USF Muma College of Business Certificate: Session 5: Recruitment & Retention
[MUSIC PLAYING] Good evening, and good day, and welcome to module 5 of the diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace certificate. Today we cannot not talk about the guilty verdict and the Derek Chauvin trial for the murder of George Floyd. I'm like you very relieved, but I am not going to celebrate. I am relieved because this is a good first step, and I repeat, it is just a good first step in achieving justice for all, regardless of the color of our skin. I am not going to celebrate because the journey towards social justice for African-American and other minority groups is long and complex. I'm not going to celebrate because the life of George Floyd was lost for this to happen.
I'm not going to celebrate because many other African-American and other minority people lives were lost in vain for this to happen. But you know what? I am very optimistic. As an educator, I believe in the importance of awareness and education.
So my con to all of us, all of the 135,000 of us, let's please use the knowledge we gain from this certificate to help others understand the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Let's help other understand the importance of justice and equity. Let's help each other understand that people should be treated based on their action, not the color of their skin, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or any other protected class they might belong to. Together we can make a difference, and together we will make a difference. We will make a difference so that social justice becomes not just a first step, becomes a reality. And we have communities where no one, and I really mean no one, is left behind Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to share these feelings with you.
I really do appreciate it. And now let's talk a little bit about this evening and this wonderful model we have for you. But before, I want to share with you that we are so grateful and so gratified and so honored to see so many conversations taking place online.
It's so refreshing to see that people are really getting comfortable discussing the uncomfortable. So please continue these discussions. Make a difference. I am so inspired and I'm sure all of you are at least as inspired as I am. Also, this time I decided to share with you some gems of wisdom from module 4, and I selected these quotes because they resonated well with so many people and they were all over social media.
So let me go through a few of them. One by Jenny who said last week disability is not a bad word. Don't be afraid to mention it. Actually disability is a strength. Another one is, fear is an acronym, and it stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. I just really like that one.
Another one, one of my favorite, it's not about treating people the way you want to be treated, it's treating people the way they want to be treated. And the last one is also a really good one. EI is not to be feared, but cheered.
One of the most important lessons for me is all about perspective and being open to learn, being curious rather than being defensive when we see other people thinking differently; and change a result of a new knowledge is a fact. So let's take an example. We have two people here. The person on the left is reading that number a six, the person to the right is reading that number as nine. Guess what? Both of them are correct. It really depends on the perspective they have and the angle they look at things.
So instead of these two people going at each other and being aggressive and disagreeing, they should try to understand why one person see this number as a six and why the other person sees it as nine. The same stands for diversity, equity, inclusion in the workplace. So as we always say, social justice is a journey; and also diversity, equity, inclusion in the workplace is a journey. Now, believe it or not, we reached module 5. We're more than halfway through, and our module today is a great one.
It's about recruiting and retaining talent from minority class and protected classes. We will start with an incredible panel that will be moderated by Sharon Vinci, the Jabil vice president of human resources. And also it will tackle best practices in hiring and retaining people from various protected classes. Then we have an incredible person, Sandra Quince, who will share with us her wisdom on recruiting and retaining also talent. Sandra is the senior vice president for Global Diversity and Inclusion Executive.
And our instructional segment is really exciting today. I think you will love it. It will be facilitated by two wonderful colleagues, two of our best faculty, Dr. Terry Boyd and Dr. Triparna de Vreede, who will talk about how can we use people analytics and data to recruit and retain minority employees.
I have no doubt that you will love it. And also Terry and Triparna will take some questions from the audience. So be ready to ask your questions. And now let's start. Sharon, the floor is yours. Thank you.
Hello, and welcome everyone to today's session regarding recruitment and retention. This is the fifth session in the USF diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace program. I'm Sharon Vinci, your moderator for today. I am the vice president of human resources for the Jabil regulated industries segment at Jabil, and very excited to lead our panel. Over the course of the series you've seen people share their own personal experiences, perspectives, and we've heard from attendees about how their eyes have been opened by those stories.
This is a journey that we are all on, and we are all on it together. No one company has all the answers, but it's important that we continue to grow our efforts to become more diverse and inclusive in our workplaces. All the studies show the same results. Diverse, equitable, and inclusive businesses perform better on a variety of business dimensions, whether it's profitability, innovation, entry into new markets. Also, employees are more engaged and feel more valued that their ideas are heard and they are given equal opportunity to develop and grow.
In a study recently published by McKinsey in May of 2020 stated that companies whose leaders welcome diverse talents and include multiple perspectives are likely to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis even stronger. And today our panel is really reflective of the diversity within our community, and I'd like to welcome each panelist. First, Haley Moss-- Hi. Hi, Haley.
--Scott Neil, Derek Shields, and Maya Trotz. And I'll give each an opportunity to briefly introduce themselves to you. So Maya, if you lead us off.
Good afternoon, everyone. This is really great to be here. Maya Trotz, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida. I do a lot of work with workforce development of undergraduate students, teachers, graduate students, and look at issues related to environmental and social justice in the Tampa Bay region and other places in Florida and also across the Caribbean region.
Great. Thanks, Maya. Haley. Hi, everyone. I'm Haley Moss.
I am an attorney, an author, and I am an activist. So a little bit of my background is I went to the University of Miami School of Law. I graduated in 2018 and became the first documented openly autistic attorney to pass the Florida bar exam and be admitted to the bar.
