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Hello, everybody what is up? It is February. I cannot believe it is already February. Oh 2023 Just yesterday it was 2000 I promise you it was my senior year in college. It was the year 2000. That nine nine and a 2000. Okay, I know I got a little excited. But I want to welcome each and every one of you to tonight's lace of communications. We are excited. Yes, we are. Just in case you forgot. Melissa Amber's is joins me for these lanes of communications conversations. Tonight we're going to be talking about the importance of humanizing workplace communication. Yes. humanize like what, how, what do you mean, be? And so we really want to talk about what does it mean to humanize communication? How people can do it, how they can do it better improve upon it? Because let's be honest, we're looking at the layoffs. And you're like, what, how could I know? Yeah. But you? Are you like why? And so you're looking at people wondering what in the world is going on in the workplace today? So So Melissa, and I are going to be talking about that. Today. I'm talking about how do you humanize communication in your organization? Because we see some stuff right now. It's like, you worried about you really, you some of these people really worried about laying off people saving money, but they probably haven't thought about what they're going to do when it's time to hire. And what people are going to remember. So anyway, Melissa, what's up? How are you today?

Man, it's been one of those days, but I'm in the unfortunate part is that, and 2023, we still gotta have some of these same old, same old conversations, it just don't make sense.

Some people don't ever learn, and I think I know the problem, but I'm gonna leave it alone, I'm gonna get into it, but I'm gonna leave it alone for now. So that's the caveats, oh, I'm gonna let you kick this off. Because I love the way you have been framing this conversation that we've been having around communications in the workplace.

Well, just like he's said that we are human, we are people, we are individuals. And we need to start being treated like that, and not more. So like, it's a dictatorship, or, I'm the boss shooting employee do as I say, you know, that type of mentality that so many just simply don't realize that how, you know, I realize how it's affecting just day to day operations, something as simple as listening something as simple as having a open conversation. And so men are just in that mode of, you know, you know, having the title and not really working with the employees and in the organization. And, you know, as the title is just that a title, but you are put in that position, because you're are a leader in whatever capacity that may be, but you are a leader, and being a leader means that you have people that you need to guide, you have people that is looking to you for direction, and if your direction is just point and being a dictator, we're defeating the purpose. So as Michelle said, you know, just kind of get into, you know, the human to human connection, you know, understanding that we're individuals, you know, I'm human, just like you are I have feelings, just like you do, you know, just like you want to be treated with respect. So do I. So, um, it's, you know, come out, you know, one of the things we really want to jump into, because we see it a lot and, you know, post COVID You know, it started to shift a little bit, we thought we may see a little change, but we didn't know it was not going to be for everybody. That was a given. But we started to see a little shift and a little change but I'm actually starting to see and I'm sure you are to Michelle starting to see it kind of go back a little bit to you know what it was that you started that you know how Have people need, you're hiring people. And you have the same mentality, the same attitude. And you wonder why your door won't stop turning, you keep having that rotating door, and investing time and money, hiring and recruiting. Yes, you may not see it up front. But if you really sit down to put all those numbers together, you're gonna start seeing that bottom line look a little funny. And I promise you is from the rotating door of hiring. So invest in your people, and it's not always monetary time is huge. When you're investing into your people, so let's get right into it. And talk a little bit about this human to human connection. How people aren't, you know, they it's almost like they're in the invisible, and they're not recognized in these organizations. So what are your thoughts on that Michela? You know, how we're kind of shifting back to what we were, we're not seeing that change getting better, is kind of either leveling out or going the opposite direction. So
I want to take, I want to tell my story that happened to me as a as a probably a teenager, I'm thinking I was in high school, I might have been middle school age. And I remember the conversation ending like this, I said to my mother, well, he's just a janitor. And my mother said, there, no one is just anything. You should be thankful somebody's cleaning up. Let me tell you something that completely changed my life. Every place I have worked, that I can think about just about at work if the click janitors were there housekeeping, ever maintenance. I knew their names. I remember I was working in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a client's office, we were in a basement. And I ended up learning the, the cleaning lady's name and the two maintenance guys name. And one of my co workers like, how do you know their names? I was like, because I speak to everyone. Everyone matters, right? And so what we saw at the beginning of the pandemic essential workers, they didn't all of a sudden become essential workers. Yeah. Essentially, right. Yeah. But people felt they were low level, thankless jobs. And they were, it changed from faith less to fake full to having them there, at the onset of the pandemic. And we should be thankful that somebody's cleaning up our mess, we should be thankful that somebody's packing our eggs at at $6. Because you're gonna cry them eggs. And so if you're saying, yes.

Okay, well put this down real slow.

Exactly. Like, it's like, guess what age is. So it's really important that we do self assessments of how do we treat people outside of work outside of knowing who somebody is from a job title, or what car they drive or neighborhood they're in or college they graduated from. It is truly looking at a human, as a human as a person. Somebody has feelings, emotions, and AI and classism has built into that. And straight away and push people aside because of what they may or may not own and have. And I think the pandemic for a while, brought that back into perspective. And so we see at certain points in time where that matters. 911 changed a lot of for time here in the US. I remember in 1989 here in South Carolina, when we were hit by category five hurricane, it changed how people engage and it even changed donations. I remember people, my aunt uncle, their house was destroyed during that hurricane. And people were writing them letters like they didn't know who the stranger was, was going to get this bedspread they were sending it to from Kansas, right from Kansas, like I don't know, what can't mock and we pull out the globe or the maps, I can see where Kansas is. And people writing notes like just just pouring out and emotions and saying, you know, we hope you recover and you're doing well, and things will turn them off for you. But it takes so much for people to engage with others on a on a human level when it's a stranger. And how do we do that on a on a regular basis and more importantly, inside of the workplace because that's where a lot of us or not even in a virtual workplace was on a zoom or virtual space, still humanizing people. And so I just wanted to bring that in. That we've seen it at one point And we see ebbs and flows of it change, usually around disasters, usually around high stress points, I'll say within society, but it really needs to be can take a continuous effort, and practice in society overall. So I'll turn it back over to you.

Look, keep going. You hear, you got to put a stop sign on it like that, man.

So what, what I would say, as far as the workplace, I know, we have a lot of things we're gonna try to get to, we're gonna try to not do in an hour, we're gonna, we may not hit 30, we want to try to do at 3540 minutes. But really, understanding the importance that people play in your life may not always get dark, searching, right? Yeah, it may be the bus driver. It could be for some people, the Amazon delivery person. Because whatever's in that package is gonna keep your child quiet, right gonna sue them
or keep us sane.

It'll be something that you need. If you're like me, you have sciatica. And you're like, I need this tennis ball to show up. Because I can't leave the house. But I needed to help roll out this nerve, because I'm in pain. It's so many people, it's those times when you're just thankful that they're people doing something that you can't do, especially at a time with me. And I think we need to be thankful all the time. Like, look, I did not have to put that on a trophy and my vehicle driving home, unloaded, all I had to do was bring it in the door. And sometimes we catch delivery personnel bringing in the door for you. So we really just need to be thankful that people in a lot of aspects are buying, they are giving us our time back to do other things as well. So what is sometimes the value of what people do for us, them bag it, like, I shop at all these because it saved me money. But I'd be like, I might need to go down to the Piggly Wiggly to their bag. Break the egg. I've covered about reggae, so me. So we really have to understand the value of what people do. And if your aspect is I have to think about it. And they give them given me time back and providing the do it that way. But please understand people are valuable and invaluable, actually, and really being thankful for them.

Yeah, a lot of it is a simple, thank you. Not you don't need to say nothing else to do nothing. It's just a simple thank you that, you know, shows the appreciation. So but I think that takes us into you know, the communication, the humanizing communication, which is trust and respect. And, you know, just that whole piece of, you know, knowing you're talking to another person, and that communication, the way that you're talking, and granted, and I am truly guilty of it, where, you know, you're you're saying certain things, and people take things the wrong way. Then there's times like no, I'm sorry, you know, I didn't mean it, how it sounded or, you know, or how I came across. That wasn't my intent. I meant, you know, x, y, z. So, you know, understanding that and not, you know, we got to get out of ourselves. That's just who I am. That's just who I taught? No, no, you gotta, if somebody came to you one way, they will say the same thing, you got to be in your fields. So it's that human to human communication and connection to where you have to understand the person that you're talking with. And if they did feel a certain type of way, what's the Big Bear, say, I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry, we're moving on. And just leave it at that. So that's, and that's also part of, you know, showing some integrity, caring and just, you know, showing that human is humanizing, it's that simple. Um, and so I'll make it bigger than what it is. But it's truly that simple, of just being a human and open communication, talking, being respectful to each other. And just that integrity of you know, throughout their conversation or the relationship, if it is a long term relationship or someone you're going to be around a lot, and most people that that is working, you know, regular jobs and even, you know, small businesses, you're in business, so you're working with people all day long, more than you are really with your family most of the time. So, you know, take the time to do that. And, you know, sometime I know it's hard, don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna say is that easy, I get it. But um, you know, just taking the time to have that opportunity to get out of your Self and understand the person that you know you're in front of connecting with.

Absolutely. And you know what's what? What struck me as you were talking about trust, respect, integrity, caring movies and cartoons we grew up with. So Ebenezer Scrooge, right? These things that we were supposed to learn as children, I don't know the Grinch. Right. And and if you try, it's like what happened between these lessons being taught as children to morphing into adults and I know things have everybody's gonna have bad days. But every day, you treating people dehumanizing people, is not where you should be. And so oftentimes, we need to reflect on our feelings, because hurt people hurt people. And you may need to go seek professional help to understand what's going on. But also to understand when there's also those of us that we when we see somebody dehumanizing somebody else, how do we step in. And I literally remember this one time, one of my former co workers was being I'll see chastise by an executive in the company at his cubicle. Oh, wow. out his at his cubicle. And what happened was, another guy from another team went to our admin and said, Hey, can you stop him from doing that? And so the admin like, okay, she went and got our senior vice president to go talk to this man. Do you know what happened? He lowered his face.

That's typically how that happened. Yep.

Because there were no repercussions to his behavior. And oftentimes, when we talk about toxic workplaces, we talk about poor cultures. That is what we're talking about. Right? Now, people not being able to have conversations, people not being able to provide criticism and feedback in a constructive way, in a nun public setting. And then it completely breaks, it was to the point, this particular employee just stopped coming in after a while to that office, he just worked somewhere else. And I will go back, I'll be like, you know, where it's like, he's working such and such location today.

Like from I remember for, when I left that project, I hadn't seen him in a year. And so I was not surprised when he I just after a while it just stop coming. And just stop asking if he was gonna be there. Because he literally just stopped coming in and started avoiding that particular executive. Because he reported to him and he couldn't get out of that role. It was. And so we, when we think about the workplace understanding, when you do things like this, it did not just impact this one co worker, nobody else including me want it to work with this particular executive. To the point I took, I remember my mentor at that time was i Hey, I can get you on that project was like, I've never worked with that man. And I literally, he's like, no, no, you don't have to report that's like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. I will never work for the man lay me off. Yeah, because that just show poorly on our entire company. Because demand was literally there at that point for 30 years. Yeah, so they already knew. And they made that decision to keep them. So they isn't expensive, less isn't expensive costs for some company, but they seem to find a way to cover those costs for
ya aesthetic, never given the PEEP necessary.

People raised their cover costs for something like that. And is it goes to like, the culture of that environment. Because whether that guy lost his voice or not, that was not the first time that he's done this. And if this particular employee was the type of person that would be like, Okay, first of all, you're gonna lower your voice back up and kind of you know, try to correct the situation. Now that supervisor will get offended. They will want the to terminate or write them up for insubordination, and a list of whatever else that they may tack on. But, again, regardless if you're my superior or not, there's a way that you should talk to a person. It's not your child that you're reprimanding. and talking to another adult, another human, you know, like that and expect them just to sit there and let you just, you know, talk to them that way is insane. And supervisors, you know, they want to be respected. But the the old saying goes, you gotta give respect to get some?

Absolutely, absolutely, yep. So let's see could look like you say we got we're gonna limit our time. So we're gonna I mean, we could stay on this for some hours. But let's move on to our next one, which is an emotional attachment, um, we'll you know, we'll stick with the same example, you know, problems for this employee, you know, it could have been, he's been there for so long or He adjusted his lifestyle to make sure you know, that was the place he wanted to, you know, be and you know, been out for, you know, X number years, and you get attached to, to those jobs, not to say you attach in a sense to where you get lazy and just don't want to go anywhere else. But it could be the culture, the benefits, the location, it could, you know, there's a list of things that could have some lots attached, and they could just really, really love the job that they're doing. And having someone to dehumanize, you can shift all of that you can go in hating everything about that job, not the task to be done. But just being in that place, it makes everything just seemed horrible.

So I think you know, wit, that is still, you know, humanizing and talking to people, even if you'd like to say we all had a bad day, and I came in, I'm just talking to you, and not even realize I'm yelling at you, because I'm already, you know, frustrated with something else, you know, it's okay to say, Hello, do you want to take a minute before we had this conversation, and we want to come back to it, you know, let them know, oh, you know, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you, you know, or I don't want you to seem you know, that, you know, I'm coming down on you or anything. So it's okay leaders to take a step back. And to excel criticism critique from, you know, people that report to you. And sometimes it may not be criticism or critique, it could be simply that, you know, you want to step back for a minute and go breathe, or go smoke a cigarette or step aside or whatever, and then we'll have this conversation later, or either we can have it tomorrow, you know, so I think it's, I know, okay, you know, to do things like that without leaders being so defensive.

I love it, I agree, is we can get tied to an employer, to a brand, even to the work we do, I can say, a lot of times, when we see marginalized people doing work, especially in the nonprofit space, the treatment may not be the best, but they're there because of the work they do and who they're serving. And so it becomes very painful for them both ways. It's painful when they leave. But they can start to heal, go through the healing process from the trauma that you're enduring. But they may have to go to a job or a place where they don't feel as though they're providing a service or impacting community and other marginalized people. And so it can really be tied to so many, so many different values we have, even if I'd say a lot of women go into environmental engineering, sometimes you're coming through a civil engineering firm, you're one of few women. And so you may be encountering a lot of barriers there too. But you you like the work you do, you're doing you like focusing on clean water, you like focusing on clean air and any missions and really doing that work.

But the environment may not be very welcoming to you. And the communication styles are very different and can be very difficult. So now you're torn about what to do and where to go. And so it's it's sometimes we think, like you're seeing the huge layoffs in in tech. And a lot of people are tied to oh, I work for Fang, which is now a main company so Facebook. Amazon was the other a I'm gonna get to it. Netflix and Google I forget what other he is right now. But there really tied to those companies. When actuality they bring value to the company, their skill set their knowledge, their abilities really are what makes the company be able to do what it was. If not, it would just be a sign on ability. And AI has not. It's not that far enough long. Well, we don't think so anyway, to to run, run Google on his own without human interaction. And so sometimes the communication we endure, to be tied to those brands, but also what I've noticed, too, is how people communicate because they work for those brands, right? Oh, well, I work at such and such.

So it can have an elitist type way of communicating, right? Oh, you only work there. And so we really have to also be mindful of how we tie ourselves to things. And so it's always interesting, when I see people have x, whatever, behind it, X that IE x dash, a company name. And I was like, oh, okay, but it's their thing in tech, let them roll with it. But also to understand, um, those companies aren't loyal to you, the same way that you may be loyal to them. And you can see that and how they communicate it during layoffs. Right, you can see how they communicate it. Like, oh, we sent everybody an email that morning, knowing there was an opportunity that people gonna miss, why not just let people know, at the end of the day? At lunchtime, I here's your lunch break. Here's your lunch to go. Having conversations, having managers spending the day or two, letting people know this? Oh, I have a team of 50. Okay, how many of you letting go 17? Well, that 1720 minute conversations you're about to have, and just go through and have those conversations, because it really was important to be able to do that. And that that human to human engagement was taken away. And a lot of these employees that are left behind, not not even the employees that are there, they have a Saturday, but our employees that are still remaining, how they are looking at you and your inability to humanize communication when their co workers and their friends. They're jogging their workout partners, right? We're let go. And so you really have to understand that humanizing the these particular points in a person's career are really, really important.

It is, and it's, it's the simple things. And I think we got to get back to the simplicity of communication. And part of that is technology is we we put technology in the place of the human to human interaction from terminating people via email, text messages, certain communications that should be had in person, even if it's a phone call, you know, still having that human to human communication, and not send them a text message in the email. And a lot of these large companies are doing that. They're sending an email, letting them know, okay, well, this is your two week notice. You know, it's, I can only imagine what some people you know, what they like, but, you know, for me, I'm like, What the hell, which means that we noticed somebody, oh, you know, so it's, I'm having those connections. And that takes us into like recognition, recognizing your employees, it's not always about doing a hinge Shindy quality or spending a lot of money, sometimes just really going, you know, hey, I appreciate that, you know, thank you for catching it, thank you for staying on top of this, or, you know, good job stepping up, you know, just simple things like that, to show people that you appreciate them. And, you know, some companies that are large enough that do have the budget, may, you know, give a bonus or, you know, give them a gift card to lunch or a movie or something. It shows some type of recognition and me being in a leadership role. I've been with a company that just really didn't do that.

And I will go in my own pocket sometime it you know, give them a list of $25 You know, gift cards or restaurant, or, you know, to a movie or something. So, I've done that myself. For some employees, even though the company don't recognize I'm not saying that you should do that was just my, my thing that I did. But a lot of couples should have something in place as they're deciding on their budgets and where they're going to allocate money for different things, they should add in a bucket for recognition, employee poof day or whatever they want to call it, you know, so I think that should be part of their, their discussions, when they're outlining their pie chart was gonna have one to do that and allow these departments to do it. And companies have to regardless of the tenure of a person, I don't care if they PhD, doctorate, whatever degree already let us they got behind their name, that should not be a factor on well, we need to keep them on payroll, if they're not treating employees with respect. It's sometimes you might miss better don't have, you know, all them letters lined up behind their name. And I was actually talking to somebody today about that, that, you know, regardless of what piece of paper you have, and what you want to call yourself, it really doesn't matter. You know, I know a lot of people come across a lot of people with all of this stuff added to their name and quantity behind. And they just don't have simple common sense. So paper doesn't matter, that I really don't want to say, but you know, we'll stick with that.

simple common sense. You know, regardless of what it is, and how many copies are relying on all when they gotta be MBA or PhD, or, you know, whatever else they want to call it. And why you put so much focus on that. It seems like you're focusing more on them having these letters you want them to have instead of the actual experience, and skill set that a person has, because those are the people that's going to be able to execute, and to get the things done that need to be done, and not so much to say, Doctor or PhD or MBA or whatever, you know, the hell it is, you know, who cares? I'm not saying that you shouldn't, if you're getting it great, if you haven't great, but employers should not let that be a factor when they are looking for talent. That's not how you're going to attract or retain a person. Yes, people that's been working 20 plus years that don't have a degree, but they can run circles around somebody that have a PhD or doctorate or whatever. So look, at the skill set the experience, what do they have, and not somebody that's going to come in to say I'm in an office, dress up everyday, kick their feet up on the desk, and be a dictator, and then talk down to somebody else that may not have a piece of paper? Because at the end of the day, that's all it is, is a piece of paper? Yes, you do. You know, you've learned some things or whatever. But you know, it's a piece of paper. And that's not really putting you in the position where you need to be at, and the amount of money these organizations are paying people just because they have a piece of paper, they really need to refocus, and look at their recruiting policy, the HR policy, who's putting these job descriptions together, you know, all of these different things, who's doing the who's coming up with the rules for this. So go back to the to the chalkboard and redo your plate, we need to know that we need another play this play is not a whole new book puts the errors and all of that stuff, but it's just not where organizations should focus as much as they are. And if it's time for them to really change that. And shift the mindset of why they are doing that. Because what they could see is they have a rotating door, but you're not going to be able to keep the talent that you want. Now you're going to be upset that why do we have to keep hiring people why does people want stay in their job? Why are we bringing these people in and they're not able to produce? So you're bringing on one person that you think should be the handle of the job, but now you got to bring in two or three more, or this one position, because this one here, it can't handle it. They got the sheet of paper, but they don't know how to execute. They don't know efficiency. They don't understand efficiency. They don't know how to be productive. They know how to do bare minimum to push a piece of paper across the desk smile pretty dress period and go collect a nice check. So organizations really I need to refocus on that and look at the playbook for the hiring practices. You're asked me.

I want to read a comment we have. I've had a recruiter asked if I applied to a business analyst role by accident, because apparently they wanted someone with an MBA, but wasn't anywhere on the job description and their role was not a senior role, even if it was a senior role. Do they really need an MBA? Right? Yeah, yes. For some of these MBA programs, that well, she just college tuition. And journalists not even say that. But that for MBA has to be hot is expensive. Were they even paying enough to cover a warrant? So my MBA is too often they're like, Oh, we want 12 years of experience and master's degree for $35,000. In New Light, where? Yeah,
I did want just just out of curiosity, I started going on, you know, somebody's job sites in the monster and looking at something like mine, and not even an executive administrative assistant, but just an administrative assistant, you want them to have an NBA Jam, like, why that just simply does not make sense. Let me go read the job description. Maybe it's something more than what I'm thinking, go read the job description. You just need somebody that have the experience and have the tenure, you know, that that did this and have the skills, this is not call for MBA. And again, you're paying under 50,000. So absolutely not, you know, if you want somebody to step in with an MBA to really step in, execute, do the things that you need them to do, minimum and this is still low, but minimum, you need to look at least at at least at it.

It depends where you're at in the country. I literally remember just just Administrative Assistant Executive Assistant, I'm a woman I know. She's in Pittsburgh, it was the early 90s. And she saw this job posted in a newspaper for this where you went, and she, she could do everything. And she said it had this computer thing. And then she's like, I don't know what it is what that is, so I'll learn it. And so she applied for the job was a tech startup. And it ended up getting acquired by Intuit. And they were like, Oh, well, you can move to Silicon Valley. But the salary they were paying her to move from Pittsburgh to California was not commensurate to she was like, we don't have a job. We're moving completely across the country for my family. She was like, No, so
you can have your right. And you still aren't being able to provide them with finances to do a cross country. It doesn't add up. And not at least they communicated with it. But the other thing I wanted to go back to was what we're seeing now in the workplace is more company saying they're looking at skill set. We still haven't seen it show up in job descriptions yet.

Nope.

But what we're hearing is they want to go back and 20 years ago, we had a lot of companies that did management training programs in the early 2000s 90s. They did a lot of management training programs. When I was an undergrad in engineering, they literally had what they call cow requirements for us, no communication, oral and written. So we had to take speech, we took technical writing, because they knew it. On average engineers were very poor communicators. Now imagine now you you have somebody who's very poor communicator, they're great electrical engineer, but bad communicator over the first team of five or 10 engineers, it generally didn't work out too well. And so as a lot because they they aren't today even worse because they aren't training them at all like oh well you do well as engineering, you should leave them like no leave them where they are until you train them on how to better to communicate in in speaking verbally, in written form, in shorthand, meaning Tech's DMS and slack messages, all of that, and that really isn't being cultivated, especially at the mid management level, the first level of management and then when they do get to it if they make it isn't an executive level, and they're like, Well, I've never been I haven't been doing the last 50 years like yeah, that's a problem.

So we need to be cultivated this skill set of communication over all earlier in A career, because it is valued very much. I have a career coaching client. She knew she was really great communicator. And she was an engineer. And she literally was getting people on the plant floor who ran production minute, 1520 30 years, they were performing better for her than any engineer to have been there the same amount of time, because she had a way of communicating with them that other engineers did not. And so she knew how to leverage it to get her projects and work done. But you know what happened, the other engineers didn't like her because she was able to communicate to such a degree with everybody else. And so we really have to explain to them, they don't like her better, because she's a nice, she communicates at a different level of skill set. And even if my client went to try to help other people, they took it the wrong way. And she was really just saying, Oh, if you communicate this way, they find it better, they react better. I want to read another comment finding a lot of places do not have training paths, entry level jobs. Just want you to know everything versus training on skill sets based on potential. Yes. Okay. That is that is very, very, they literally like we want somebody to come in and hit the ground running. I don't know nobody. You want to Olympian, even Olympians? Yes, we do. Yes. What they do. years is four years between the Olympics, four years for term Yantar for Olympic four years. You know, what happens in those four years?

Do you want to guess Melissa, do you a lot of training. And this is not the physical training mentally, physically, your food, your intake, your your lifestyle, your entire lifestyle has to change, to even fit your lifestyle have to change, if you want to just run a marathon, you know, a short, you know, in your neighborhood marathon. So forget even trying to be, you know, go go to the Olympics that's like, Oh, come on,
you know? Exactly. So when I hear these things, I cringe like, so how long have you been 18 years? As I've seen a lot of turnover? Can we have not? It's not a great fit? Yeah, but most people, because they're not going to come in hitting the ground running. Yeah. And so what I would say is reading those job descriptions, really start telling a story about what the culture is like, because they're communicating with you, sometimes very clearly, than other times when you go through the interviewing process, they can, they are clearly communicating with you about what the culture is really like. And then other times, you're going to have to dig more to understand better about that, that manager more specifically, because as I say, a company can have a culture, a location of that company can have a different culture. And then within that location, you can have cell cultures. And so it's really important to understand what you're walking into some Oh, I love working there. They work for a completely different VP, who's a senior director, down to senior manager, the you will and so the culture can be completely different for the team in which you will work. And so I had a very time when I remember, first construction project I was on. It was It wasn't even maybe 10 of us for my employer on that construction site. We generally didn't work all the time. We literally came near that time and went home. This other guy, it was like, everyday was a work day. It was like Groundhog Day over and over again. Because it was seemed like it was a 1214 hour workday. Now, did I realize you know what? He never gonna stop unless I stop him. Guess what? I just left
Yeah,
too, sit here and watch him go about how the world keeps turning and needs to stop for him. What? And so you really sometimes the communication sometimes has to come from us. Right? And we have to communicate and tell people how I'm human, how you would treat me as human and I and and it can be very difficult for marginalized people to do that women, people of color, disabled people, people who are non Christian to do this. But I highly encourage you to do that because now you have set boundaries, you're starting to set boundaries, and they're gonna push because for a long time they had these boundaries. They are like, I don't like this new place I don't like If the new you, and like, you know what every two year old has to become three, and a three year old has to become four. And so you want to get out of the terrible twos or the terrible threes, and you're gonna be four. So I'm gonna let you go through that that scene, and sometimes you have to have a discussion with them. But definitely, definitely set your boundaries so that communication can work both ways to let people know you will not treat me this way. What comes will come, but you can definitely put not I don't even say put a line in the sand. I said, put it in the concrete because I'm a civil engineer, it's not hard deadline is gonna go nowhere. Unless you move it so fast. I want to get some final thoughts from you on humanizing communication?
Well, I think one of the final thoughts would be is kind of, you know, piggyback off what you were just talking about on, you know, how, you know, with the whole rotating door, and you know, the the hiring process and the job descriptions, this goes to, you know, some Employer Branding, that, you know, so many organizations, we do our websites, we get the mission statement, all these different things out there. But all of that for your consumer, that's for your customers, but what are you doing, and then employ your brand new will help with some of that, not some, but it will help with that. Helping your candidates to understand, you know, what the company is about who you know, the culture there, who they will be working with, all of these things should be included in this employer branding for those particular positions. Now, based on how large the company is, your departments and all of that, you may have to have multiple, multiple ones throughout the organization. But your standard Employer Branding will talk about the organization as a whole, but you have that extra cherry on top, if you will, that talks about specifically, that department, the people they work, who they will be working with, how the management, and all of those things will work. So it's really looking at that and just being on top of how can you attract and keep those employees at your organization.

Because if you can keep if you can retain those candidates at your organization, not only is that a it shows a place that anyone will want to work, because now these candidates, they're gonna go on social media and talk about how happy they were at work, oh, this, my employer gave me a gift card, you know, those types of things, it just highlighting all of those different things that you are doing for your employees, and just letting those employees know. So it's really staying on top of, you know, all of those different things. I'm gonna look over here and look at our comments. And they I keep seeing me look this way My screen is over here. But look at somebody's comments. But I think that with this employer branding, and you know, companies understand that they need to have that in place can help with some of this human to human communication as well. Because now that you have that, your leaders will be trained on that and they will be expected to follow what that that is and not come up with their own, whatever they may call it over there. But that I think will be a huge shift in company culture, and how leaders are treating employees and how a company can retain the right candidates and decrease the cost of hiring. Because that is so big. You know, if you really look at your numbers, you know that but a lot of companies don't even pay attention to it. They just know, hire somebody to hire somebody to hire somebody to hire somebody. And the money you put into doing all this hiring, interviewing job descriptions, and all these other things. It's just it will eat at your profits.

