What the Best Organizations Actually Do Differently

Welcome to the Beyond the Training "car cast" episode, where our hosts attempt a crucial conversation while on their way to deliver training.  The audio might not be the best, and the conversation is too good - so many bars for all of us to take back to work and community.  
In this episode, our hosts discuss what organizations at any point in the DEI journey can do to set up the best practices and elicit the best responses in their work. This is one of many conversations continuing around the world about how to be the best at DEI, which, while a journey, is certainly a goal for many people, communities and organizations.  Do you agree with what it takes to be best in class?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Uh right before you get into the episode, just wanted to let you know what you're gonna hear is the car cast, not like you know the driving secondary okay. Literally had a conversation that we thought was too dope not to let you all listen to. So you're gonna hear us in the car. If you like it, hit us up, send us a text, or send us an email, let us know. If you didn't like it, if it's too distracting, that's cool too. Let us know that we'll bring you more conversations. In any case, enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Hey Jamie, how are you doing? I'm alright. We are taking our first road trip together. Is this our first road trip together? I don't know that we've been in the car longer than 20 minutes together.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Okay, I'll take that. Yeah, so maybe that's something good that this uh is taking the podcast, the Beyond the Training podcast, on the road. That's a pretty cool uh development.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

First time seven focus is on the road. That's right. That's right. I mean, we've done work in other cities, counties, states, but you and I have never driven together to those city counties and states.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Alright, well, it's good to be with you. Likewise. Drive safe? Um, indeed, yes. I for those of you who are watching it, you can see that I am driving and not looking at the camera at the same time. Um, so Jamie, uh, a couple of episodes ago, you said that best in class organizations do certain things when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I've been waiting and waiting and waiting so long to be able to ask you about what are those things. And I remember from whichever episode it was, you were saying something along the lines of treating DEI like a business strategy that you would have already in the organization. Do you remember saying that? I do remember saying that, yes. Okay. So as we do often in this in the Beyond The Training podcast, I have some things I want to argue about. But first, I'd just love for you to lay out for me and our listeners what did you mean by what best in class organizations do uh when they when regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, so best in class as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion means a variety of things. One, and a variety of different ingredients for every single organization. So what I'm offering today is not a checklist. Yes, our organization has that. Okay, maybe our organization can add this. A lot of it is organizational dependent. Are there some uh common themes potentially across multiple organizations? Yes. So that's maybe more of what we're talking about today is common themes across best in class organizations, but not a plug and play. Can we agree on that starting point? Okay, yeah, I'm with you. I'm following. Okay, so some things I'm uh splitballing here a little bit. Um cut that part out. Um, best in class one, um, you focus on employee sentiments. I read some meme somewhere recently that said something to the effect of how you feel on Sunday night before you go to work Monday morning is an indication of how you feel about your organization. Okay, yeah, I think I've seen some point. So if I'm anxious, sad, happy, excited, calm, all of those are indications of employees' sentiments about an organization. So vested class organizations want to hear from their employees about how they're experiencing work. Okay. About how they feel about coming to work, how they feel about working with their managers, how they feel about working with their colleagues. And I've said the word feel a lot. So organizations not often are in the business of caring about feelings. They're caring, they care about profit, they care about bottom line. So a best-of-class organization does care about the feeling employees have as they are at work, as they are thinking about work. Does that mean that we need to manage people's feelings? No. Does it mean that everybody should be happy? No. But it does mean, as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, justice, etc., that we're asking about how people feel at work, and then we're doing something with that information. So 80% of the organization tells us that they feel like they belong at work, and then we dig into that data a bit further, and we realize that only 55% of single parents feel like they belong at work that are going to respond to that data. So Fest in Class asks about feelings, they just aggregate the data, they identify any disparities, any gaps, and then they do something about that data to close the gap.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

All right, well, so I know you said you've got a few things that you want to share with us.

unknown 5:22

Let's just I got a few questions about this, right? This one concept.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

So the organization that is best in class when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion cares about what the employees feel about the work, how energized they are uh to come to work on Monday if Monday's the start of the work week. Also, I also heard you say that they care about if you're a single parent, like do the single parents get energized about coming to work? That's something that you also want to know, my organization wants to know about. But the first question that comes to mind is how do we know how the single parents feel versus the folks that aren't single parents or aren't parents at all?