So what I do now that I'm not currently practicing in health care litigation is I do a lot of work consulting and educating about neurodiversity at work. So making sure that folks with cognitive differences are part of the workforce and respected and included, and that things are accessible for them as well. And I'm also working on my next book. It should be out this summer about how lawyers can be more accepting of neurodiversity among other lawyers and other colleagues as well as how we can best support our neurodivergent clients. Great.
Thanks, Haley. Scott. I'm Scott Neil. I'm a 25 year veteran of the army and armed forces. I'm a fully disabled combat veteran and currently I work with American Freedom Distillery as their chief of operations.
Great. Welcome Scott and Derek. Hi, I'm Derek Shields. I work with Disability:IN. I'm a corporate disability inclusion consultant. That means working with about 250 brands across the United States and worldwide on their disability inclusion, policies and practices in the workplace, supply chain, the marketplace.
It's great to be with you. Great. Welcome, everyone.
And so I'd like to open our conversation today with a question that I'll ask each of you to chime in on, and it really starts with the recruiting and attraction process. What are some ways that you believe organizations can expand or change their recruiting approach to attract candidates from all diverse groups, whether that's gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, LGBTQ, veterans, those with physical and intellectual disabilities? What do you think from your point of view companies can do to expand and change the recruiting approach? I could start. One thing is to look at job descriptions and across the board have teams that can review those to ensure that we are recruiting candidates from all diverse groups.
We could have professionals who can also guide and review those things, and it needs to be across the board institutionally or organizationally. I'll also add, establish key partnerships with organizations from which to recruit. For example, at USF we have a partnership with the University of Virgin Islands, which is an historically Black college and university. And so that is a really key partnership that increases diversity in our undergraduate engineering program. Great.
Thanks, Maya. Scott, what do you think? Well, I think as a veterans advocate, you have such a diverse community of veterans. They come from all four corners of the United States and from the islands and everywhere; and when they tend to get out if they want to enter the workforce, a lot of times they don't communicate the value of their skills and experience, and in their own diversity as well. So I think any program should also address the veterans. Great. Thank you.
Haley, what are your thoughts? I want to echo what Maya said as well about the job descriptions as a really great place to start because that's also the first place that we see people being excluded. So something that we see in the disability community is that you have the essential functions of a job. So that's the stuff that's really important that you're supposed to do, and you'll see things that might somehow not be that important to the job at hand that are somehow in that job description, such as an ability to lift like 50 pounds. And those are ways that companies are able to discriminate against people with disabilities, for instance.
And even just having that statement that says like people with disabilities are welcome to apply, something that I know that I've looked for and has been that subtle reminder that I am welcomed here, that I am invited to be a part of this team. So it's not a huge thing that you can do, but it's something very actionable that says we are here and we are at least committed to diversity. So I think that's a really great place to start is the job description and also put forth in that job description of what's actually important to the role, what you're really looking for, and not just a checklist of traits that seems kind of random. Great. That's great. Derek, what are your thoughts? These are all great points.
Building off of Haley and the connection to the disability segment, we have a 40% employment gap in the United States for non-disabled people compared to disabled people. And part of the reason is because our outreach and recruitment efforts don't connect to the disability community. So if your team is asking, well, where do I find these qualified candidates, the answer is there's so many places. We have to start with an intentional outreach plan.
So reach out to the centers for independent living in your community, partner with your state vocational rehabilitation agency, find people with disabilities. And if you can't find them externally, reach a partner who's going to help, and that could very well include your very own employees with disabilities. 26% of adults in the United States have a disability. Your company has people with disabilities.
Ask them. They'll be willing to help connect you to the community. Derek, and that kind of leads us right into the next question for today, and curious if you'd lead us off in the answer.
How can a company's employer brand and social media presence affect a candidate's decision to consider applying for a position? What do you think about that? Yeah, sure. So, I mean, authenticity matters. And so we could have appropriate representation with language and with imagery. And that kind of gets your first level of attraction. So the first thing we need to do is root out kind of bias and ablest language.
So you might not understand what that is, and that's where you need to get education internally. So if you're going to be an authentic brand of choice, looking to the disability segment, that means having pictures of people with disabilities on your website, it means having policies that are easily accessed, such as how do I request a reasonable accommodation as a job applicant? If these things aren't there, then it's a sure tell sign that you aren't really an employer of choice. And so you're rooting yourself out of the talent marketplace right away when there are brands out there that are doing these types of things. So those are a couple of starting points. Great.
Great. Scott, what are your thoughts on the social media part of that question? Well, I think social media is more important than ever, especially as a small business owner setting the tone, and it's conversation your brand is having almost 24 hours a day. And like it was mentioned earlier, just your images alone, are you inclusive in your images? Now, do people look and do they see themselves in your brand? And how you communicate on those all become very important, especially if you're a small company trying to find that the first time, you don't realize what those images and those messages [AUDIO OUT] your company when you start the process.
Yeah. And Maya, if I could come over to you; and I think one of the things that I'd like to ask you about is, what is the obligation that companies have in the community for workforce development of really reaching out to people of all differences, whether it's gender or ethnic diversities as we've talked about here, military, people with disabilities? What is a company's responsibility for developing the workforce so that they can ensure that they have the entirety of the workforce represented in their candidate? That's a great question. I think companies play a key role in the communities they serve, including those physically located in the same cities with their buildings. And COVID-19 has made it clear that we have done a terrible job at reducing inequities, and many of those are reflected in the poorer and in many times the racial diversity, the disabled populations, and so on. And so I think Derek mentioned that in each of our companies or organizations, we have people representative of all of those groups; and in many times, those sectors have organized within organizations and created their own media and their own branding to encourage others like them to join.