Well, some people like to put a lot of money in into recruitment and I'm just saying yeah, it's but that's the reality.

I like I like the dating part that relationship hard work, which is hard somebody like literally you would not believe some companies recruitment budget, and people just keep quitting. Why aren't you figuring out why they quit? Then
that right there let's figure out why they're quitting instead of just Oh, okay. When that job description, job description put off When you get a job description, yeah, job.

They never take down, that's just it, they never take the job. The job description now why take it down, you know, the person isn't gonna be there, the only thing that they do is just gonna change the date because, you know, it expires after Salah going into just the date. So
I know, we laughing but it's really sad so many practices. It is.

It's, you know, it's so sad that you have to laugh at it. Because it's like, how can you not see this and understand this. So in start making the changes, instead of wasting the money in all this recruitment, invest that money and to bring somebody in to help you figure out why this is happening. And what can we do to resolve this? Put the money there and not recruiting? Well,

I think one of the reasons they can it doesn't go to retention efforts, right? Yeah, somebody could be held accountable for why people are leaving, if you don't ask, you don't collect data. People do not have to be held accountable. And so this, because organizations we do diversity, recruitment and positive hire, and people will often Oh, we haven't troubled like, well, how many black employees do you have? Well, not that many. Well, how many left in the last 12 months? Um, the ones that are there, how long have they been there? Yeah, right. The failure to measure does not mean to you're trying not to be held accountable. It's like, you want to lose weight, but you don't want to get on the scale. You don't want to waste beads, you don't want to use a measuring. What exactly are you like, I must wear the same, you know, I'm aware of the same mumu I'm gonna figure it out. And I'm sitting there, like, what the mood would it get tight or tight? I'm good. It's like, you're not measuring or you don't have you're not measuring the right thing. And so right now, there's a big, big push, you know, on figuring out how to measure DEI efforts. Well, right, Where were your PIP rates. And so there are things in there you can measure. But guess what, who's gonna be held accountable for when they fail? And so oftentimes, they want to push back and chief diversity officer, well, let's talk about some of these managers. Oh, you like them? Right. So So that's, that's a whole other discussion. But that's what I'm seeing. It's one reason why they have so much focus on talent. Because if you look at retention, and recruitment, talent, recruitment, because when you look at retention, you're going to have to hold people accountable, you're going to have to make change, do some change management. And you do not want to do that, oh my god. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this, as we wrap up, and wrapping up, I'll say, the ability to communicate in your organization on a human to human level with empathy, with sympathy, with compassion, with joy, and to recognize your employees is not a bad thing. It is extremely important in how you communicate on a daily basis, what is verbally and written form. written form can be very, very different ways. If it's sign language, whatever that form is, it is very, very important that you humanize that. Also understand it, and I had to catch somebody today, they were ordering food on the phone. And the person didn't understand the word special. Instead of them slowing down. They're like, you know, you know what our tendency is? To get louder.
think out loud, or can you hear me? You can't hear what I'm saying? Yes.

And so it's really important to understand through training via on communications, how to slow down when you have a communication or language barrier, especially if you're not in front of the person. And so it's really important that we understand there are different things that we need to change about how we communicate, whether it's, it's changing our intonation for different people, our organizations, it is not always doing things verbally, but sending it in writing. It is also speeding up or slowing down our language because you know, I'm a Southerner, and I used to work in an office with a lot of people from the northeast. It's like you talk too slow. I say, Yeah, but I dance fast. That's why I talk slow, so that it makes it but really having a way to communicate very is very important on so many different levels and training that at all levels throughout your organization. Because if you're not doing with your front, um, customer facing roles, we always think about executives, because they're going to go talk to other executives and the board. Yeah. Yeah, your customers are who are, are interfacing with your frontline people, your essential workers, you need to be paying attention to them, and you need to be investing in them past entry level, but focusing on those roles that are communicating the most with each other, each other as employees as well as your customers, so change that and really focus on that in 2023. So where we kind of we can't we can't we're gonna be back, we got a gap. I have a virtual Summit coming up. We'll be back February 28. We're going to wrap this up in February. So if y'all have missed the lanes of communication, this is the third edition we have the fourth and final will coming up. Y'all missed a lot. We're gonna wrap it up. It's probably going to be an hour fit to try to tie everything into a bowl for y'all on what it looks like in the workplace. What employee branding with talent, retention, talent, tension, right. When winning and just workplace culture, all wrapped around communication. So everybody, Melissa, you're excited for February 28.

I'm excited like I'm over here, Ryan right now. Yes, ma'am.

Everybody, check us out. We'll have the next event up. February 28. Event up next week. We hope to see you join us if not, yes, the one of us and we will send you the link for that broadcast. You don't want to miss it. Everybody. Have a great week, and we will check you out later.

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Everybody? Thank you so much for joining joining us. So it's probably not as many of us who had RSVP because well, we want to do like, so I'm gonna go share that. And we're starting about 20 minutes later due to tech issues, but we will definitely, definitely get this party started. I have with me, because with me four lanes of communications communication specialist, Melissa Amber's, Melissa, why don't you tell the people a bit about yourself while I go share us out in a couple other places.

Okay. Hello, everybody, thank you for joining me. And you know, like Michelle said, you know, Hi, girls with tech issues, it happens. But we are glad that you are able to jump on and chat with us and listen to us, you know, to have a look communication. So if he wasn't on last week, I am Melissa Amber's with strategic blueprint consulting, and we help organizations with their employer branding, and their EVP, which is their employer value proposition. And part of that is communication. So that's why, you know, we talk a lot about communication, and there are so many different lanes and twists and turns within that. So many times we hear, we're open for communication coming in at any time, feel free to share. We want all feedback. And it's almost like, you know, you check the boss, because you said you said what she was supposed to say. But the reality is, you really don't mean what you say. And a lot of times there's you know, retaliation, various forms where you could be fired, or you're treated differently, or you're demoted, or sometimes it actually affects some people paychecks where they won't get raises. Because they simply, you know, shared something. So there are so many different ways that it happens. And that communication has become harmful, which is really unfortunate that this is an issue with organizations and companies that you know, as an employee, you have to worry about going in keeping your mouth shut and not sharing ideas. Not wanting to say certain things.

And we just, we've also been taught document document document. So instead of us saying something, or going to talk about something to see, can we come up with a resolution, or maybe it was something that either party could have misunderstood and is clearing the air, the first thing we do is we get those tablets and o pins, and we started jammed down, we start writing down all of these things that happens with the date and time if it's, you know, sometime it gets that serious, where you have to write the date and time, we started documenting all of these things. And then on top of that, with our cell phones, we may record on Slack. You know, so that way when someone come in and they say, Oh, I didn't say that, or it wasn't me, you have the recording, to say, okay, hey, you know, this was your voice, you did say this, or this, this particular situation did happen. And we don't have the opportunity to have those conversations. So that's why we you know, are hitting on the lines of communication and putting this information out there. So we can talk about it. You know, this is this is considered this your communication chat room, what do you have to say? What are some of the things that you're having problems with or that you try to communicate with a leader or someone in management, and it didn't go over so well or they did not give you the right answer or you really feel that they are retaliated against you. And like I said it's different lanes of the retaliation. So whatever form that is, they retaliate against you. So we want to you know, hit on some of those things and understand how you as an employee, can, you know, approach the situation but not approach the situation in full armor, and ready for battle. Because when we go like that, not only my body language with the energy that we give off is that battle energy and that we're ready to get in battle. And we're ready to, you know, duke it out. But disarm yourself, you know, if you have to take a moment walk away, take a walk around the floor, build and go to the restroom, whatever it is, the armor yourself, and then go in and that energy is gonna come across differently, then that way, maybe the communication will go differently. So that is a start. I'm not saying that that's the complete solution. But that is a start to try to figure out how we can figure this thing out, let's talk about it. If it's a misunderstanding, let's fix it, let's clear the air, whatever it is. So just making sure that you're going in with the energy of peace, and that you're here to truly talk and not battle. So that is my just on, you know, communication. And we're just gonna get into it and talk about a few things.

So Strapping, again, thank you for for dropping all of that knowledge and really talking about how communication. People prepare like documentation. And we're not saying don't document, right? Well, the thing is, try try different lanes of communication with people in your organization, to get to try open dialogue. The problem, I would say with some people is number one, whatever you say they're going to take it as an attack on them. So how do you navigate those issues? Other Other times they are attacking you in response? And so you're trying to figure out, then what is the best or better approach to communicating certain things with people? And I think it's really important that we aren't saying, Oh, just don't do it. But really, aren't we understanding the culture of the organization, understanding the person you're dealing with? What is there a history of, you know, working with others, or communicating with others in your organization? Also take that into account? So definitely, definitely look at.

Yeah. So we're gonna jump right into the conversation. So we, you know, as Michelle and I talk, we, you know, jotted down some notes. And we had this one incident that that was in the, in the news, and I want to, it was problematic last week or week before, but it was in the news. And we talked about the new management style at Twitter. And the same person was in the news, again, Ilan, and he had an assistant, and the assistant just simply went to him and asked for a raise. You know, of course, we don't know all the details in that conversation. But, you know, I'm sure she went, you know, I've been here for, you know, X number of years, and I'm sure she shared her value and different things like that. And not only that released all the value, because he kept her as a system for all of these years. And if I'm not mistaken, I know, she's been there for over 10 or 15 years. So there's been some time that she was there. And because she asked for a raise, he told her take off at work, let me see if you're valuable or not. I mean, I've heard of a lot of things happening, but that was like, Damn, you know, so, um, what are your thoughts on that? Michelle?

Well, I think a lot of things, first of all, understanding this is why people don't document sometimes their processes and procedures when, because incidents like this happen. And what makes me what I would have said was, hey, and this happens more, I would say to women than it does to men, you have to prove your worth, you have to have proof. And so understanding who that manager is that you're approaching what their what they often look for it to validate something is sometimes that proof and it is down D is not necessarily a Twitter thing. So, Casey, and so to me, it really focuses on understanding who you're communicating with as far as personality, how do they take in information and really doing your due diligence and homework, unfortunately, so the way I communicate, I'm an ambivert. So I don't mind being on the end. on it, I have not mind that being inside for the last three and a half. Almost four, I have not learned that for the most part, some people I need to get out. And some people do better communicating one on one, I do better communicating, I think with people in person. And then on a zoom, and then last via email, like email, it's like the last thing you want me to communicate to you via? And Melissa can probably be a testament to that, like, did you get my email? Like, oh, yeah, I didn't see that. And so it's just understanding what is the best method to communicate with your team. And so my product manager, no longer slacks me, she just texts me back, she just, she just sends me videos, whatever she needs, she just texts me. If she knows she, she really wants me to look at it, then she'll do an email. And so really understanding who you're speaking to, even if it's it isn't there in leadership, or if it's somebody that is the individual contributor or customer understanding their communication style is really, really important, as well,
I think that's a great point that you put out of knowing who you're speaking with.

And because of the term that she's been there, she's, you know, seeing a lot of things have been around him a lot to have that kind of tenure with him, and knowing how he is, okay, how can I approach this? What's the best way to approach and then consider everything that he has going on? When you have a someone in management that does so many different things, and are in have their heads of so many different things, for instance, like he does is, what is the right day? What's he in the middle of some meeting that just blew up, and it just wasn't the right day. And I'm not saying it's always going to be a right time. But if you know, there's a way that's just blown up, and it's just a really bad day for him. That's definitely not the time to really approach anybody about, you know, raises and things like that, because that's actually conversation. That's not nothing, you just go up to somebody and say, I need a raise. Okay, yeah, sure. Here, it's not gonna happen that way. So it's really understanding the situation, the time and knowing how to approach that person. So even if they're the type of person like Michelle said, you have her levels, if they're the type of person where if there's a conversation needs to be had, and they say, you have to make an appointment for us do that, ya know, it may be irritating, but do it, follow the protocol, and go through your steps the proper way, and not try to overstep some and loop through because you're frustrated, or you want it now or something else was happening, follow the protocol, and that's gonna be your best bet of doing things.

Absolutely. I wanted to say sometimes the best time to ask for a raise is when they're happy and upbeat. Or they have said, Oh, my God, I could not have done this watch. I'm glad you brought that up, Bob, why don't we talk? Right? Because they lead straight into how you help them go. Take the tail, when I'm gonna take this tail with, let me go ahead and ask for this. And so So you let them lead and you just come in for the alyou and see how that goes. So I don't do sports, but I sounded pretty good, right? So. So if you know, this person is generally happier at certain periods of time of the year of the day, like some people like don't bother me until after lunchtime, and other people like don't bother me before in the morning, and so you really have to really kind of check it sometimes you don't know, right? So your direct manager, you may understand his her their communication style, but not their manager above them and so forth. And so you may have to do some reconnaissance and talk to your administrative team to really understand how that are approached them, or look at other people from a distance. Okay, so it's, it's and then other times, you just have to jump in and you learn. What I would say is really to the managers is how do you show up? Because as we're looking at link between layoffs, and people already quitting on their own, right without leaving the organization without a layoff? How are you showing up in the workplace with your communication style that is driving people away? And I remember having a co director, he would email you but he had 1000s of unopened emails. It was okay for him to email you but if you email back your response, he just come to your desk like So what's the answer? You've like I emailed it to you like yeah, don't check email, but he was sent emails Okay, so it just became his team that they went and they talk to me, I be like, alright, well, when he read the email, let me know what you have a question about. And I went back to my work, because I spent my time already addressing the question, you waste them to me, you are wasting my time.

And people be like, Did she really do that, like I did, I said, you have to train somebody and how to respect you. He had the highest turnover rate, I wonder why his communication style was very, very even for engineers, it was very, it was very difficult to communicate with him outside of very technical conversations, and a communication. So it's really important also to that they understand how the leaders and managers understand how they show up in the workplace, because that can literally kill a deal. And it kills deals, too, if you're on the sales side, and the customer engagement side or organization that can absolutely kill a deal as well. Yeah,
I think that's a good, you know, segue into, you know, our next point is, how to communicate with respect and sensitivity. With, you know, you know, say we, you know, use this particular instance is, you know, respectful, you know, if you're gonna send emails in on, you know, doing the same thing. And if you're not going to do it, there's a way to communicate. But some leaders, they're so into themselves in the sense that, you know, I'm the leader, you report to me, and you want to have a successful team, but you can't have both, you can't be a dictator, and then want to have a team that's truly productive and successful, the two, they're just not going to match. Like you said, there's going to be a very high turnover rate. And I actually saw saw this on the news this morning, this new thing on tick tock Mass Comm rage applying to where people or on their lunch breaks in all these other places to where it's some type of AI or something where they just apply to 20 and 50, some jobs, you know, in a short amount of time, and just to see, you know, hey, what's gonna pop up. And that's why so many people are leaving competence, because people are tired of being treated, you know, like, you know, just a laggy, you know, you're here to work, just getting into the work done. We got to bring, you know, the human peace back into some of these organizations, and a lot of leaders do not realize, that's what is that is that simple, it doesn't cost no money, it doesn't really cost you no time, it's just really checking yourself and making those changes, you know, you're talking to another human, you're talking to another adult. So if you go in with that, and then you want to get upset when the employee comes back, and they're defensive or snapping back at you, now you want to write them up and want to send them home for the day, suspend them, terminate them all these other things, but you have a negative energy. So it has to go both ways. You can't be that negative person and then say, Okay, I want this huge, successful team and you know, to produce, it's just not gonna happen.

I don't understand. They don't see why. It is very interesting how companies who have a really big, big brand, who are well known, they don't often have to sync talent they do because they have certain characteristics, they're looking for talent, often feel as though they do not have to change, they do not have to modify anything. Everything revolves around them. And what happens is, something generally happens in our industry in an organization that actually impacts their ability to not only retain their talent, but attract and recruit new talent, and they're shocked. But but we're the cool kid on the block. Used to be until x y&z came, and XYZ happened. And as we see more and more companies do layoffs, it is interesting for some of the newer companies to do the layoffs, they the way they are and what I mean is people just locked out of a system and maybe, maybe what technology is different when before you show up to a place where we have a car, the clock, The clock in like push into something, you can go over to the to the lunch room, we're gonna have a meeting, right? And that's, that's why people get mad, it's like at a bar, my guys got up, got dressed and weighed in, or you have me to come in and do all this work during the day and when I get ready to go home, you want to tell me not to come back.

We'll see. We'll see. I would at least would have liked because well, it's either tell me at the end of the day, you want to tell them at lunch and you provide them lunch or dinner. Or do you want them to tell you At the beginning of the day, if you're sitting in rush hour traffic, it's never a good time to do layoffs. I'm just saying, yeah, there. But I do, I will say there is a way to communicate layoffs. And it does take more time when you're trying to talk to people one on one, when you're trying to talk to them at small groups. But the point is, you're talking to them, it is not an email. Like just saying, Hey, we sent an email to your personal email, but I'm locked it. So it can, it can be drafted. And also assuming to, if you have a company, company devices outside of a laptop, where sometimes you just picked up your mobile, and from your mobile, you literally just check your work email. So now you got to go to your your personal laptop of your personal device and check email to see what's going on. Or hopefully your boss has your personal cell phone number, things like that, to reach out to you. I just think when we think about communications overall, at the leadership level, how does that how's that filtering down? And how does that look? Because now everybody's sharing the lack of communication, or humanity and how and how we communicate. The other part, I would say, people not trusting you, right? People like, Hey, I asked two weeks ago, how the company was doing, I looked at some of the financials, we weren't doing too well in a couple places. And we saw Oh, don't worry about it, which obviously was not true. And so that, that part, that integrity part, or lack thereof, of can and will often come by come back to bite organizations. So like, well, we didn't want him to leave yet. So two weeks is different than what you you know, some people like Yeah, well, they would have taken customers, or they would have taken proprietary information. Generally, they've already been siphoning this stuff over time. It wasn't about to happen, just because you gave final notice that already had its plan, and they were had already hatched it and it was underwhelming. It for most people, it was not new, especially at a major layoff, it was something like maybe you were letting them go. As part of retaliation. They Yeah, they may have set something up. But for most employees, it is definitely definitely, they haven't set anything up to backdoor the company they already been doing. I'm just gonna put that out there.

But I think that's awesome opportunity when you're doing your performance reviews, that that's another communication opportunity. You know, and I think that's a big trust space. Because normally it is, you know, one on one, or, you know, maybe another manager if needed, but normally is one on one, and you have the opportunity to have those conversations to share information. So I think that's also where the trust come in, and taking the time to share information about your needs, and what those needs are and be specific on those needs. But okay, I'm gonna put a little disclaimer there. Don't go in there with no foolishness, or no knees, you know, it because sometimes it's like, pee. It's like, sometimes people don't think about certain things. And I'll even share an example with you, as a manager, with a couple of like, you know, the warehouse guys, one of the guys decide he wants to come talk to me cool, no problem, come on, in whatever we talking. And he came in and said, I think I deserve a raise. Okay, why do you think you deserve a raise? Because I came to work. I say so Is that all you got? You know, because you showed up to work, we hurt you. And not only that, you know, that was an opportunity where every month if they perform, they got cash bonuses. So cash bonuses that they were getting. And he also said, Well, I don't think this is enough, I think also need to raise a monthly bonus to okay, what are you bringing to the table, even though you barely been here a year, barely a year? What are you bringing to the table? Well, I come to work every day. So again, don't go anywhere, no foolishness. Make sure that you're going in with something that makes sense. Showing your value. How have you made yourself an asset to that organization? You know, show your numbers if you're a person that's responsible for like, you know, data or growth or anything, go in with the data, get your numbers together. show when I was here, we were here. Now between this time, we was able to grow, you know, 10% or 20% Whatever it is, and show that value. And when you're able to show that value of why you, the company, you are asset to their company. You never know what might happen, because a lot of times, managers, they just see you doing the work. They just seem to push it out. And they don't really realize that. Oh, wait, didn't do that. Oh, yeah, this did happen. You know, I didn't really realize. So don't always go in thinking that you're being overlooked. They just get in the habit, we all get in the habit of just seeing you doing seeing you show up seeing you doing different things, and not really realize, now that, yeah, this did make a difference. So you know, that's why I say D armor yourself, and go in with a different energy and just have those conversations.

Who, that I love that. Um, I think our preparation for that manager, or that manager or person and leadership role, and really understanding them, but also ourselves and how we make sure, yeah. And I say this with a caveat is people going to have their biases, they're going to call you whatever they're gonna call you and see you how they see you. So keep that in mind to it, but show up how you want to show up. And I remember back in the day, so remember, I'm a Gen Xers over here.

You I'm a millennial, whatever, whatever. Okay. I am not wondering, but we were taught to dress for the role you want to go to? Yeah, right? What was that next role you want it to go to, and to show up in that role was really important for you to advance your career. And so I say that, in that, hey, I'm a manufacturing engineer. So I dress like this, because I'm on the production floor. That's absolutely positively okay. What you may do differently, though, is maybe you wear more collared shirts, maybe you keep a suit jacket, hanging up at your cube on a hanger on the back of your, your office desk, maybe if you're working from home, certain parts of the day of certain parts of the week, you have a certain green screen or backdrop, hopefully you can change your mind like me. And so that gives you the ability to show up a bit different than your other colleagues, it's showing the direction in which you want to go and test those out because it communicates not verbally, right, we're not talking about verbal communications. But it communicates differently, how you want to be seen in the workplace and heard in the workplace as well.

So just just take that into account as well. I want to go back to when, when having meetings with your manager, especially around your career. And I don't know if we got into that yet. But being very intentional with those pre scheduled meetings that you have, and maybe even setting up a three to five bullet agenda. To better prepare and have clear communication with your manager that can sometimes show that number one how you show up, you show up prepared. And that's that's truly important and valuable to do. Like I respect your time, I respect your thoughts and opinions. Here's an agenda let's meet this place in time. So take that into account to some people like even if you send the agenda, they don't check the email. So you may have to verbalize it texted or whatever. Or some other way to communicate, it might be a printed out hardcopy that's left in the chair or a team's or Slack message with a meeting agenda. But just keep in mind too, that you want to put forth your effort, because you can only do what you can do. From your from your place and purpose. And then that manager is going to have to harness and do however they need to but they need to hopefully show up for their people. Because this all goes back to you being having a space a safe space to communicate. But it may not truly be a safe space for you as it is for other people in your organization.

Yep, you're so right. And it's interesting that you mentioned that about the dress. I just did a podcast a couple of days ago with this guy. And he actually the statement he uses is very respectful to overdress. And I was like, I like the way he put that but that is that is so true of not you know falling in and dress dress for the occasion.
I you know I told my to construction and I worked for one our competitors, which is a large very large international global engineering construction procure company, like like my former employer was there, their field people so the people on the construction site did not wear jeans. They were conditioned and taught to wear khakis, not jeans. And it was really interesting. Just having conversations with my big co workers who have worked for that company. Like they're like, oh, yeah, I'll wear jeans. And they were just so startled. Like the VP is over there wearing jeans. They were like this, like, yeah, what's wrong? Or we could never do that we could only wear khakis, and it couldn't be like Hartfordshire. Cathy's like had to be office khakis, even though they had on steel toed boots, hard hat, have visibility vest on safety glasses, ear protection, they were still told that their company uniform was khakis. And it was it was just to set them apart from other organizations and and the craft on the job site. So sometimes your communication is absolutely what you were.
Yep, it does. And not only that, I think it is part of the energy and a conversation. When you walk in, present it you feel a certain way because of how your dress and your energy is gonna come off. So it can completely shift even though that you may drive up to the door sit in your car and say a quick prayer and be like, Oh Lord, just hold my tongue helped me to do this. But because you are dressed a certain way, when you open that door and step out, it's the energy is going to be different opposed to you being in some jeans and tennis shoes, that energy is gone, you know be able to difficult you're already to a point of I don't know how this is gonna go. But when your your dress it I think that makes a huge difference in that energy. We just present we walk differently, we present differently when we're dress.
Yeah, I think so too. But um, I would say as far as being a woman on a construction site, I'm glad my company did not have that separation, sometimes being from a distance, being able to blend in so they can't figure out how to target you might might not be with you. So just think about it. And remember some places they just like, oh, such and such always walks in here wearing X, Y and Z. Yeah. But ya notice, and you're talking about that person? Um, trust me, other people are noticing too, in the management at that level. So just take that take that it's very respectful to overdress. Now, of course, if I would never wear a dress or skirt to drop jobsite because, right. So just keep in mind, what what as far as safety and where you weren't what they are. Yeah, exactly. limitations to what you aware. But definitely, definitely do that, as well. So.

So let's get into, like, respecting others time as well. Sometimes when we have so much that we want to say, and we've programmed ourselves, we thought about it, you know, I need to say this, I need to be sure I mentioned this, this, this, this, and sometimes may even have the notes on our phones, whatever. To make sure you don't forget what you need to say. But be respectful of a person's time, if they're gonna give you the time to come in and talk with them. Be respectful of that, if you have points that you know, you just you know, have to get across, keep the in between conversation shorter. And at the end, if you have you know, a little bit more time, then, you know, elaborate a little bit more if you want to, but just be respectful of a person's time because now, you already went in for armor, but everybody, you know, Woodside and we're having a good conversation. But because you it's like you finally have their attention. It's like, oh, I'm not letting you go. I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna say this. I'm not letting you go. Be respectful all the time. And it might be they might actually sit back like, you know what, let's go ahead and finish this. Now. I could do whatever later. Or they might actually have to get off somewhere and they say, You know what, let's catch back up on Monday to do XYZ, you know, so be respectful of the time because now you're crossing that fine line of getting disrespectful.

Absolutely. I want to share one comment before we move on from dress. I'm not one to dress up so much, but I'll continue to think about it as As a way to show others respect, I've kind of rejected it as part of professionalism that is decided by dominant identity groups. I absolutely agree with this. And so what I would say to this is dressing up or showing up differently simply wearing a necklace, or a scarf around your neck, you can show up a different approach. You can show up in different ways. It could be the shoes, like the shoes make the man you might have on some cheese, but your shoes are like what is that, but I also say culturally, we as black people, Latinos, we bring in a lot of different fashion. Right? Indigenous peoples, so many bold colors. And so when you set the trends, that they kind of push to professional, like, ya know, we y'all just put, y'all just made it in black, we had it in a green. And so really pushing those limits, and sometimes it's simply suspenders, or colorful handkerchief and in your, in your nerve, instead of your pocket protector, it's a handkerchief in that pocket. So think about how that shows up. And is not so much going into dominant culture, as an employee in your own culture and how you show up differently in the workplace.

Yeah, and I really agree with that too, because I'm not the, the, you know, your pricy girl, to where, you know, I'm in my, you know, has to lentils and all that dressy dress Sister, I'm not that girl. But, you know, dressing, you know, for the occasion. And now I have, I am that person that have transitioned to wear wear tennis shoes with my suits. And I'm not saying wear tennis shoes, just to get dance with shoes, I actually wear tennis shoes for the entire occasion with my suit, one is tougher. And if I'm not worried about my feet, or trying to run to a chair to sit down, I've moved better, my energy is different, and it's better. And then now, you know, especially with ladies, we have so many options now with the, you know, throw on a blazer with some jeans and a pair of wedges, or loafers, or whatever, and you're still able to, you know, kind of fall in certain places. But again, knowing the environment that you're going in, that's gonna make a huge difference as well. So, you know, there are some environments that I have gone in, to where, you know, everybody, you know, latest, no stiletto, and all this good stuff. But I was dressed for the occasion, but my feet was still happy. So it's really, you know, determining what you want to do and how you want to do that. Um, so and that's, that's, that's, that's just a different energy that I have now. Because before it was like dependent on the shoe, it was like, Okay, let me go and prance in here, see who I talked to walk around a little bit. But you know, hey, let's go sit down over here and chit chat for a while, you know, to get to relieve some of that pressure. Um, and, you know, this is, you know, with all of us now, after COVID, so many of us have, like, heels, we out. But for me, you know, that's kind of how I've, I've, I've transitioned a little bit. And I have multiple blazers, I have solid colors, and I have patterns. So some networks, I wear my pattern, tight blazers, but if I'm going to more a professional type of event, where is them, you know, straight b2b, and you know some of that I wear solid color. So just really feeling out the place, and at the same time, being comfortable, you know, having fun, and sometimes with those printed blazers, again, understanding my environment, it helps me to stand out. Because one people are watching me, and then it helps me to go back when saying, Hey, I missed this such a such, I can say, hey, I'm the one head on that, you know, yellow blazer with black riding all over it? Oh, yeah, I do remember. So it just really depends on where you're going and the environment.

