Forward I: Building A Truly Diverse and Inclusive Organization (Part 8 of 10)
In today’s workforce, building a truly diverse and inclusive team has become one of the main agendas of every organization. Now that workforce diversity is given much importance in the workplace, companies have come up with different approaches and strategies, with the intention of establishing a work culture that is safe and inclusive for all.
That said, this panel plans to further expound on the importance of having a diverse and inclusive organization especially in the modern workforce. In order to provide with with more insights and knowledge regarding the said matter, we have invited esteemed speakers from different fields: Renuka Iyer, Chief Human Resources Officer of the World Resources Institute; Wendy Rentschler, Global head of CSR/DEI of the BMC Software; Allison Sproul, Senior Manager of People & Talent of the connectRN; and Alysha Campbell, the Founder and CEO of CultureShift HR.
To start the conversation, we have asked the speakers to briefly provide a background of themselves and answer the first question: How do you convince business leaders that it is not just a human rights imperative, but also a business imperative to think about DEI and build a truly diverse and inclusive organization?
The question made the speakers excited. Wendy jumped into the discussion first. According to her, you can convince business leaders by letting them know that building a truly diverse and inclusive workforce is a one step process to making an organization successful. Therefore, it is important to consider planning things that work forward and investing in the workforce of the future.?
Alysha followed by saying that the first thing to do is take a look around. Observe your surroundings. Take a look at the people around you because each and everyone of them has a story to tell. Aside from that, you can also look at the lack of diversity within the room and think about what that lack of diversity is stopping the company from growing. If you do not have those diverse thoughts and perspectives at the table, you're missing out on a massive opportunity to connect and have an authentic workplace.?
Next, Allison pointed out that it is important to go forth with data because the data that we have is already enough to create the case that it's time for action.?
Renuka, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of having a circle of influence because it is one of the pivotal factors of making an organization successful. If your business has to survive, your circle of influence should have to encompass everyone that is part of the social revolution; hence, the only way to do that is to open your eyes, look around, and do what's needed to do to survive.
Moving forward, we opened another area of discussion by asking this question: When it comes to diversity, we are focused on gender diversity and tend to miss minorities from ethnic groups. How does that statement resonate with you and what's your response to that?
Again, Wendy started the conversation by stating that gender diversity should be a table stake at this point. She also emphasized the essence of having a more agnostic view, especially when working at a global company. She points out that there is so much nuance to everyone's journey and we are not expected to know everything about everyone; thus, being intentional about trying to get to know people is an important first step. Furthermore, racial discrimination happens all over the world; it's the same book with a different cover. However, there are instances that people cannot connect those dots together and they want to see things that reflect their journey more closely; thus, using culture pop has been a really great way because it's micro learning.
In addition to that, Renuka mentioned that gender diversity and taking that lens in itself is flawed. When organizations think about gender diversity, what comes into mind first is the sex assigned at birth and not the gender identity and expression. Because of this, the concept of using gender as a lens in itself could be flawed.?
Following this thought, Alysha emphasized the essence of understanding the different and diverse dimensions of the organization. Understand the intention and the purpose of what we're trying to do to be more inclusive and utilizing the best resources possible to ensure that we are aware and up to date with.?
Lastly, Allison stated that gender diversity is only a piece of the puzzle. She mentioned that gender diversity is now looked at as table stakes, as Wendy said earlier. Then she noted that thankfully, more and more companies are recognizing the importance of racial and ethnic diversity.
As we are now nearing the conclusion of the session, we asked the speakers to share their insights and thoughts on how HR leaders can embed DEI as part of the end-to-end across-the-board business strategy of our organization.?
According to them, the best way to delineate diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) from something under HR is by making it its own separate function that is ultimately reporting to the CEO. By then, that function should be a function that works in a very close alignment and walk step with people operations and talent acquisition; however, not entirely an HR function. By having that separate department reporting into the office of the CEO, you're able to acquire influence and have closer partnerships with other departments.
With that, it is also key that we learn to acknowledge and identify DEIB as a matrix element bringing in HR and various business leaders in all facets of the business. In fact, you need all those people at the table because they are the paramount contributors of change.?
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Also, HR can be a very powerful unit that organizations have because in the end, it doesn't really matter where DEIB sits. What matters more is that it has management and executive support that what needs to be done should be done. Indeed, the bottleneck to the bottle is at the top right thus, we have to break that bottleneck and open it widely in order to put DEIB at the center.
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The Hacking HR's Experts Council
We are thrilled to invite all Directors, VPs/SVPs, and HR C-suite level leaders in companies with over 100 employees to join us as Founding Members at the Hacking HR's Experts Council!?
The Expert Council's goal is to provide insights, ideas, recommendations and expertise about very specific topics to the thousands of members of the Hacking HR community and the extended HR global community.
?The Experts Council is also a place for community for senior HR leaders to share and also ask, to be safe while having vulnerable and open conversations about the challenges in HR, and from there to generate insights and ideas and innovations for the extended Hacking HR community!?
In addition, Founding Members in the Council will always be our priority to invite for our Hacking HR events, particularly our annual global online conference, and also podcasts, and much more!?
Almost 400 HR leaders from around the world have already joined, including multinational and local companies, for profit, nonprofit and government institutions, different sectors and industries as well.??
Do you want to join us??
Are you an HR leader (director, VP/SVP, C-Suite) in an organization with more than 100 employees??
Reach out to us: [email protected], and let us know more about you!
(Please note that at the moment we are not including consultants/vendors in the Council.)
Global Corporate Citizenship | Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion | ESG | Sustainability | Strategic Initiatives | Public Affairs | UN Liaison at BMC Software ?? #GlobalGoals
2 年"Wendy jumped into the discussion first" ?? - To all my fellow panelists, in the many sessions I have participated in, THANK YOU, for your grace. My ADHD really gets the best of me when I am excited about a topic. I am working on it for my personal growth and as an ally ?? Alysha M. Campbell thank you for all the times we have teamed up and your infinite patience ??