I think over the past year with companies addressing even more of these issues of inclusiveness and social diversity and social justice that you'd like to see this work amplified. And really it's a time for organizations to look within also to see who is there, what have they been doing, and how can we actually showcase this and turn this into something that is sort of our core. And I'm seeing this happening at USF and what it's doing around the Tampa Bay region, especially over the last year.
I think in terms of workforce development we have to look at how we invest in the communities around us. And this becomes a little different now that we're in a COVID world and so much of our work is online. So our community is not just physically around us.
And in an earlier conversation with Derek, he mentioned bringing in topics of the sustainable development goals, which is something that we work on a lot in environmental engineering. And you're seeing now how you apply this to US communities. So it's an only term you think of it as external to the US, but how can you apply it to US communities? And in particular I think as an urban institution, we're looking at, how do you look at applying the sustainable development goals around urban core where your university is located? And that as an environmental engineer really looks at issues of justice, at structural racism, and the issues of how do we address inclusivity and diversity. Great. Thank you, Maya. And, Haley, as you consider what a company can do to attract individuals with differences, what are some key considerations that you have as that process wraps up and then kind of move to employment itself? What's important in that process? I think what's important really again is when we're talking about this idea of representation, it truly matters across the board all the way from recruitment all the way in.
And I think when we have employees, it's how do we make sure that they feel supported that they're getting work that matches their skill sets. So that's something I've seen a lot as an autistic person is that the stereotypes of autism have held me back professionally. So people assume that all of us are very gifted in the sciences and mathematics. I went to law school and I would still get assigned the most technical things within the law firm because it was assumed that I too was a science genius, and unfortunately that wasn't the case.
So I think we have to really look at people as individuals, and sometimes I know that seems like the most obvious thing to do, but it really seems to echo especially in underrepresented and marginalized groups where stereotypes and stigmas seem to take hold more than they should. Great. Haley, that's a great way for us to transition from what's kind of the attraction and recruiting part of the process, and then moving into now the employment part of the process.
And, Scott, if I can kind of come to you with this first question related to employment, what do you believe is important to help individuals, as Haley said, individuals and recognizing each person for their own uniqueness, for those individuals to establish a sense of belonging for who they are in the workplace versus the need to fit in, be like others? How is it represented through the recruiting hiring process, but more so when they become employees? What's important to think about there? I think once again as an employer you get kind of lost in that recruiting cycle. Do I have the best kind of, discussed earlier, data and information and stats to look across the spectrum and pull this person? But then you fall short the day you hire that person and [AUDIO OUT] the culture of the company and introduced them to the right leaders and supervisors and then their peer networks left and right. So one of the most valuable things you can do is just giving a simple sense of belonging to the organization.
You want them to feel just as comfortable about themselves and themselves in your organization as well. If not, there'll be a false start where somebody feels they have to fit in or they have to look a certain way or be a certain way just to make this appearance that they were the right hire. Where, as employers, you have to set once again the tone of inclusion, and the integration part is valuable first couple of weeks, so that when they go when they walk around and they meet people, they get to embrace the culture of the company. Great. Thanks, Scott. And, Haley, in a bit of a follow up to that, I mean, what advice would you give to a company or an organization to build or begin building a culture of acceptance and inclusively? So the best advice that I usually give to start building that culture is start from the top down.
So I learned this especially when I taught a college class last semester and my students felt a lot better being who they were when I was being who I was. When I was very open and vulnerable to them about autism and disability and we had these conversations that might otherwise be difficult, they felt inspired to share more, participate more, and even they would email me privately and are things about their identity or maybe they identified or they were like, oh, we're also disabled, but we don't want the whole class to know, but we really identified with something you said. So I think when somebody who is in what looks like a position of power or authority and they're very vulnerable and open about whether it's something that they're struggling with or that they're marginalized-- like I know right now we're talking a lot about mental health. But I know when someone in a position of power who it seems like they have a lot to lose is open, it really opens the floodgates for the rest of the organization.
That's something that I've seen personally and that I've also heard from other people who work in DEI. And I'm like that's such a really cool thing to think about, is to start from the top down, is don't put the onus on the new people that might come in, whether it's a disability pipeline or an affirmative action program. In other words, don't put the onus on them to be the ones who are open and vulnerable because they're different or that you're making that effort at this point. Start from the top. Great.
Great. Thanks for that, Haley. And, Haley, you brought up a point that, Derek, I'd like your point of view on regarded to mental health and maybe well-being as a retention strategy.
Tell us a little bit about your thoughts related to that, and what's in particular these times why it's important to consider it. Sure. Thanks, Sharon. And to Haley's point, like if leaders were to open up now, especially now in 2021 about the impact of COVID-19 and the pandemic on their personal stories, their families stories, then it would allow the rest of us to come along on that journey. And this is all connected.
And so mental wellness is part of racial justice and it is part of social justice, and this is the time that we can put all of these trains together and move inclusion forward. So if leaders would come forward and say, well, now we need a retention strategy and we're going to connect our employee assistant program resources to our mental well-being programs, and this is a way to listen to you, to hear you and to support you, and what does that mean? We don't know yet. But if we don't invest in it now we know what the return on exclusion is. The return on exclusion is what we've been failing with. So if we can get to the return on inclusion to include people with anxiety and depression, then we will be addressing 90% of our workforce.
So we know this is not about them. It's about all of us. So we have a unique opportunity to look at not only do we hire people from diverse backgrounds, but we want to retain them all.