I love it. Okay. So I want to get back to where we were previously before I chucked us in in showing up for meetings with your manager. And specifically, just talking about career advancement in your performance and how to get a promotion, maybe not even promotion, it could be a lateral move, right? What is that conversation look like? And going in there prepared with three to five questions. So I like how you broke down, showing up and showing the person respect for their time and you know, cutting down somebody to chit chat. If you don't have a rapport with the person, do research on them to understand maybe where they went to college. They served in the military, their family structure is something that you can bring up to build a personal report with within the first few seconds to a minute, right? And that and then move into it. So you don't have to spend 20 minutes talking about, oh, you grew up in such a such soda i, where did you go to high school and you don't have to get their whole history, you just want to make that quick link to them on a human human point. We move on to that topic. Go ahead, Melissa.

Now I was agreeing with you that is important is that connection. And that's with anybody. And so many of us just go in for what I want, instead of trying to make some type of connection. And I'm not saying you should disregard yourself, but you know, try to make some type of human connection first, before you go in for the kill.

Yep. And I know, we get pushback on this. And humans connect to humans. And when we look at just the career path of white men, to men of color to white women and women of color, we see a huge drastic decrease in women of color making it to the Sweet C suite compared to white men. And too often white men see each other or see them younger selves and other white and younger white men. And that's just an outwardly appearance, we don't have that have that opportunity to identify, you know, racially gender wise with those that are in those roles. And so finding some way to connect you to somebody that can be your sponsor, be your mentor really can help you, for many of us. And I'm not saying you got to tell him spill about how you grew up and everything. But you can definitely make a connection with them. Oh, your engineer would kind of you that's the one I usually use. Or I used to do I have not a sports person, like, Oh, where did you go, Albert, like, Oh, I'm A Clemson Tiger, not a Auburn Tiger. Y'all need to get your life together. And so it was just a very easy way for me to tie to people. And they willl remember, like me will remember the college sports or that I was an engineer too. So it's really an easier way to get access to them.

Yep, you're absolutely right, is building a relationship is as simple as that. Just try to be What connection do you have? And how can you, you know, build on that.

So I know we're wrapping up in time. So anything else you wanted to talk about? Melissa? Let's talk about a few. We talked about the importance of career development, let's go into career development in the last 1015 minutes, and then we can give you all a few tips on in that aspect of communications in your career development.

Yeah, um, what career development you know, a lot of times we going in, you know, saying, Okay, we're fine, go do this, I'm going to get a raise, or I have to get a raise, if you go into it with the wrong mission or the vision of it, it's not going to work, and it's gonna go against you every time it's it never fails, go into it, want to build your career, because whatever you're going to go learn, I don't care where you go, we can always take that with you. Nobody can take that from you. Even if it's a certificate, the company pay for whatever, that certificate has your name on it. And so that's yours, it goes with you. So when we looking at career advancement, there are some myths, and we put together a handout that, you know, you can scan and download, so you can have it as well. One of the career advancements some people look at that is automatically a management role, not necessarily looking at as a benefit that you could do your role, you know, better that you have more value to ask. So when you go in for that race, you could share those things. And when it's time to, you know, move to another position Western another department, or just, you know, one or two steps up, you're able to do that. But don't you know, always think just because I do this, I'm going to be a manager that you're going to have a bigger team or a bigger budget. So if you are in management, or if you work on a team with projects, and you know, this is one of the things that you work with, that doesn't always mean that you will get a bigger budget or a bigger team. Again, this is something that could benefit you and that can increase your value. So when you go into these organizations for the ones that allow it because I know there are some organizations that you You know, don't even consider any type of career development. If you want to do anything, you go off on your own time and do it. They don't, you know, want to help or contribute or anything like that. So whether you're doing on your own time or through the company, just know, you know, there are some limitations in that. That's not one of the things that you know, you will necessarily have management will help you get to the next step. That can be a yes or no, it depends on the company, it depends on your relationship with that management, and the type of organization you with. But again, don't always go in with the expectation of a move or increase in pay. I can't tell my manager, I want a promotion or a different position. Again, what type of relationship do you have with this person? Is this organization that supports for career development, if they don't support it, that absolutely is probably not gonna happen. But if they do support it, don't go in with that negative energy. You never know what they may or may not, you know, help you do. Just go but still go in with that learning, whatever that is. Finish it. And you know, come back, still do your job and do what you need to do. But look at their, you know, job boards, see what's out there apply for those different positions. But don't come back. Okay, I finished this, can you go talk to such as so I can get this job? Or can you go do this? I'm not saying it's not a bad thing to have management to help you if you have that type of manager. But, again, don't have that expectation. And then if you want to go to a different position, it goes back to the company, should you stay there? Should you go somewhere else? What type of organization do you have? This is part of doing your research when you are applying for a job. And if you've been there, you know, over a long period of time, you know, 10 plus years or something? This just simply means that you do your research. One, what does the company have to offer? Does it fit with your lifestyle? If you have kids a family? If you'd like to take vacations if you're building your family knowing Okay, well, I'm gonna I want to have two kids. How is how is that going to work around your lifestyle? What benefits do they have how they support so this is where you got to go do your research, and understand what the company has to offer? And if it fits, if it fits great, if not apply somewhere else. But you know, we put together this this small PDF, just to share some myths about career, you know, development advancement. Because, you know, some people think that that's almost automatic. And it's not, it's really not. So just be sure that you know that and you understand that that that could or could not happen.

Absolutely. And you can utilize this QR code to download the PDF. So I'll give you all a few minutes to focus on that. We did have a question come in that I I'd like us to read and maybe wrap wrap up on as we move forward. The question is how to deal with a CEO that says the workplace is not a place for self actualization, it's a place to carry out the mission. And I'm so confused. If if the CEO and I'll read that, again, how to deal with a CEO that says the workplace is not a place for self actualization. It's a place to carry out the mission. If you're number one, a mission driven organization, people often take a job there because they aligned with that mission. And if they're not able to grow through the work in which they're doing their why, why would they align them with the mission? I think I think it's a huge miss. And maybe number one, does the CEO know what the word or the phrase self actualization means? That that's, that's my favorite. Like, do they even know what that means? Number one, number one, number two, why would people work there then other than a paycheck that you can get anybody? Right. But when you're talking about mission driven, people, focus organizations that you're serving as well as your employees, especially your employees, because that's why that's who's really helping you hit these marks is really important that you will I'm with them. And I think I think it's really important that we stay focused on that. And we really, really take into account so self actualization let me go to the meaning I looked it up the realization of fulfillment of one's talent, and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need present in everyone, if you aren't looking to the fulfillment of one's talents, and potentialities, like why why bring in humans? Why not just look for robots? Right? Do the job. So I'm and so I would just number one, ask them that and find it. Number two, have your mission driven organization? Who who works for it? Who are you trying to train this employee? So that organization? And number three, how are you planning on retaining employees long term meaning more than a year? If you're not able to? They don't see they're not able to give get self actualization. I'm just so confused. And know how hard you see, you know, did you start getting questions?
This is one of them where you go with like, not a regular type, but the big tablet, you know, the big legal tablet, you flip it all the way to me? And I'm not done. I got some. I mean, that's almost one of them. When people want to use certain words, what does that mean? Use them in a sentence? Spell it tell me how that's felt. But it's like, don't even make sense. It's like, what were you thinking? What was the thought process to say what you said, and this is where I think it goes back to organizations have an employee value proposition that is employee base, because so many companies, they have these mission statements, and these websites, some invest 1000s and 1000s, of dollars in the websites, and you have your mission statement, and whatever community efforts, all this other great things that you're doing. But that does not apply eternally. Your mission statements, let the customer know what you will provide for them and your value. But your employees, that's definitely they're coming to you to, you know, provide a service is basically what it is they're providing a service to your organization to do whatever that job description is. And when you have when you start talking about talking to an employee, about them doing the mission and all of that, read that mission, one, are you following it? And two, is it more is it directed, more so to consumer or to the employee? So it's really understanding that and not, you know, being a leader that's just in the position. And this is where, you know, so many leaders have to be trained, but what organizations are doing, okay, let's go to leadership training, let's check the box. But you're putting all of these leaders into one general training. And you cannot put all these leaders in one general training because their specific needs not only department based but for individuals. Again, these are humans, people have to be trained. Has there been an assessment? What does what was the results from that assessment? Who have what need? Where do you see these leaders lacking? Do you know, any of these answers before you say, Let's go to leadership training? What are they training on? Do you have the right training? Are they giving you the right message? Are they giving you the right handouts? Who knows it's a general training, we check in the box we pay for the guy's got a certificate that the leadership training, but guess what? Everybody's coming back with a sanction? Andeans? Yep.
I'm gonna take a different approach. In a few ways, assessing the organization's first does the organization have a board?
Good? Yep. What?

What are the goals for that organization to hit within this fiscal year or the next fiscal year, depending where you are in a fiscal year? Do you have access to their turnover data? Or attrition rate for that organization in teams? Yeah. Even if, let's say finance, operations, business development, whatever those are, you see higher attrition rates in certain areas and compare it to others. Who is that leader? Are they actually do they actually believe in self actualization? So they're able to keep their their employees There are talent in the organization. Yeah. Because they're. So to me just taking our approach to really dig in and look at it. And it may be a really small, it may only be six people, but are the six, for those six roles? Are they turning over every year or less? In our organization, I think the telltale signs are there. The CEO doesn't want to be seen or be held responsible. And so hopefully, there's a board that is really about that life, a donor that is about that life that say, Hey, there's a problem is organization, the one consistent thing issue. So let's get you the help you need in order to keep this organization going, bring in the right talent and be able to retain that talent. Yes. Even if you can't get it directly from the organization, maybe you can do some digging on LinkedIn, or some other places where this talent may have their information posted. And it's not gonna be 100% of winning, starting quit an organization. But give me an idea. And I do this with an organization. And I look at their dei people. There's been one consistent employee and Dei, in the last 12 to 15 years, everybody else has left in about a year or less. Wow. And you sitting there exactly, it's so you're sitting there like, corporate don't see any issue with that not if this person dei is, is the gatekeeper. They're retaining the status quo, which is why they're sitting there. And so it's really, really important to kind of take in data. And if you're not an employee, it's a little bit easier to make this approach, or, you know, the org has bought in a consultant, maybe like, Hey, have you seen this? And you slide it over to them? Yeah, this the names to check out on LinkedIn with their profiles, that's handwritten, but not in your hand, right? Just really just sharing and looking at it a data perspective. And then it's like, oh, well, that data's not right. Like, it isn't what's wrong with it, and really digging around in that
space. So that also go, why why you have to have a third party to do that, and come in with that data. Because internally, we tend to be biased, because we're going to pull the direction that we really want to go, or that we don't want to go, we're gonna kind of go the other way or not, it's gonna be a lot of extra work for me, I don't want to do that. But bringing in a third party, that's where you're going to get the true picture of whatever it is, before you, you know, make the investment to say, Okay, let's fix this. What are you fix? Are you really fixing the right thing? So that's why I think, you know, third parties come in, and that's, you know, really important when these changes need to be made.

Absolutely, absolutely. So, Melissa, any final thoughts as we wrap up today's session, because we've talked in so many different areas, around communications, leadership and communication strategies for building a strong team.

I think it you know, it goes still goes back to the D armor, the armoring yourself. And this is on both sides leadership and employee that I think if everyone can do that, and acompany really look at the organization in a hole, what is happening, why is this door constantly turning, why can't we keep people long term, and the people that that we do keep long term they really not producing like they should be producing. So it's really looking at those things, and taking the time to invest the time and money to do a true true assessment on the organization. Just like Michelle said, get the numbers get the data numbers are not gonna lie. And once that is done, and having a way to where employees have an opportunity to be open and honest with this third party, that's going to also bring you the information, let you know how your leaders are truly doing. And when and not only that, when they talk to someone that's not going to conflict, they're more likely to be more open than they are with somebody that's in the company. So I say that just to say, you know, be open to the process. And the time that it's going to take it's not anything that's going to happen overnight. And it's a process that all of us will have to go through. So whatever those phases are, how many phases it may or may be, take the time to really go through it to stop having a rotating door and to reduce the number of times that you Have to layoff within five years. The competition's been laying off constantly, within this timeframe, because part of those things, yes, they're looking at profit. But are you really doing a deep dive all the way down to see what's causing that it could be all of your hiring practices that's affecting that bottom line. So just take the time to really do a deep dive and understand what is really going on from the very top to the very bottom.

I love it. I love it. So everybody, that is lanes of communication for the month of January, I cannot believe we're at the end of January. We will be ma'am. We'll be back in February. At a new time. Same day, we'll still be on Tuesdays. But it'll be 7pm Eastern Standard Time, which is 4pm. Pacific. You do the math. If you're in the anywhere between your across the pond somewhere. We do appreciate you joining us be sure to connect with us. And if and if you like that short list of that, that Melissa share on how really to look at the Career Development myths that you may have, or have heard of that we've debunked in today's talk. Definitely let us know but I'll put the QR code in the comments as well. Everybody have a great week. Finishing up the month of January strong and we will talk to you later. Bye bye

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I want to welcome Christina, on to the virtual summit today, Christina, how are you doing?
I am doing great. Michelle, I'm so excited. You're doing this. This is just, it's fantastic. Because you know, we need to come together and have these conversations so we can network, we can figure out what's working with other people who resources can be like, I've got Gil in my back pocket now. I can't wait to reach out to him. So this is great. I love it. Love it.

Yes. And people often ask me, I need to find somebody who does like Yeah, I had somebody that interviewed in my Summit. And I was like, here you go check them out. And I was like, Yo, can you do an introduction? I do a lot of intraday introductions throughout the week for people in this space, and continued to do the podcast and live LinkedIn lives and virtual summits. So people in industry and other consultants as well in the space, know, and have each other's resources.

So I'm glad you can join us. So Christina, how did you get started in learning and development? Because that's where you started your your career? Oh, my gosh, that I'm so excited that you ask that question. I'm going to be excited about every question you ask. I'm just so actually, you know, I did my undergraduate work in speech pathology. I knew in my second year that that was not where I was going to spend the rest of my life. And I worked in the field for six years, and then decided I really wanted to do something different. I decided at the age of 13, that I wanted to go into speech pathology, and I just rolled through it. I thought it would be that easy to transition. And it wasn't, it took me a really long time to figure out, where do I really want to be. And I ended up taking a job near my home because my kids were little at the time, I wanted to be close to my home. So if something happened, and I needed to get to them quickly, I could. So I took a job as an administrative assistant, and anybody who knows me know, that is like, the last thing I should be doing, I will come home in tears every day, sobbing about how much I hated my job, I was not good at it. I didn't like the people I work with. They didn't like me. And that is not normal. For me, I usually love everybody. And I connect well with people usually. So I started thinking, I'm stuck. I'm stuck in this, I don't know where to go next. And I heard a voice while your voice is on sound, but her voice one time that said, your prayers being answered, your prayer is you're stuck. And so I put a pause on that and said, I need to rethink this, what can I put in the place Hall as a placeholder in my head until I get to where I need to go. And I came up with this Michelle, and I'm telling people write this down. It's a miracle worker. My thought was, I am moving in the direction of my greatest dreams. I am moving in the direction of my greatest dreams. And somehow when I made that statement, I'm moving in the direction of my greatest dreams, even though I didn't know what that was. It got me out of the cycle of thinking, I'm stuck. And I felt great joy. I felt so excited in this joyful thing that I am going to move into that even though I don't know what that is long story short. I said, Okay. What do you want to do? What do you think you're good at? And there are two things I think I'm really good at. I love doing research. I love to read. I'm an avid reader, and I love sharing information with people. And I thought, okay, who does that? I said people in training and development. And so I said that's what I want to be I want to be a trainer. And then my next thought was, but you can't afford to go back to school right now you need to work. You don't know anybody who does this. So you can't be mentored by them. And I said, Nope, that's it. Do you know I transferred jobs. A couple of months later, when I transferred to this particular company, they did not have a training department. I went in had done some human resources. Within two months, they decided they needed to open up a training department. I interviewed with somebody else got the job and then they paid for me to go all over the country to learn how to be a trainer. So what what did I learn from that? Stay focused on your desired outcome. Don't worry so much initially about how you're going to get there just know where you want to go. It was huge. It was transformational to have that experience

I love it, I love it changing that, that that voice in your head to be positive is so powerful. And I found that I write, I started probably about 10 years ago, writing things in first person, you know how you go to a conference or you're at a virtual Summit, and they're taking notes. And you should do and you're right, you should, and I started chanting you too, I, or the lead person, I changed. I asked the lead person, I will do what it literally changed how I moved and how I showed up. And so that self language, whether it's written, or we're saying it out loud, or in our head really does make an impact. So yes, mindset. Absolutely. Mindset is what controls your outcomes and perspectives in on life? Absolutely, absolutely. agree with that. So now you're in learning and development, you are a trainer, you're a trainer, I want to dig into your topic more about Creek ating. Learning and development that is more inclusive, that really helps retain talent, right? What does that let's take a journey down. What do you look at first, when you hear from a hiring manager, somebody we need to provide training to employees?

Yeah, so there's a lot that goes into that. And one is, regardless of who the person or the group of people that are being trained, you really have to understand that people do have different styles of learning, of taking in information. We know that some people are visual learners. Some people are auditory learners, they learn through hearing. Some people are kinesthetic, or they have to do it with their hands. And then I look at cultural differences. Like what I really want to know what are people's past experiences with learning? If people went through school and they had a bad experience in school, coming into a learning environment might.

Likely last Christina for just a moment, she'll show her internet up, pop back in. So let's give her a second. If not, if, if you have questions for Christina, around learning and development, go ahead and let us know what those are. And that way when she does pop back in, we will have that set up. But Christina is really focused on sharing with us. How do you create learning and development programs to retain talent? Yeah, so maybe she has, she has to do a system reboot? And what does that look like in your organization? So oftentimes, especially since the murder of George Floyd, a lot of organizations have been focused on recruitment, and we're seeing a lot of layoffs as well. But that's a different discussion. But what happens once you you have diversified your workforce? How do you retain underrepresented employees in your organization? A lot of organizations haven't given thought their assumption is we will do it the same way for everybody. But what they probably have found in their recruitment efforts, their recruitment process, change, to reach different people, different demographics, of input of candidates, to employees. And so the assumption or the approach that in order to retain talent is not going to necessarily be the same. So so that's really what Christina is going to is focusing on, is how do you determine what works best? What does it look like to retain talent? Because they focus so much on diversifying their workforce? But how do you retain that underrepresented talent? So Christina, you are in the midst of sharing something really phenomenal?

So I'm gonna turn
Yeah, so so it really is. We can't treat everyone the same. We know, and I'm sure a lot of people have seen the diversity graphic, where there are these three or four people walking along a fence and on the other side of the fence is a baseball game. And these people want to see the baseball game but there are varying heights. And we talk about a quality is and that was the that was the word we use for the longest time. Everybody gets to same box, everybody's treated the same? Well, what retains employees is when we recognize what their needs are. And so you have to give different size boxes to people. Because you, first of all, we have to identify what are we trying to accomplish here, if we're trying to accomplish, that everyone can see the baseball game, then absolutely, people need different size boxes, depending on their height, in order to be able to see. So we need to know about people's experiences we need to know about their skills and talents. And not only that, you know, Michelle, I had a conversation with a colleague the other day, and she was saying in her organization, she's a white female. In her organization, they had a mandate that they had to promote more women and people of color, she was promoted to fill the box, because her boss was going to get incentivized, if he did this, but when she came to the table, to have to present her ideas, she was talked over, or someone else would pick up on her idea. And say it and she wouldn't get acknowledged for saying that. So the idea is, it's it's about treating people equitably, not equally, but equitably. What, what does that person need to be successful? And not and really knowing why you're doing what you're doing. You're right, favorite favoritism doesn't doesn't, doesn't fit well, in here. It's like how do we ensure that every person is successful?

Absolutely, and long story short, she might have been called the diversity hire or, or the affirmative action hire things along that lines, which is why I named my company positive hire, right? And to reframe the negative, right, you speak in positive affirmations ever, like we still have, we still reach you have to change the language of what has been spoken. And sometimes you do it literally inside. I did it literally, with naming of a company. And people that are often treated as less than in an organization, understand positive hire, and I get so much pushback from white men. Well, it sounds like this like, because it's not for you. Right? So it's really understanding. And so the people that see positive hires, see that I'm bringing equity, the things that worked for them, that they may not be getting inside an organization, because they're looking at equality. They're looking at equality and not equity. And so how do we show up? And how do we position ourselves is really, really important to what we provide to each of our employees. And the same thing like access, if you're handicapping an organization, like hey, I need a different type of desk or chair and, and things and the run around this disabled people get an organization like, well, that costs too much just posted, make reasonable accommodations. And so that's, that's really important to do that as well. So I want to get back into whatever you're looking at the demographics, or if you're the data you look at to determine what how to create these training programs. Where are you getting it from? Or how do you come about grabbing are creating points, or what I want to say forms, or collection points for this type of data?

You know, really, for me, one of the best ways to do this is through focus groups. You know, I love sitting and talking to people to fight because you know what? As human beings, we make a lot of assumptions about other people about what we think they need, you know, and it's really extraordinary when you sit and talk to people and just ask them, What do you need? What would it take for you to be able to bring your full authentic self to work? And for you, your assets to shine? What would that take? You know, I do a lot of retreats with companies. Some of them are team building retreat, some of them they're getting ready to launch a diversity initiative, and they want to go away and really talk about it for a day or two and, and build on that. And one of the things I do whenever I do something like this is I interview every employee who's going to be part of the retreat. I'm not just showing up and coming up with my because I'm a really creative person. I can put the whole thing together by myself without even thinking about it. But I If I interview each person and say, what would it take for you to walk away and say this was tremendously successful, and people always have ideas and thoughts. And so from that, I take it and build it. And some of the things that people come up with, I would have never thought of. So I love it. For me, the most important thing is human to human contact. Asking people their thoughts and feelings, what do you need? It's amazing. It's very, it can be depending on the size of the organization, it can be time consuming, but I have a team of people and we so we can spread out. So you know, it's not me just trying to interview 500 people. But that works. That to me is, you know, the biggest thing. And we will look back at Have you done something like this before? Have you done a retreat before? Have you done a team building activity before? And if so, what worked? What didn't work? It's, it is the thing that I think is really pretty powerful.
Do you find that you have to sometimes go and do multiple types of events? Because they, they attract different people in the organization?

Yeah, you know, one of the things that we're, I'm so glad I started in training and development, because I learned so much about interacting with people who are like me and people who are different from me. And you know, one of the things that we found this out, even on LinkedIn, even on Zoom, we're having all these zoom meetings, whether it's zoom or in person, there are some people who really want to come and observe, they just want to take the information in, they're not inclined to necessarily share right away. And so understanding that people are different have different needs. And when we can make room for people being different, then that's really, really powerful. So it's going into these things, understanding that some people are going to be really extroverted and want to are gonna want to share a lot, and other people are going to want to hang back. But Michelle, let me tell you one thing that I find so bad, fascinating. Oftentimes, those people and we all know this, those people who are hanging back and not talking constantly, are the ones who have, in some cases, the most profound things to share. And I always make room, even if it's towards the middle, or the end of the session to say there's some people we haven't heard from yet. Is there anyone who wants to contribute? And Michelle the stuff they have to share? I'm like, Wow, I'm so glad I asked that question, because we would have missed that. That's a jump. What you just said is, uh, Jim, thank you so much for sharing.

I love it. So what if you found, through your experience with learning and development that as work as you even look at generations, it when it comes are? Are there certain things that work by different generations when it came to learning and development? And if so, can you share what those are?

Yeah, you know, it's really fascinating. When I was in training and development, it was really interesting. So I'm going to digress for two seconds. I'm sure a lot of people have heard the story of Colonel Sanders, that he didn't start his fried chicken business until the day he received his first social security check. And he looked at that check and said, Oh, no, I can't make it off this. This is not gonna work. So he literally after he retired, started frying chicken and driving it around restaurants and asking people if they would sell his chicken and he did this over 100 times. Before somebody actually said, Yes, I will sell your chicken. I'll never forget, for the longest time in the cable business. In Yes, I was in the cable business. For the longest time, what would happen is we would get people coming in right out of high school right out of college, and this was their very first job. And some of them didn't know. Some of them had really good work ethics, because of you know, what they learned in school or from their families. Some really thought, Well, my job is the place I come when I don't have other things to do. So that was really interesting. And then we started getting people who were like Colonel Sanders, they had retired, they'd gotten their first check, and they're like, No, I need a part time job and so they would come and work with us. And so we would interview these people. When they came in, like, what made you decide to come here? And so on and so forth? And yes, there were two things that really stood out. This is generally speaking, so I'm not putting anyone down. This is generally speaking, we found that the people who were older, were really committed to coming to work every day. But they were not as quick with the technology. So it was a lot harder to train them in some cases, because they just weren't used to working so much on a computer so much with the technology. And many of them we were training to be technical troubleshooters. And that was, yeah, that was that was challenging. So Well, Michelle, what we used to tell them is, if you get on a phone and you get stuck, trying to talk to an older person, and again, I'm not putting anybody down because I'm older. So I get it. But literally, we would say do you have a four year old or five year old grandkid in the house, tell put them on the phone and you know, that kid could troubleshoot. They could they could do the computer stuff. And the younger people who came in, like I said, they would come to work but not every day. But they were masters at the technology. And we used to laugh and say if we could cut both of them in half and meld them, we'd have the perfect employ.

I love it. I love it. Yeah, the partnering with that and just working into generationally. I remember when I was in corporate, we had a gentleman who was in his, like, 80, he turned 80. And he was still working in construction work wearing steel toed boots. And his name was Floyd and like Floyd, what happened is like, look, I can still do the job. It just gonna take me a lot longer to get. Yeah. And so he, he was so bright, and he he so bright, articulate he could, he had never been to college, but he knew how to run construction crews. He knew when they were about to screw up something and he would tell him you don't want to do that. You want to think about it. But he he learned how to number one use a computer and this is a trait he learned how to use a computer. They got him to use a computer, you can play so why are you playing what real cards Solitaire is on your computer? He was like, what if he showed him how to fill up solitaire on his computer. You can do your timesheet on your computer because you know how to play Solitaire is is really easy, isn't it because it's similar. And he showed him how to tie. They started tying different things in because they got him on the computer. Long story short, they gave him a new computer. And it did not have Solitaire. He learned he knew how to call the help desk. And they had to bring somebody on install Solitaire, because that's right, wouldn't go do it. And so long as he had something that kept him engaged on his computer, he would check his email at least once a day. He would do his timesheet once a day. And he would do his reports, construction reports. But it literally started with something that he liked when it came to technology in order for him to consistently do it. But other than that, when he took that solitary off, it took like two or three days for him to find somebody that was willing to put it on there. Like we got to, we had to beg people I love he the best one we got and he at we meet. We were remote, so nobody could come down. Like we literally had to do everything. We're on a construction site. So it really does make a difference in how you train people. So it does feel as though they're included. And you do it in a way that's really important because some things I learned from him and having to be out on site. I can't read a book. It's not in the video. It actually had to be there and him pointing out what the crews were doing correctly, and what they were doing incorrectly to help me better manage what it looked like. So it really does take both perspectives of that. So, Christina, as we wrap up, what, how can people connect with you? Where can they find you?

I'm going to drop in the chat. My we got you. Oh, okay. Yep, LinkedIn. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's where I am. Yeah, absolutely.

