No turning back. Leading Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) differently in 2021.

Let’s face it, in 2020 the universe blew our cover and there is no going back.

Amid the challenges we faced in a sweeping pandemic that upended our way of life and robbed millions of their health, lives, and economic security, we witnessed brutal inequities, the compounded and disproportionate traumas suffered by marginalized communities in the U.S. and around the world. And we saw one of the most powerful shifts in the work of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that we have seen in decades. This should be the time for organizations and institutions to finally tip toward fairness, belonging and an end to systemic racism and other isms. But will they?

One thing I know for sure is that we can’t unsee what we’ve witnessed this year. 2020 cast a light on institutional racism and the harm done to Black people in this country, and all across the globe, over the past four centuries. Philanthropic giving and support for racial justice gained rapid urgency. Corporate pledges and public commitments on expanding racial equality in the workplace abounded. Organizations accelerated a timeline for “change,” appointing Chief Diversity Officers, delivering anti-racism and belonging trainings, launching listening series, educational forums, guides and resources, hiring more racially diverse talent and creating supplier diversity programs, among other reactive solutions.  

These are all good actions, but they’re also band-aids. We can’t hire ourselves out of exclusive hiring practices just as we can’t rely on listening alone to change organizational behavior, systems and cultures that are fundamentally misaligned with equity and equality. Instead of filling the void with short-lived promises, organizations must address the root causes of racial inequity and the opaqueness of institutional practices.

Here’s how you can turn intention into sustainable action in 2021:

1. Reflect & Listen. 

Everyone wants to immediately jump to solutions, but you can’t solve a complex structural problem that you don’t understand. The first step is to immerse yourself in the obstacles to inclusivity and equity. This is not outward work but rather deep, inward work. Dig into the questions that matter most for your own impact as leaders, managers and individual contributors. You’re not able to grow from a question you’re not willing to ask.

• What are the biases that hold back women, nonbinary people, BIPOC, LGBTQ and other coworkers from marginalized communities at my workplace?
• What are the assumptions, habits or practices that hold me back from creating an inclusive and equitable work environment?
• How does racism impact who gets to be in the rooms where decisions get made?
• Whose voices get to be heard? Whose are often muted?
• What doesn’t yet exist, but should?

2. Empower Leaders and Managers to Act

Scripts and talking points can only get you so far. This is about how to practically and intentionally be inclusive and anti-racist, and how to create conditions that enable your teams to make real progress and wrestle with what happens when the racial status quo gets disrupted. 

• Show and model the actions that can create conditions for organizational change. Here are some tools that can help get you started: debiasing the hiring process and performance reviews, tips on how to be an ally, upstanders and how to talk about race, and anti-racist actions.
• Make sure your teams have the skills, permission and confidence to react and step in when they witness racial aggression or gender bias, e.g., when Black, Indigenous or other people of color (BIPOC) are constantly interrupted in meetings, insulted through coded language or if a client makes a veiled racist remark in a pitch presentation. 
• Use behavioral nudges (see the work of Humu and HiveLearning) to embed small but powerful acts of inclusion, micro-unbiasing moments, into daily work behavior and routines.  

3. Double-Down on Data

Data doesn’t lie. Yes, it can be spun to tell the story you want to hear, but systematically gathering data can help you understand how each employee experiences your workforce. It can also help you design more impactful metrics to understand the signs of DEI failure, inertia and fatigue, proxies for change or diluted goals.

• Critically assess how you report on compositional representation and employee experience. Ensure your data-gathering accurately reflects the progress, needs and challenges of underrepresented groups within their particular context, i.e., differences across geographies and levels.
• Conduct deep dives that help you identify barriers to belonging, inclusion and equity throughout the employee lifecycle through tools such as Atipica, Blendoor, Eskalera, Pipeline Equity, and tEquitable.
• Track qualitative metrics that capture the employee experience (trust, voice, influence, belonging, well-being, collaboration) and quantitative metrics (representation, promotion and retention rates) to anchor those results.

4. Review and Update Policies, Programs and Practices

January often brings a spirit of refresh, renew, and reassessment—your company’s strategy is no different. Take a close look at everything…..what’s there, what needs updating, what are you missing?

• If you don’t have one, create a code of conduct and respect in the workplace policy with clear, no-tolerance, anti-racism language and communicate them clearly to everyone in your organization. Make it mandatory by requiring employees to sign an acknowledgement.
• Review your workforce planning, talent management and pay equity practices with an inclusive, anti-racist lens. Address weaknesses and strip bias and discriminatory practices, either formal or informal, out of hiring, compensation, performance and workplace flexibility practices. Where necessary, dismantle and redesign policies and processes with an inclusive and equitable lens.

5. Hold Everyone Accountable

I’ve seen too many companies establish well-meaning policies and programs, only to let them falter or fail when “bigger” priorities come into focus. It’s like anything in life, it’s too easy to abandon good intentions unless you hold yourself accountable to your goals and unless you create an incentive to reach that goal.

• Set clear expectations for leaders, managers and individual contributors through quarterly goals and bake them into your performance management cycle as you would for any other business goal. Make these widely available to everyone in your organization. At VICE Media Group, our DEI Dashboard sits on our intranet homepage. Everyone across the globe can review progress on our company-wide initiatives and goals.
• Beyond empowering Chief Diversity Officers, hold the entire organization accountable for examining systems of bias and power by tasking business and support departments to root DEI as a shared responsibility.
• Make DEI a core management competency and tie executive compensation and incentive plans to progress on DEI goals. Mercer estimates that 15%-20% of S&P 500 companies include DEI metrics in their executive incentive plans.  

I look forward to 2021 with enormous hope - the stakes are a lot higher. This will be the year that we put this pandemic behind us, the year we move from making the DEI business case to building the capacity necessary to address structural and systemic inequities, the year that old power structures are destabilized and old rules lose potency. I engage in this work because I believe change is possible. I am trying to make work safe, equitable, and inclusive — for all people — because it is possible, worthy and important. And I am counting on you to help realize this vision. It’s up to all of us to drive this change forward.