This is all of us working together. It starts with leaders opening up with their own stories. Great. Great. And I think that's an important part about leading to the onboarding of employees and how people join and become part of an organization. And, Maya, from your perspective and experiences, could you describe some actions and things that companies or organizations could consider to help ensure a positive onboarding experience for the newly hired employee, the whole team that they're coming into, and then also the manager themselves? Sure.
And I wanted to follow up on the mental health discussion that Derek just mentioned because we've just gone through training that every employee at USF how to do in terms of how to recognize and address this with students. And as I was filling it out, I was just burying and cremating my mom who died of COVID-19 on March 28, and I do think I've been really open with that process. And I think it's important that we speak about it and also speak about all of the issues that need to be addressed as we battle this virus going forward because we're far from over it. In terms of onboarding, I think some things that we could do, and Haley used this term earlier I think, it was this term of authenticity. And so the need to really ensure that you have a team that can authentically show diverse perspectives of the job.
And so really pay attention to the team that you assemble, and then think of mentorship when you're bringing someone on. And that mentorship is a team process. It's nearly not just one mentor. And it may not just be a mentor from your department, but it may be mentors who have diverse perspective that an employee can identify with. And it's important to recognize that everyone on that mentorship team should be valued equally, and also recognize that if your company likely has a small percentage of persons, say, who look like me, you are going to be asked to represent persons who look like me on many different things. Sometimes it can be overburdening and sometimes it's not necessarily reflected in sort of what you're supposed to be doing with the job.
And so I think we need to reconcile those things. But now is our opportunity to really hear from employees to address and fix those things. Great. Great.
And, Scott, one last question. How do we kind of accommodate and plan for generational diversities as well? We've got a workforce that consists of many generations. And what are the considerations from your point of view from generational diversity? Well, I think generational diversity there's multiple things. Obviously age is one to consider, but it's also how you grew up in technology, and you have this older style of work ethic that may have adapted and changed over time.
I know especially for veterans, sometimes you have young veterans who just left service for the first time and they don't know how to be a college student. They've never been in that environment before. They've been in the strict military kind of way and they kind of need to be brought down and shown how to integrate very easily. Whereas an older veteran, tremendous years of experience at levels holding multiple budgets that they don't understand the culture of business and the language of business.
So a lot of times they'll hide some of their deficiencies, and you just have to bring it out. So the age in the workplace, it's really the same thing. Are you inclusive? Are you communicating? Did you partner them with somebody that makes them successful when they first show up to the business? Great. Thank you.
Thanks for that. So just as we wrap up our conversation here, I'd like to turn it back to each of you very quickly on to just kind of give the one piece of advice that you would have the participants in this session kind of take back with them into their organizations and really try to make an impact in this area. So, Haley, what would be your kind of number one piece of advice for everyone listening today? So I didn't get to talk as much about this as I would have liked to, but I'm really big on neurodiversity.
So this idea that we all do better when we work with different kinds of minds and that everybody's brain works differently. So that is a good thing, friends, and you will have a lot more benefit, and it's just getting used to working with people and adapting. So it doesn't mean that you're wrong in your approach right now. Just we have to adapt and we have to be more accommodating and understanding of people who experience the world differently than we do, especially because of their backgrounds. And that's often intersectional with other parts of our identities as well.
Perfect. Thanks, Haley. Derek, I'm going to jump to you. I'm not going in alphabetical order right now.
Tricking you. Derek, what do you think? Well, I'll bounce off of Haley's word, intersectional. So oppression in society is intersectional and it involves racial oppression and certainly disability oppression. And when we look at veterans, there's disability in veterans community too. You cannot do this work well if you're not inclusive.
It's cross-functional and it's intersectional. Understand what oppression is by studying it, learning, and if you're an ally in this movement, also learn your role and support and take a backseat when it's time to take a backseat. If your company doesn't have a diversity and inclusion program, help start it.
If it doesn't include disability, change that because we want to be inclusive of our full society. We can't do this well if we're not bringing disability along in that diversity and inclusion journey. Great. Thanks, Derek. Scott, what do you think? Well, I think it not only starts from the top.
It starts from the bottom as Derek mentioned as well. There's an old saying, if you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together. And if you create that kind of environment all the way down in the fabric, just the thoughts and daily conversations of your company, you will have a better company for it.
Great. Thanks, Scott. And Maya. There she is.
Important that we starting to stories of people. And so I agree with what everyone had said, and really looking within our organizations and then the communities that we serve, and hearing the different perspectives of persons, and then just thinking of what is the world that we want. And I would just echo that COVID-19 has really shaken us up, and it's now a time to reset and look within and think of how do we create societies that are more just, more equitable, more inclusive and more diverse, and start within our institutions, start within our small work groups, asking those questions and having a safe space where people can start to learn how to speak about these issues. Great.
Thank you, Maya, and, boy, what a good place it would be for a workplace of all abilities if we took some of the tips that you all shared with us today. So thank you for joining as panelists today and giving your perspectives. I really would encourage everyone to do three things. First of all, learn about others that are different from you. Engage in the conversations. Listen to your peers with diverse experiences and perspectives.
Make it a daily habit, not just a one time thing. Recognize that there are biases in the workplace; that there are biases in the selection process; there are biases in the attraction process as well as the onboarding process. Consider what those are and think about how to work beyond them; and then team up with diverse minded colleagues and help drive a culture of inclusivity in your workplace. So again, thank you to the panelists who joined today.
Very much appreciate it, and we will finish this session and hand it over for further conversations. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Oh my goodness.
It is such a pleasure to be here with you today. I am Sandra Quince, and I'm with Bank of America, and what a fantastic panel you just heard. They talked about so many great things. I was sitting there just taking notes and listening in to some of the advice that they were giving, and I hope you were as well.