Any final thoughts for us? Before you before you leave us today?
Yeah, I just want to say really quickly, you know, diversity craning has been around for 30 plus years. And for the longest time, it was not done right. That's not bashing anybody who did it previously. It's just a lot of people were under the impression that if we give people the information, they will change. Human beings are very complex. And one of the things I read in the Harvard Business Review that I have actually been employing and I am seeing a dramatic difference. In organizations, for people who have traditionally been underrepresented, may need remember how the kids need different size boxes to be able to see over the fence. I'm working right now as a coach with a hospital. And that hospital has decided they want to do the best they can to promote black folks to VT vice president level. These people are already directors, they're high performing. And what the Harvard Business Review said is, in some cases, underrepresented people need a mentor, an executive sponsor, and a coach. And that model is working beautifully. I actually have five people that I'm coaching, to have already been promoted to vice president. And they earned it. It's not just because they're a diversity person trying to be promoted. They have really earned it. So they're the data is out there, of what works. And we have lots, you know, a lot more data and information around how to really help underrepresented folks feel like they're included, make sure that they really experienced belonging, and can do their best work.

Thank you so much, Christina. For that, everybody. Be sure you go connect with Christina on LinkedIn, big Christina for dropping those gems, that is something we've put pull and push here in positive hire, and what are some things that we're working on as well in our technology? So I absolutely agree, because I've seen it work as well. So Christina, have a great day. And I look forward to talking to you, Adam. But is it the birth room?

Yeah, absolutely. Thursdays 1231. Eastern Time, the break room to have conversations about race. Join us. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Michelle.

Okay, back, Christina, everybody in the chat. We are dropping a link for you to provide your feedback on the discussion with Christina, we want to know your thoughts as it comes to creating a learning and development program for underrepresented employees. What are your thoughts on on what Christina had to say? I know we did some mindset stuff. And maybe you're like, I don't think it'll work. And maybe now you're having that shift. Maybe I need to do some mindset work. But also what are the positives of doing that?

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What is going on everybody? This is Michele Heyward. I'm really, really excited to be here with you. If you are new to me new to PositiveHire don't worry, we are going to get well acquainted with each other. We all know each other like weed next door neighbors in South Carolina where I am from, because I have with me tonight, Angela hurdle, who is part of the positive hire community. At positive hire, we focus on connecting black Latina and indigenous women who are experienced scientists, engineers and technology professionals to management roles. And guess what I don't Well, I do often because of the community I built, I get to nerd out with people. But the funny part is, Angela is a data nerd. So we're gonna get into it. She's also one of speakers next week for a virtual Summit. We want to talk about that some but Angela, Angela.

Michelle, for inviting me. Let let the great I told him I'm in South Carolina, where are you from? Like, because they're gonna hear some accents today. Okay, I am from New York, where the lands of where people don't have access? We do not. Yes, we are everything here. Real special. And we don't have access. But people say they can tell. We're from New York when we speak. But, but I do have strong North Carolina roots, a lot of my family's from North Carolina. And so although I've never lived there I call I call it home.
Yes, as I say, everybody, or a lot of people have dirty roots. And so you from the dirty south, you got some dirty roots. That's what I tell a lot, especially black people who have dirty roots. So we are so how did you first find out about positive hire or get connected to the community?

I am not 100% Sure I know at them positivehire quite a few years ago was probably like four. And I was looking to connect looking to work network with other women in tech, specifically other Women of Color in Tech of the minorities in tech. Because we haven't unique experience. It's not the same. And so I'm often in meetings and in work environments where I'm often only so I was looking to make that connection four years ago. And I probably came across an email or an ad for one of your events. And I've showed up for many of them sets
I love it. I love it. I love it. We have some comments like I'm here for the data nerd fest.

Yeah, yes. If you're a data nerd connect to me, I just, I just love it. In fact, I think I was a data nerd from a very young age. So yeah, I always knew I would be doing something like counting marketing or something like that. I was always interested, and why people, people did certain things. And I always felt the numbers would tell me. And I don't know how I knew that. Maybe fifth sixth grade, but somehow, maybe because my dad was an advertising. But I was like, why are people buying that or doing that? Or whatever. So I was always interested. Yes. So I just love it.

It is so funny. I remember it. You have to tell me in elementary school, what did you tell people you want it to be when you grew up? I remember saying a CPA. I read it in a Harlequin romance novel. And it sounded really important. And it had to do with numbers. And I loved math in elementary school, and I still do. But what was like that first? What were some of the things as a kid you thought you would grow up to me? That that were around data around numbers.

I always knew that I wanted to do something with math. But I didn't know what so whenever anybody asked me I never had an answer. So even when I was in school, like college, and I was a math major in college, and they're like, Well, what are you going to do after you finish school? Are you going to teach because of course you know, it was assumed that would teach me like, No, I'm not doing that. Never say But what are you gonna do? I don't know. I'm just going to keep going with this, but we'll see. And I have to say that I fell in all of the right places, right out of college, I was recruited by a company that did marketing data. So that was a very good start for me. And then from that company, I was working at the Nielsen Company where, hey, data insights, why are people doing what they do? Why are they find what they that was where I, I, that was the question I always had. And so I know that later one. I just kept falling into places that were good for me. And that worked really well for me, and I'm looking for, let's see, so much that

Giselle is in the chat with us. Yeah. So we connected. We connect, you were excited earlier this year about some data that was released publicly. Can you share with the audience? What was that data? And what made you so excited? Like y'all, y'all had to be there. And I'm like, she's such a data nerd, but I love her because, but I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna stop, just share with the people what it is about it. Okay,
so this is me being a data nerd. In my private life. This is totally me in my private life, what I do, I am so interested in family history. And so earlier this year, the new census data was released the 1950 census data because they keep when we fill out the census form, it's private for 70 years. So that, you know, no one knows our personnel. But after 70 years, they release it. So I was able to see my family members and where they lived in the 1950s. And I was just like, waiting. And people who, some people who know me, they told me about it, they were like, do you notice I was like, do I know I've been waiting a year for this to happen. So yes, I was so excited. And I was able to find my grandparents, where they were living in the 1950s, where my great grandparents were living and other family members, I was sending data and information around to my family members about where everyone was in 1950. So yes, it was a wonderful time for everybody who likes to do that type of research. And I was so totally there. I forgot I told you about that. So in addition to doing that, let's see what else. What else do you want to know about Michelle?

So I think a lot of people don't understand the depths of data, like how much it's called, has been collected over time, but just how it's how much we can learn about what happened in the 1950s with that data, to compare it to some datasets we have right now. And so getting in first of all, know, most of y'all are probably learning like I learned that the census data is only released every every Saturday year, and so people private data. Now, the Census Bureau, see this is where I go back to my Nielsen roots. And remember all the work I did with census data. So census data, which is rolled up to higher levels and doesn't give anyone any detailed information is released right away. As soon as they compile it. You can get data about the last census online and download that I use that all the time, even my personal professional, but it doesn't tell you the person's name. All of the names are scrubbed from that. What happens is after 70 years, they released the data with the name so you can see the people you can see what someone 70 years ago where they lived, what type of work they did, what type of job, how many people lived in their household, how old they were. So, people who do ancestry day genetics and stuff like that they're very excited about being able to see the details with the person's name and the family members, and just to track people and their movements. Now, if you wanted to use census data for any business purposes, these days, it is available, but you won't get the specific names of the individuals, you will get, for example, a specific zip code. And you'll know for that zip code, how many people live in an zip code? What is their break up their ethnic ethnicity? What is their education levels? And that information is available, right? I say right away, but about a year after the census is taken. But yes, the data for your specific family members day also kicks me out. That's only available seven weeks, I think it's like 72, or something like that. So we just got the 1950 detail, but the 2020 dt 2020 summary is available.
I love it. I love it. So yes, somebody put in the put into one of the comments is, I love how the skills we use in our work naturally transfer into our personal lives. And hey, to you to this. I know it really blows your mind. I know we I know. We get decisions day to day you broke down why? But it was really funny Angeles and our private Facebook group. It's just a couple 100 of us over there. And I've asked a question earlier this year to say, hey, what conferences and summits and things are you going to? And Angela responded back whatever you're hosting, I was like, okay, bad. I said, Hey, Angela, you want to come speak about data. Now you'll see why I asked her to be at the summit, because we're specifically talking about using data to retain and develop underrepresented employees, as she's talked about being the only and that community that we have on Facebook is only a lot of Ollie's in the workplace. And so we haven't really, really focused, then she's part of the positive hire community. Data is her thing she identifies with, with the audience. We're talking about retaining and developing in the West. And so he was like, and she said, Whatever I'm, I'm hosting, okay, you she was checking boxes, she didn't know she was checking. And then I got on a call with her for her to say, oh, my gosh, did you know about the system, y'all y'all got excited to where I got excited. I didn't know this really tells me. And so I love the positive heart community because we have so many talented women. And I love to be able to bring you on to the platform that I've built out over the years and share your expertise and be able to have conversations like this. And some of you have reached out and you say, hey, Michelle, I do X, Y and Z. And sometimes I refer you to other places. But other times I try to find a way to bring into the positive hire community. So if that's you be sure you DM me, if you're like I'm not ready yet. That means you're ready. Go ahead and DM me, because this is so powerful. So Angela, we want to talk we're gonna talk more next week, Thursday.

So Michelle, I say your community, I have gotten so much out of it. I've grown so much with the people I've met through your community. So yes, I'm happy to be here.

Get and see. I love to hear that I take the bat to if you have bad stuff to tell me. I take the bat to the people like why? Because you can't make an improvement. Right? You can't go to the doctor and I was like, Oh, you're doing fine. Like yeah, but I came in for heart palpitations. I'm always having migraines. Am I sold? But you're good. So tell me tell me to because it's the only way to grow and improve and make sure we're building something that I'm building something my team is building something that really helps you change your life. And and that's truly the important part for me is not building something that I like but building something that truly brings change to, to the women we focus on in our community. So any final thoughts around data or the summit you want to share? The
only thing that I can think of now that we can work on to improve is to get more women, and especially minority women to look at this is a career. It is amazing the things that you can do, the type of life you can have the type of roles that you can pick from When you're in this field, and I have to say it's not as hard as everyone thinks there are so many different roles that are available. You can like data, but you can work with data anywhere. You can work in fashion. If you like fashion, you can work in marketing, you could work in business, I read any industry. I'm Michelle's an engineer, you can work in engineering, there's, there's so much and I think, really, more women should know that this is such a career opportunity for them. Yeah.

I love it. I love it. So if numbers are your thing, be sure to check, check out if you're looking for how to better utilize data to really focus and change your organization. As one step one part of the process come join us. We'll be talking about data, we're going to talk about data with recruitment, we're going to be talking about data. When it comes to gender equity, we're going to be talking about data for training and development. We're going to be talking about so much I even have a workforce development director out of Pittsburgh, so if you know, you know, but anyway, literally has generated $300 million of revenue in western Pennsylvania from the work he's done, and have had 2500 employers, partner with them and join their job board. So and he literally utilizes data like Michelle, I don't create the data, I look at the data and see where there are gaps and standing the gaps to present. So come through if you haven't definitely, definitely register because it's it's people are utilizing HR data, people data very difficult to truly make impact and change. So Angela, she's on first day this goes out. And we're kicking it off on Thursday, September 29. We added a second day because I had so many fantastic people. We have four more additional speakers on Friday. If you're like Michelle, I'm not a data analytics person. I'm not a hiring manager or I'm just I'm a mid Manager. This is still for you. This is why I have coming out of the bay is Giselle is minty, who has put together a plan in her organization to retain talent as as a first level manager in the organization, young manager. So I bring in different people at different levels. So Angela, from executive, to first level managers to understand how you can utilize the data could really transform the workplace. So come check us out, registered at diversity data dot positive hire.co. That is not there is no.com. We're not a.com where.co Because we cool like that. And I took it from a shell and off the off the.com. But Angela, any final thoughts where she went to chair?

I am so excited to be part of this. Usually I'm attending and I'm just watching and just commented and asked him questions. So come ask your questions via pot. And who knows next time. Maybe Michelle may call you up.

See, because I got a whole other Summit coming in February. It's for women of color and stuff. So Angela, thank you so much for joining me for this short chat tonight. We will be back next week. Thursday. Actually, I'll be back tomorrow with another speaker for you to meet you're going to love her as well. Christina Smith, this woman oh my god created internal programs to retain talent. And you got to find out a little bit about her her background and she she's she I love Christina, you're gonna come back to Angela. So come join us tomorrow but be sure you register for the virtual Summit. Bye everybody. Have a great night.

Bye. Have a great night. Thank you for coming

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Our next speaker who's actually part of the positive hire community. And when I say community, we have a community of women who are black, Latina and indigenous, who are experienced scientists, engineers and technology professionals. So, Angela is a business intelligence, analytics and data reporting executive with proving experience leading successful data projects with diverse teams. She has worked in industries such as banking, healthcare, higher education and marketing. Now, I'm gonna pause right there. So Angela went a couple months ago, like Michelle, I didn't even tell you what I did know. So for those of you that remember this company called Nielsen, where they used to send you $1, in the mail to do a survey. Angela didn't work for that company. We thought Nielsen was like the data company, right. Angela, actually worked for a company and her team helped develop data sets that Nielsen purchased them to do somebody Oh, work. So thank you thought I thought we also would like know, the person you want to go to. So Angela, actually is a St. John's University graduate with a bachelor Science degree in mathematics. Yes, just straight mathematics. But she minored in computer science. So Angela, thank you so much for joining.

Thank you for having me here. Yes, I love St. John's. I love Hofstra. I also attended there and I love Columbia, because I did some classes there when I worked there. So yes, I love Hi read.

The she forever gonna be in a class. She's forever learning and up leveling. But that's the other thing about tech and about data and data science is it's been changing, especially the last 15 years, we've seen a lot of movement and a lot of change and focus on it. So Angela, tell us how you got started with data because you're like, I'm just a math person. I'm gonna get a math degree. I love math. But how did you end up in the data space really early on before people really knew what it was?

Okay, so it starts with two stories. And they're hilarious, and they're long, so I'll cut it short. The first story is when I was a young child, I had an older cousin, she knows who she is. And she's gonna watch this. And she used to con me out of my money. So she used to say, Oh, you have five pennies. Five is more than one. So he had let me give you this. Let me know. She said, I have five pinnings. Five is more than one. And you have one quarter. Let me give you these five pennies for this one quarter. And yeah, I was like, Yeah, older cousins are not always trying to help you. So I was suspect. And I remember thinking in my head, I can't wait to go to school to count money. So yeah, I went to school with the attention of counting money. And that ended up being my job. And also I have a dad who worked in advertising. And so I always wondered what the data was behind that. And so I was good at math, because I went into school at first grade wanting to learn math. Because yeah, yes, she but I got a bad Delaware. And so yes, I still show up at her house for dinner. I'll be there soon. And so, yes, I was always inclined towards math and math related topics. And I just knew that was my major when that's what I took in college. I looked and I saw, I was like, Oh, I'm a math major. And there I was. And I just knew it was the right pick for me. I didn't know what I would do. Everybody asked if I would teach. And I was like, No, I'm not gonna teach you to something else. And, you know, as a black woman at that time, people like, Oh, she's not going to work at all. But there are a lot of jobs in the math industry. And the math, you know, being a math major, and you can work in any industry. So that is one of the best things about it. So yes.

I love it. I love it. I love math, but math classes get to the point where they don't have numbers anymore. It's just simple. That was more than what I needed. So I was for whatever we thought engineering would be better. No comment, no comment, no comment. That's
the good part two, that is the good part.

Okay, I want to get into people analytics. Because people often ask like you're talking about data and HR analytics people. What is this? What is people analytics? How do you describe it or define it? Well,

as we were getting, we were talking about this conference, I was actually thinking about a def, you know how I would define it, because it's so broad. But if I were to simply put it, I'm looking at what I said before, if I was to simply put it People Analytics is use of data to analyze techniques and understand and improve and optimize the, the business and the people side of the business. But that really includes so much, it sounds simple, but it's really a big thing, because organizations have so much data that they've collected for multiple purposes. So now, in the HR world, we're looking at that data. And we're trying to see how we can incorporate that data to hire and retain staff. And especially now when we're looking at ways to have a diverse workforce. As our workforce is changing, people, analytics is something that's really very important.

I love it, I love it. I'm sure I missed the best part. But um, so now that you've defined and share with us your definition, or how you view people analytics, why should organizations invest in it, and, and what I mean by invest, not just people, and money, but really invest in the data itself, like utilizing the power of that data.

There, again, there's so many reasons. First of all, it can improve the company, by that company, avoid missteps. There are so many cases that we've heard of where companies have not had diverse workforces. And they've had unfortunate consequences, they put out products that may have been offensive to some, because they didn't even realize because all of their staff looked the same. They've also produced products, that didn't work for everyone. Let's talk about health care. In the health care world, we have to fight to make sure that the health care products and medications that they're putting out, are good for minorities, people of color, I'm going to stop saying minorities soon because we know our demographic in this country is changing. We're in the US. And also for women. As women, some of the health care available to us was not tested on women. And if they had women on their team, that would have come up, they're going like wait a minute, all of our test subjects said this, we don't have a diverse group. So it's so many places, it's also illegal. I heard some of your price because I was on the side listening. And many companies get in trouble because of bias. And we're all biased in our own ways, because we're all human. And bias takes many forms is at the simplest level bias can be I like apples, but I don't like melons. But in the workplace. We know what bias looks like in the workplace, and it can be serious. So you can check for bias. I heard one of your price because talk about 360 reviews. There are methods to check the review before it gets to that employee. Because, you know, the process is usually the manager writes up the review, somebody else reviews it right. But what if we had systems in place that we had the technology to check for bias and those reviews before it went to that employee? Before there was an issue before there were potential legal actions. So there are so many ways that companies should be interested and the analytics of people analytics.

Yes. You brought up a very interesting and very important word as far as is. And so when we look, when we're looking at the data itself, let's talk about some of the issues and things that we need to be aware about people analytics, before we decide what what to do with it. Can you talk about that a bit?

Well, the biggest issue that I see is because you may have an organization that feels they're doing great. So why would they do this extra work, they don't really see that maybe there's an issue, or maybe there's a potential issue in the future. They're not have diverse board or diverse, senior staff, and everything is going good. The profits are good. You know, the employees around them are happy, they're happy. So why should they make changes? Why should they uncover information that could lead to potential problems? Because once you find that you have a problem, then you have to deal with it? Or else there's another issue?

Yes, absolutely. And I think along those lines, going in understanding that you have biases is really important. And acknowledging that, and you bought up something earlier about head to head diverse teams, when it came to doing product development, whether it's software or physical product, they would have known something. And there's something this is a major issue in healthcare, as you said, and so when it comes to medical devices, a lot of people don't realize they make medical devices for men first, and they're usually larger. And so a man's heart is usually larger than a woman's heart. So if you both have the same condition, you can't even get the same device until that manufacturer team designs a smaller version. And then it should work on women. But you don't really know that because it was never tested on women. And so you see it a lot. in different places. There's a there's a book that came out, I think in 2020, I can't remember the name of it. And it literally talks about how things are designed for men, and they end up harming women. And one of those is the seatbelt. Oftentimes, get in car accidents, women get hurt worse, because we're generally shorter than men, the average height of men, and it's all that adjusts, and it doesn't do enough or to see elevates, you still have to find the right, the right height and everything. Nobody teaches you that right, that manufacturer doesn't do that. And so then we end up being injured more in a car accident. So it's so much in the world, where especially around like Florida said gender equity, even what does that look like on the data side product development side? And there are so many barriers to bringing equity to women and and and underrepresented people as well. It wasn't my
favorite recent cases that is just mind blowing, is that AI systems didn't recognize black faces. Yeah. How is that possible? Ground faces are majority of this. But they were like, they, it just went right over?

You're going to get me into this post I saw about diversity of thought, and how is that just a dot? Why that's a dog whistle for really not addressing having black people having indigenous people and other people of color in spaces that aren't close to whiteness. And so yeah, it is so many issues, especially along with tech and anything, even services like health care that we see a lot of barriers. And I would love to see some data on which health care providers are seeing like for maternal health, having better results with black women, with Latinos, with Indigenous women, because as a health care provider, that is huge for maternal health, but I'm going to avoid in a whole other direction going but I love
it, you're you're hitting on something that is very important. That was what we were talking about the challenges that organizations face. So they may have all the data, okay, we're assuming they, there's so much that you could collect, but they may not be collecting what they need for that purpose for that research. And then how do they get the data that they have? It comes from different sources, it's in different parts of their organization. That is a humongous challenge. I worked on a project like that and All of the data was not sitting in HR. So HR was like, Well, you have to reach out to each department. Well, each department kept their data in different formats, they collected different data, they collected it at different times. So being able to create a system to grab all of the data, and we're talking to an international company. So it's not just five departments. It's a lot of data that you have to work in, put it together so that you can take action on it. And maybe some of those departments, you have to go back and say, well, we need you to collect this data. So all of our data is so consistent at an organizational level, and they're like, oh, but how will we do that? Maybe they don't have the staff to make those changes. They don't have the time. It's not important to them. It's not a priority. So that is a big challenge and organizations. I
thank you so much for pointing that out. It because we always assume HR has all of this information. And oftentimes they don't have it. Or it's or somebody else has it, and they have it in paper.

Oh, I wasn't even talking about paper don't scare me.

I know, I know, I'm some you'd be surprised a lot of engineering companies, they still do a lot of stuff via paper is printed out in a form but handwritten in the field. And then somebody's supposed to translate it back in office
it. So now we're talking about errors, because we're dealing with humans, and we have to accept that humans make errors. And humans program the system. So there's errors built into the system. But when you're dealing with so many automated systems, you're introducing a higher probability of error.

Absolutely, absolutely. I want to get to one of the question before we wrap up here. Why does measuring this data truly matter?
Why does it matter? Well, look at our look at our poll. Organizations are dealing with tremendous turnover, this, at this time, we're hearing this and in the news. And they're searching for ways to hire and retain employees. And you really have to take a look. Because in measuring these, this is some of what you talked about with your other speakers. And measuring these things you can find, well, why do we have more turnover in this department than this department? What's going on here? It's a way for organizations to be ahead, instead of having to work to keep up because our world has changed so fast. And technology changes. And we've we've just all come out of this humongous thing that changed all of our lives. So it's so important for us all to be ready. I could talk forever about what we need to do as data people but for the organization's they need to be ready. They they're doing training, but they're still having turnover. So what's going on with the training? What type of training, who's getting trained, as you mentioned in your last talk, is the training only for a certain demographic? And when I say you know demographic, I'm talking about the demographics of your employee base. So who's been trained? Why are they leaving? What are our salaries like compared to other salaries, for similar positions, there are so many things that data can help with and analyzing that data. And looking at it and just digging in the fun stuff that I love. It can give you so many insights to help your business grow.

I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for this, Angela, how can people connect with you who are looking for people analytics consultant, looking for help with their data analysis and strategy in your organization?

Well, I am consulting now. And for right now, the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn. So do you have my LinkedIn,
your LinkedIn and yeah, we got you covered. Do you want everybody?

Be sure you connect with Angela over on LinkedIn? Angela, thank you again for joining us and being a part of the positive heart community And long story short, I posted in our Facebook community, what were the conferences and events. Our members were going to community members were going to in 2022 Angelus comment was whenever you're hosting Michelle, so she ended up like, good. Now you're gonna be a speaker. She's like, Okay, what am I talking about? It's, this is what happens when you speak
up. Yes. And thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me. And I do love your conferences, and I've been recommending you to so many people. So thank you.

Thank you. Have a great weekend. Angela.
Thank you. Bye bye.

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Hi thank you so much for joining us today I have with me, Gil Cohen. And he is one of the speakers at my Summit, which is actually next week. So, Gil, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing today?
I'm doing great. How are you doing?

I can use the map. But that's a whole other story is like the rant the weeks going into the last few days going into the summit are always like extra exciting, tiring. But I'm energized and sleepy at the same time. Is that a thing? It
is, it is a thing I'd say Be wary of the post lunch curb dip. If you're expecting a nap, I expect you'll you'll be sleeping sometime when to this afternoon.

I agree with you on that. So I want to I want to get some clarity like are you like an American in Canada, Canadian that comes to America like where are you exactly?

I am give just north of Toronto. The city I live in Vaughn has a really catchy tagline the city above Toronto, it's really, we're really so proud of ourselves that we tie ourselves to, to Toronto. But no, I was born in the US. I lived in the US in a variety of places, mostly in the northeast, until I was eight years old, then move to Canada and haven't looked back since then, as my family likes to say, well, most of us are American by birth and Canadian by choice.

I love it. I love it. So I always think Canadians like cold weather more than American. Or you really hold on and enjoy the summers better than we did it. Maybe it's about
a little bit of both. Look, I enjoy having four seasons, I enjoy that. I don't mind the cold. I mean, once we get into extremely cold temperatures, I don't love going outside. But in the same vein, I don't love going outside in extremely hot temperatures either. So we're good with it. And the funny thing is, is that the way it works is we're actually south of a lot of parts of the US. We're south of Minnesota, we're around the same areas, I think around Milwaukee or so. So there's a lot of American places that are further north of us and get more extreme weather. We're actually the southern part of Canada, we're the spoiled part of Canada.

I love I love the way you say that. I remember many years ago, I lived in Massachusetts for a few months. And one of my co workers went well, you should have known it's gonna be cold here with Canada south of us said, Oh my god, I'm a math person. Not a geography person. But good point. So after that, I always had to like where's Canada in relation to this location? Did I did I knew what the how to how to dress for the winter?

Absolutely. I was actually born in Massachusetts in the middle of an ice storm. So I can definitely attest to the fact that it it gets cold there.

Yes,
definitely. So you're you're an HR professional, you run your own company, what was the name of your organization? And what do you do there?

It's employee experience design, I have to actually say, I'm not an HR professional. I never actually technically been in HR for the first 16 years of my career. So I was a consultant, working for HR professionals working for leadership teams, but it was mostly around talent management, focus on behaviors, that kind of thing. But I was never actually in HR. Then for two years, I worked within an organization. As manager, director of employee experience, HR was one of the items that I covered. But I also worked on strategy I helped with technology facilities, different elements like that. So I now I've been working for the last two, two and a half years. Wow, I can't believe it says time has flown on employee experience, which is which works a lot of the times with HR groups, especially the way companies are structured by but I always am careful to say I don't want to present myself as something I'm not and I'm not. I'm not an HR person, certainly not at heart. I also don't love the phrase HR, the term EHR. i For me, the semantics of it matter. I don't love referring people as resources, but that's the history of where it comes from.

Let's talk about that. Add ooh, I take issue with that too. Um, human capital is my, my biggest issue with like, Do you realize in the US, you're saying human capital? They're like, Yeah, I don't understand the problem. Well, let's talk about chattel slavery, human capital. And they're like, but that's not. Or when we say marketplace, and when we're talking about a job board. And here, we're going to build a marketplace for women to find jobs. Yeah, you might not want. And it's, it's such a disconnect, and how you are utilizing certain words when you're talking about people. And so it just makes me wonder, it doesn't make me wonder, it just really shows the disconnect, and why some people don't like certain HR departments in organizations, but there's a huge disconnect and in the terminology itself, but Okay, so now you can see why deal and I get along.

I'm grateful you went out, you went to the human capital piece before I did, because that was my next one. Because as much as I dislike human resources, human capital is just that much worse. So thank you for touching on that. I appreciate that.
So I really liked how you said like, I'm not an HR, but this is how I support employees, by engaging with HR and these areas. And I think it's really important for people to know you can still support HR, in your own areas of expertise. So thank you so much for clarifying and sharing that, because I said it for a reason. So other people, oh, he's an HR. Now let's talk about what Phil really does. So employee experience is really important. Your session with us, is really interesting, because I had to do or ask you to do this particular topic.

We talked about a few. What is it about your Why should people and I'm about to share what the cover is, again? But why should people really join your, your session on Thursday next week, people should join my session, I think, well, first of all, because it's between some other amazing sessions. And if you have nothing else to do, then make sure to join maybe. But for the session itself, recruiting and recruiting processes. I think a lot of them miss the mark in a lot of leaders become frustrated as you build a recruitment process, and you have to build it from scratch. You take a lot from other people. And what ends up happening is you don't do what's right by your organization. One of the things for me that throughout my career that has been fundamental in employee experience captures that is that every organization is unique. Every group of people is unique. So it's not about taking what was the best practices or this is what Google does, or whatever it is, and trying to apply that for your organization. It's about understanding how to capture those ideas, how to capture the uniqueness, and translate that into processes and practices, where you'll be able to thrive in building that recruiting process, as opposed to facing frustration facing pushback, or facing irritation from people down the road, who don't either don't understand or won't be able to support the process.
I think you're on mute.

