Taking Action and Moving Forward

When our CEO, @Jeremy Bloom asked me what more we can be doing as an organization to help our employees recognize and respond to the Black Lives Matter movement, the People Team wanted to implement programs that would be both meaningful and impactful not just today but well into the future. Jeremy, who encourages us to call him JB, is that kind of CEO; when he calls for action, he is looking for a response and a plan to get us there.

You may have read in Jeremy’s latest blog that Integrate has made a commitment to initiate the Rooney Rule as part of our hiring process. We have one goal in doing so: increase the diversity of our workforce at Integrate. Originally instituted by the NFL, many organizations before ours have instituted a policy requiring at least one woman and one underrepresented minority to be considered in the slate of candidates for every open position, especially those at the senior level. What does this mean for our talent acquisition team? It means a more concerted effort in reaching out to associations and organizations we may not have recruited from before. It may mean a slightly longer recruiting process to ensure a balanced candidate pool. And it most definitely means we will include more diverse hiring committees, because not only do we want to consider underrepresented minorities as candidates, we also want to hire them. These are the steps we are willing to take because we aim to support a globally diverse workforce that truly represents our communities and the customers we serve.

As an organization we have pledged our support of the Black Lives Matter movement. We want to give our employees the chance to be more educated about systemic racism and we want them to have time to reflect on the issues dividing us globally. As such, Integrate will be observing a Day of Understanding on June 19, 2020 during which we will encourage our employees to choose a method (book, lecture, podcast, documentary, etc.) to continue their education and understanding about the Black Lives Matter movement and the history of racism in our world. To encourage further dialogue, we will host mini round tables to stimulate discussion and shared knowledge gained. We believe sharing our learning and experiences is a vital part of the change that begins within our own organization.

I am proud of our team. We are by no means perfect and we recognize we have work to do. These are not small challenges, rather they are big opportunities. We believe the investment is worth it and that our collective future depends on the action we take today.