SPEAKER_00 6:07

One, we ask the questions, and then we ask people what identities matter to you? What do you want us to know about you and your differences? So if somebody tells me in a survey, here's the identities that matter to me, here's what I want you to know about the differences I bring to the table, and then here's my responses to all of these engagement questions. Again, it's up to organizations to then disaggregate that data to look through the data and say, where do we have successes and where do we have opportunities?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Alright, well, this is uh this may be a hot take, but I I really don't want to know. And I'll even preface this. If you are a pet lover, dog mom, uh cat dad, respect. I get that. I don't necessarily want to know if all of the cat dads or uh uh dog moms and my organization feel good about coming to work the next day. And that's what people would tell us often is that that's their identity that matters to them. Is that what you're talking about? I need to ask, you know, are you a cat mom or a dog dad?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I don't know that you need to ask that targeted question. Are you a cat mom, cat dad, cat person, fill in the blank? I do think that you could ask what matters to you. Right, so identities matter to you. My cat matters to me. Great, and if 90% of our organization says their cat matters to them, we should do something about that. Do you disagree with that? No, no. I don't know if I care.

unknown 7:39

I really don't.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

And and I'm actually do you do care. I do think I think you're being combative for the sake of being combat about this five past.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Sometimes I am, you're absolutely right. I don't know how valuable statistic it is that 90% of our organization identifies as a four-legged uh friend parent, like a uh a pet parent.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

I don't know. Let me give you an example for me where it does matter. Alright. You know, like have you had colleagues before that have had animals? Yeah, indeed. They're still doing animals. And have those people ever indicated to you that their animals are part of their family?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Oh, for sure. And I'll even go as far as to we've had conversations about the concept of insurance for your pets. That's where I was going. Yeah, okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yes, that's exactly where I was going. So if we know that 80% of our organization values the animals that are in their life, and then also on that same survey says they don't feel that all of our benefits are enough for all of their family that is inclusive of their animals, as an organization, we have an opportunity to respond to them, to do something differently around, okay, so our organization, as an example, again, 95% of people are cat lovers and they would all love cat insurance. Okay, we're gonna take some of our dollars from this area and move it over to cat insurance because that's what we heard from our organizations. So best in class is about, again, this is why it's not a plug-and-play, because you every organization should not go out there right now and add cat insurance. Right. You need to figure out what your employees or team members want and need and work to be responsive where you can.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

So if if I'm a best, if I'm working to be a best in class type of organization or CEO, whatever, leader, if I'm paying attention to parents as an identity, I feel like I'm gonna be missing out on some of the identities that I would think are more important, right? That if in this world today we know that someone's work life is impacted by their racial identity, their gender identity, their ability status, maybe even their veteran status, that if I'm paying attention to cat or pet insurance, I'm missing out on some really important diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics that aren't along the pet insurance uh theme.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Robert, my friend, you just walked into a dangerous trap that often people walk into.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

I walked into a trap while I'm driving. That's definitely unsafe.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Talking about cat insurance doesn't mean we're not also going to talk about those other things. So I don't think anywhere in what I share it means that we only ask about if you're a cat lover or not. Okay. So in our surveys, we should be asking about what I hear you naming is social identities around along race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, veteran status, what um naturally are called protective classes. Okay. So we should be asking about protective classes. What I'm also offering is to then add an additional button that says, what else matters to you? What else do you want us to know about you potentially? Now, does that create a potential analytic nightmare?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

I can hear the data analysts just screaming in the background. How am I going to be coding all of these answers uh that are going to come from the survey that maybe 100, maybe 150, maybe a thousand people are responding to?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

120%. And maybe that's not where we ask that question. So if we go back to what does it mean to be vested in class, you're not only hearing about employee engagement, employee and sentiment on your one-tier survey. So you're asking as a leader, as you get new employees, what do you want me to know about you? I love my cat. Great, you love your cat. Tell me more about how I can support you as a leader. Well, when my cat sometimes gets sick, you know, I might have to work from home because my cat's allergic to it. I think we're going down this cat rapidly.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah, we're just that cat rapid stuff.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Um but when you also ask that question around what matters to you, likely people will say, my answer would be, thanks for asking. Uh what matters to me is I'm a Mexican-American woman, I'm a believer, I have two kids, I have a partner. And so there are other ways to get to what matters to people at work. As a leader, you can regularly ask your team members these questions that are in the employee voice survey. Is it anonymous? No, but um, you know, can you share actions that I, as a leader, have done recently that have contributed to your sense of inclusion? And is there actions that have taken away from your sense of belonging and inclusion here?