So I'm excited to be here this evening to talk to you about recruiting and retaining key talent. And certainly we only have about 30 minutes together. And so we're going to touch the tip of the iceberg, but I hope when you walk away from this segment that you will have some true actions that you can go back and you can implement in your organizations and within your firms and your companies. So let's start with the recruiting phase. It's so important. It's so critical.
It's what do you look like and how are you attracting people to your organization? And here are some things for you to consider. Be creative in where you're looking for talent, and that was one of the things that they talked about in the panel. Look at other types of areas where you know that you need or can find diverse talent. And so whether that's historically Black colleges and universities or predominantly white colleges and universities, asking them for connectivity to their diverse college students, and thinking about the organizations that are on campus. Think about those universities that are predominantly Hispanic in nature, whether it's University of Puerto Rico.
So be creative and where you're looking for your talent. And one of the other things that they shared with you was look inside. So think about your employee resource groups and how you can leverage them to help you in locating diverse talent, and leverage them to also tell the story of your company or your organization, and they can talk about your culture and be another way to really entice that talent to come into the organization. So here are some other things that you want to also think about.
You will have to think about mitigating bias. Bias shows up with all of us in almost everything that we do. So we all have biases. The one thing we need to understand is just that, and then secondly we need to know how to mitigate those biases and mitigate them in the moments that matter.
But there are certainly some things that you can do to help with that. So number one, can you require diverse slate or does your organization require diverse slates? So that's the first thing in the recruiting phase. In order to not only recruit and attract people into your organization, you also want to require diverse slates.
And when I say required diverse slates, you need to think about more than just one person of diversity being on that slate. And that may mean that you may say, listen, we need our slates to be at least 30% diverse, or we would like to have at least one female and one person of color on the slate. What you did not hear me say was open it up and for people who are not qualified because that's the first thing that people often will say is, well, what do you mean? Are you saying that we're going to take people who aren't qualified? So here's where bias comes in. When I say diversity, why does qualification become an issue? Everyone on the slate should be qualified, and just because I'm diverse doesn't mean that I'm not qualified. So that's one issue and one area that we have to deal with.
So require diverse slates. The other thing is to think about blind resumes. When you present resumes within your firm, does the name need to be on the resume? Can they look at that resume? Do you scrub out some of the things in the resume that may allude to how the person looks? And so think about that as well. And there are companies out there that will help you with creating a blind resume or creating a system that's consistent for you to have blind resumes.
And one of the things that the other panelists shared was around not only that particular point, but also thinking about the job description and how do you really make that job description more open for diverse candidates in that you're not shedding people out of that. The other thing I want you to think about is the review committee, creating a review committee. And so you would say, Sandra, why would I create a review committee? Won't that slow up my process? Well, just the opposite. A review committee really helps to ensure that the decisions that you're making, and especially when they are decisions for certain roles in your organization at certain levels where you more than likely will have challenges around key diverse talent, you want to bring those decisions to a review committee so that they can look at all of those decisions holistically.
See, it looks very different when I'm making a decision, Sally's making a decision, and Bob is making a decision about talent. But when we pull all those decisions together, what we may realize is we have inadvertently disproportionately impacted diverse talent. And so think about having a review committee that can say, listen, we're going to hire for these roles at this level. And when we do that, we need all of those roles or that final slate to come through this review committee.
So that's important to understand. And so a review committee can help you with that. The other thing is have a diverse interview panel A diverse interview panel really helps to make sure that there's consistency in your process.
So you want to make sure you're asking all the same questions, but having a diverse interview panel also ensures that we're holding each other accountable, we're all looking at the same thing, and then we can all share our perspectives and ensure that we're keeping ourselves in line when it comes to the comments that we may make about that particular candidate. And oftentimes you know the comments that I'm talking about, this person may not be a good culture fit. Well, when you have a diverse interview panel, someone could check you on that and say, OK, what do you exactly mean by that comment? So let's talk about what a good culture fit is and where this person may be lacking. So that's one thing that you'll want to do as well. You also want to ensure that your organization is really setting goals for yourself, and a lot of times people say, well, we don't have quotas.
And I'm not talking about quotas. I'm not talking about mandatory goals. I'm talking about aspirational goals or targets. You want to lead with data and follow with passion. And so what goals have you set for yourself and for your organization, and how will that you're successful if you're not setting goals even in the recruiting process? How many people do we want to hire and what does our diverse talent pool look like? And then when we make those hires, where are we and are we hiring at or above representation at every level in our organization? Because that's how you make progress. So you want to make sure that you're doing that.
So we talked about the recruiting process, and certainly there's so many more things that I can share with you that would really help for you to be thinking about recruiting. But I want us to also take some time to answer your questions as well. So I'd like to move now into the retaining talent. So when you think about retaining talent in your organization, the first thing you need to think about is creating a culture of inclusion.
And that was talked about on the previous panel. It is so important that I can show up as my authentic self and that your organization or your school or your university or your company has created a place where I have a sense of belonging. And where does that start? Well, I'd like to propose that while, yes, it starts at the top, it also starts with that frozen middle.
And that's your managers. You see, we spend the majority of our time with our managers and with our peers around us on our teams, and I like the title that the 50 square feet. Most times when people leave an organization, they're leaving because of what they experienced in that 50 square feet. And so we have to be able to create not only that culture of inclusion, but we need to create managers that are inclusive. So what does an inclusive manager really look like? Well, an inclusive manager or leader is one that has established trust with their team.
