Focusing up-river in the world of social impact

I’ve been searching for the right analogy to capture the need to collectively shift our mindset from addressing the symptoms to solving the problems to create a better world for all of us.? The Archbishop Desmond Tutu perhaps said it best: There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in. These words seem more relevant than ever as companies take public positions on pressing societal issues, and more importantly, explore how they can address the structural issues within their industry to create a more just and equitable world for everyone. There is no question that the role and expectations of companies have evolved dramatically over the last decade. This is why we – and all companies – need to start focusing even more upriver, where the real impact, positive and negative, begins and becomes cemented in company operations, metrics and culture.?

?At LinkedIn, we’ve increasingly become focused upriver, but admittedly are still very early in our journey. We’ve started by asking ourselves, ‘how do we take a more systemic approach to social impact?’ We continue to generously support nonprofits that are aligned with our mission to help jobseekers facing barriers connect to opportunity. However, we’re also making sure the community and products that LinkedIn is building helps create more equitable and inclusive workforce for everyone. This is how we hold ourselves accountable to the role we play to help ensure two people with equal talent have equal access to opportunity. As we continue to grow and learn in these areas each day, here are a few lessons we’re learning along our journey, which we are hopeful will help you on yours.?

Start with your Employees and connect them to their community?

We formally kicked off our social impact program in 2010, with a matching gifts program and the launch of “Impact Grants” (employees could get a grant up to $10,000 to support a nonprofit they were personally involved in). However, our first step towards a more systemic shift in our product was the launch of the “Volunteer and Causes” section on the LinkedIn profile - making “impact” a professional norm. This feature helps connect members to volunteer roles and its creation was actually sparked by the nudging of a passionate product manager.

In 2015, we launched our signature program we now call LinkedIn Coaches that connects our employees with jobseekers to help them grow their careers and expand their networks. Today, the program has matched tens of thousands of employees with professionals facing barriers – such as first-generation college students, newly settled refugees, formerly incarcerated individuals and Veterans to name a few. While we were confident in the impact it would have on the jobseekers, we massively underestimated the impact it would have on our employees. These conversations have helped our employees be better researchers, designers, product managers and salespeople. The experience inspired them to question and reflect on how they could use their sphere of influence and job function to make our platform work better for everyone. And this has been instrumental in helping LinkedIn realize its vision. Here is why – it is challenging to build products that work for “everyone” if you only know or have a lived experience of a subset. Which brings me to my next point.?

?Establish (early on) ways to measure what matters – especially guardrails for unintended consequences

In moving upriver, what you measure may be the most important part of your commitment to ensure your company is creating products that are fair and equitable. If you aren’t careful, seemingly “good” business metrics can sometimes lead to unintended and negative consequences. In addition, what is often even more important is what you aren’t measuring. We identify what we don’t know by asking a simple question: How can we ensure that our products and features build a more efficient and equitable labor market for everyone? This begins by understanding the impact of the products we build and how different audiences engage with them. Let me share a quick example that brought this to life for us.?

In 2018, we launched a product called the “job referral button” — a clever feature that nudged a jobseeker to reach out to a connection that we identify they have at a company and ask for a referral. Why? Because we know that getting referred to a job on LinkedIn gives you a 4x advantage over a non-referred candidate. This sounds great until you think about that job seeker who might be as or more qualified for the job but who doesn’t have that referral. This realization led to research and the body of work that we now call the “network gap”— the advantage some jobseekers have based on who they know and is often referred to as social capital. In addition, it inspired significant investment to build a tool that measures the unintended consequences of everything we build, which we call Project Every Member . This tool helps us measure and hold ourselves accountable to ensuring that two people with equal talent have equal access to opportunity.?

?Inspire all your stakeholders to join you in your journey and learn from them in the process

The only way to truly move upriver and find out why people are falling in is to ensure these individuals have a voice and are part of your education and decision-making process. Bringing stakeholders (in our case customers, members and nonprofits) alongside you every step of the way will help make sure you have the most relevant knowledge and insights to make sure we are headed in the right direction and rowing together towards a solution.?

?We try to be very intentional about bringing these voices into the design, development and launch of our products. In 2019, we established Network Gap Coalitions in each of our global regions. These coalitions are a group of nonprofits (and customers) who are already five steps ahead of us in understanding and addressing the roles that networks and skills play in accessing opportunity. We support the work they do with grants and in-kind support, but more importantly, we also host roundtable discussions where they give early feedback on product designs and engage with their program participants. We are also committed to investing in nonprofits who are led by leaders who reflect the communities they serve. Finally, we ensure that our executives also hear directly from our stakeholder voices. A great example of this is when our CEO recently visited India, in addition to meeting with customers, he also prioritized conversations with nonprofit leaders in the region.?

?When you bring in and listen to influential, outside voices, it? gives you thoughtful insight into the unintended consequences of your products and services. It also holds you accountable for making the changes necessary for a more equitable product, ensuring your business adds value to your stakeholders.

Embed Social Impact in every role

Hiring the right talent is critical to embedding an “upriver” mindset across your company. A great way to start is by attracting jobseekers whose values are aligned with your company’s values. To showcase your organization's culture and help attract candidates who are looking to assess whether it could be a fit, you can highlight specific commitments you've made on your company Page on LinkedIn. At LinkedIn, I'm proud to share our featured commitments in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); environmental sustainability; social impact; career growth and learning; and work-life balance.

While I certainly think we still need formal “social impact” teams at companies, what is potentially more impactful is the roles at companies that are making decisions every day related to building and designing products. To truly hold yourself accountable to ensuring your company remains laser focused “upriver” is to inspire every employee across the business to be equally committed to this mindset. It is the researcher who has committed to ensuring that we include individuals from all backgrounds; it is the LinkedIn Learning producer who is creating a course for jobseekers who have been involved in the justice system;? it is the data scientist who discovered that job alerts have an equalizing effect when it comes to accessing opportunity; and it is the product manager who is committed to finding ways to close the network gap. In many ways, these roles have had and will continue to have a much more lasting impact to help us deliver on the promise that “the world is better off because LinkedIn is in it” (thanks Paul Polman )