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, I definitely can see as a leader of a group of a leader of a group of people talking about someone's pets, their their family, who then pets are definitely a part of people's families, uh, their special interests that they have in their lives can help us go a long way to understanding who they are and what they're doing. And so I can definitely see that.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

One thing I want to name your brother, that I I believe you're trying to bring into this space, and I don't know that we've explicitly called it out. People do go into the space of, well, what about, well, what about, what about? Yeah. My cat matters to me. I'm a cat lover. How are you being inclusive with my identities as a cat lover? We want to be inclusive, and we also want to think about because your identity as a cat lover, have you do you have power, is there power and privilege in that? How does that identity show up for you at work? And do you get different special advantages? Or do you have disadvantages because of that? Diversity, equity, and inclusion is looking, working to rectify disparities, working to reduce isms in the workplace. And so for some people, the I'm a cat lover as an identity can be triggering because their identity has been disadvantaged historically and traditionally, and it's hard to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Well, you know, in these days and times, I can definitely see that applying where many of us are still working from home but in a virtual sense, right? So that we're on camera uh in a in a Zoom or a Teams or a Google, this or that, and it's a lot easier for a cat to walk across the screen or the keyboard or whatever, and everybody kind of laughs about, oh, cats like to be on screen and da-da-da. But if a two-year-old or a seven-year-old or a seventeen-year-old is in the shot, now it looks like something completely different. It's a different conversation that we're having about who's happening, who's in your home, and what you're doing while you're working virtually. And so there's certainly some privilege there, even in being a cat person or a cat lover, um, having that as a part of your family.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yes, so we're not going to talk about cats anymore this episode. Do you disagree that best in class organizations learn about employee sentiments, look at disparities, and work to offer countermeasures?

SPEAKER_02 15:21

I I agree that that's important, and I'll add because you said it too, they care about what is said in that employee sentiment survey or whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

And then they do something about it.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

And they do something about it. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 15:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Alright, what's another theme that best in class uh organizations do around diversity, equity, and inclusion?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Uh, another theme is we talked about this when I think about the business strategy, you invest resources into it. Okay. Resources in the fullest sense. Time, money, people, what are the resources that people invest into?

SPEAKER_02 16:01

So money, time, people, space.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Space, multiple across multiple functions. So you have human resources support, you have communications report, you have marketing support, etc. etc. Um, and so resources are incredibly important where we've seen organizations struggle, so maybe not best in class around DEI, is they pick the handful of people that are passionate about DI. Their jobs aren't don't have DI in their job description, but they tap those people on the shoulder and say, You seem passionate about this. Would you start our DI council?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

I was gonna say that is the DEI council. That's the passionate people who've gotten a little bit of uh space to work on on a Thursday afternoon together.

unknown 16:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Or don't even have space, but make space. Okay, yeah. So do it on the Thursday afternoon and then do the rest of their three hours of work so they don't get behind. Um and so best in class organizations don't treat it as a plus one, another thing on your plate, but as a fully recognized integrated body of work that we ideally have, depends on your company size, a team to support. I do caution people to not have a team of a hundred. Again, depending on your size. From my perspective, when you have too many people on a DI team, you've heard this before from another DI practitioner that it becomes a swivel effect. Swivel effect. So everybody, when something around diversity, equity, and inclusion happens, everyone literally and metaphorically turns and looks at the DID and says, they'll handle that. We have what is the DI team saying, let's go to them. So nobody actually embeds it into their job because they have a whole team.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Now, if you have the right size team, the team helps build capacity to lead for diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the organization.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

But how do you know the size of the team versus the size of the organization versus do you know what our resources?

unknown 18:18

I mean, some organizations will just hire a consultant because they don't have the resources, let's say, to bring uh a whole team of people together. Where you put your resources says a lot.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

For sure, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

So business-class organizations who just are not ones that just hire consultants.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Coming as a consultant, we want you to work with us, and you want to build you your capacity to be able to lead for it internally on your own.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

