Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Essentials for Business Leaders

 We are thrilled to share a recent article written by Sarah Amsler of Tech Target entitled, Justice, equity, diversity and Inclusion : Essentials for businesses, that features our managing principal, Kristina Kohl, and her work in the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging arena. TechTarget offers a network of technology-specific websites that give readers access to industry experts, independent content and analysis.

There are changing demographics within Gen Z and their expectations on JEDI issues impacts their decisions on employment.

Members of the Gen Z workforce are evaluating organizations and their leaders on their culture, actions, representations, and policies especially as they relate to environmental and social justice. They expect organizations to live their values especially around creating cultures that welcome and support individuals, their identities, and their needs. Rather than adapting to a dominant culture, Gen Z employees are looking to work for an organization that supports an equitable culture. One where all individuals can bring their true selves to work and not just survive but thrive.

Driving a J.E.D.I. transformation requires leadership to look deeply into their own culture and to understand who sets the standards for norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs.

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Driving Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion entitled Creating a Culture of Belonging.

Creating a culture of belonging is crucial to ensuring that your workforce believes that they are welcome, supported, and valued by your organization. Driving a J.E.D.I. transformation requires leadership to look deeply into their own culture and to understand who sets the standards for norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs. Leadership must ask themselves if they expect employees and other stakeholders to assimilate into their dominant culture or if they are building an equitable culture that values and supports a variety of perspectives, identities, cultures, and styles. So often, leaders focus their strategy on increasing the diversity representation of their talent pool, but they don't fully appreciate the importance of creating a culture where diversity is appreciated, valued, and rewarded. Creating a culture of belonging means changing how organizations operate including board representation, leadership competencies, leadership development, recruiting practices, supplier practices, talent development practices, and team norms. Transforming into a J.E.D.I. organization requires drilling deep into organizational systems to understand root causes and systemic barriers built into the operating foundation.

Leveraging HR Tech to Support Hybrid Work

 As hybrid work evolves as the preferred post pandemic, work structure,  we need to consider what that means, how to support it and the role for technology is creating a hybrid workplace. Navigating this transformation is a crucial role for the human capital management (HCM0 team.

The first consideration is what do we mean by hybrid work. In some organizations is means that employees have total flexibility on scheduling remote and in person time, in others, employees can work remotely several days a week, or they must be in the office certain days and have flexibility to work remotely other days.  Depending on the organization, hybrid means different work structures that require different types of support. One hybrid work structure doesn’t meet all employee or employer needs.

As people strategy leaders, we need to consider the best options for our organizations, clients, and employees. Engaging with stakeholders is crucial to the co-creation process. Gathering input and apathetically listening to stakeholders drives engagement and adoption. Crucial to the process is leadership buy-in. If leadership is in the office 5 days a week, there isn’t a hybrid work culture. It is important that leadership model hybrid work to ensure promote acceptance and adoption. 

A single hybrid work structure doesn’t meet all employee or employer needs.

While we have already had 2 years of expecting managers to manage their divisions, functions, and teams remotely, furthering skills development for managers to offer hybrid work is crucial to keeping employees engaged and motivated. Leveraging an organizations HCM tech stack can assist in this process. Some functionality already exists within an organization’s core HCM systems through automated workflows and processes to improve onboarding engagement and promotions or transfers. Additional support can be offered through employee self-service (ESS) and manager self-service (MSS). 

The world of HCM technology is exploding and many enhanced solutions exist that are already integrated into your core HCM technology that allow for automation of transactional processes such as unemployment claims management, employment and Income verification, I-9 verification, tax credits and incentives (WOTC, R&D, and Federal and State Programs), and other services. Process automation tools such as UKG HR Service Delivery, UKG Documents Manager, and UKG People Assist help to automate standardized document distribution and retention, guide hybrid employees through processes and assigning workflow to managers based on business alignment rather than physical locations. These automation tools provide a variety of resources for employees to manage their own employee related questions around benefits, policies, and other HCM related questions without the constraints of business hours and call centers.

Leveraging AI tools can improve decision making, reduce bias, and promote equity. It is crucial to understand the technology being leveraged including the algorithms and the data being used to train the AI.

Other tools such as Phenom offer a variety of experiences for candidates (CX), existing talent (TX), recruiters (RX) , and manager (MX) through their TMX Platform AI based tools. From a candidate experience, the platform leverages AI to enhances skills alignment and matching providing candidates with the best fit options. Using an interactive chatbot, candidates are guided through the application process enhancing the experience and reducing drop rates. Employees are offered insight into open position to either apply themselves or to refer a candidate. Employees are transparently shown the open positions including the skills required so that they can access their current skills alignment or gap and seek additional training through self-service access. Recruiters have tremendous flexibility to create branded content that can be shared across the organization, and they have access to tools and dashboards to give insight. Managers gain insight into their talent pipeline, as well as their employees mobility opportunities. In addition, AI based scheduling tools can make the interview scheduling process for geographically disperse managers seamless. Leveraging AI tools can improve decision making, reduce bias, and promote equity. It is crucial to understand the technology being leveraged including the algorithms and the data being used to train the AI.

We believe the HR tech selection process is important and involves not only understanding the tools’ capabilities but also your organization’s change readiness.

There is a wide array of HR technology solutions that if selected and implemented effectively can drive impact and improve the toolkit for both managers and employees in hybrid work arrangements. If you read this blog regularly, we believe the selection is important and involves not only understanding the tools’ capabilities but also your organization’s change readiness.