certifications that you lack and identifying ways to formally improve them
Continuing to enhance your resume through freelance projects and volunteering
Seeking out support from peers to help you remain on-track to achieving your goals
When feeling lost, consider taking aptitude tests to help you refocus on your unique motivational drivers, expositional traits, and learning style

2. Utilize free resources

Yockelson recently earned her doctorate in business administration. “Education, I truly believe in my case, has opened doors,” she said.

The pandemic has expanded online opportunities and free resources. Princeton, Harvard, and Yale are among the many universities that offer online courses through edX and Coursera, which also features courses led by companies like Google Cloud.

Yockelson insists that job seekers keep in mind that academia isn’t the sole provider of education. She encourages everyone to seek out diverse experiences outside of their comfort zones, even if that means simply grabbing lunch with people you don’t know at work.

3. Proactively champion diversity at every stage

Regardless of industry, all professionals have the power to champion diversity at every stage of their careers.

Leaders can immediately increase diversity on their teams by expanding the scope of job requirements, standardizing the interview process, and intentionally sponsoring employees belonging to minority groups.

By purposefully and publicly making an effort to counter the “invisibility effect,” leaders can elevate their existing employees while encouraging other diverse candidates in the workforce to pursue these roles.

Achieving certain career goals may seem impossible for those affected by intersectionality in the workplace, but Yockelson is determined to give these diverse professionals hope.

“If they knew my story, they would believe that they could do it as well,” she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

July 11, 2021

6 strategies for creating a robust, multifaceted approach to improving diversity at your organization

D&I training — Create opportunities for coworkers of all backgrounds to gather and talk openly to bring about a more inclusive culture.
Getty Images

Diversity trainings are only the tip of the iceberg for improving diversity in the workplace.
Organizations need to move beyond implicit bias trainings by following up on their trainings.
Treat diversity as a real goal, measure it, and create dedicated spaces for underrepresented groups.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

The racial reckoning of spring 2020 prompted much soul-searching at organizations, as companies, nonprofits, and schools realized they could no longer ignore failures of diversity and inclusion. Many quickly rolled out programming aimed at addressing these shortcomings – in particular, diversity trainings.

But training alone can’t address long-standing organizational failings, said Ivuoma N. Onyeador, an assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School. “It’s fine to have trainings,” she said, “but trainings are only the beginning of the efforts needed to improve diversity in an organization.”

On their own, trainings can’t address systemic problems: pay inequity, leadership that is mostly white and male, failure to hire underrepresented groups. Additionally, some trainings just don’t work or even backfire. For example, research has shown that implicit bias training – a popular approach that seeks to help participants recognize and overcome unconscious prejudices – does not reliably reduce bias in the long term and may reduce participants’ sense of responsibility over their own behavior. Yet some organizations have implemented implicit-bias training and figured that’s enough.

In a new policy paper, Onyeador, along with coauthors Sa-kiera T. J. Hudson of Yale University and Neil A. Lewis Jr. of Cornell University, explores how organizations can move beyond implicit-bias training. The researchers reviewed the existing literature on diversity efforts in organizations and developed a set of evidence-based recommendations for creating a robust, multifaceted approach to achieving diversity goals.

Here, Onyeador highlights six key takeaways.

Prepare for bad reactions

Diversity efforts may be poorly received. The backlash can range from eye-rolling in a training session to a sense of grievance that underrepresented groups get “special treatment” to outright hostility.

Organizations should be realistic about these challenges and have plans to address them.

“We do this in other arenas – we would never launch a product without anticipating potential snags in the process,” Onyeador said.

Organizations can build support for diversity programs by proactively addressing employee concerns. Majority group workers may fear they’ll be passed over for promotions in the name of diversity or punished for “saying the wrong thing,” or they may simply believe that diversity isn’t important – worries that can be allayed before a new program is introduced by addressing them in ways that fit your specific organizations’ culture and context.

Facilitate intergroup contact – but also create dedicated spaces for underrepresented groups

When majority group members interact with underrepresented groups, their attitudes change. One recent study found that interracial interactions help white people perceive and combat inequality; another showed that, after hearing people of color discuss their cultural backgrounds, white people displayed more inclusive behavior toward nonwhite coworkers. By creating lots of opportunities for coworkers of all backgrounds to gather and talk openly, organizations can bring about a more inclusive culture.