And when I say trust, that means that I can go to this person, I know that whatever I share with them they're going to listen to what I have to say, and I can trust them with my information. I can trust them that I can be who I am and be myself and show up as my authentic self. The other thing that they are is that they are transparent. And you heard one of the other panelists talk about when she showed up and she talked about herself and she was true to who she was, she was transparent, then that made everyone else feel comfortable. Well, that's what we need leaders to do.
We need them to be trustworthy and we need them to be transparent. We also need those leaders to invest in their people. How are you investing in your people in your team? What conversations are you having with them? How are you checking in on them, especially in the time that we've been in over the last year? And we talked about the mental wellness piece of it. How are you today? How are you holding up? What more can we do to support each other? And then the other thing, we need these inclusive leaders to demonstrate is creating a safe space to have courageous conversations.
This is the hard part. It's hard to have courageous conversations because oftentimes we're uncomfortable and we don't know what to say or we feel like we have to have all the answers, and you don't have to have any of that. You just need to be brave and have the conversation.
So that's one way we're going to retain talent by creating these inclusive leaders. And so I would advocate that you need to ensure that you're doing that with your managers; that you're equipping them to be that inclusive leader; that you're providing them with the necessary tools and resources that they can do; and that we're not just promoting people because they sold the most widgets. I call it the widget concept. I sell the most widgets. I'm the best at it, so I get promoted.
Now, I may be a good manager of selling widgets, but that doesn't necessarily make me a great leader of people. And that's what we need to do is to help our managers become a great leader of people. That's one of the ways we're going to retain good talent. The other thing that we need to do is to ensure that we're creating a culture of courageous conversations. We've had a lot happen over the last year. We had a lot happen yesterday.
And I loved at the beginning of this segment right before the panelist, they opened it up with talking about the trial and acknowledging the decision that was rendered on yesterday. Now, regardless of how you feel about it, we've all got to acknowledge it. And that is brave and that is creating this culture of courageous conversations and just leaning into it. And so we have to be able to do that because that's how you create this culture of inclusion within your organizations. And so oftentimes I get asked well, Sandra, how do we start? You start by just having the conversation.
You start by asking the questions. You start by saying things like, look, I'm not always going to get it right. I may say the wrong thing, but I am here to learn and to grow.
And more importantly, I care about you and I want to make sure you're OK. That's how you start courageous conversations, and also understand everybody is not ready to do that. But as a leader, you should be.
And if your folks aren't ready to have the conversation, you just simply say I'm here when you need me. The other thing that we have to do is we have to think about what are we doing with our diverse talent from a retention standpoint. Are we creating, mentoring programs, sponshorship programs? There's statistics out there that say in order for diverse talent to be successful in an organization and make their way up the corporate ladder or organizational ladder, they have to be sponsored. So you need to create sponsorship programs for your diverse talent in order for them to succeed. And oftentimes get the question from people, well, Sandra, I didn't have a sponsor and I did well.
Well, little did you know, the only way you make it to the top in any organization is we all have been sponsored at some point. Somebody sat at a table and said, you know what? I think Jim would be great for this role, and I think we should do it, and I'm willing to bet my own credibility and personal capital in my personal influence to ensure that he's successful, and Jim got the job. That's sponsorship. But it has to be one of the other panelists said, I'll quote them again, but they said, "intentional." And if we want to see our diverse talent and key talent retained, we need to be intentional about it.
And so ensuring that we are creating those programs. And I'm sure many of your organizations they have leadership programs, whether it's women leadership program, or LGBTQ programs, or people of color, ethnically underrepresented, or diverse programs. And so we need to be creating these programs not only for our diverse talent, but also for our key talent as well because we want to make sure that you're creating a place where all talent can thrive in your organizations. So, again, we talked about the recruiting piece. So how do you really attract? Well, one way that you're going to attract talent is they're going to want to know the culture of your organizations. They're going to want to see people who look like them, and that's where that diverse interview panel will come into play.
They also are hopefully going to research your companies and organizations. So what you say about yourself, which earlier in the panel you heard them talk about social media, how are you projecting your company's vision and values and is what I'm seeing in the window what's happening in the shop? Because it's one thing to talk a good game, but once I get in there and then I'm interviewing and I'm not seeing anyone who looks like me, or the questions that I'm getting it's not making me feel comfortable, or the way the role was written makes me feel excluded makes me then question, are you really practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion in your organization? So remember some of those things and consider in your process creating some sort of tool or resource that mitigate biases in every moment that matters. So from the time that I'm attracting talent in interviewing, how does bias show up? And so me asking myself, am I looking at all of the candidates in the right way? Why do I think a certain way about a certain candidate? What makes me feel this way about this particular candidate? So really disarming my biases in that moment that matters before I make that decision is critical. And we have to do that for every moment that matters within the employee life cycle. So whether I'm hiring, whether I am getting ready to think about a development program, or choose who is going to lead, a project within the company or organization, I need to do a post check.
I need to do a bias check. Whether I'm going to promote someone, I need to do a bias check. When I get ready to talk to my talent about where they are, I need to do a bias check and talk to them about their goals and aspirations, or talk to them about their performance or even have a pay conversation or even decisioning pay.