Of course, I'm on mute, they could sort of can't hear my brilliance that was saying. And I love how you talked about the frustrations. We often think once we get it done, it's done. But it's not quite done yet. We still have to work the process and it makes some changes and it takes time and effort. And so I really appreciate you doing that. Doing this topic, because starting from scratch can see very stressful, right? Overwhelming and having somebody who has done it before really join in and say hey, this, these are some things to do. These are things to look out for and sharing their lessons learned. And you understand that deals real. His expertise is also an employee experience. And so how do you marry that right in in that recruitment process? And I think other people often think internally, right, how do we make this process easy for us? People are looking for a job. It doesn't matter if it's clunky if they really want it, they'll do it. It's like you You're going to miss out on candidates that are like, You know what, this is 18 extra steps and those other places three, not nobody's posting their their pay. So so you're both at ground level, your branding is about the same. I don't know, either one of you you're not, you know, Nike. It really does. It really does make, make it more important in that aspect. So I really, I really liked the bringing that time at all together.
Yeah, I Sorry to interrupt there. But I really want to highlight exactly what you said that they make the process based on what's easy for them, what works for them without a consideration of when it comes to recruiting process, the experience is all about the candidate experience. And the candidate experience and I've seen it with myself in the past, I've seen it with my wife as well, I've seen it with colleagues, the candidate experience can quickly turn you off of even applying. I mean, how many times have we seen you know, if you follow LinkedIn or whatever, people talking about how you have to put in your resume, and then you have to fill it all out again. And I'd be willing to bet most companies that have to do that have lost many, many people just at that step alone. So you're losing out on good candidates, because they don't want to jump through hoops to work for your company. I mean, the paradigm has changed, the perspectives have changed where yeah, maybe 50 years ago, companies could get away with saying, Yeah, you're lucky to work for us, you will do whatever we say now, especially in a global market with I love millennials and Gen Zed bringing a different attitude to it. Companies are no longer in the position to just say we'll put whatever out there and they'll come to us.

I absolutely agree. And I love that. So if you're trying to figure out what we're talking about what is really going on, I'm gonna pop this up real quick. Gil is speaking at my virtual Summit, talking about using data to retain underrepresented talent. And he's going to be discussed specifically building a recruitment process from scratch. And he breaks in employee experience aspect of desks, his area of expertise. So you definitely definitely want to join him. Now, before we leave, go, I gotta I gotta know, I gotta know. There's some things on your wall, like what was really going on like?

That is mostly mostly my son's artwork, there are a few pieces by my wife, especially up top, but I tried to showcase my boys are at work. But it started accidentally, just at the beginning of COVID, when we all had to figure out, you know, a place in our homes to do these calls. I mean, prior to COVID, I was always working in person on client sites. And so now all of my calls were here, my boys were home. Because they couldn't be in school, my wife was also a teacher, so she was home with them. She kept them occupied with a lot of artwork. And I'll plug art hub for kids on YouTube, which is great for little kids. Learning how to draw, it makes it really easy for them step by step. There was actually a brief time, my boys were taking requests. And so a few of these on the wall behind our requests that my boys did, but then they got sick of it. And what's just fascinating for me to think is that when they first did this work, they were 10 and six, and now they're 13 and eight. So it's it's an interesting reminder of how quickly time flies.

Yes, that is yeah, we've been at this for a while now. And we're not done yet. So yeah, and I, I'm one of the people like I refuse to let this be my normal. This is like a, we're passing through this point in time. And we're building up different strengths. We are developing different tactics and tools as well as skills by by living through this time. So hopefully, empathy is one of those empathy for mankind. So we'll see. Get out any final words for for those watching us?

I know final words rather than just come join us. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. I'm really looking forward to all of the the other talks I mean, it's such a valuable topic to really understand what it means to maintain a diverse employee population and what it means to really treat them right treat them well. And so I look forward to all of the topics and I really appreciate it having the opportunity to participate.

Glad you could join us so everybody, be sure you go to diversity data dot positive hire.co Big O reg. Sure, come join us live. We're starting at 11am. Eastern time. So if you're on the Pacific coast, we got us at and we didn't we didn't make y'all try to get up at six. We understand so and we're in the at 2pm. So for those on the East Coast, like, look, I have to work all day like I got you. So we're gonna end at 2pm that way you still have you can you have a whole three, four hours in the morning? A whole other three hours in the evening plus, we added a second day. I told somebody I took Christina yesterday, we added a second day. But the first year I did it, it was five days. I don't know if I'm I don't know. We added a second day compared to last year. Last year. We did one day. This year. We're doing two and 2020. We did a whole week. Don't ask me why I did that. At the very beginning of the pandemic, but I have learned a lesson. Don't do it again. So we're gonna say one or two days, everybody, be sure to join us. It is complimentary to join. And well, you'll have a week to watch the replay. So everybody have a good week. And Gil, I look forward to having you join me next week. Yes, yeah, me too. All right. Bye, everybody.

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I'm really excited to introduce you to he comes from another country not too far away. His name is Gil Cohen. And he will be joining us. And I want to tell you a bit about Gil and his experience. And background is he's not HR, but he definitely definitely has rich experience working with other HR professionals and getting them up and ready to go. So when Gil is ready, he'll come off of mute but in camera, and there he is. And outside tell you a bit about Gil, he has been helping organizations with talent management and employee experience for over 20 years, he has a passion for helping companies designed employee experiences that improve both the outcomes of the organization and the lives of the employees. Gil, combined the background in psychology and business helps him understand both the individual and organizational aspects of the workplace. Gil, thank you so much for joining us from Canada.
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

You know, I see people with sweaters on I like where are you because I'm still wearing shorts.
It's actually gotten pretty cold here recently. It's actually gotten pretty cold and we hit like the last week of September, and now we're in colder temperatures. But that's okay. I like it. I like sweater temps.

I love it. I love it. I'm glad you could be here today sweater I'm not and because I might have on flippers. So if you out it's Oh, we take we all endure in different ways. So how did you get started in employee experience? Because you said your background cycle you blend psychology and business. But how did you get into employee experience.

So I got into employee experience around 2016 2017. I first heard the term because I've been in talent management and supporting HR teams for about 1516 years at that point. But when I learned about employee experience I learned about essentially it's understanding the employee's perspective of what happens at work. Because traditionally we think about leadership, we think about HR, we think about what they're trying to accomplish. They make a decision, and then they implement it. And then there's a reason why so many change management projects fail. They fail, because people are involved in we're not as simple as just telling us what to do. And or like one executive I once worked with who thought change management was I sent them an email and I thought they were supposed to change, which is all too common. But learning about employee experience really excited me because it was what I had been missing from talent management of understanding empathizing with how things actually work, how the business actually works, not just because I've implemented something, I expect that to actually happen. But how people internalize things, the ways that leaders make decisions that damage them, and they don't even realize it. So I spent a lot of time learning about design thinking, I believe there's the area of behavioral economics is another one that is extremely helpful to understand not just how we want people to work, but how people actually think and actually work. So it was a relatively new idea at the time, a lot of different companies came into it in different ways. I know a lot of organizations that the way they came to employees experiences recognizing, we put so much time and effort into customer experience. But we don't think about employee experience the same way. So let's apply some of the same principles internally. And we can learn how we can better organize better, motivate better serve people better ensure that people are well at the end of the day. And we're not just taking out of them as much as we can.

I love it. I love how you put all of that in. But I want to take you back to a time before you move over fully to employee experience, because this still ties into the employee experience before they're even the employee, right. So you have the customers that we have the employees, but also people in their call candidates. And so we're talking today specifically about building a recruitment process from scratch. And in when we were talking initially we're going to talk about employee experience in that as well. But I want to first ask you, where do you start in order to build a new recruitment process?

So where I haven't done it before I can tell you where I did start. So where I started it is around research. And I mentioned design thinking before. So for me, it all starts with empathy. Now that begins in a few different ways. First of all, it's about empathizing with the organization and understanding the organization as a whole. It starts with the foundation, when you're going to create a recruiting process, it needs to be geared to something and for you, it needs to be geared to what is leadership trying to achieve. So ultimately, what is their people strategy, because in different industries, different organizations that are going to have different strategies about how and why they want to bring on people, for example, the company that I was working with their strategy, their goal was to have people employed with them for as long as possible. They were a 15 year old company, and they had numerous people who had worked there 10 years already. So for them, they were trying to build and have employees who can grow with them, as opposed to I know a lot of retail companies are lucky if they can keep people around a year. So it's about understanding, how does leadership view the recruiting process? What are their goals, with the recruiting process, I will say as a caveat in this research, one, you may find that they don't have that information. So you'll need to pry into it in to you still need to be critical in thinking about it when they give you their answers. Because you have to be aware of the potential biases in their thinking in the potential impact on your employee population. For example, if they're all looking for our number one thing is we want referrals, referrals, referrals, that is a tremendous risk to creating a homogenous environment. I was lucky, that wasn't what I was facing. But I'm just saying that that is a tremendous risk. So it's important to understand that you coming in as a professional, have your own ideas, goals, objectives that you need to also interject. But it's important to understand starting with the leadership of what's their foundation of what's the purpose of this recruiting process, how are you going to ultimately be measured on it? Another area of research is then in within the employees, empathizing and understanding what our employee, what are these employees, like every cohort of employees is different, based on the values of how they were brought on based on the industry based on the specific role. So understanding them and doing interviews, focus groups, etc. To understand what are these people looking for in an interview process? And ultimately, how do we entice ourselves to the type of person that's successful here? How do we make ourselves look good? And then the third piece that I did was I created journey map, I created a journey map of what was the existing process because I didn't want to throw everything out, because I'm sure there were good areas in it. So I wanted to understand what is the process look like now? Where are the friction points then for candidates? And how can I ultimately smooth those over time? Because one of the things that a lot of us get overwhelmed with, especially when starting something new, like a recruiting process, is looking at the whole picture instead of finding somewhere to start, because it can be overwhelming to find somewhere to start. So an employee journey map a candidate journey map of understanding, how did they internalize each step? What does it feel like for them when they're hitting that apply button? What is it like when they're getting whatever contact from the hiring manager from the recruiter? What are interviews like all of these play a role ultimately, in employee experience, because you're creating the foundation of expectations, but also, you're setting up your odds of whether or not you're going to land the candidate, because a bad employee candidate experience will make it less likely that the candidate at the end of the day will sign assuming you really, that's the candidate you want.

I love how you bought in how to candidates feel as they're going through that process. i The biggest feedback, and probably everybody who's done recruiting, or you've applied for a job has been, oh, upload your resume now put everything that's in your resume and all of these, and everybody's like, What is this madness? And so that is one one part I think, where everybody's applying for jobs at some point in life, like watching my resume if you're going to ask for my resume information, and so, it nobody should solve that problem. So it is I could definitely understand because at whether you are the employer or the employee, usually at some point in time you've applied for a job so I love that part. I love how you said having a Starting Point and not getting into overwhelm. We see that so often when we're trying to create a process. I'm a process person. And I still go into overwhelm, and having also some sounding board. So did you find having other people, or at least a small team helpful in creating this new recruiting process?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, ultimately, that's who really had the data for me about the employee journey map, I had to pull in other people, because I was only one person who had my own sort of different hiring process than the typical one. So I had to understand what other people were doing. So this was about bringing people into design initiatives, bringing into workshops, having them talk, because that also, for me, what was great is they each shared ideas, but then they built off of each other's ideas, they reminded each other of experiences, it's strengthened things in terms of my understanding, but absolutely, having a sounding board is vital, because otherwise, you're just your own echo chamber. And I think that's one of the keys around building experience, candidate experience, employee experience, etc, is understanding that the other people aren't you. So you can't create things because you like them, or because they feel good for you. It's about creating them because they achieve a goal. And they make the candidate have a smoother, easier process. You know, you mentioned the uploading the resume and then filling out the resume. And companies have also recently added a step to that where they have to, you have to create a login for their website with a name and a password, then upload the resume, then have it all D formatted and redone. And I mean, this is a data conference. After all, I would say that if you have the sophistication, find that information of how many people start your application process. And don't finish it. Because I speak to people all the time. I've done it myself, where you start applying for a job. And it's just they expect too much of you. And you just stop. So every person that left left because of the candidate experience that you create it, which means you're you're losing good talent in the best talent. They don't have time for that. They want they they know they're good. They want to be treated well. So having that kind of information is very helpful if you have an overly convoluted process.

I love it. Yes. Who fought? Well, definitely that data, those data points and throughout the process. Okay. So as you're developing this, this process, how did you determine what data you want it to collect? And how is it going to be helpful?

Okay, so for me, I will say, the data collected generally was from two sources. One was internal qualitative data. So that was around the focus groups interviews, I built into the whole candidate experience because I was their contact point, I would build relationships with people ask them questions along the way about how they were experiencing it. So it was a lot of qualitative data, especially because I was starting up from essentially nothing. So it was a lot of understanding. So I called that from a few different places, one from current employees, especially most recent employees, calling it from candidates and understand even the people who didn't make it fully through the process, understanding what they're experiencing, talking to different people in the market. But then the other area that I looked for data was in research externally, because I knew that there were certain things that I couldn't read the label from inside the bottle. And so I needed to do some research. For example, one of the things that I saw very early on as with most tech companies, the difference between the number of men versus women in the organization was significant. And I wanted to figure out why and I knew I wasn't going to find that out internally, especially not in my first couple of months working there. So I started to do more research externally to understand what can I as recruiter do differently, to attract more women? So one of the things that I found was that in writing job descriptions, there is research that found that certain words repel women. So if there's you use certain words like Rockstar and assertive and aggressive, women are just less likely to apply for the job as well. Women I found from the research are less likely or less likely to apply for the job if they only have 5060 70% of the qualifications. They feel like they need more, whereas men are like, Oh 5060, I'm good to go. So it was about designing the job descriptions to encourage that. But that was in data that I would have been able to find internally, I needed to look externally to understand what's happening here. Why am I facing this situation? And really, most importantly, what can I do about it?

Love that you bought up the words that are in the actual job description. I was on a call earlier this week on either end of last week, where there's an HR professional, who was like, I wasn't even looking for a new job. And she was like, the reason I'm at this company, and I applied was because of the job description. She said, I'd never read a job description that was so inclusive, and she was like, it made her like, Oh, my God, let me read this, what company is it? And it took, she was like, Okay, I have to apply. She's been with a company for quite a few years now. But it was the first time she read a job description that was that inclusive as an engineer, trust me, they're generally not that inclusive. And so it is very, very difficult. And because positive hire, we focus on women, I always encourage them, like, let me ask you something. If somebody had, you know, how long you know, generally ask them How long have you been in their job they use three plus years is how much more from the first six months, you've been at your job that you're doing now. And they like a lot of stuff I say. So you wrote the job description of what you do now. And he tried to hire somebody, it was like he couldn't hire one person. I was like, That's how people writing job description. They're taking a job that somebody who's been in for years, all the stuff they're doing, but it's really such a small part of what the role really initially included. And that blows their mind. I said, now go apply for the job. And so the other part of that is there are certain platforms now that and I try to do this too, with our diversity recruitment customers. What do you absolutely need? Like, if nothing else, what are the five things that that this candidate has to have? Like five, so you get five? And you're like, but why five? Is it because if you need more than five, you probably need to be hiring some more than one person. So what's, what's the core five things they really need to understand and be able to do? And then I said, let's write everything out. You have everything like, let's like, Well, no, we don't really need them to do that. And usually you can get into about seven or eight. And then I can usually negotiate the last three, two or three. But it blows people's mind because they haven't gone back and reevaluate job descriptions, and job duties over time with employees. So really understand like, they are no longer a mid level, whatever their they should be. They're really in a different role. But they haven't gotten the job title and a promotion or a job change. So it's a lot in there. And I want to go back to what you're talking about, though, before before we wrap up, which is around friction points. And I'm glad you brought that up. What did you find? I have two questions for you before we finish up at least. But what what did you find to be friction points that you encountered when creating this process?

So there were a few friction points, one of the biggest friction points I found was around that gap between signing in started. And that was a very emotional experience for people and what we ended up doing in we ended up losing people early on as a result of that period. It was a very tough period in terms of recruiting tech people, it was a booming market, we were losing people. And we learned to create a higher touch experience from one moment to the next from the time they sign. It used to be Okay, see you then. And now it was we're asking them the questions the manager was calling them, we would invite them maybe to lunch or something like that, if it was easy for them, whatever it might be. But that was one point. The other one was really around communication. Just around there's a lot of uncertainty as a candidate, and anything you can do to create clarity for them. They tended to appreciate it was about even if it wasn't always news they wanted, but at least it was clarity that they were left, wondering. So those were a couple of the big friction points. But there were a lot of small ones along the way that we ended up just smoothing over which was what was great about the experiences that continuing to collect that data we could continue to improve. We there's there's never perfection. I've never seen a perfect candidate. Experience although one friction point. I will I'm proud of this one. I like this one that we corrected was that anybody who was coming to interview with us who already had a job. I made very clear to say dress as you normally would. Because normally what happens when you're added row And then you dress nicer. You can start to create alarm bells with your in your own work. And we didn't want to put anybody at risk because they were interviewing with us. So we were just like, we can accommodate whatever dress you have for your role now, so you don't alarm anybody within your current company?

Yes, I would like so. Yeah, I had jokes like that. And I was the person that was in the airport in a suit, who ran into her boss's boss fly back. So, yes, please change you might want to change before you get to the airport or at the airport, just so you don't run into your boss's boss. And they sit next to you on the flight back. Oh, what are the odds of that one? Obviously, yeah, but I wasn't at that employer long after. I guess it worked itself out. What advice would you have for professionals who are building a recruiting process from the ground up?
My advice is, first of all, take everybody's advice with a grain of salt. Because like I said, you have to start with the foundation of your organization. So how other people do it isn't necessarily right for you. So make it customized, right for your company, your leadership, understanding the having that foundation to understand how you'll be evaluated once it is up and running. We'll help you address problems you have internally. And the other piece of advice is that if you're starting from scratch, start with as low tech as possible. Because understanding of what does the process need to look like before you let technology wag the dog? Because you don't want to have get into something early on that limits what you're able to do down the road?

Oh, yeah, actually, a third piece of advice is around educating hiring managers. Educate hiring managers, because they need to understand it's their responsibility to hire people, HR, or recruiting or whomever are bringing in candidates, you're the hiring manager, you're not the rubber stamp, because HR brought them in, so bad hires are actually on them. So that's a vital thing. Don't let the hiring managers push you where they're at. Now remember, what was the question before that question? You mentioned that these were the people that had the data you need it? Who are these people and what data they initially have at the beginning of this process for you?
Okay, these are the people who particularly recently had gone through the hiring process. So the data they had was, what was the what did the experience look like, from a human perspective, from the other person's perspective? So that I can gather that from to understand what were the high points, what were the low points, what are the things we want to lean into? What are the things we need to correct, but that was the kind of data that that's how I found out the friction points from the individuals themselves.

Great, thank you so much. So everybody, you have to go talk to people. So luckily, most of you are open to communicating with others, whether it's virtually in person. So I really, really appreciate that. So Gil, before we get out of here, I want to ask the audience, before I ask you this question. If you have questions for Gil, go ahead and drop them in, we have like a minute or so. So we won't get to your question before he leaves. But where can people connect with you, Gil?

Best place to find me would probably be LinkedIn, gi l co H en that's a place you can find I have some articles on there. I used to write a lot more content. So if you're interested in anything that I've written, there's a lot on there or you can find me on my website, www dot employee experience.ca Or email me at Gil JL at employee experience.ca.

And just for you for everybody. We have Gil's information in the chat. So you can grab it from there as well click on his LinkedIn profile. Maybe you want to connect with him. Also, if you want to check out his website, remember the.ca. He's in Canada, but trust me, he does have clients and loves to work with Americans, which is why he's here. Right. So, Gil, thank you so much for joining us today. And I look forward to having more conversations with you about inclusive language. Thanks so much. Gil

Thank you appreciate it.

Bye. So everybody, be sure you go and give your feedback on Gil's session. We want to know what Your thoughts are about creating a recruitment process from scratch. Does it sound doable now, that is still found found sound a bit overwhelming. Or maybe you're like I'm inspired because I've only been at places that already have created recruitment processes, whatever that is. We want to know your feedback. In the survey. Remember, the surveys are only three questions so we made it super simple and quick for you to really dive in.

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Ron Perkins is currently a workforce development strategist and a native of Pittsburgh's historic Hill District. He has over 20 years of experience in retail, hospitality, and construction. He is a certified MBE masonry contractor and small business owner. Throughout his professional career, Ron has worked diligently to make the region a place for all. He has collaborated with local and state governments on workforce and economic development efforts and training to meet the community's demand among employers, job seeker,s and MWDB II businesses

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LaStarr is a graduate of Sacramento State with a Bachelor of Science degree in business with a concentration in entrepreneurship. She served as the social chair of the Sac State Honors Program honors committee. She'll be talking about Engagement and Retention in this podcast episode.

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Next up is a fantastic speaker who is also here with me in the great state of South Carolina. So I am excited to introduce her to sub and some of you probably already know her, especially if you hang out on social media. Ranada Samuel is a human capital leader, focus on internal mobility and Diversity Equity inclusion. Her work revolves around the employee design experience. As she works closely with learning and development and Talent Management, she facilitates the change management process within organizations as they evolve their human capital strategy. Per her project management team is specifically responsible for retention and attrition metrics. She's had the opportunity to work in variety of industries including academia, hospitality, retail and financial services supporting clients across the United States. Her work is a vital part of the integrated talent management process, that that integrates all HR and management practices into an end to end system which attracts, engages and develops and helps people progress in their careers. She's passionate about people operations within multifaceted businesses, and is excited to spend time with each and every one of you today. Ranada it is great to have you join us today. How are you?

Good morning. Good morning. It's great to be here with you.

I'm so excited to talk about how your topic on building strong internal mobility operations as a part of talent retention strategy. I want to first start by asking you how did you get into HR? Like, what what? What was it about HR to say, You know what this is for me?
Right? Well, you know, I had an unconventional method into getting into HR. My background is in academia started out in the social sciences, in those ivory towers, doing all of that great research, my master's degrees in urban planning and public policy. So my focus was on community and economic development, how can we change the world and make it a better place all these wonderful things. And I realized that I could have a greater impact working within corporate America, actually, within institutions and organizations, helping them to facilitate their people management process, then I could and just being in the research realm, doing the research, putting out clever publications, going to conferences, now don't get me wrong, I still do all of those things. But I wanted to have a more hands on approach and transitioning into HR allow me to do just that.

I love it. I love it. I love the non traditional path, people seemingly figuring out where what they want to do Alliance and one of the members of my team like I want to do this was like, What have you heard of People Operations? And she was like, what? And so now she's digging deep into People Ops, because because she's doing the work, but she didn't know she wants to do the work. And she wants to do iOS, study IO Psych. So absolutely. It's that non traditional path of really figuring out as young adults and get experienced in industry that really can lead you to a fulfilling career, especially athlete histories change, and people change. Right. I want to go into something more about your topic now. What are some of the foundational components needed to have a successful diversity, equity inclusion, recruiting every teaching strategy, but the retention recruiting is one part but that retention organizations aren't as focused on right now? Are some of them.

Yes, having that that those foundational components in place are essential. So when we're looking in evaluating organizations, some questions that we have to ask ourselves, number one, is there a strong and efficient sourcing process? Is the recruitment marketing strategy there to identify and attract diverse talent? And we have to be honest about what the reality is about our organization and what's happening. No Does that count? company's overall marketing and communication strategy, provide insight into what it's like to work for that company, what the goals are the mission, the vision, the culture, things of that nature. And when we talk specifically about recruitment, marketing, does it provide insight on what it's like to be an employee there, what type of people are successful in strive in that organization, because when we're talking about talent, attraction, we don't just want to attract everybody, we want to attract the right type of talent, the right type of personality, and that, that talent and that diversity, personality can be diverse, you know, you have Type A's, you have type B's, though, those can be women, they can be men, they can be people of color, people with diverse abilities, but making sure your communication strategies are providing a transparent view into the company that you're trying to invite, or candidates to join.
I love it. And I think when you speak the language, in an inclusive way, to that, to those people that you want to try, it's really, really important. I think some organizations think we should, if you want a job, it doesn't matter how we say it. And then once we use these keywords in your field, then you'll find us and it's like, no, that's not how that works. Exactly.

Exactly. And then, you know, after we get the communications and marketing strategy down, once again, we have to take another self assessment of the organization. Is there an efficient recruitment process that seamless? You know, we're talking about the recruitment basics here? Are we nurturing candidates that are in the pipeline? Is there a timely response to candidates? Is there an efficient interview process with well trained and equipped interviewers, you can't just pick people out of the department and say, Hey, come over, let's interview some people. And these people aren't trained to actually properly interview someone. When we're talking about interview evaluations, is it based on the skill and the talent need versus someone's gut feeling? You know, you hear people say, Well, they're just not a good fit. But they can't tell you why they're not a good fit. They can't tell you why they wouldn't excel in the role, you know, also part of that evaluation. Is there a diversity of slate of candidates? Is there a diverse interview panel? You know, are we giving quality feedback, not only to the interviewer, or is, but also to the candidates, all those things come together as foundational, before you can even move forward in bringing in quality to the house.

And I love how you pointed those things out? Because this brings up a data question for me. So how can organizations use data to help retain diverse talent? And what type of data should they look at to achieve their goals?
Right? So a lot of organizations believe it or not, there's quite a bit of data that's available. It's just a matter of making a commitment to look at the data, analyze it and take action on it. So some of these data points that I mentioned, most organizations already have them. So when we're talking about onboarding data, what's the process? Who's going through? How efficient is it happening? We're talking about training, what are your training programs? What are your metrics, who's successful things of that nature, most organizations do some form of a 3060 90 day review. And then you also have those annual performance reviews. But in addition to that people manager should be giving continuous feedback to individuals that they manage. When it comes to their performance review time, no one should be surprised. 15 Five is a great resource for those weekly touch points and giving feedback and things of that nature. And a lot of organizations have employee engagement or satisfaction surveys, that's a lot of data right there. You're not paying any extra money to get that data, you already have it within your organization. Once again, it comes back to making that commitment to look at it, analyze it, and then take action on it.

So we tried to keep things simple here for people that are new in the space. And you said something and I like let me make sure everybody's on the same page. You said 15 Five, can you tell us what what you're referring to?

Yes. So 15 Five is a software that you can purchase and bring into your organization. I really like it because it's great for people management. So the theory behind indeed is that your individual contributors, they would take 15 minutes, once a week, and analyze and come up with a summary of the work that they're doing. This is what I've accomplished. This is what I'm having problems with. This is what I need support in. What should I do next. So just 15 minutes analyzing what they did for that week. And so if you're a people manager, you should be having regular touch points with your people. So hypothetically, let's say you're having one once a week, and this is just a five minute touch point. So your end of independent contributor is coming to you during that meeting. They they're already nice, neat, organized to give you a synopsis of what's going on. They're telling you what their needs are, what what support they need, who you're who they're partnering with, who they're looping in on the work that they're doing. And that five minute meeting, you as the people manager, you're able to give them the support, they need to direction you're opening up the door, you're sending off an email, whatever needs to happen. So that person can move to the next level and progress in the project that they're doing. Now, that's just one of many software's that are out there that can support you. But I really liked that software is because it rolls up into people management, it rolls up into your performance management. So when it's time to evaluate that individual, you're not like, Oh, my goodness, I'm looking for a sticky note. And I remember I talked to them, but I forgot what we talked about six months ago, all of it is captured within the system.

I love it. I'm glad I asked that I was thinking 55 every five days you meet with your each employee for 15 minutes. That's that's what I had. But so so you know, like nine, eight and things like that like that similar? So I'm glad I asked that question. So what I do
is just pivoting on that a little more. See what these data points do is it allows us as leaders, you know, like myself, and people like the director or the VP level plus role, get an understanding of what's happening in the business. You know, we're not involved in the day to day operations. And we're looking at things from a 30,000 foot view. But this allows us to inspect what we expect by looking at that data.
Thank you for that. Absolutely. Get that out. Let's move on. And I want to focus a bit on culture. What impact does culture have on dei retention strategies? And how do we build a supportive culture?