But it’s essential to recognize that intergroup contact may also place a burden on underrepresented group members, who may feel exhausted, singled out, or responsible for teaching others. That’s why it’s just as important for organizations to create dedicated structures such as affinity groups that allow underrepresented groups to gather. In addition to providing camaraderie, these spaces can facilitate career networking and advancement.

“People of color, for instance, are having a very different experience in these organizations than white people, and it can be nice to have a space where you meet other people and solve problems, share resources, and find role models,” Onyeador said.

Messaging matters, but action matters more

It’s easy to sing the praises of, say, your company’s family-friendly policies in a job description. But it’s much harder to actually be accommodating when an employee needs several days off to care for a sick child.

In fact, research shows that organizations that include organizational-diversity messages in job descriptions aren’t necessarily better at recruiting a diverse pool of employees or less likely discriminate against them.

“We want to make sure that both of those pieces are in there,” Onyeador said. Including inclusive language “is important to do, because it signals to your potential pool of applicants that the organization could potentially be a supportive place for them. But then it’s really important to follow that up with action.”

Treat diversity as you would any other organizational goal

Action means creating accountability structures – which, according to one 2006 study, is the single most effective way to improve managerial diversity.

Assigning institutional responsibility “can look a number of different ways, like having a chief diversity officer with some sort of oversight role, or diversity officers within units reporting up to a leader who has the power to hold units and managers accountable,” Onyeador said.

Organizations can also create incentives for participating in inclusion efforts, like bonuses or perks for serving on a diversity council.

“People are very motivated by extra money at the end of the year,” she said. “I suspect that if bonuses were tied to diversity metrics, we would see things shift. We would find the Black engineers. They’re there.”

You can’t improve what you don’t measure

Often, organizations are reluctant to collect and analyze data on diversity programming.

But that mentality wouldn’t fly with any other important organizational objective, so it shouldn’t be acceptable for diversity efforts. If a particular program or training didn’t work, “it’s imperative that we know that,” she said, so it can be improved.

There’s a similar hesitance about studying outcomes for the overarching goals of organizational change. All too frequently, companies will set out to improve diversity – but fail to measure the variables of interest.

Onyeador summarizes the attitude this way: “Did we increase the number of women in the C-suite? It’s not clear. Is the climate different? We have no idea. Are we retaining more people? Nobody knows.” Organizations have the data to answer such questions. Deciding to pay attention to it “will go a long way.”

None of this is easy, and that’s OK

Diverse organizations are not built overnight or by accident. But just because the work is challenging doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

In fact, “as organizations, as companies, as universities, we’re used to doing hard things by putting our heads down, figuring it out, being really careful, and thinking through everything,” Onyeador said.

There’s no reason, she said, that the same level of effort can’t be applied to diversity.

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July 2, 2021

A software CEO reveals how she used the lessons of the pandemic to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace

Panel at Insider's Future of Work virtual event, June 29, 2021, featuring Insider's Rebecca Knight and Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of educational-software firm DreamBox — Insider’s Rebecca Knight (l) interviews Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of educational-software firm, DreamBox
Insider Events

DreamBox CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson says diversity should be leveraged for success.
Employers must understand what workers want and need, as they now have the upper hand.
This was part of Insider’s event “What’s next: CEOs on How Talent Drives Transformation,” presented by ProEdge, a PwC Product, on June 29.
Click here to watch a recording of the full event.

There’s a wealth of evidence that suggests diverse, equal, and inclusive workplaces are more successful – but the pandemic and death of George Floyd forced leaders to truly reckon with this reality.

“Instead of focusing on how to manage diversity, we need to pivot to focus on how to leverage diversity,” Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of educational-software firm DreamBox, said during Insider’s recent virtual event “What’s next: CEOs on How Talent Drives Transformation” presented by ProEdge from PwC, which took place June 29. “If you really believe that diversity is something to be leveraged and it doesn’t feel like just another project or another obligation, it feels like an opportunity.”

The conversation, titled “Diversity and innovation define the future of work,” was between Woolley-Wilson and Rebecca Knight, senior correspondent for careers and the workplace at Insider.

“Starting out as a woman of color in financial services, the expectations for excellence were either really high or really low,” Woolley-Wilson said. “We believe at DreamBox that diversity is required in order to build empathetic and relevant learning experiences.”

At the height of the pandemic, Woolley-Wilson said she took the unusual step of making the DreamBox digital platform free to help families, students, and teachers combat the equity gaps in education exacerbated by COVID-19.