I need to do a bias check. These are those moments that matter in the employee life cycle. The other thing I want you to consider around the retention piece that I did not say earlier was how you re-recruit your talent. Are you having stayed conversations with your talent, especially your key diverse talent? Are you telling them the plans that the company has for them? Listen, we're thinking about all these wonderful things for you. Well, what are those things? Maybe you can't say that we're looking at you for X, Y, Z promotion, but you can say we are considering you and we're looking for some future opportunities, asking them how they're doing, asking them what their goals and aspirations are, asking them are there anything that they want to do within this organization that they haven't had the opportunity, or what are some of the growth opportunities that they have. So having those sort of stayed conversations with them, just simply checking in, re-recruiting them back to your company.
And I advise you to do this for all of your key talent, not just for your key diverse talent because that is important in the fact of helping talent feel really connected to the organization and that a, this person is paying attention to me, and b, they're investing in me and it really makes a difference in how I show up every day. So with that, I do want to open it up for some questions from you. I see a question now. What metrics do you use to measure the success of your hiring and retention efforts at Bank of America? That is such a great question. So at Bank of America, we measure everything. So we look at our slates and we make sure that all slates are diverse.
We also look at our pool through rates. So we look at not only who was on the slate, but who did we pull through and what is that percentage? When we have key diverse talent on the slate, do they make it into the organization as a hire, and what does that look like for us? We measure everything for women, we measure everything for people of color, and we even break it down, Black, African-American, Hispanic, Latino, and Asian. We measure managers. What do our manager population look like? We also measure what level you are in the organization. How deep are you from the CEO? So we look at all of those measurements, and certainly data is a key component because it tells the story. It tells really where you are.
And so you have to lead with the data and follow with passion. Do we have another question that's out there? This is good. How can anonymous resumes help candidates who have held significant resumes worthy leadership positions in affinity groups? Well, actually, you can still keep as much information on the resume that's important.
So if you had key positions in affinity groups, then that's fantastic. I say you list it. These are some leadership areas that I've held with affinity groups in my organization. When I talk about blind resumes, I'm talking about removing maybe the name or maybe the sports or maybe a certain section of town where they live, especially if it's local.
Those are things that are not important. But all of those other things you want to keep on the resume. And listen, just because I said that I was a leader in the Black Professional Group, don't assume that I was Black because in some organizations and especially at Bank of America, we had executive sponsors that were white that led Black Professional Group.
So, again, we don't want to make those assumptions. But I absolutely believe everything that's pertinent to that resume that speaks to your leadership should be on there. What's another question we have? How do you create the psychological safety for colleagues to be able to bring up issues related to the culture or feedback? I think that's a great question, and I think it starts with having these courageous conversations around being authentic and also being honest in the way that you share information in the organization.
And when you start to have courageous conversations, whether those conversations around what's happening around us every day, whether it's social injustice, or whether it's about race, what you find is you create a space for people to feel really comfortable to talk about the culture within their organizations, to talk about how they're feeling about the way that they're being treated internally, to talk about how they show up at work. And so one of the things that would be helpful is to create what we like to call, walk a mile in my shoes. That's a simple panel conversation that you can have with very diverse people in the organization to talk about what it feels like to be me in this organization every day and how I show up.
You see, we all cover, even white men. 45% of white men cover every day at work. And so we need to talk about what makes us cover, and you can create that where it's a very safe space for people to have that conversation. So I say start with a panel discussion with a group of folks that are very different to talk about what it's like to be them in the organization.
And that's a catalyst to really step up and start those conversations more deeply. What's another question that we have? A review committee is a good idea, but what if the members do not agree on the same candidate? How do you address that? So here's the idea around a review committee. A review committee will take-- I'm not asking the review committee to decide on the very last candidate. What I'm asking the review committee to do is to take a look at the decisions that are being put forth, and that review committee is then to ask key questions.
Number one, where's the diversity in this? Number two, are these really the best candidates that we've looked at? Do we need to go back to the slate? Did you have a diverse slate? Because they are looking at everything at the macro level and not the micro level. So I may make a decision and it looks good because I made that decision in my cycle. But as I said before, John makes a decision and Sally makes a decision. Well, the review comes together and say, listen, you all made a decision, but guess what that did? That disproportionately impacted diverse talent, so I need you to go back and think about that decision. And what that does is it holds those leaders accountable.
And so it starts to train them to think about things more holistically before they make final decisions and before they bring it to that review committee because they know the types of questions that they're going to be answering. And it's another way to do an accountability check. So before we go out and have that final decision made, I need a review committee to look at that and to ask all the right questions to hold us accountable. How do we turn little wins into cultural shifts? DEI sustainability is tough.
You're so right. It is tough and it's hard work, and it's tiring and some days it makes you just want to cry, and other days it makes you want to leap for joy because you feel like you're making such great progress. But here's what I love about this question, is little wins. I think what you have to do is you do have to celebrate [INAUDIBLE].
The things you have to do is you have to think about micro-actions. Don't go out and think about, how am I going to culturally shift my entire organization within two weeks? Because it will not happen. Well, one of the small things we can implement today-- so think about some of the things I've shared here. If we can just implement one of those little things today, it's those small micro-actions that then lead to big change at some point. But you've got to start somewhere. So is it today we just require that we're going to have diverse slates? That's all we're going to do.
We're not going to do anything else. Then we began to build upon that because you begin to see progress at the end of the tunnel. [AUDIO OUT] I'm going to create targets and aspirational goals within my company.
Maybe we can do that. We're going to implement training for all of our managers because we want to make sure they're inclusive and they have those four attributes in our company. Let's just start there.
Or maybe I'm going to have a walk a mile in my shoes conversation, and we're going to do that within my own small team. It's the microsteps that can lead to the big change. So with that, I believe my time is up for today, and it has been such a pleasure spending time with all of you.