So you all Jamie that organizations do have somebody whose job it is, uh, or part of at least part of their job, is to think about diversity, equity, and inclusion in their organization. Yes. Do you disagree? Well, I think we've had this conversation before that it I think it needs to be everybody's job. And so the benefit of having one person or a group of people whose job it is to think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and uh keep track of the metrics that the whole of the organization is responsible for, that is the is the necessity for success, the recipe rather, for success. Because if it's everybody's job, well, sure, we've got it in our reviews, we've got it in our job descriptions first, and then we are uh reviewed on how well we meet those job description goals and metrics. But somebody's got to put the whole thing together, somebody has got to be watching the strategic planning and the outcomes and outputs of said uh strategic plan. And so you can have a leader, uh, someone who is connected to the all of the systems of the organization be doing that. At the same time, I understand why some organizations will bring on a consultant and not have one person or one team in charge of that, um, either because of their politics uh or legislation doesn't allow for that, or their business model doesn't have room for something like a team, uh where but they still need the direction, which is why they would bring on a consultant even long term. So I don't know that I would say the recipe is to or not to have a person inside. The recipe I would argue a best in class organization has is that commitment in that everybody's got a connection to it in the mission-driven work as that's I agree.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yes. So best in class, everyone has in their job description something around supporting diversity, equity, and yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Agree. Something tangible, something measurable, um and obviously tied to the business case of the organization, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

You know, Robert, we I I wanna I this podcast is gonna be over the course of multiple podcasts, this topic.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

All you want to talk about best in class over a couple of different episodes?

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Well, we've only talked about two things today, and we're already 20 minutes in. True. So, but what I wanna talk I want to dig into this consultant component a little bit. Um I know I have a friend who was a director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And the company was so excited when they started. You're gonna be great. They had multiple interviews, the CEO took this person for coffee and warmly welcomed them. And this person sat on the executive leadership team, didn't have the executive title, but sat on the executive leadership team. So in the meetings, and this person, um your friend, my friend, brought you know, brought all of their knowledge, background, experience. Done really great work leading other projects and in other organizations. They brought all that into this space, and the organization said, you know, we want to bring in a consultant to help you. And the person was like, I don't really know that I need a consultant, but fine. Brought in the consultants. This, my my friend, was um African American, and the consultants were all whites, and the CEO and others swallowed up whole everything that these other consultants that the consultants brought in who were all white said about it. And would then tell my colleague friends, you need to be doing what they're saying. They're consulting them, they're the experts. Um, and my friend was like, You hired me as the experts. Um, and eventually they ended up laying off this full-time person that they hired and only decided to only invest in the consultants to lead out. I bring that up to say that best-in-class organizations have consultants for a variety of different business strategies. Right. So, yes, you should bring in consultants, but you have to be really, really careful about how you're using the consultant. You and I have been in spaces where our ideas are seen as the best, greatest, end-all, be all.

unknown 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

And a leader sitting in the room and said the same thing. Right. But because we have this consultant title, it carries so much different weight. Oftentimes the people in organizations that are eating diversity, equity, and inclusion work are people of color, are people who have historically and traditionally marginalized identity.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

I'm also thinking about that organization that your friend was working at. That what one of the biggest things that they're missing, and I didn't want to miss that you were talking about is the racialized identities that we bring in for consulting work, especially around race, ethnicity, and gender and language, that lived experience is so crucially a part of the work that we're doing. Not that you have to be a marginalized person to be able to talk about marginalization, it is just important that we talk about that that's in the room. We can't be calling ourselves best in class if we don't do all the other things. For example, if you're a uh beverage company, a beverage bottling company, and uh you're always thinking about what's the new flavor we're gonna do, and how do we bring these things to market, but you're for some reason not thinking about the fact that health and wellness of the people that are drinking the thing that you're selling, is that you missed the whole part. You have to go back to square one because what we put into our bodies, here go your bottled water, juices, whatever, those things are connected to health and wellness of the people that are in your system. And if they die off because you're not paying attention to the things that you need, right that you're delivering to them, rather, the things that they need, then you won't be able to actually do the business anymore. Much like the best-in-class diversity, equity, and inclusion organizations that you're talking about, if they miss on where biased rules, where oppression exists, how systems, their own systems, might be harming the very people that they've hired, then they're actually not going to do the things that they said they're gonna do in those strategic planning processes or the those plan support.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

So organizations who facilitate DEI work hopefully do have a variety of identities that they're bringing into the space. That's what I love about our work. When I facilitate conversations around race, I can only speak for my own lived experience as a Mexican American. And don't ever let one person's lived experience, especially if it's a consultant, come and overpower the people you hire to do the work.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