Yes, so culture is is key. It's it's pivotal, once again, one of those foundational aspects to be able to move the organization forward. And so when we talk about culture, we have to once again, do a self assessment, ask ourselves some questions. You know, what is our goal as an organization? As we're building out our culture? Who needs to be involved? What's the timeframe that we have to implement this culture, get things moving? Or tell people about our culture? And what resources do we have to achieve those goals? Because the reality is people don't leave jobs, they typically leave bad managers. So when we're talking about retention culture is key to the retention strategy. So as an organization, if we want our dei and our retention efforts and internal mobility efforts to be successful, we have to make sure it's embedded in the culture. And so culture includes how are we training our people, managers? How are we mentoring our operators and coaching business leaders? You know, is everyone working in a way to create and support the desired culture? So when we speak of business leaders, so those in the C suite, are they creating policies and procedures along with incentives that support the behaviors we want exhibited? In addition to you know, putting pen to paper? Are they exhibiting it? Are they doing it themselves? When we're talking about mentoring operators? Are those that mid level management these are the people who are leading the business units are leading operations? Do they have the tools, the resources, the autonomy needed to get the work done? You don't want to send someone out to do the work and their hands are tied, and they can't get it done? You know, once again, are they modeling good behavior to for others? to follow, because it's just not about getting the work done. Putting the basket of putting the ball in the basket. It's about how you go about getting the work done, and how inclusive you are in the process. And then that last part, you know, our people, managers, the people that are hands on in the field, getting it done every day, are we rewarding them for being career coaches, and retaining top talent within the organization, all of those things work together to fuel the culture in the organization.

I love it. I think organizations too often forget about the managers that are training and developing other employees and how to best support them, because they're doing multiple jobs too. Sometimes, oftentimes. And that's really key because they're the key to retaining that talent in, in a direct way. Like you said, people don't quit a company, they quit a manager. And having seen that happen, where an HR knew and have the data to show a particular employee long term employee was driving great talent out the door. Upper management refused to do anything, because they thought the person was really great engineer. But it was really costing the organization millions of dollars, because the turnover engineers, he wasn't just leave lose. He was literally turning over driving away six figure engineers that had very specifics that were very specific subject matter experts. So they paid for it in the end. But right. And
it's interesting that you say that because sometimes it is necessary for us to clean up in the house, before we go out and try to achieve these large diversity goals. You know, is there a toxic work environment? Are there toxic people? If that is the case, those things need to be addressed? Because if you bring in more talent, guess what? It's going to be a revolving door, and they're going to leave as well. So if our managers aren't properly trained to manage people in general, but especially an inclusive and diverse environment, it's not going to be sustainable, whatever you do. And we talked about the data again, where can you get that data, you can look at the exit interviews, tenures of employees and business units are among teams. If you notice people, hey, people don't stay on this team too long, something might be going on here, look at your promotion records. And then also is the organization are they doing 360 performance reviews of leaders so that individuals that report into them can give feedback on what they are like as a leader, all of that data should be within their organization comes back to making a commitment to analyze it and take action on it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. I could talk about this aspect all day. We have a limited amount of time. So I want to move on to talk a bit more about retention strategies. How does internal mobility factor into diversity, equity inclusion retention strategies?

Right. So you know, my experience has been leading cross functional efforts to deliver internal mobility programs. Now, these programs are designed to allow people to grow in the current organization. You know, when people are interviewing and they're moving in, they're going about, one of the things they ask is, what are opportunities for growth and development? No one, typically no one wants to come in except the role and staying in that role for 510 15 years, everyone's looking for some some type of growth. And an interesting statistic that I recently read from the ADP, people that work this is their 2022 research is that 76% of workers would consider looking for a new job if they discovered there was an unfair gender or PAYG. Pay Gap because of gender, or the company didn't have a bi program. So not having pay transparency, not having quality dei programs, not only are you in jeopardy of not bringing in top talent, you're in jeopardy of losing the talent that you have. So when we talk about what what do we do in regards to internal mobility and how does that work? Once again, self assessment, we need to start thinking about some things such as what is your plan to train and upskill your terms in your current population? And in order to do that, you really need to work in partnership with talent management and l&d within the company. Do you have sponsor and mentorship programs that will We're both people don't do things just for the sake of doing them and having a lip service. But we need to see action and movement and changes and individuals lives. And when we're pairing our internal mobility and our dei initiatives, we need to pair them with programming that's already existent in the company. You don't want to have these one off things, because people don't understand how does this relate to the job that I'm doing on a daily basis? Why is it important to me? Why should I buy in, if you're not selling that story, if it's not coming top down from the C suite, then your mid level managers and your people managers, people aren't aren't going to adopt and they're not going to move forward in that. So all those things together help promote strong retention.

I love it. I love it. I have one. I'm listening all of this because I get really excited about this. But I know there are others that are listening are going to listen. And it's like, where do I get started? What advice would you tell provide to somebody who's like, hey, you know, we're switching our focus or building on from recruitment to really focus in on retention for our underrepresented employees. What advice would you have for somebody that's starting that work now?

Absolutely. So I'm a firm believer that success leaves clues. So wherever possible, look at other organizations that have been successful in in these metrics, not to duplicate everything they did. But to understand the philosophy behind it. within your organization, do you have a team of allies that are willing to go to bat with you to get the work done. So some successful organizations that I've seen in implementing internal mobility programs, Deutsche Bank, for example, they embedded internal mobility into their recruitment process, and they saved $25.8 million in 2022, and another 33 point 6 million in 2019. Now, and that should get everybody and finance excited and happy. And they should want to come on board and help in your internal mobility efforts, now and 2022, they were able to fill 35.9% of their open roles with internals, just think about all of that time save the recruitment process, we all know internals tend to ramp up faster in new roles as opposed to someone hiring that you're bringing in on the outside of the organization that levels off at about three to six months, but still that initial ramp up time. So that's a good case study to observe. Another one is US Bank. Now they have a matching a system called a career navigator. So they're using technology that data to go out and do the legwork for them. Now what that system does is if a candidate, or current employee has a 75% match to a position that's open it attack the employee electronically and say, Hey, this is something that you could think about. These are gaps. In your current skill set, this is what you would need to do to be at 100%. But it's a way to actively be involved and getting your employees interested and knowing that there are opportunities out there. And last but not least a credit. Suze, they have an internal first program. Now they shaved 1% just 1% off of their attrition and 2014. And it saved them approximately 75 million to $1 million, just by shaving attrition 1% Everyone in the C suite should get excited about that and be willing to help you. It allowed them to move over 300 employees that were preemptively identified as top talent and possible flight risk, and they were able to retain them. So all of that talent is there for you. And the research is there. And as always, you know, I'm happy and available to help but you got to do the legwork.

I love it. I love it. I have one final question for you because you just roll right into that. How can people connect with you? Where can they find you?

Yes. So the easiest way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. I will put my LinkedIn in the chat you can definitely get it for you. Okay, great. So you guys can reach out to me there I'm always happy to Have a 15 minute conversation just to chat about, you know what's currently going on in your organization and what your goals are and where you'd like to move into. I'm a firm believer that your community is essential and moving and pushing these things forward. You can't do it alone. So not only do you need a community within your organization that's supporting you. You need a community outside of your organization.

Absolutely. Ranada, absolutely fantastic conversation with you today. I am happy that we could get you on before the Tropical Storm shows up. So everybody thanks again, Ranada. I will be in touch. And everybody wasn't just fantastic. We want to know your thoughts. Thanks Ranada I'll talk to you later. So everybody, we have a quick survey for you that we're going to drop into chat. We want to know your thoughts about this quick conversation. I know they're 25 minutes, but it goes very, very quickly. We're going to drop a survey link three quick questions. We want to know your thoughts about rhinitis. conversate conversation today, internal mobility, the ability to retain your talent, the ability to utilize data to see what's working, what's not working. We really, really want to

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I'm excited to continue this conversation, and to continue talking about data, how to utilize it to retain and develop underrepresented employees. And in the coming in the previous two years, organizations, especially after the murder of George Floyd, have come forward to say, hey, we want to, we want to have more black employees, right? But what does that look like? What does that look like for employers to do this work? So before we get started, before I get started, I should say, I want to ask you a question Which of the following theories on workplace issues faced by women? Have you heard of the broken wrong, glass step, bamboo, ceiling, glass ceiling, concrete ceiling, glass cliff, and you can you can select as many as possible, I really want us to understand there are nuances. And there are differences in all of these different topics that I've dropped in here, as as options, and how they play differently depending on the intersectionality of gender, and race, specifically, gender and race, specifically, somebody who used to be an executive in HR in automotive industry, she talked about the glass ceiling, she was like, we often talk about breaking the glass ceiling. But understand when you break the glass ceiling, people get injured and hurt, you're going to get cut, it's going to be bloody, to break the glass ceiling, I want you to think about that, remember, is that ladder going up to the glass ceiling, and you're trying to break it? And there are other women below you, right? And so when you break it, that glass is gonna fall and the closer you are to that crack in that hole of that opening in the glass, you're more likely to get hurt. And so I want you to think about psychologically not psychological what are the things are how are women, black people injured, when and and Hispanics injuries and natives injured when we're breaking the glass ceiling, because that's truly shows what what what can happen to you in a workplace is so physically threatened psychological, Lee, drained, mentally drained, there are a lot of things that go on when you break the glass ceiling. So some of us are going into workplaces. And we may be encountering the person that broke the glass ceiling in that facility. And you may like Oh, they're so rude or, or OR XY and Z, when in your engagements with them, but understand, they may be really carrying a cast emotionally inside from having broken the glass ceiling. And so there are so many things that happens to for the people that are closest to that glass ceiling that break it. The Broken rung is something that lean in organization has defined when it comes to the ladder going up to the glass ceiling. And that as you look at from black women to Latinas to Indigenous women, we don't have an equal measure of rungs, we're missing rungs steps to go up the ladder. And so that's what they call a broken rung. In the 90s, a organization called Women in Technology international did a study just in tech organizations about why they weren't seeing women get promoted. And it wasn't called the glass ceiling that was already a term that was already being used. It was called a glass step, how to use it it was it was elusive, they couldn't see it or find it to get the get get a promotion and organization. When we say the bamboo ceiling is often referring to people of Asian descent, and bamboo being something that you see in Asian countries or on the continent of Asia. And so they call that the bamboo ceiling. When we just talked about the glass ceiling, which is very popular the concrete ceiling I actually did a virtual summit a few years ago called the concrete ceiling when I refer to the concrete ceiling as additional barriers or how difficult it really is for black people to be promoted within the workplace. How how tough it is and as a civil engineer concrete when I speak a conference I'm even talking about rebar in it. So you're trying, you're trying to push you can't push through, you can't take anything really hard, you might have to jackhammer, like, how much more work and now is it isn't glasses falling on is huge chunks of rocks. So you're talking about bruises and concussions, and broken bones and so many other things that as black people may endure, and trying to progress throughout an organization. But today, I'm going to focus on the glass cliff. It is it I see a lot of you know it. And so I'm happy to see so many of you are familiar with it. I don't know if you've read about it recently, if it was a webinar I did a couple of months ago about it. But I'm happy to talk about it. And so let's get into the glass cliff. And really, why I want to I am talking about it is because over the last few couple years, organizations have said they want to increase the number of black employees they have, how they approach recruitment, maybe not retention, which is why we focus a lot on retention today. I've seen so many of you, and congratulations on your promotions and new jobs, you have worked tremendous, tremendously to get there. And I don't want you any whatsoever to take this as me diluting or degrading the work you've done. I want to talk about the glass cliff, because I want you to be a success in this role. And those that are to come. The glass cliff is specifically when organizations typically hire more women and underrepresented people into management roles during times of distress. So the great recession, the onset of a pandemic, poor performance, or not as high. What do I say generating revenue, high turnover, so the great resignation or the great reset? And so organizations then see an increase of hiring of women and underrepresented people. And you're like, and you're like, Why? Why does this happen? White men, like oh, no, I'm not taking that job, not in these conditions, you can forget this. And so they're looking for candidates, and I always tell people, it's not that they can't find us is that they don't bother to go look for us. And so white men won't take on these roles. So they turn to previously less qualified people, right? To take on these roles in some of the most trying times, economically, socially, or even just for their organization. And so what does that lead to, and what and what happens to companies. And so companies will interview qualified White candidates, but they refuse to take the role where women and underrepresented people will be like, well, this could be my only opportunity to be an executive. I want you to think about that, in reference to what I said about the glass cliff, about the glass door, I mean, glass door, the glass, glass step, the concrete ceiling, the bamboo ceiling, we know there are so many barriers, and those barriers are removed, or a lot of them are removed for this opportunity. And so we know, inherently this may be the only time or what are next to the last time that we will have this opportunity for this type of role. And so we take it according to research, 30 63% of people believe that women should take over a company a crisis. Why do we have to take over something in crisis? Why can't we take it over when it's easy to do? So that makes you think you're saying we're under qualified when it's not in crisis, but we're qualified when it is in crisis. And also, while female CEOs are 45% more likely than men to be dismissed and fired. So women doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure when you look at race, it probably gets higher because we haven't had that many we've only had like three black women CEOs are generally more likely in Fortune 500 We've only had three black women see you are more likely to get fired by 45%. But you want us to take over Okay, and so now you can see where the setup starts right? You want us in crisis but you Probably gonna fire us anyway. So why do companies really create the glass cliff? And I found it to be four main reasons, reasons.

They want it to look like, Oh, we're progressive. We're for millennials and Gen Z years, we hear you. They want to scapegoat. They want to be able to blame somebody, probably somebody would have had the least amount of blowback from or be held accountable. Right? It's like, oh, well, that person she hurt her? Or are those people underrepresented people, they probably didn't have the skill set anyway. So they're looking for a scapegoat for as to why things don't go? Well. Again, they don't have that many options for high of white men. And so they're they turn to women, and black, indigenous and other people of color. And then lastly, good PR, we're gonna say, we have this person, as, as an executive is going to make us look like we got to run it through all of the channels internationally, so they can see how progressive we are. Yeah, let's, let's see. So why is understanding the glass cliff. So important? Number one, black women, Latinos, indigenous women, matter. inclusive cultures, organizations with inclusive cultures exists in very low numbers for underrepresented women. And there are high levels of performative hiring going on right now. And so just being aware of this is important. But more importantly, not more importantly, you matters the most important if so does your career. And so if you've spent decades, if you like, well, I've only been in industry 12 years, well, you also did 12 years of secondary education, you did at least four or five years of undergraduate education. So you're invested in this at this point, decades and years. So it's really important to understand that you are way more invested in your career this than the amount of time you spent at an employer or with a with a job. So the impact of the glass cliff to our organization is really huge. So and the impact of women is even bigger, so you will end up exiting the company, women, maybe that's you, leaving the field, being demoted, being fired, your self worth declines, depression, increased stress, that these are some of the impacts of the glass cliff, on individuals, people. And sometimes we tie ourselves work to a job title to a lifestyle. And we really shouldn't. But that is so American to do that. And I think we need to reframe that if we can't, on a societal basis at one time, but on an individual basis. And so really think about what the impact has on an individual basis. But it's also important to understand how to spot a glass cliff, you can do things as analyzing the job description, and the interview, interviewing process. And what I mean by that job description, they have everything in there, except for resources that they're going to provide. So the job description has all of these things they want you to do. They threw in everything, not just everything, including the kitchen sink, they threw everything in your house, the neighbor's house, across the street, and a neighbor house behind you, like they want you to do all of these things. And his role is like Holub does not want to roll these are 12. Like that's, that's so many red flags right there. During the interview process, you're asking them why the role is open? How did they handle any any performance issues with a person that was previously in the role? Why did the person what happened to the person that was previously in the role? How's the company current currently performing? The person that was previously in the role? what resources did they have access to? Right? You want to dig in, because you're now in an executive level role? And it's important to understand these things, and what are the outcomes and goals they're looking for you to achieve in that role? They may be hidden in hon. And that is when you know, you know what, even from the job description and you probably have gotten something a headhunter may have reached out to you about about the role. But then you're looking at employee turnover rate, and that's something you can also ask about during the interview. So If you miss the stars interview, she was talking about how Nordstrom had a turnover rate of 221%. You know, the first thing I would have said, if I was new to that organizations like, you got the wrong one on the right day, but I appreciate you let me know we can we can stop this interview. Because this is not for me, I, the amount of work and stress test you may have to come in to resolve and reduce that turnover, especially as a new employee may not be the best opportunity for me. Then on top of that company performance are your stocks down? So we recently been talking about all the tech stocks are down and like should you buy should you sell should you know, what should you do? Or should you sit on it? And so you want to look at overall company performance, also comparing that to where they were last year, three years ago, five years ago, and what are other competitors doing in the market. So if they're publicly traded, if they're not, you can also look at what's going on in the market, through certain industry organizations and so forth, in that particular region, or a part of the country or country, or even on that continent. So do some study on the company's performance and also ask some questions. They look for negative publicity about the organization. Have they been sued? How recently have seen what were they sued for? What was the outcomes? Can you get any information on, on who were the litigants and really try to dig into any lawsuits or any negative publicity that's going on and negative. Can be this. I have a friend she bought a Tesla. And I all I keep seeing every day on tick tock is a story about why Tesla's nobody should buy a Tesla. And I was like, Ooh, and so even a tick tock like how many tic TOCs? Are they like they're out there? How many issues is the company seeing with their products or services. And so you really want to study those as well and understand that. And so I could get into some specific examples. But I know we're running low on time. But some common and and if you're an employer side, and you're like, Oh, we're diversifying our management team, I need you to take these things at heart to making sure it's equitable. And that doesn't mean you you're giving that same exact resources to the employee data. So a woman or underrepresented person, they may need additional resources. And he's like, Well, we gave them the same thing as the previous person, they may need a different and more resources. And so it's really an important seek to understand that. So to us, it may be limited resources to you. But that's what we gave everybody else in the conversation we were having with Christina Smith, she said, where we're seeing success with underrepresented employees to progress in their career, they're getting a sponsor, they're getting a mentor, they're getting a coach. And I think community is also part of that. So you have a community of peers to go to who understand barriers you're going to encounter, as a mother as a caregiver, as as being married or being a part of the LGBTQ AI community that others can't relate to, because they're they're not they don't identify with the these aspects of your person. And I think community is another aspect and not necessarily the erg. But there are communities that really focus on intersectionality of gender, at least gender and race that can be done. KPIs and metrics for your goal are not realistic, and making sure they're realistic, and they're measurable, right. And you can look at the previous KPIs, but we didn't really have any for John then why are you giving something to Keisha? Why are you giving some to sue? Why are you giving some to Jamal or Tyrone, and it's really important to center that and ask those questions. If the these are equitable, and then lastly, compensation is less than their predecessor. If a well that, you know, they don't have that experience, but you want them to come in and do the same job. The compensation, especially in an in economic turmoil, the compensation probably need to be higher, because they are going to need additional help. And it may impact them mentally physically. In Other ways more, and so they may end up needing to talk to their therapist more,

they may need to go to the gym more. And so they may need different things that they're going to have to spend their money personal money on, and invest in on an individual basis. So keep that in mind to where as an employer as to what ways you're addressing the glass cliff and not having it be a glass plus, it is very, very easy to fail people. It takes effort, it takes resources, it takes planning to help people succeed, right, and you want to measure this. And so if you're an employer, the first thing you want to do is look at what you had from the predecessor to what you're offering to the new person coming into the role. And resources compensation, KPIs, goals, and KPIs being key performance indicators, Key Performance Indicator, if they're measurable, what support do they have as far as a staff and a team and keep it all of those things? There? And so you need to be able to and also be looking at your people analytics to understand your hiring rate, your turnover rate? Are you sending them how, how is their performance being reviewed? Is their performance being reviewed equitably? In their performance? Are there things that are actionable? And what I mean by actionable, you know, go talk to Tom haven't run the numbers, and have him help you understand the financial statements, the balance sheet, I see that you're struggling with that. So you need to understand 123 on a balance sheet for the finances for your division, others other none actual things. You really suck at your financial statements get better at it? Which financial statements therefore, in what way? Do I suck at it, those aren't actionable things. And so you want to make sure you're providing actionable changes for the employee to take, because that is another huge barrier we're seeing when it comes to employers. When it comes to employers, understanding your your gaps that you already have with existing employees, and really analyzing your people analytics, on a regular basis is really important. So if you haven't looked at your attrition rate, if you haven't looked at your employee engagement surveys, and dissected them by gender, and race, it's really important to do that. So you understand who's leaving the organization on their own, who's going out on performance improvement plans. going back and looking at how managers may have reviewed individuals, it's really important to understand how your processes, procedures and practices are executed in the organization. And if they're executed on an equitable basis. And oftentimes, we aren't doing that we may be doing gender. And so we're looking at men and women, both for white women, to black women, to Latinos, to Indigenous women to multiracial, or even ambiguous people, looking women are all treated differently. And then mothers adding mothers and their caregivers, it takes a whole other turn, and really digging in deep into that data to understand what's going on in your organization. If this is something your organization hasn't done yet, needs assistance with doing positive hire is here to help you with that. So if this is something you're looking to get help with you just or maybe you just want to have a discussion more about what that can look like. Definitely, definitely schedule a time with me so we can discuss how positive hire can support you. But before we wrap up here, some I want organizations to really understand the impact of the glass cliff. Overall. It's it reduces employee engagement among underrepresented employees, because when we see what somebody who looks like us is going through in your organization, we're less engaged there when things go public, it is bad PR for your organization, it becomes more difficult for you to attract recruit diverse or underrepresented talent period. Google has a really big push to diversify the talent. Prior to the pandemic. A lot of Gen Xers would not apply for jobs at Google. The PR was bad Millennials, Gen Z ers are okay. But there are a lot of Gen Xers that would not that we wouldn't even talk about I had I have had several conversations about not wanting to work at Google. Then there are Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims and lawsuits, they increase. And then you're you're spending more money on your diversity recruitment efforts. So overall, you're because you have this glass cliff. For underrepresented employees, it costs you more money because you did not treat your employees equitably. And so what are things organizations can do? Perform employee engagement surveys, use people analytics with a DI lens, provide training to your C suite and middle managers who identify as white, they're not underrepresented. And your C suite is committed to equitable changes around learning and development and performance reviews. But more importantly, organizations need to identify why and commit resources to address a resolve their diversity, equity inclusion issues, their culture issues within an organization, and you have to be committed. One last thing I would like to add is leadership that identifies that white need to go on a journey themselves to really understand what racism is, oftentimes, they hire a chief diversity officer, they'll handle it. Because you don't understand your own biases, and what racism and sexism looks like. In real life, it is imperative that you do that work on one of our previous previous speakers and guests. And partners for positive hire is Lan hurdle. And she has a program called On the matter of work race, where she only works with white people to better understand racism. And so it's really important to understand it on an individual level. So you better understand it, how your policies, practices and procedures within your organization play out. But how does it play out also in your individual lives. And then I want to say, these are the three biggest barriers to progress when it comes to the glass cliff. Often people prefer male leaders, and qualities typically associated with men. And so it's very, very difficult for underrepresented people, especially women to progress into management, the lack of diversity and boards and other leadership roles in the organization, where they bring in different perspectives and understand the power of diversifying their management teams are not there. And then lastly, the organization has proof certain types of people fail in leadership roles, it is easy to fail people, it takes intense effort and resources to help someone succeed. If you have children, if you've ever had to train a puppy to go to the bathroom, it takes effort. And it takes work and being committed. And so organizations really need commit this. So I am going to stop there it is this is the glass cliff, it is very much a real thing. Unfortunately, we're going to see so many women encounter this in the next year or two. But I want to make sure organizations understand what it is, how to deal with it, and to be very intentional about changing it in their organization because it can absolutely be changed and utilizing data for it is another big step. Yes, if you have any questions, I will take questions. Also, we're going to drop in the survey about
my session. And then we will send out a survey for the entire virtual summit to get your feedback on everything like the time of day, the day of the week, so we can really understand how best to serve you I see some familiar faces or names in the audience. So I'm glad you can join us today or for any of the sessions because we do this not for us. We do these these things for you. We do them for your organization's we do them for your children and your grandchildren to really change what the workplace looks like today for the future. But we have to start in this moment in this time, in order for the future, workplace to look different. So the future of work starts now. It doesn't start and so all of those people that are talking about their future work. And prior to 2020 we this is the future. It was accelerated. And so we are here now and we are here We're making that happen so everybody if you haven't connected with me on LinkedIn you can connect with me at Michele C Heyward

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Unlike diversity, inclusion initiatives lack sufficient metrics to support funding, renewal, and expansion. The use of science-based storytelling at the workplace provides new tools for measuring and improving the trust and empathy among coworkers, key to inclusion.We will look at key physiologic findings, tech-based measurement tools, and strategic use of storytelling.

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In this session, Melissa Ambers and I discuss over and under communications impact in the workplace. With recent layoffs, communication is one of the most talked-about topics. We share how to simplify communication while providing actionable steps you can take to improve communication in your organization.Co-host, Melissa Ambers, is an extraordinarily covert guru as a project manager with over twenty years of experience. She and her team offer tools and expert advice to produce top-quality work.

