Friday, June 28, 2019

Building a Diverse Workforce

Most leadership teams say that diversity is a priority.Yet, many organizations that have rolled out diversity programs have hardly seen the needle move on building a more diverse workforce. My challenge to leaders is to clarify what you mean when you say diversity is a priority. How is your organization demonstrating its commitment to diversity? Does your organization truly value diversity? If the answer is yes, then how are you building an inclusive and equitable environment? Are you considering this a journey or a check the box project? The answers to these questions will help you better frame your own organization's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

How pervasive is your diversity initiative? Is it focused on low level new hires or do you have significant plans to broaden diversity at the Board & C-suite levels? Underrepresented groups looking to join and stay with organizations need to see that advancement is possible within the organization. They need to see that people like themselves are represented at senior levels within the organization. Mary Barra, CEO of GM, has facilitated building a talent pipeline to deliver a diverse slate of candidates for GM.  GM is one of only two Fortune 500 companies with women in the positions of CEO and CFO, and six of the 13 members of their board of directors are women. "General Motors women are leading the company’s transformation to win in the core automotive business and the future of personal mobility." They are a great example of building a gender diverse workforce to build an agile and resilient organization to address 21 Century challenges.

What does a lack of diversity cost? You may be familiar with the Mommy Tax, where mothers earn less with each child born and conversely fathers are paid more with each child born. But the issues is more pervasive. Data scientists have identified  Vivienne Ming, neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur, has explored tax on being different and it is a huge cost to individuals, companies, and society. The following is an excerpt from the article providing data on the economic outcome of being Jose versus Joe. "To be equally likely to get a promotion José needs a Masters degree or higher, compared to Joe who has no degree at all. This means that, for similar work, José needs six additional years of education. That’s six years of tuition and six years opportunity cost, specifically: missed earnings as a software engineer. This is the tax on being different, and for José the tax is $500,000 to $1,000,000 over his lifetime." As you can see, the economic impact is staggering.

The issue relates to our unconscious bias. Harvard offers resources to identify unconscious bias through the implicit bias project. We all have unconscious bias but we can address it through systemic changes. Ideas include making sure that hiring committees and promotion committees have diverse representation. Something as routine as delegating assignments can have a significant impact. Who is receiving the "goldilocks" projects that have great visibility, access to senior management, strong team members. It makes a difference.

Lastly, think about aligning incentives with diversity goals. Include diversity targets as part of performance scorecards for leaders.  Women continue to earn less than men-.8 for every $1-with women of color falling even further behind. The gap isn't anticipated to close until 2059. Part of the difference is related to self selection of careers and jobs, but part of it relates to organization's policies. If you read the GM article referenced above, you know that GM is one of the few organizations that has pay equity across the organization even at the senior level. Mary Barra has made pay equity a priority for leadership and managers.

If you wish to build a diverse workforce to reap the benefits of a variety of perspectives and talents, then it is imperative to create an equitable and inclusive culture. Values, governance structures, and policies all play a significant roll in transforming into an equitable and inclusive organization.

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