I think we got time for one more theme. Do you have another theme for this episode with regard to best in class, diversity, equity, and inclusion work?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

I don't know that we finished the resources theme.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So um let's just finish that one out for the rest of this podcast. So we just talked about people. Um there's also other people that, even if it's in their job description, are still going above and beyond, are on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council are leading employee resource groups. And so when we talk about resources, how are you resourcing financially those groups? How are you giving them monetary support so they can bring in guest speakers for their employee resource group members so they can plan learning events for the organization? So there's that resource, and there's also then the emotional labor of the work. And are you compensating for that emotional labor? It is heavy work to facilitate a conversation around marginalization, and so just like we compensate for other overtime practices and work, we should also be compensating financially for the people who are going above and beyond in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

So, wait, you're talking about overtime. So I I understood like some positions or professions have hazard pain, and you're working with hazardous materials, you happen to be working on the highway, you know, there's a hazardous uh part of your job. What I'm wondering though is how do you determine hazard pain or overtime pain or compensation when someone is going above and beyond thinking about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

In the same way as you determine it for everything else. How do people figure out hazard pain?

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Because people were dying on on the highways or as first responders or uh people working with chemicals that be ferozen.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

And they put a number to them.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Right.

unknown 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

So same thing, put a number to that. So I I don't know that and maybe this is something we can do. I don't know that I've actually seen anything out there with best with recommendations and best practices on equitable and on paying or the additional emotional labor. Have you seen anything?

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Not for pay. Compensation comes in a number of different uh ways, and so what we have seen is mental health days uh that is a part of a pay time off uh benefit package. There are um, in addition to that, there's the stipend because of the work that you're doing that it goes above and beyond. So uh those who are leading business resource groups or employee resource groups or affinity councils get a little bit of a stipend on top of their normal pay because it is extra and there is some added uh emotional labor that gets connected to it.

unknown 29:02

So those are just two ways uh probably I have seen we have seen compensation turnout for this kind of work.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

There are probably others uh for folks that are like connected to their pay rate or maybe their um hourly wage, uh, but those are just two that come to mind.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

How you figure out those dollars and the amounts, do what's within your budget, uh, do what's within equitable and uh fair across other ways that you're compensating people for doing above and beyond this work. Um I think there's ways, I leave it to the mathematicians.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

I think that's the thing I'm gonna take away for today's episode, and I do want to hope you can recap for us, uh Jamie, the two or three things that we've discussed in this episode. Real quick, just a thing that I'm gonna take away today is that concept we can take and quantify the amount of money it costs not to do diversity, equity, and inclusion work and have those goals and work towards them. Uh, and that might even equate to someone's salary, which is the reason why we would do that, or what we might pay a consultant, which is the reason why we would do that, or what it would mean to compensate someone or a whole bunch of someone's to do that work maybe as a stipend or with hazard pay, because we know racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia all have a negative impact on our workers, our the folks that are in our organizations, and so the cost to hold them together and keep them in our work and have them not burn out, we can spread that out and put that into the hazard pay and maybe be doing better and not losing those those folks and that great talent that we have in our organization. So that's something I'm gonna noodle on. I'm not a mathematician, and I think that's something I'm gonna take away.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I love it, I think it's great. So the two best class themes we talked about today are employee sentiment, where you're paying attention, asking about, and doing something about how people across all of their historically and traditionalized marginalized identities and across other things that matter to them, other things that they bring in. So you're asking and you're being responsive to employee sentiments. And the second is you're resourcing your DEI efforts in meaningful ways that matter, and to how you just end it, that we can quantify contributes to greater impact.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Awesome. And that might include uh, and it doesn't have to always include having a consultant. Please bring us on and also listen to the people that are in your space at the same time, right? Yes, for sure. Well, Jamie, thank you for this. Thank you for uh being in our first car podcast. Can we call it a car cast? I'm gonna do that. I like that. I like that as well. Uh thank you all for being here. This is Beyond the Training. We're with you every week, taking the conversations that we have, either in trainings or right after or right before, to you so that we can deepen the learning that we've got going on in all of this work. Uh, we appreciate you listening. Check us out on all of our social medias at Beyond the Training Podcast. Or send us an email for feedback at impact at seven focus.com. We'll see you next time.