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This is the dear corner office podcast or workplace leaders learn why Black Latinx and indigenous women, Lee, and how to get them back. I'm your host Michele Heyward do to me, you probably haven't heard her heard of this, heard me describe this before. But when it comes to racism and diversity, equity inclusion inside an organization, it often gets pushed off as an HR issue. But what happens in organizations is really, it's cascaded throughout the organization, nobody's really siloed. And I go back to an instance in time a few years ago, I think, is around 2018 2017, where our story broke about the racism black employees were encountering in a General Motors plant in Ohio, to the point where in an employee had hung up a noose in in the facility, and black employees ended up quitting from working in that facility and start telling how they weren't being treated. And so people that Odessa EEOC suit that is that is racism. But imagine if you are a customer who bought a GMC vehicle from that particular facility, and you're continuously taking that vehicle, to the dealership, what we often forget is what people go through in their workday in an organization impacts the customer impacts the service they receive, impacts the product they receive. So now if you the product is defective, because people were dealing with racism, or they were involved in a racist act, they weren't doing their job to the best of their ability. And then it ended the day as a, as a purchaser, as a customer, as an end user, you ended up with a vehicle that had problems. And so that impacts your time and your money that you have to spend at a dealer to get it rectified, but had the organization, right rectified it within that facility, would you still then be at the dealer dealing with those issues. And so oftentimes, we relegate the issues within the workplace to HR, but it's really far it cascades throughout the organization. So today I want to talk about a new standard that came out last year, it was issued from an organization some of you may know called ISO, our ISO to international organization of standardization. And they creep ated ISO 30415 Because of I say 3415 people's here 3415. But it's 30415. I'm familiar with ISO as an engineer, because you often see it in manufacturing facilities, you see it in it, and other areas, but not really in human resources, and especially not for diversity and inclusion. And what they really focus on was really trying to help organization have go through and have their entire facilities, not just HR, right, really reviewed, analyze and study. And to come through and decide what training their organ, their employees need to go through, document everything. And you're in a repeated cycle of improvement because you're going through process improvement. And so one of the speakers earlier talked about, or a couple of them really talked about change management, and how it is very difficult. And people say, Oh, we tried that. Well, how long did you try? Who tried it? What were your metrics? Did you What did you change, right? And so this particular ISO standard, helps organizations really scope out diversity and inclusion by focusing on important issues. But issues but also issues that are often eliminated and ignored, like I said, when it comes to vehicle outputs, or products in the in product that organizations provide to customers. And so it's really a framework that can be customized for your particular organization. And so, when we look at ISO being around in nearly what 200 km countries, not companies, countries, and you know, from 14,000 to 9001, and so forth. It really helps standardize what an organization should be doing to bring in diversity and inclusion because we have turnover within our chief diversity officers. We have turnovers in management had turnover in employees. But what happens to that experience. So trying to capsulate it into a document with has history in it has your processes and it is really what I saw as trying to do. And some of that, Oh, of course it would come out in 2001. Actually, I still worked on this particular standard for 10 years. It actually started out at Sherm Society of Human Resource managers, and Sherm for whatever reason decided they didn't want to focus on it and it and they were able to team that worked on it, were able to get it into ISO. And they worked literally for 10 years, really only about two core people kept it moving for 10 years for it to finally launch in May of 2021. And so it wasn't because of the murder of George Floyd. But there were actual HR human resources professionals that literally spent a good portion of 10 years to make this happen. And so I'm gonna dig into a bit more of this DNI framework. Because it goes beyond HR, it looks at governance within your organization, it looks at supply chain and product delivery. So it has four key parts, human resources, governance, supply chain, and product delivery. And oftentimes, we're like, why do we Why did these areas matter? When you're thinking about governance, one of the things that I found the most troubling and the most difficult when it comes to bring in diversity, equity inclusion in an organization is C suite isn't bought into it. They haven't worked on themselves. And they don't understand what the isms are, and what a gender ideal workplace looks like, right? They're like, oh, we'll hire a chief diversity officer and give them some money. And I end up a small team, and they can go figure it out. But when you look at ISO, and they're looking at governance, they want individual responsibilities for diversity and inclusion and organization. They also want organizational leadership to be focused on it, it can't just be mid management, because that won't stick. And they also understand from that perspective, individual responsibility cascaded throughout the organization, because it has to not only be from the top down, but from the bottom up, or midway through. And so it really looks at everything. But also the other key part is accountability. And it really focuses on bringing in accountability and organization. And that's why I really love this framework, because that's a key part that has been missing is the accountability when it comes to getting dei done in an organization who's accountable other than the CTO, the chief diversity officer when it doesn't work. And I think it's really important to understand that it also in the governance part, we're looking at your practices, policies and procedures. Are they equitable? Are they only written in follow up for certain people and other people, I have unwritten rules that they don't have that they go by? And, and how do you document and how did you change that in that organization. So the governance part to me is really different than what we've seen in other frameworks. Supply chain is, is you know, and it focuses on supplier diversity, for the most part, I still think that's really important because you are focused on small businesses, like somebody mentioned, 75% of Americans work for small and midsize businesses, or they work for themselves, and understanding how to bring in diverse suppliers, how to engage with them, how to pay them for that net, 60. Net 90 may not be the best thing for them, it's really important to understand. So supply chain is there. And it is important for supplier diversity, but it's not as smooth as some of the other things. Then the other part that was really, really interesting about it, they went through human resources, but it looked at that entire employee lifecycle, and forgot into the fact that we look at promoting women. And we look at who's on the board. So women at executive level and women on boards, right? But what happens when we're looking at data around succession planning, and data around promotion? And so what what does that really look like? And oftentimes, there's not a lot set or looked at, or they don't look at the data at a intersectional lens, right? They're like, Oh, we recruited all of these diverse talent, which is a whole other discussion that go on I've had About that Freezy
what does it look like throughout your organization? And who's getting promoted? And who's not getting promoted? Who is getting pushed out of the organization? Right? How are they getting pushed out? It is notoriously it is notorious, or well known that black people often are put on pips performance improvement plans, to push them out to organizations. And so one thing we're focused on here at positive hire is utilizing intersectionality. Right? Not just looking at gender, but looking at race, looking at parenting, or caregiving, looking at education, social economic status, and access to executive to sponsors to mentors, to see how that is impacting people's careers, and an income and pay and access as well, because it truly makes a difference. And so I like how ISO sets it up. To go into organizations asked for this information, you're going to get more more most of the information from HR, but you can still go to supply diversity, right? You still want to have sit downs with ERG leaders, and other employees in the organization. But even outside of that, you're looking and asking people, What are their individual responsibilities to the organization, what you may find is, some people, I have no accountability, I just come here and do my job. And it's really understanding more of, of course, the culture within the organization. And I think it's a great opportunity to do that. Under supply diverse supply chain, along with supplier diversity, we talk about procurement, and organizational stakeholders. And oftentimes we think about external stakeholders, stakeholders, right? But what about organizational stakeholders? How do they fit in? And how are they impacted with diversity and inclusion? We're like, well, I'm, I've talked about employees, are you talking about vendors? And yes, we are. But we don't often really understand how diversity equity inclusion impacts them, whether it's negative and or positive, and what does it look like for those people in organizations that are stakeholders. And so I really encourage you to really take a deeper view as to what it can be, because I so is really pulling in on different parts of companies that we haven't looked at before. And then next, we're looking at product delivery. And we will return talking to Christina, and we were talking to Lori, and they were both talking about learning and development and inclusive instruction design. We have to also think about that in product development and product delivery. Because if we, and I get and I push back on this often, and I do it with my own development team, and that you're developing something with you in mind, I need you to develop things with various users in mind. What does that look like? How can we make a product or service easiest and most beneficial to these types of people, people who are disabled people who don't have access to high speed internet like me, when I'm at home in rural South Carolina, how are they able to deliver a product. And so as we said, in the pandemic, and students were sent home to work virtually the assumption that Oh, they'll just jump on the internet. Rural areas do not have high speed internet. And so now you're sending three kids home on a on computers and tablets. And you're pulling in all of this, the slower internet, it's not high speed, I'm just say a slower trying to do their schoolwork. And so you're going to get a lower result because you didn't develop software, with people with slower internet in mind, based on assumption they had high speed. And so you really, with with this ISO 30415 standard is having companies really dissect and understand what is that like for people overall that they serve? And not just and really how dei or DNI as it's called diversity inclusion for ISO specifically, what does that look like? And I don't think we've gotten that. So I'm gonna pause here to see if anybody else is Has anybody else read or heard of the ISO 30415 standard? And I would love to know your thoughts because I think it's an interesting approach to go through and Started doing assessments with inside of your organization, positive hire I went through to get certified. And because I really like, these core parts of it, looking at your product delivery, and how di plays a part in that, also how it you're looking at your governance, and you're looking at responsibilities and accountability. Because when you do that assessment, you're documenting who is responsible. So if it's Sarah, in, in production management, if it's Chad in finance, whoever it is, they're literally listed as being responsible for this part of the DNI plan. And that generally isn't what happens, we'll see more of the diversity, diversity and inclusion team, or the chief diversity officer being held responsible when things don't go right, or when they do. And I think this puts a different spin on it. Now. Is it easy to do you don't like anything, the best part of I think, of this particular standard, is the Plan, Do Check Act. So you're consistently in this process of movement is not as though a consultant comes in and does it. And so Okay, here, this is what we recommend. But you're consistently going through the process to improve how many of you have ever gone to work ever hired a trainer, and you worked out one time and you're done, you're fit, it doesn't work like that is consistently changing your diet, doing different exercises, you may be on medication, so you have to figure out which exercises are are better for you. You may be over 40 or perimenopause or, or in menopause. And you may find different exercises that work for you and your 30s don't work for you now, right? So it's really important that with the ISO or with whichever process you're using, you have a plan, Do Check Act, because you want to consistently go through change management. But it takes time and it takes effort. And it takes you being consistent. And that is really what I like the best about this particular process is it is not a one and done type of process. If this is something you're interested in, definitely, definitely let me know, we can definitely set up a call with you. We want to know where your organization is, in, in, in really doing dei throughout the organization. Are you looking at your data analytics? How are you looking at your data analytics, we get a lot of people that are still focused on gender, and not understanding the different levels of intersectionality. Even age, right now we saw a lot of boomers leave and older Gen Xers retire at the beginning of the pandemic and even now, saying, You know what, I don't want to I'm not going to stay for this. I'm gonna go ahead and leave I went through 2008 recession, I'm done. I'm stressed out enough, it really start dissecting it understanding what are the experiences of the people in your organization? Because that's truly truly important. But more importantly, how can you help those people be successful? How can you help them feel as though they belong in the organization? And how do you do it in a way by giving them the tools and access to training and access to people so that they feel as though they belong? And that they can be a success in that organization? No matter where there's not not a promotion? Maybe they just want the company to pay for I don't know pet insurance has gotten really popular. Maybe they're looking for paid maternity leave. And you really haven't pushed that before I thought about what is what does it look like in your organization, or even priced it out and find that it's actually beneficial to offer it in your organization. A friend of mine here in South Carolina, he was working at a college and we're just telling Gen Xers he was working with a lot of millennials and they were decide, you know, got married and decide to have their first children they found out they weren't getting paid maternity leave, they quit. This is pre pandemic. So trying to find instructors now but these young women soon to be mothers quit when they found out the organization. This particular college did not offer paid maternity leave. They was like That's ridiculous. Well, my friend and his spouse found out they didn't offer anything at all for paternity leave, they ended up adopting and, and the husband ended up utilizing all of his PTO the wife is was working for a fortune 10 company If they didn't offer paid maternity leave, or any
paternity support at all, and it was so surprising, even heard, the wife's manager was so surprised. And so these are the things that I saw can help organizations go through and assess, because as their employees are going through experiences, whether you're sharing an exit interviews or not managers are sharing why their employees have left, and the things that really matter, because they lost good employees that brought so much to the organization that may be difficult to replace. All right. So this everybody, if you have thoughts and questions, go ahead, my calendar link is in there. Love to have a conversation with you about where your organization is, whatever sector inclusion, what work you do with people analytics on an intersectionality lens, to really help you retain that talent and grow the talent that you currently have in your organization and finding gaps of maybe where you need to recruit talent. Now. What I want to say in the chat if we could drop in the survey for my talk, I know I'm wrapping up a little bit earlier than I told my team but I want to get you out of here in time. But I want to say thank you for joining us joining us for day one. Don't forget to rate review and subscribe to the podcast. It helps me grow. Visit positive hire.co That's positive hire dot c o

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This is the dear corner office podcast or workplace leaders learn why Black Latinx and indigenous women, Lee, and how to get them back. I'm your host, Michele Heyward you are because we have Florrie coming up. And as you're doing the poll, I want to start introducing you to Florrie as well. And so Florrie is the founder of a fantastic nonprofit. And one of the things I love about the work she's doing not only because it's in June is around gender equity, but it's around employers getting them ready for that work. And so Florrie is the founder and CEO of gender ideal is a nonprofit that uses data to shift the norms of workplace gender equity, and inclusion standards. Gender ideal equips businesses with improvement roadmaps and performance insights to advance their gender equity practices. Florrie was a senior international economist at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in DC. She holds an MA in international relations from John Hopkins, Sai s, and a Bachelors of Arts from Colgate University. She currently lives in Brooklyn, with her husband and two children. I want to say Brooklyn in a different way. So I'm going to get him in the poll. I'm going to share the results Wyatt while we get Laurie to Florida to join us, so I get 40. And Laurie, hi. Hi. So everybody, before Florida starts, you can see the numbers, right? skill base hiring, that's where you're you're focused with skill base hire for it's like, somebody's look good. Some things I might have some questions about, she can tell what she needs to help some some of your organization's right now. responses. I do this, so the speakers understand who's in the audience where you currently are. And sometimes we may meet and or from some of the questions and sometimes maybe the speaker may dig in deeper from some of the responses. So we do this to get so you get the most out of these conversations. So Florida, thank you so much for being here. How are you doing?

Hi, good morning, or good afternoon. Now, I'm doing great. And I'm so excited to be having this conversation with you. I've been listening to all the speakers this morning. And there's so much rich, good content and conversation coming out of this. So yeah, I'm thrilled to be here.

Yes. So let's take a step back before we get into gender ideal. What were you doing in your career? What nonprofit equity work were you doing out in the world? Because you've done some stuff. So I will let you tell us how you got started.

Yep, yep. Yeah. So I started my career actually working in international development. And I was so lucky to do this. Because I was I was young, and I got to travel the world and go to far flung interesting places. But I wasn't there as a tourist I was there meeting with businesses and looking at the development and the economic impacts of those projects. And one of the things I was always struck by that I always kind of carried with me. You know, I would ask a whole bunch of questions about the impact of of these different companies and projects. And but invariably, I'd get to a question, I'd say, Well, do you offer paid maternity leave? And it didn't matter where I was in the world? If I was in a rack, if I was in the Democratic Republic of Congo? The answer was always, of course, we offer paid maternity leave, we offer six months paid or a year paid. And, of course, because we support families, like it was kind of almost crazy that I would even ask the question was how it was received? And I would always think, well, if I would say back to them, you know, in the United States, we don't have any such thing as paid family, or even paid maternity leave as a standard benefit.

And they've kind of looked at me like, well, that's crazy. So anyways, I and I bring up that anecdote because I always stuck with me. And I always thought, gosh, yeah, we are really far behind on some of these very basic issues around, you know, equity and supporting women and families in the workplace. And so I did that for a bunch of years. And then I spent about a decade at the organization behind the B Corp movement. It's a nonprofit called B Lab. And there we were working with, again, businesses thinking about their impact their sustainability. And one of the things that I learned while I was at the lab was what we called Impact management where we were encouraging all companies not just So you know, be corpse, but regular businesses to use our tools to learn about where they have positive impact, and then to think about where there was opportunity to get better. And what was really fascinating in that role is it like 1000s of companies used our tools as a diagnostic. And then they would say, we'd say, Great. So now you have your you've got your, your baseline, how are you going to become more impact oriented? And what they really wanted from us was, will tell me how I'm doing relative to other companies like mine, and tell me based on where I am, what are those things I should be doing to improve? And I really carried that with me when I left the lab and when I launched gender ideal. So anyways, that's a little bit of anecdote or background on how I got to where I am today.

Well, I love that you started there, because my next question is, Okay, where did gender ideal come from? Because you're already doing this great work? Where did the concept and idea come from? And where are you today? What gender ideal? Yeah.

So when I left the lab, I was totally burned out. And you know, during the my time there, I got married, I had two young kids, a partner that also, you know, works really hard. And, and so when I left, I spent a lot of time thinking like, Why? Why did this feel so hard? Right? Because, in theory, right, I have all of the supports and structures, I am a proven, privileged white lady. And so like, what is going on that is not making this work. And I spent a lot of time reflecting on that, and having conversations and found myself kind of like increasingly researching this topic of gender in the workplace. And what I kind of distilled it down to is that there are like these three, more than three, but I distilled it into three things that are problematic in helping to advance gender equity in the workplace.

And so those things are number one, when we talk about gender at work, we tend to like lean on these two metrics, women in senior leadership, women on corporate boards as like the the metrics that tell the whole story. And those are not two metrics to tell a whole story, they tell a little bit of a story for a certain subgroup of people who happen to reach, you know, the upper echelons of business, either by being in a C suite or being on a corporate board. So I, but and yeah, they're the most frequently referenced data points. And so I felt like, gosh, you can't really make progress if you don't even have the data and information to have a nuanced, more comprehensive conversation about the topic. So that was number one. Number two, the data that we have is also just data from large public companies. So these are, you know, big, you know, fortune 500 companies that are disclosing who's on their corporate board, who's in their C suite, maybe they're telling a little bit about a maternity leave policy or something like that. But like, it kind of ends there. And it's just that segment of the business community that even is sharing that data. And the reality is, you know, three fourths of the workforce does not work for large corporate companies, they work for small, medium sized businesses, they work for themselves, they work for nonprofits, they work for government. So again, we just don't even have the data to really know what it is that's happening, and then and how to how to how to how to advance it. And then the last thing, and this I had, I really kind of reflected on from my time at the lab was, that's what I feel like we have a great clear vision for what an ideal workplace should look like from a gender perspective. And when I talked to companies about work that they were doing on gender equity and inclusion, I kind of kept hearing the same thing over and over again, which is, yeah, we know, we need to do better on this topic. So you don't, you don't have to sell up people on this idea. But what they would say is, we hired a consultant, and we did an anti bias training, or we did this, we did that it felt really good at the time. But we don't know where this work is going.

We don't know how we continue to advance and we don't know what success is ultimately going to look like. And so it was kind of those three factors that kind of drove me to say, Okay, well, what if we created that framework for what an ideal organization looks like? How they are scaffolding the organization from a structural perspective, from the policies and the processes and the benefits, you know, but really take a big picture lens. And then again, kind of leaning on my experience below. I thought, okay, so why don't we create that framework, and then encourage companies plug your data and provide that organizational level information. And once you've provided it to us, we'll share it back with you, but back to you with performance insights. So like with benchmarks against other companies that are the same size, they're in the same geography that are in the same industry to really cut To inspire that, like, you know, business is ultimately about competition, right and competitive advantage. So if you are underperforming, if you're lagging, wow, well, that's the information, listen to insights, you need to know that you have to catch up. And then also, those in everyone want to be best in class, that's how you're going to recruit talent. That's how you're gonna retain talent, which I know is the focus that we're talking about today. And so use that data to make sure you're the company in your industry that everyone wants to come and work for, and that they're going to stick around for a long time. So feeding into kind of that dimension is is kind of like core to how we engage and work with companies.

I love it. I love how you said, What is the ideal workplace like gender? I? Oh, no, it makes sense. It was so simple. It was right there.
Well, and it came from conversations with other women, women who don't have kids, women who are starting their careers are at the end of their careers. And they would all say, what if jet? You know what if workplaces did this, it it comes from this place of imagination and envisioning what we all want. And so then the question is, well, how do we get there?

Now, during this, you were talking about organizations looking at their data, and only looking at the top? Let's talk more about data? Because well, I'm an engineer, right? Tell us how using organizational level data, can it can advance gender equity in the workplace? Yeah,
yeah. So there are a couple examples I want to share. The the first two are kind of like macro level examples, right. And and there's, I make that distinction, because we do kind of like engaged with businesses through two lenses, right? One is like, based on where your company is, these are the specific things that your company should focus on improving in the next 12 months. But then the other thing is, we do aggregate the data, and we try to kind of pull out those trends to say broadly, here are ways that businesses in general can improve and can can outperform. So the first one I want to, and I'm looking down, because I'm kind of looking at this data in front of me, this was from a pilot that we ran in 2021, where we had about 30, companies take our assessment. And then we aggregated that data.

And we looked at the trends. And I think it's really relevant to this conversation today. What we found is that 58% of the companies in our sample had already taken steps to eliminate or reduce gender bias through the recruitment process. So these were companies that were doing things like writing job descriptions, and then having either a software tool or a third party, evaluate the language being used to ensure that it wasn't, you know, you're not talking about a rockstar programmer, because data shows that is language that appeals to men, but you're using kind of unbiased language and your job descriptions. These are companies that are being explicit in advance about, you know, bringing in diverse slate of candidates, and then tracking that kind of information through the recruitment process, which I think was one of the questions in your earlier survey. And so again, we found a majority of businesses, and I should say these are, you know, these tended to be small, medium sized businesses that participated, but that they have already kind of begun to take that action as it relates to who they're hiring, who they're bringing into the organization. That's great news. That tells us, okay, this is becoming a norm, right. It's, it's a majority, it's common, it's pretty well defined. But where we found tremendous opportunity for improvement was around. Okay, great. Once you've made those hires, once you brought that diverse community of employees into your organization, what are you doing to make sure that you are reviewing them in an unbiased way, which, again, data shows, performance reviews and promotions, are where bias really surfaces, particularly around gender, but also around, you know, around race. And what we found from our sample poll was only 16% of organizations had had really done anything to start the process of determining how to run an unbiased performance review process, right. And so there, there are things that companies can can do.

There's data that shows Okay, train managers on how to evaluate and recognize their own bias, right. I think, you know, let's assume positive intent. So bias doesn't necessarily have to come from explicit ill intention. Bias is kind of there in the subconscious. But if we can help people to understand oh my gosh, that's my bias showing up. Oh, that's my you know, that's my bias. As to want to advance people who went to the same college as me, I need to question that I need to check that, you know, but to train people on on that is one way that you can integrate or eliminate, I should say, bias into your performance review process. The second is doing 360 reviews, and having kind of a set a set list of questions that have been designed in a way to eliminate bias and having a group of both peers. And and and supervisors use that 360 review to evaluate people's another great way to have an unbiased performance review process. But again, you know, these are things that we know, and that are relatively simple, they do require some investment, but like, these are things we know that companies can do to keep that talent let's they've got them in the door.

And very few companies are doing that. And so that is and actually the second dimension of that, as well was then we asked Do you track the data that shows? So let me back up for a second. The Lehman McKinsey survey which comes out every year, and they survey you know, 1000s of companies across corporate America, on their agenda practices, lean in identify identified back in 2019, that they call it the broken rung phenomenon, right, which is, hey, look, we've got women graduating at higher rates from college than men are. And at hot with higher rates from advanced graduate programs, higher rates than men, they're coming into the workforce at the same level with the same training. And at that very first promotion level, right, one year, two years out, where you start to promote people into management or supervisory roles. Women are drastically under promoted relative to men. So hey, it's actually relatively simple for an organization that, well, we don't want to be doing that. Why is this happening? What's the first thing you do to figure out if it's happening, you track the data, you track promotion rates, and you break it down by gender, and you should also be breaking it down by race. Um, fewer than that 16% of companies was doing that. So that's, again, a really basic example of ways that companies can put little systems in place to even identify where are these issues happening? Are they persisting internally to then understand, how do we fix that problem? So I use that, again, as an example of great, let's celebrate the fact that companies are being really thoughtful about their recruitment process. But now, we really need to elevate the fact that you've got to be doing a lot more about around retention and promotion, to to address these, you know, generational and systemic issues. Um, you know, another another example, I guess, I would, I would cite, again, more at the macro level, but it's just like progress on maternity leave.

So I mentioned that anecdote at the beginning of, you know, being in countries that we like to call least developed countries that are socially far more progressive actually, than ours. You know, and I'll reflect I have a 10 year old and when I, when he was born, I got a 12 week paid maternity leave. Turns out two of those weeks actually, were my annual vacation. I didn't quite know that at the time. But nonetheless, I celebrated, because very few other people in my cohort, even got 12 weeks of paid maternity leave. Well, you know, what the great news is, this issue has actually gotten a lot of attention. And the data now shows that as a country, we've made a lot of progress in the last 10 years. So I think now it's 30 to 40% of American workers do have access to paid leave. But but there's a big but because the majority of hourly, part time, lower income jobs do not provide these kinds of core benefits. And so even though it's great that we've made progress, a lot of that progress has has kind of lived in like corporate America, white collar professional jobs. And so we need to keep pushing the business community. And there is a very compelling business case around talent, retention and recruitment. And the data is there, that these are norms that need to shift for all of America's workers. But then the very last thing that I would say is on that micro level, going back to that individual company that's like plugged their data in and, and is now thinking, Well, what do I do with this data on these insights, we generate custom sets of recommended actions for each company based on where they are. So it's not just a one size fits all solution. It's very much based on where you are today, here are four things that your company should do in the next 12 months. And then once the company has implemented those four things, we say, okay, great, come on back. And now we're gonna, you know, little, you know, bread crumbs. Now do these next four things within the next 12 months, but you can rest assured that you are making progress towards long term goal.

I love that I love how you bought in unbiased performance reviews, I was reading a report from Textio. And they were saying how the reviews for black women, especially black employees, was non actionable. And I was talking to women in the community. I said, Well, what did your manager say in there your review? And he was like, Was it anything you could take? You could take action on it was like no, I said, you need to go schedule upfront with your manager, and ask very specific questions as to what you need to be doing specifically to get a promotion. If he or she, they don't provide that, you need to find switch roles. So you get a better more supportive manager unforce, because this manager is, is not the one that's going to help you get a promotion, or you don't have to leave the organization. And so sometimes we have to have those conversations. And note, first, we have to know to have the conversations, what to say in the conversations to gauge whether or not who we're working for is in support of us, because we like Well, everybody gets performance, you know, Todd might have been told to go take this training class, perform at this level on a project to get a promotion, you're like, Well, you know, just keep working hard. You're doing a good job. That's not actionable.

No, and it's not, I mean, your advice is the right advice for that individual. But for us to ultimately, as a society make collective progress, we've got to change at the system's level, right? Because people need to everyone needs to know how to understand their own bias, and then how to eliminate it and to recognize and accept that we are imperfect. But in pursuit of being better. These are things that we all need to collectively change. Because otherwise it becomes like really whimsical and subjective. It's just Oh, I'm asking Joe, my boss, No, you shouldn't have to ask Joe. Joe should have gotten the training. And Joe and everyone else at Joe's level should already be very cognizant, familiar and able to talk about it, right.

I think the work is going to end up being done in several directions, I wish we could wait for it to be done through the orcs. And right now, the pay gap, especially black women has widened in 12 months. And so you have we have to do some additional work, at least to keep the negative the reverse widening of the pay gap for black women. So unfortunately, yeah, I absolutely agree organizations need to do the work. But unfortunately, they're not going to do it fast enough. Otherwise, we'll be working two full years to get the same pay as a white man earns in one. So yeah. So before I have another question, before we wrap up this, this always goes by way quicker. Can you share some examples of what this looks like in practice? We what this you know, like gender equity in the workplace really can really look like can you give an example of that?

Yeah. So I mean, again, it's not one size fits all the specifics for an individual company would would look really different. But it could be anything from you know, a company doing a pay equity assessment, right? I mean, you talked about the pay gap? Well, guess what, only about 40% of companies in the United States have conducted a pay gap, a pay equity assessment. And this is an area where just in the last couple of years, there's been a lot of advancement and progress in the tools that you can use and the data that's available so that even if you're a small company, there's a lot of good data that that would help you compare and know. Yes, we're paying up to an industry norm. And we've we don't have those inconsistencies internally. So you know, that could be one example of one and then you know, another and I think this is an area where there's still a lot of opportunity for kind of additional research and validation from researchers and academics. But, you know, one area that's really important is creating that inclusive culture. And so something that that we've been doing a lot of work actually with a great kind of partner organization called habitus Incorporated, but is in how to run inclusive meetings. So, you know, you get everyone in a room where you get them all online, how do you make sure that everyone's voice is heard, that it's not just dominant voices, that everyone feels like they can contribute equally. And again, there are some really interesting software developments on that front. But then there also are just some great kind of trainings that you can do with a group so that everyone is synched up and aligned on like, okay, cool. This is how we're gonna do meetings, so that we are creating a sense of inclusion for all of our calls. Colleagues, those are just kind of two specific examples of the kinds of recommendations that would come out of our assessment. But I would say like, like, really importantly, we kind of see our tool as like the diagnostic as like the first step, as companies are digging into this work. And then, really importantly, some of the folks that Christina and others who you've had on this call, like, once it's been acknowledged, oh, we need to pull apart our recruitment process, or, you know, we need to really invest in our mentorship and sponsorship programs, then you bring those experts in, and they're gonna help do the implementation and really make sure that it's done right. It's all of the right details. But you're, you're kind of prioritizing the right set of logical next steps and low hanging fruit based on your company's performance.
Thank you, thank you so much for that this has been really great. And before we get out of here, how can people connect with you?
Yeah, um, so our website is gender dash ideal.org. You can go there, you can email me directly, I'm sorry, at gender ideal, sorry, gender dash ideal.org. And I also just want to put a quick last plug in, we also have a new website we've just launched called Protect reproductive health, that org, which has a set of resources for businesses, to take the right steps to protect the reproductive health rights for all of their employees, especially their low low income employees. And so I'd encourage folks to check that out as well. But happy to stay in touch.
I appreciate it. And I'll drop in the link for the reproductive health rights. I'm pretty sure I have it from when we did LinkedIn, a couple a month or two ago, I forget with my throat. out, I'll be sure to share that in the chat for those of you that are interested. Florrie, thank you so much for coming in and sharing your expertise, the results that you've gotten through your organization, gender ideal, and I hope you have a great day.

Thank you. Thanks, Michelle. Take care everyone. Bye.

Bye. So everybody, be sure you go into the chat and click on the link to give your feedback on flurries talk doing phenomenal work at Tinder ideal. What does it look like to have a gender? The ideal gender equity workplace equitable workplace, what does that look like? I think sometimes we do so much work in this space. What does it really look like? I don't know, maybe I should. Talking to kids really brings about what it can look like we always go back for those of you that were around or watch the reruns of the Cosby Show. Many of us have that concept of what a diverse workplace will look like what the ideal workplace will look like, but it's still missing some people right? Who was maybe feel was divergent, right? Because he had he was dyslexic, or he had dyslexia. I don't ever try to tell somebody that they are they are the condition. But what does that really look like? So I'm really interested in dreaming about and really focusing what does that look like? And writing that down and talking to other people? Like how do they find how do they describe a gender ideal workplace? Don't forget to rate review and subscribe to the podcast. It helps me grow. Visit positive hire.co That's positive hire dot c o

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Nonprofits white leadership must move from torchbearer of white supremacy to its pallbearer. The current nonprofit structure is a white savior. Yet they don't support the BIPOC communities they are supposed to serve. Too often the people doing the actual work are BIPOC but the white leadership hold the power. What steps should be taken to dismantle white supremacy in nonprofits?

