Hiring a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging Consultant Or, Why You Really Need to Pay for DEIB Expertise

Read on to reframe the way you think about DEIB work and/or have your experience validated (I can hear the ‘Amens’ and emoji claps already)…

But, we don’t need to pay for it, we already have volunteers doing the work for FREEEEE!

1. Those volunteers rarely have any actual power to enact change, design policy, or take action. By engaging in DEIB work, they are in a position to have the aversion & defensiveness amplified by those resistant to change without usually getting to see behaviors, cultures, or expectations actually change. They end up more frustrated by the slow pace of change and the roadblocks thrown up even by the most well-meaning of leaders and find themselves burnt-out & feeling helpless and hopeless about work they once felt incredibly passionate and excited about.
2. DEIB committees/task forces/ teams are usually made up of the most marginalized and impacted members of a community. They have an interest & investment because they are experiencing the challenges firsthand. However, because of the demographics they are usually part of, they also risk additional harm, retaliation, & further “othering” by simply taking part in speaking up, seeking change, and sharing lived experiences and needs. It is a risk to speak up, a risk to “rock the boat” of the status quo —amplifying problems that threaten the status quo are consistently repackaged to make the person surfacing them “the problem”. These folks are already paying a high?emotional tax?to survive, let alone thrive. Therefore, participation in these groups can hurt them not only in their career as they become labeled troublemakers or problematic, it takes a toll on their mental & physical health.
3. Being a woman, or person of color, or gay, or in a wheelchair doesn’t mean someone is an expert in solving or addressing all of the nuances & complex issues of inequity. If you don’t expect Bob from Accounting who used to live in Maine to hop into the rafters and fix your finicky HVAC simply because he “knows cold”, don’t expect your employees with marginalized aspects to their identities to solve white supremacy between sales calls simply because they “know inequity”. It is important to consider how often we are asking our “othered” employees to carry the unreasonable burden of teaching us how to be more inclusive, doing free DEIB work between their job description workload, while also being on the receiving end of what makes DEIB work necessary.

4. There is a thriving fallacy that if you are ______ you have the ability to speak for all those like you. No group is a monolith that thinks, feels, and experiences as one. There is no one size fits all for anyone in our world — even identical twins who share identical genetic material don’t like all the same things, want all the same things, think all the same things — why would you expect me and Sharon to both want the exact same changes or have the same needs for everything simply because we have a similar skin tone. It's also worth noting that if someone is an “only” (think only woman, only Black man, only trans person, only disabled person) they are more likely to think about leaving their jobs often as a result of the microaggressions & roadblocks they experience at work.

Take Action:

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you that YES you need to pay for this work to be done well, professionally, and in a way that promotes lasting long-term change. You can go two routes.

OPTION 1: You can hire an outside consultant to support the building of new culture, policy, & best practices. Depending on the size of your company, this consultant can also help you set up the scaffolding and support systems to implement Option 2.

A consultant can help you do a deep dive investigation & help both lay the groundwork & keep the ball rolling. However, they will be in a tricky spot if the organization is not really looking to make changes but superficially check DEIB boxes. Having an outside consultant can assure that they retain an outside perspective rather than entrenched in the culture, free from interpersonal entanglements, and focused on the mission laid before them. Before you investigate it’s a good idea to do some organizational soul-searching & get some clarity.

• What is your budget to support this work?
• Realistically, where are you in the process of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, accountability, & systems in your organization?
• How does that compare with where you want to be in 6 months? a year? 5 years?
• What feedback have you already gotten about pain points??(Compile from multiple sources — exit interviews, anonymous surveys, reviews, anecdotal stories)

This is meant to be a discerning process, information gathering, not a judgment of yourself, people within your organization, or your organization.?(A lot of organizations that specialize in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging support can & will help with that assessment, too.) It can be tough to really get honest and it’s ok to discover you were “wrong” about needs once you get a consultant in the door. For some tips on how to assess a DEIB consultant check out my article?“Put your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging Statement Into Action | Picking the Right DEIB Consultant”.

OPTION 2: You can create a team within your organization that is specifically designed, paid, and doing nothing but DEIB-related work.

You can check out what other orgs are doing that excel at this work. That team should be led by someone with expertise in DEIB (not just someone who cares a lot about it, but has little or no experience in the field. That leader & team must be empowered to act & make changes, make decisions, & hold people accountable — including leadership. You cannot skimp here, you need to pay well and support them, trust them, and empower them.

It is, in my opinion, important that this work be separate from Human Resources, though this team would work very closely with HR. (That’s because HR is often/historically focused on diversity by the numbers and beholden to protect the company not the employees first. We’re looking for a change in culture, make it safe for diverse people, and create a place of belonging. Intentionally making them separate helps to define that distinction & empower both teams to do their best work.)

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already done a lot more than other orgs that simply put out an equity statement and then have done whatever the company equivalent is of avoiding eye contact with most of the population.

Let’s be honest, this work can feel messy, challenging, and scary — it can also be joyful, supportive, & inspiring. Yes, and, it is always worth it because in the end it opens the doors for more opportunities to more people and begins to remove barriers for hard-working, talented, innovative folx to excel in your work environment (and it helps the bottom line!)