And I hope between myself and the panel and all that you've heard over these last few weeks that you have at least one or two things that you're going to do differently. So thank you, and have a good evening. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Terry Boyd, your moderator today for module 5. This module's intent is to illustrate the effectiveness in using analytics for recruitment and retention in the advancement of D, E, and I initiatives. The module will speak about how big data can be pervasive in helping organizations achieve their goals in various disciplines from marketing to finance. With me today is my colleague, my friend, but more importantly, an expert in this space, Dr. Triparna de
Vreede. Hi, Triparna. Hello.
How are you doing? Doing well. Thank you. This is a very interesting topic, and I'm sure that our audience can't wait to hear from you about analytics and big data.
But before we get started, the other day you spoke to me about a CEO that you know who was able to resolve some issues in their D, E, and I process in using big data. Would you mind speaking a bit about that? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it is indeed very relevant to the topic we are talking today. So the other day, a CEO friend of mine who is based in Cleveland, she was telling me about a situation that she encountered.
She was struck by how few women who are applying to leadership positions even though it was open to the entire organization. So she started doing some sort of in network analysis. She started looking at who was talking to whom and how things were progressing in terms of connections.
And then she found out that most women within her organizations, they tended to be siloed within the levels of their organization. That means women tended to speak to women and also women tended to speak to women within their levels. They did not speak up or below. Not that they didn't do it at all, but it was mostly within their silos.
And that allowed them to be comfortable within their silos, but it disallowed them from seeking out or even knowing about the new opportunities that were coming up. Cool. That's interesting. Yes. And so as a result, now what she is doing is she is starting these new initiatives across the organization where women across all levels and all the political silos are coming together and networking, but also new opportunities are being explained in a different way.
The push is being given differently so that all women understand and know of this leadership positions and they're trained for it. And that is a welcome direction that their company is taking. Good. That's a good outcome. But I often hear CEOs speak of their frustration of not being able to find diverse populations to recruit from or how well the diverse populations are doing within the organization.
Do they feel included, or even if they can find diverse populations in their organization maybe to put on a developmental track, if you will, for promotions to leadership, and things of that nature. Can you speak a little bit about that? No, absolutely. I think finding the right person, the whole entire acquisition funnel, if you will, it's very critical for organizations. And I do not need to stress on how important it is in the acquisition funnel from all the way from top down, starting from the job description, to have the right people, right processes in order to have diversity and equity and inclusion in all of the processes. And big data can absolutely help with it.
And people analytics is something that is coming up and it is a very important tool, if you will, to aid in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that organizations take on. Well, that's interesting. So, Triparna, what is people analytics? People analytics really is about using big data and analytics to make sure that you are making decisions that are good for the employees as well as good for the organization. So that's the key word. It's a win-win situation.
You use big data and analytics to help the organizations using people data, but it also enables organizations to help the people. So you find the patterns and inconsistencies in talent data and you find the gaps that are there in the talent data, and you utilize big data analytics to predict what kind of outcomes will there be if you are on the same trajectory, and then you make decisions, and you create insights out of it. Now if you will, we are in a very fortunate time in technology. Leaders can now focus on different things like big data, analytics, and evidence, so to speak, beyond their experience logic, understanding of how the organization works. And so people analytics really is the newest tool in the toolbox. And if people understand how to use it well, it can be really liberating and enlightening for organizations.
OK. Well, I think you hit the nail on the head if people understand. So that we can be very clear, and so that we can understand, would you please just give us a definition of people analytics? Absolutely.
So people analytics really starts with the talent management business question. So what is a talent management business question? A business question is something that a business, an organization is truly interested in. For instance, what effect do each of our DEI programs have on the retention of underrepresented groups? That would be a business question. So without a goal, we really can't go anywhere. So we need to have it goal.
And in order to have a goal, we'll have to foramen it in terms of a question. So now once we have this question, what effect do each of our DEI programs have on retention of underrepresented groups, then organizations can say, "OK. Where do I look in my databases, in my data sources to answer that question?" So it always starts with the business question and then you start looking at the disparate data sources. And these data sources can come from various different angles. It can come from talent data, which is the human resources, human information systems. It can come from payroll, it can come from attrition data, hiring, firing data it can come from anywhere related to talent.
But it can also come from company data. For instance, sales, net promoter scores, or it can come from the labor data like what are the job openings? How many jobs have been created? What is the unemployment rates? All of these data can be used to be analyzed in order to answer the question. So now you analyze this data and you start answering questions and this analysis can come in three different ways. It can be descriptive, that is, what happened in the past, or it can be diagnostic, what is happening now, or it can be predictive, so utilizing what happened in the past and what is happening now, you can create models to tell you what can happen in the future. So remember, it's a modeling. So that means you are trying to come up with some level of certainty what is happening, You Are not totally predicting.
The prediction really depends on the quality of your past and present data. OK. Thank you for that. Well, so how can people analytics, Triparna, help create a DE&I process? Absolutely. So people analytics is very critical in all processes, in just human resources in general because it allows you to outline the business actions, it allows you to measure results. And with DEI, it's no different.
Because in diversity analytics, you are looking at the presence of difference. You are looking at how much difference is there within my organization? How much diversity is there in my organization? And that diversity can be ethnic, it can be cognitive, it can be functional, it can be any type of diversity. So this diversity if you will is in two different ways, can be looked at and two different ways. On the surface level, it's just the basics; how many people are there in my organization that are diverse? Diversity by role, diversity by department, and so on and so forth. And then you can look at analytics part of it by visualizing this data.
People often relate better to visualization than being spoken to. So if you visuali
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