In Businesses We Trust

As trust in governments around the world continues to spiral, people are turning to corporations. There is a greater expectation for businesses to step up to address societal problems. According to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer people feel that businesses should play an active role in addressing societal problems - specifically around climate change, economic inequality, and workforce reskilling.

Considering this newsletter is about winning and retaining talent, we dive into issues related to economic inequality and how business and HR leaders can help bridge the divide over time.?

Often equality is confused with equity. Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.??

Recognizing that each person has different circumstances, driving equity becomes very important as an employer.?For example, do your benefit plans support one demographic segment more than another or does your attraction and hiring process make it more difficult for one demographic segment over another??

Candidates and employees feel fairness and equity as they experience your organization’s philosophy and the underpinning actions in their journey with the organization.?Here are some questions and potential solutions to consider as we build a fair and equitable workplace for all walks of life.?

Equity For Candidates:

1)?????Attraction: Does your attraction content like employee value proposition, career site, job postings reflect fairness? I.e., Do certain demographic segments feel left out in the language, tone, graphics you use? Are you in the right channels to attract various walks of life? In order to find out if this is an issue for you and what actions you need to take, conduct a survey (prefer verbal dialogue) by reaching out to a cross-section of your ideal candidates and asking these key questions:

• When you browse through our career site and jobs, can you relate as a candidate?
• How do you feel specifically about fair treatment and opportunities you may get here?
• What are the top 3 things in our content we could change or do better to reflect how serious we are about equity?
• How/where did you learn about us and the career opportunities we offer?

2)?????Screen/Selection: Does your screening and selection process appear to favor one demographic segment over another??For example, requiring an in-person interview for a remote role may be taxing for someone who has mobility challenges or an assessment that favors someone who is native to a language over someone whose native language is some other than the assessment.

Here is one way to identify any problem areas in your screening and selection process from an equity point of view:??

If you haven’t done so recently, walk through the same exact steps that the candidates would take in the screening process and answer the following question through the eyes of the candidate:

“If I was _[enter demographic segment – e.g. on a wheelchair, or an immigrant, or XYZ]--- how difficult would it be for me to go through the process step ABC. – rate it objectively on a scale of 1-4 (4 being most difficult) and remove or minimize the steps that fall out as most difficult barriers.?

?Equity For Employees:

1)?????Onboarding: Are you going beyond a “diversity training” course in your onboarding process? Onboarding is the most crucial time that new hires begin to form impressions of the spoken and unspoken culture, behaviors, and values of your organization.?Help hiring managers create a robust and inclusive onboarding plan to meet key people who will help the new hire succeed and instill expected behaviors – especially the value of fairness and equity in everything you do with specific examples and success stories. ?

2)?????Development/Growth: Besides the employee and the manager, who else is advocating for the employee’s development and growth? Do one group of employees have better access and visibility to senior leadership than others??Do employees of a certain demographic segment feel isolated over another segment??Special interest and affinity groups help but the very nature of forming these groups may create a divide – being part of one group over another, etc.?Instead of affinity groups what may work better is giving access to career coaches and mentors (external or internal) at scale who come similar backgrounds as the individuals.??

3)?????Base Pay & Benefits: When was the last time your job level, descriptions, and key skills reviewed across the organization? Pay ranges are typically pegged based on the job the person is in along with their geography and sometimes even skills.?Often if employees start out at the low end of the pay range, it will follow them along and will likely lag compared to new hires who joined after them.?To get pay equity right, organizations must make sure job profiles are kept up to date and assuming people are in the right job profiles they should be in there should be minimal to zero difference in base pay across demographic segments.?The most effective way to ensure this is to drive rigid rules around raises and promotion decisions and not leaving the decision solely on the manager.?Professional services organizations do this really well by having “committee-based roundtable” reviews of pay, raises, and promotions.?

Benefits are another area of scrutiny. Group plans generally have “one size fits all” philosophy and great for equality but not so much for equity. Thus, we are seeing the rise of “a la carte” benefit plans to offer individuality of choice and drive more equity in the program.?

4)?????Performance Reviews: Is there a correlation between performance ratings and specific demographic segments??I.e. Is one demographic segment more prone to higher ratings than another??In your review cycle, regression and correlation analysis is a must to ensure that there is no unconscious bias effect going on with leadership in assigning ratings.?This is one of the reasons some firms use a committee-based roundtable approach to assign performance ratings.?

In summary, the trust in government is at an all-time low and people are increasingly relying on business leaders to help solve societal challenges. Considering an average person spends one third of their life working, there is an opportunity for business and HR leaders to make a significant impact on society as a whole.?This is one of the most exciting times to be a Business and an HR leader!??