Internally, she also oriented DreamBox to be guided by three simple principles: take care of each other, take care of our customers, and then by definition, we’ll be taking care of the company.

“We’re at an inflection point,” she said, referring to low unemployment and the changing job market. “The pendulum is swinging, and the leverage is swinging more in the employee camp.”

Woolley-Wilson said the last year highlighted that workplaces need to be more adaptive to the needs of women and racial minorities. Some women might need to work from home more, while others might not have a home environment that’s conducive to work and need to spend more time in the office.

“It’s about being intelligently adaptive, it’s about metabolizing new data, new stimuli from the environment, and meeting people where they are – just like we do with the platform and every individual learner,” she said.

DreamBox also hosts a monthly meeting – the most well-attended meeting company-wide, Woolley-Wilson said – to talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

“We talked about hard topics like racial bias or white privilege, we talk about things that happen in the current news cycle,” she said. “All those are dealt with in a very open and authentic way.”

She added that MBA programs of the future are going to have to teach leaders how to create “positive gravity” so the best talent chooses them.

“We’re going to have to make sure that organizations are overt and explicit about what they value, because employees now – from the first day of the interview to the first day of onboarding to their first anniversary and beyond – are unapologetic and very courageous and very intentional about what they want and what they need in their professional environment,” she said.

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June 30, 2021

The Cost of Inequity: How and why inequity persists in the institutions that govern daily life in America

A receipt with the words "The Cost of Inequity" written on it on on a blue background. — Skye Gould/Marianne Ayala/Insider

Inequity, not to be confused with inequality, is the result of injustice and cultural exclusion. Cost of Inequity explores how and why inequity persists in the institutions that govern daily life in America while illustrating the real economic cost to society.

From education to the workplace, banks, healthcare and more, this series examines the historical causes, current policies and societal norms that perpetuate unfair, avoidable differences for marginalized groups.

Insider also conducted a survey of over 1100 American workers to examine the challenges businesses face in fulfilling DEI programs. Detailed results of the survey will be published in the coming weeks.

Read the original article on Business Insider

June 20, 2021

Amazon is investigating allegations of gender bias in its Prime team after Insider reporting

Whole Foods Prime Amazon bags — Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Amazon has opened an investigation into gender-bias allegations made against its Prime team.
The investigation coincided with Insider’s reporting about the issue last week.
The case is the latest in a series of gender-discrimination allegations facing the company.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Amazon has opened an investigation into its Prime team in the wake of internal complaints about gender bias and a hostile workplace culture for women.

The probe, which coincided with Insider’s reporting last week, suggests Amazon is taking the allegations seriously. The company’s Employee Relations Central Investigations unit told one of the Prime employees who filed a complaint that it was taking ownership of the case, according to an email seen by Insider. The team has asked the person to provide additional information about the issue.

“We appreciate you reporting these concerns and take them seriously,” the email said. “Your concerns will be investigated as appropriate.” An Amazon spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Last week, Insider reported on what some employees said was a culture of aggressive male-dominated leadership within Amazon’s Prime unit. Current and former employees described meetings where male leaders used aggressive language toward women. They also said women received fewer promotions than men, and recent internal company data showed only four out of a total of 41 senior leaders under Jamil Ghani, the vice president of Prime, are women.

When contacted earlier this month for comment, an Amazon spokesperson said the allegations did not reflect the culture of Amazon or the Prime team.

“We have worked hard to foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture in which all employees feel supported and successful within the Prime organization,” the spokesperson said, adding that the group aimed to double the number of women in leadership roles in 2021.

The allegations are the latest in a series of public accusations about Amazon’s workplace culture.

In May, five current and former female employees sued Amazon, alleging “abusive mistreatment by primarily white male managers.” In February, Charlotte Newman, a Black Amazon manager, filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination and sexual harassment. And last year, a high-profile female engineer called on the company to fix what she said was a “harassment culture,” Insider previously reported.

An Amazon spokesperson said the company investigated the cases, found no evidence to support the allegations, and didn’t tolerate discrimination or harassment.

You can read Insider’s original story here.

Do you work at Amazon? Contact reporter Eugene Kim via encrypted messaging apps Signal/Telegram (+1-650-942-3061) or email (ekim@businessinsider.com).

Read the original article on Business Insider