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Dear corner office. I'm Michele Heyward. And I'm so happy to have you join us today we have a guest that is absolutely phenomenal. She has a different experience level coming through diversity, equity inclusion, and I'm so excited to introduce Luaskya Nonon to you Luaskya, Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much, Michele for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

So, one thing I love about your experience is that you come from the legal side as an in house attorney for organizations when it comes to diversity, equity inclusion. And can we talk a bit about before we get into that, like, where did you grow up? So we kind of understand why how did you get over to legal?

This, it's, I appreciate the opportunity. Michelle, my upbringing is, is interesting in that I'm a first-generation American, I'm a black Latina. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, my parents is first language is Spanish. And so I grew up in a Spanish speaking household. And I have, having grown up in New York have had experiences with many different cultures and many different types of people. And growing up, I just knew that I wanted to do something in support of the people that I lived with and worked with. And so I decided to become an attorney initially, because not at all related to the but initially because I wanted to advocate for abused neglected children. And then, in the course of just lived living my life and working and school, I decided that being an in house attorney would afforded me opportunities to work as a volunteer in this space, live a life that I could be comfortable with and pay those law school loans, because those are quite expensive. And so I've been in house at an IT company for over 15 years practicing and I then was able to find my way into Dei.

Wow, I love that mission to help to help others. On the legal side. We often see people do in education, nonprofits, but I absolutely admire that mission to start helping on the legal side. And yes, student loans are massive. Understand, absolutely understand. So you're on the legal side of an organization in house, was there anything particular that had you move over to the diversity equity inclusion part.

Um, there were quite a few things I actually started my my entry into the DEI space before it was the when I was supporting organizations with their affirmative action plans and becoming EEO compliant with with the requirements as a federal contractor. And in that space, I became familiar with the requirements of ensuring Pay Equity, and Diversity representation and diversity hiring and and making sure that the companies that I worked for had programs and policies in place that supported those those missions. And that then move it steered me into get having more of a strategic role, right. The EEO compliance work is strictly about compliance and doing what's required, the minimum required to be all transparent with you be doing the minimum that's required to be compliant. But I wanted to do something that was more strategic, something that was more forward looking at something that was more impactful to the organization as a whole, as well as the employees within that company. And then I worked my way into Dei, right. And the objective for me is to work with companies that believe in the strategic mission of creating inclusive spaces and equitable opportunities for all of their employees. Many companies say that they want to do that, but they don't. their values and their actual initiatives may not align with what they say. And so I try to work and encourage those, those companies that I work with as a as a consultant, but also my employer to put policies and programs in place that align with those values.

And love it. Yes, the metrics of EEO, affirmative action rather, definitely was an entry point for a lot of a lot of people into what we now call dei diversity, equity inclusion, and maybe maybe you have the J for justice or the B for belonging, depending on where you are, and your perspective. it. So I love that loved how you transition over and how much the space has changed in those 15 years that you've been a part of it. So
it has Michelle and I have to say that um, as an attorney starting my my my practice in what's now the AI, I'm very aware that as an attorney, there are certain risks that are presented when you advance DTI initiatives that attorneys often share with their clients their in house clients because the risk of reverse discrimination is a valid one. But it's it's a valid one that's consistent with all the other risks that businesses take when they are running a business, right. And so I think it's important as an attorney, not only to raise that, the risk of reverse discrimination as a risk to your client team, but also to weigh that risk out like you would any other risk in a corporate setting, to help them see that the value in advancing equity and inclusive workspaces, in many cases outweigh the risk. And like any good attorney, you do what you can to advise your client on ways in which to mitigate that risk, right? There are things that you can do to ensure that or rather, maybe not ensure, but to mitigate those risks, to help your client still move forward and advancing equity and inclusion in their workspace. And keeping in mind that there are those possibilities that someone may raise a claim against you. But the benefit, the overall benefit to the organization is by far so worthy of taking that risk.

And you talked about ways that employers can mitigate risks, what are some of their options in risk mitigate.

And so every case is different. But if I were speaking at a very general high level, I always caution clients on making sure that when they set their goals right there, like hiring goals, for an example, to stay away from definitive hiring goal, like numbers, right quotas, right? You don't want those numbers to be seen as a quota, it is better for it to be seen as an aspirational goal. And that comes in the way in which you communicate that to your managers, and how you communicate that to the employees at large. You don't ever want it to be known across your company, that you have a quota to hire five black people and seven women and X number of months or years rather, because then that puts you at risk for higher scrutiny. And if by chance you don't achieve that quota, what's the consequence, right, and so when there's a risk for failing to meet that it raises the bar even more, that they're this may be a problematic number of attainment that makes a third party that may be the person that did not get the job or did not was not hired by your company have a basis upon which to assert a claim against you, right, because if you have this as a well known quota in your company, and you fail to hire the white man that may have otherwise been qualified for the position, but he could argue that he did not get the position because you have this quota. And your managers know that it's a quota. And if they don't meet this quota, then there's gonna be consequences to them. And so they overlooked him. And so you do not want to create a basis for someone to raise a claim against you in that realm. And so what you would want to do after consulting with your attorneys, is to focus on a goal and I realized that this is a nuanced way of looking at things right. But there are ways in which you can identify have aspirational goals for achieving diversity hiring or diversity representation in your organization. What I like to focus on as one way that I think that really addresses this point is to not necessarily focused on the hiring number, but to focus on the candidate pool, to the extent that we're able as as advisors or companies to encourage our, our employers or or clients to ensure that they're expanding the candidate pool to have a diverse representation and have a quote, I'm sorry, I have a goal for that number, right? I want 50% of my my candidate pool to be of diverse dimension, diverse, different diversity dimensions. That's that's a great way to address the ultimate goal of having more representation in your hiring. If you have qualified candidates of diverse dimensions in your candidate pool, you will find a diverse qualified person, right? It just, it's just the numbers, right? So that's one way to do it, making sure that you have a diverse candidate pool. Also, make sure that you're these are the individuals that will be doing the interviews your diversity or panel of interviewers is diverse, right? Bias is in every decision that we make So to the extent that you can have people of different minds and different lived experiences being the decision-makers, then they will bring their whole selves to the process. And it will not be a cookie-cutter type, interview process, and you will be able to achieve your diversity representation goals with a diverse panel. Again, there's training that needs to go along with this as well. So this is just a very high level recommendations, but these are things that companies can consider. I also like to advise clients to have scorecards during the interview process if if your diversity if your diverse interview panel has scorecards within which they are basing the interview. And those scorecards align with the requirements for the jobs that require skills, and I'm not talking the the subjective things, I'm talking about the specific requirements to be successful in a job, and that individual is rated on and the candidate is rated on the that scorecard, you then have tools that you can look to to support your decision, if ever, there's a claim that's asserted against you for vers discrimination. So these are some of the tools that I recommend my clients and my current employer to utilize when they are trying to advance their goals for diversity representation and diversity hiring.

Thank you for that. I have a couple of questions you brought up this scorecard, do you recommend they look for a template or do they create one in-house with some guidance from their legal team,
I absolutely believe that it should be unique to the company. I mean, a template can be a great starting point. But each job should have a specific job description, right. And the job description should be the basis upon which you use to create the scorecard. Now, there may be things in a job description, that there may be additional requirements that are that are that one can identify that supports a candidate that would excel in the role. But I actually, as I'm talking this out, I think that if it's a requirement that would enable someone to be successful in a role, it shouldn't be in a state of job description so that people can say whether or not they have those skills. So I would choose your job description as the basis upon which to base that scorecard. And everyone on the panel should be well versed in what those skills are, as it applies to the role so that they can appropriately measure the candidate that that they're interviewing.
Absolutely, that means actually having hiring managers create a new job description appropriately, as opposed to copy and paste.

Oh, great. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

The other question I have for you, was about creating a diverse panel, interview panel. Have you gotten any pushback for having to take the additional time to create a panel, especially when it's just starting out in an organization?

Michelle, as you well know, in this space, empty? i There's always pushback. I mean, I there's no function that I have, that I have held, there's no role that I have held that has more pushback than in the United States, not even in my legal position. I know we got a lot of pushback and legal but anything you want to do in the AI in an environment where it's never been done before you're gonna get pushed back. And so that's just the norm for this for this practice.

How have you dealt with pushback? What are some things that people that are new to this, or they're trying to get executed in organizations? What are some things that may have worked that may work for them that you've seen work, work in other places?

So for me, at a very high level, when you think about what I think about the pushback that Dr. Practitioners face, how I approach the pushback is just asking the person that I'm talking to the CEO, the executive, or the other leader in the company wanting to understand what their goal and objective is like. So you say you want to have diversity representation within your organization, I am offering you ways in which we can achieve that goal. But you're pushing back on me so how what what else would you advise we do to achieve your goal, right? Because there may be other ways to achieve the goal that I'm not aware of. I mean, I am not the be-all and end-all expert in all things Dei. I do know what I do know when I know it well. But sure there are things that I may not know. So I turn it back to my my leaders who are not certified diversity practitioners, right. And I asked them, so how would you achieve this goal? If you don't want to Do it this way. And then and then ask after a pause. Well, let's talk about why you don't want to do it this way. What is it about this approach that causes you concern? Well, so that we can maybe address their root cause, and and maybe allay any fears or concerns that they have regarding the proposal that I have put forth. But sometimes that you, sometimes you're going to get so much pushback that you just have to let it go and move on to other things. Because this, there's so many, there's so many goals that you want to achieve as a DDI practitioner. And you can't get hung up on every one singular instance in which you're getting pushed back, because you will always get pushed back for many of the things that you offer. And as a leader in this space, your role is to, unfortunately, in some ways, educate people, because they're not willing to educate themselves, or at least give them the opportunity to understand why things are the way they are, and why they need to change and try to get out of the status quo. But then also, you also have to preserve your own mental health and well being right, because like I said, there's there's emotional labor that goes along with this work. And when you constantly got that pushback from your leaders that say they want to do this work, but they're not really supporting the advancement of equity and inclusion in their workplaces, you have to take a step back and just give you do some self-care, because there's no way that you're going to be able to sustain in this space if you don't do that.

Absolutely, thank you for that. It is about progress. And how do you make that progress? Definitely, buying can be difficult on so many different levels. So thank you for that. Now, I have some questions. I'd love to call them rapid-fire questions for you, specifically around diversity, equity inclusion. So I'm excited about this. I know somebody gets get nervous, but it's always in good fun. And people like I don't know about. So are we ready? All right, let's do it. All right. What is your DNI team's biggest challenge?

In this time of the great resignation, diversity, hiring is a huge issue. Right? And everyone is dealing with that. In addition, and I know this is intended to be a rapid-fire, so my answer should be short. But when I think about big challenges, I think about diversity hiring, but also think about, just like we talked about the sincerity of your leaders like if you're having to constantly bang your head against the wall, because you're getting pushback from your leaders, it's important to know whether your corporate or CEO or your C suite executives are sincerely committed to your efforts to advance diversity inclusion in the workspace, or whether it's just performative. Because knowing that helped you also to just know how to approach the situation, know when you need to step back, right, and then know whether you're where you need to be. Because at the end of the day, many di practitioners don't want to be at a place where people aren't don't believe in the mission of equity and inclusion. And so it's helpful to know that so I think that's a big challenge, like really knowing the hearts and the desires of your executive leaders is a challenge that I think is is facing many of the practitioners.

Absolutely. And I don't think anybody does, rapid response in that, that's why it's always interesting to call it rapid-fire questions. And as you said, knowing if an organization's leadership is performative, but not it really does help you save time and frustration.

It does, and it helps you keep your perspective, I mean, many of us need to have a job and we have bills to pay. And so knowing where you are and what their objective is, helps you to, to come to work in the way in which you can that helps you have a healthy existence, and helps you to do the job that you need to do because sometimes it's just about learning what you need to learn at that place to then take it to the next place that's going to appreciate you and value in what you have to bring.

Absolutely. Next question. What's your all-time diversity and inclusion book on workplace culture?

You know, that's such a good question. I just finished up with Jennifer Browns on how to be an inclusive leader and I really enjoy that book.

Great. Go ahead,
and that would be my answer for that

one. Okay. Now ya know which book to pick up. A recent book. What is a recent book on dei you Love,
you know, I and because I'm an attorney and words mean something you use the word love. And I don't I haven't loved any book. But I will tell you that I have been reading a lot about unconscious bias and the one that I have been really pleased with and have learned quite a bit from was Pamela Fuller and Mark Murphy's the Leaders Guide to unconscious bias. So that has been a great book to learn from.

And I want to point out some of these two books you both have the word leader in and I think that's really, really important when we're talking about diversity, equity inclusion, okay. What DNI or HR podcast delivers the most value to you?

I have been enjoying Janice gas on his desk 30 Diversity podcast, and I've really liked it.
Alright, who is the DNI influencer, that you're most influenced by?

I've got to go back to Janice got some I think that I relate to her quite a bit. She's a first-generation American. Her parents I believe are from Cameroon. And she just she talks like me like, like, she's very knowledgeable on ei has a Ph.D. She's a professor of Forbes writer. I mean, she's top-notch. So I crash a little bit on Janice. It's pretty cool.

I love it. Where do you hear from the influence? So the most like LinkedIn books, podcasts? Where do you find that DNI influencer, the most?

Janice does she writes for Forbes. So she, she's got quite a few Forbes articles that she's been writing for a number of years. So I've gone back on to just look her up on a couple of her articles. And of course, I'm connected with her on LinkedIn as well as IG, and she does have a podcast called 30. Diversity.

I love it. What's the most overrated diversity inclusion training trend?

Now, that's such an interesting question. When I think of overrated, I think it's everyone's not everyone. Is Is many leaders' default training? Well, let's go and do this. And that overrated training that I'm referring to is unconscious bias. I think that there, there is value in unconscious bias training when it's done well. And it's typically done well, when there are some sort of materials or tools that a participant can take back with them, that helps them to apply their learnings to their everyday job. If you don't have a way as a finance person to identify your unconscious bias in your processing of financial documents, then that training has not been useful at all, it just doesn't move the needle enough. And so I do believe that there's value in it. But I think people, some place too much value on unconscious bias when there's so many other trainings that I think will be more impactful to anyone really wanting to change the status quo in their workplace.
Absolutely. I tell people often, that there's time for education, and then there's time for transformation. Absolutely. You need to know where you are. Okay. Next question. What's the most underrated diversity inclusion training tactic?

I think of cultural competence training or some may consider it a cultural sensitivity. And when I say those two words, I think that there's some overlap, right? From a cultural competence perspective, I think that it is invaluable for people to know where they are on the spectrum of valuing, understanding who they are, what their lived experiences are, how they bring that to their everyday work, as well as how does someone else's lived experiences differ from theirs and how they bring back to work so that they can appreciate that the differences that we bring to the workspace are stemmed from our lived experiences, we are our lived experiences that I don't think that leaders take the time to really think and appreciate that. And so if you have cultural competence training, from a perspective of who we are, who you are, understand who you are, understand your whole self understanding others and being willing to be open and aware and appreciate others, then you can then you can take the time to step back and really think about how your actions impact others. Right. And that's, that's the overlap of cultural sensitivity in some regards, but because cultural sensitivity when I think of that term, I think you need to be able to be sensitive to other people's culture, but it's bigger than the culture, right? It's the whole person, right? And not just who they are, where they came from, but their lived experiences as well. So those types of trainings that help people fully understand who they are why their lived experiences are how they come to work, how they bring that to work everyday and then being open to how to give how to interpret other people's lived experiences by giving them the opportunity to share that right and being vulnerable enough to share that lived experience and appreciate and value and take in that other person's lived experience and, and be able to look at the world from another person's lived experiences based upon your your interaction with them, right, many leaders tend to just operate in a bubble where they interface with just those that look like them. And so when you have opportunities to interact with other people that don't look like you're there don't have the shared lived experience, and be vulnerable enough to share your own experience, you will not only find that there are different lived experiences help bring innovation and value to the workspace, but also that there are some things that are likely similar and lived experiences.

And I do agree it is often underrated. Okay, two more questions, I promise. If you could ask one question to 100 of your peers a corporate or C suite leadership? What question would you ask them?
What percentage of your black and Latino employees enjoy their jobs and feel they have equal access to opportunities for advancement in your company? Oh, I think that's many, many companies that are doing anything in STI space. They have surveys, or someone has audited their employee population and conducted a survey. But I want to know the actual percentage of black and Latino, I don't want to know just about your entire employee population. I want to know about your people of color, I want to know about your black and Latino people, like are they happy? Are you asking them? Are they happy? Do they feel that they have advancement opportunities within your company, because that's what is going to move the needle and benefit those people. And that's what if you're really buying into the idea that equity and inclusion is something that is critical for your company to succeed in the world today, then you will want to take focus on what how to advance your lack of Latino employees in your current workspace. And if they're not given those opportunities, then you're not creating an equitable opportunity environment for them. And so that means that there's there's something for you to do to change that.

Absolutely. I love this question. It goes into discussions I have, often when we do recruiting, which is we have great benefits our employees love them. I said all of them, he's fair like them. And I'll ask her what percentage don't like it and they look crazy. And as simply if you're a creep ating equity in your workspace, you need to know who are those employees that aren't taking advantage of certain benefits and why? And why? Because I help insurances, great. But if they don't have access in their neighborhood, and they're having to take three buses and two trains, or it's an hour commute, they're sitting over just for a child, it has a cold. And it's really important.

Oh, if it's great, but it's great for just a few because only a few can actually afford the copay because their salary is just so low. You know, that doesn't equate that doesn't even make sense.

It doesn't I work for organization many years ago, what you pay for your health insurance was based on what your salary was, where the janitor, you did not pay the same thing as the CEO. It was scaled. And I have yet to find anybody that is doing. I'm sure there are other places. So this is literally more than 15 years ago. But the fact they were that far ahead and the scale benefits so that it was based off a salary and not just like everybody pays it because that's not equity in the workplace.

I love that. I love that.

So, okay, so last question. What kind of data would you like to have access to as a diversity and inclusion leader?

I really like seeing the actual numbers and percentages are good. And I've done some research and at online for certain companies just to try to see what their diversity data is. And I love when they show the percentages but you then don't even know the percentage of what right because you don't know what their entire population is. So you can't get to the number right so I like seeing actual numbers. So for me any data that any data is good, right? I like data, but any data that does not center whiteness by lumping everyone else in the bipoc or POC category. I'm here for it. I because as a black Latina I want to know how was a black how was it? How was the Latina how was it? How are they how Who are the people of color that are not just lumped in together? How are they doing? I don't, I don't like seeing data represented as all all people like all of you. And then bipoc, which means that that all is really inclusive of white, right? It's not, they're not willing to do the work to go and ask the questions or pull the data because there's there's value in the data. And when a company is not willing to show well, unfortunately, we only have one black male executives in the company. But if you look at the bipoc number, it's like 23%. Yeah, cuz you've got other people of other ethnicities. And they're not It's not bad. But I want to know, because I care about the advancement of the black individual, I care about the advancement of the Latina individual. Right? Not I, it's important for me to know that number. Because if you say you're a company that wants to advance equity, equity does not just apply to the 23% equity applies to that black person who's the only individual in the company on the leadership team, like, how do we ensure that there's more of him? Or more of her and she's in here or not the only ones representing their entire ethnicity, but that's what I'm about.

Absolutely. I absolutely agree with that. Break it out, put it that intersectionality gender, race, sexual orientation, differently abled, like, we want to know where where you are in your organization, when it comes to marginalized people? I absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. This has been fantastic. Oh, my God, I can't believe we're out of time.

Oh, my goodness, this is always fun. Thank you so much. Michelle,
can you let our audience know where they can connect with you?

Sure. So my name again is Louis unknown. And I can be found on LinkedIn as little as going on an L U A. S. K Y A. N. O. N. O. N I'm sure that Michelle will put that information in the show notes. And my website is equity principle.com, where I have my consulting company listed with all the services that we offer, so feel free to connect with me there.

Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been absolutely fantastic. I love having a lawyer's perspective teach. I feel like I can do this.

I can do this. Definitely you can do it. All right.

Thank you, everybody. Until next time, have a great week and keep pushing to bring change in equity in the workplace. Bye, everybody. Yes,

bye.

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Welcome, welcome, everybody. It is so great to have you here for another discussion asked, we talk about the intersectionality of Women's Identities. I have again, if you just following us, or you probably you may not know, KC Atha. If you've been following me for a couple years since 2020, you may remember we used to do these regularly on Thursdays was she's back as a guest. Not my partner in crime as much anymore, but we're happy to have you. Hey, KC, how are you doing?
I'm good. I'm so happy to be back in the seat with you. Yes.

Okay. So today we're talking about a really important topic. Oftentimes, when well, first, let before I jump in, because I'm really excited to talk about this topic. I'll have you let the people know a few things about you the DEI work you're in and how did you even get into this space?

Ah, great question. So the D and I work that I do is very much focused on public sector organizations, although I do work with some private organizations. But what I do is work with like minded leaders to bring equity and liberation into the workplace. And we look at that at both the systemic part as well as the individual and intrapersonal parts of it. And internally and externally focused. So looking at culture holistically, and helping folks sort of walk the path together with me to get towards their goals. And how did I come to this work is I this is my second organization and the first organization I had great intentions as a co founder. And there was just some outcomes and things that I saw happening in that first organization. That was not my intention, but did happen. And I thought, You know what, there's some other folks out there like me who have good intentions and aren't getting the results and outcomes that they desire. So that's what I focus on now.

I love it, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. So we I do a training on this topic. So of course, this is one of the important topics that I think is often overlooked. And the reason we're talking about is intersectionality of Women's Identities. Oftentimes, women are clumped together. But yet, when you look at different aspects of intersectionality, experiences change, barriers change. And it's really important that to look at it through a different lens. And so we're gonna get into it. So I'm gonna let you kick it off, because you love this topic as well. And so where do you want to start in talking about the intersectionality, of Women's Identities?

Well, I'll just back us up a little bit for folks to know a little bit about us and our history and our perspective and lens on these months. So Women's History Month Black History Month, I have in the past, I will admit, I have felt resistance towards these months, the focus of them for one month, very specifically, because I felt that it was a bit performative. And it really didn't result in any changes. So, Michelle, when you reached out to me and said, Hey, I want to do a series talking about like, how do we actually live into these months that we focused on women or black history? And how do we actually internalize that information and make change and push for, for action. And so that's what got me excited. So that's why I'm excited to be here to even have this conversation. But so I will kick it off by just laying that foundation. And very specifically, I think that when we talk about these broad categories of women, or black folks, I think the intersection intersectionality conversation is just a natural place that my brain goes because especially as a woman who identifies as Latina X, I know that other folks are also Latina, X and identify as black and so or Afro Latino, and oftentimes they feel excluded. And so I think sometimes we need to think about what are some of the other intersections of womanhood of blackness, and that can only serve to help support our actions and how we show up in the world. So, with that in mind, I wanted to talk about three levels. And the first level would be at the individual level, what I would sort of bring to the table in the lens of intersectionality there and then intrapersonal and then at the organizational level. So without further ado, let's jump into that first level of individual level. So I always like to start with the self Know thyself start at home first when we make change. And so the way I help my clients and folks that I work with is to help identify and map our identities An hour privileged in any given situation, it's going to change depending on the situation. So you'll have to sort of build the muscles of understanding a few concepts, which I'm about to dive into. The first concept is dominant and marginalized identity. So what does that mean? So when I say dominant identity, that changes depending on the situation, location, etc. So when and how you identify if you're in the dominant category is do you have privilege? Are you do you have access to power in some way, shape, or form? Are you sort of the norm or the standard, and then when we think about marginalized identities, this group has less privilege, less power, and are not identified as the norm or standard, but rather other. So those are sort of the two categories. And as we just said, intersectionality is not either or we are combination of identities. And so that combination is the third thing that we kind of have to understand, which are what are those categories? The categories such as race, such as sex, such as gender, class, education, language, citizenship, in the workplace, or your full time employee? Are you a contract worker? What is your religion? What is your ability? What? Where in the hierarchy? Are you? What's your tenure? Are you located at HQ? Are you off site? Are you in the field, so there's a lot of different categories where we are going to be the dominant or marginalized identity. And another thing I have to bring up is just because you are dominant identity doesn't mean you're always going to be the majority. So you could be high up in the hierarchy and be dominant identity, but you're the only one in a group that's that high in the hierarchy. So it's not about minority, that's different. Sometimes the minority could be the majority of people, and yet, they're still the marginalized group. So that's another thing that I like to bring up. So that is sort of the first, knowing thyself because before we take action, we got to know who we are, and how we show up in any given situation, that's going to be different. And sometimes we're going to be in the dominant role or position, or sometimes we'll be in the more marginalized position, depending.
Thank you for breaking that I think we often also look at even when you're marginalized, and you're the majority in that space, is also the power, who's who's wielding the power. And it's really, really important to understand that too. When you go through and you look at your identity, where you fall is what is where, where does the power lie? And, and how much. And so it's also important to identify that as you go through that process. So let's, let's go to your next point. I'm excited.

Yeah, well, I'm the one thing that came up I was just thinking about was also in addition, another category I would bring up that I've been talking about more recently with some clients, because we're practicing how to have difficult conversations and lead diversity, equity inclusion conversations. Another thing that comes up is conflict style. And so I would very specifically say black women have to Historically and traditionally even now have to regulate their emotions so that they're not perceived by the stereotype of the angry black woman. And so that's another thing that came up actually, in my newsfeed. Today, I was reading this and it, it's not fair because we all are human. And we all experience all the range of emotions, but because of that intersection of identity and stereotyping, there is a real and sometimes perceived threat for black women to express that natural emotion of frustration, anger, whatever those unpleasant feelings that we all feel, but because of a certain identity, you're perceived differently are not allowed to feel that way. So that I wanted to give one concrete example as well that was a little fuzzier, but is definitely very, very real. So once we met the identity, I'm going to push us along which that was a kind of a good transition into interpersonal level. So interpersonal level once you've mapped your identity, so for example, I am Latina x, but I am definitely lighter skinned. So we have to understand when we are in proximity to that power of proximity to whiteness, not just skin color, but also how we show up with conflict and our language are accents are not accents, etc. So there's these levels of proximity to power as well. So we may not be the ultimate top pinnacle of the dominant identity, but we may have an increased proximity to it. For example, colorism in this situation that I'm talking about, so once we've mapped herself, we are better positioned to know when and if we have privilege to lend and to offer others and or to ask for support if I'm in the marginalized position. And, and someone I know and trust and like is in a more privileged position. And depending on the situation, I may ask them to lend me their privilege, which I used to do actually with a former roommate of mine, who was a white man. And he, I would often say, Hey, could you lend me your privilege, I'd like to strategically deploy you to do this thing for me. And while I don't think it's fair that I should have to do that, and I don't think it's right that I should have to do that, I also have to decide when and if I'm going to value getting the outcome I want over sort of standing in the moral ethical principles. And so that is that kind of difficult middle ground, sometimes whenever I talk about this with some clients, because folks are aware, that's like, that's not a fair thing to have to do, which is correct. But when we're talking about ally, ship, and interpersonal level of how we can show up, that is, that's what I'm sort of proposing here. So, and whenever I talk about lending our privilege, some people call li chips, some people call co conspirators, or basically asking our, our selves and or someone else to do some sort of discomfort, either at that base level, like, make some change shape, you know, stir the pot a little bit. Also, we may be asking some folks to do a little more like, a strike, right. So sometimes people are willing to put their, their livelihood on the line and strike, or sometimes people are willing to put their life on the line. And that is the ultimate coconspirator type move. And I'm not asking or telling people to do that. But I'm just saying and trying to put it in perspective that the minimum thing that we can do is probably lend our privilege and, and allow some discomfort either within ourselves, or allow ourselves to make other people uncomfortable at the dinner table at the conference room table, at the lunch table, in the meeting, whatever that may be. So that is one thing. So once you're mapped, you're better positioned to lend your privilege or ask for privilege. And then the other thing that I like to talk about at this interpersonal level, is to really practice deep listening, to understand the situation to understand the problem to understand the context before taking action. And so what I talk about is social empathy. So it's one thing to empathize. But it's another thing to empathize and deeply understand the context of and the situation to better connect and support to make change for that person or in this in this sort of situation generally. So those are the two big points that I like to make when I talk about interpersonal level of, of approaching ally ship or making change in this area.

Fake Thank you, KC. For that, I just want to point out very quickly, I dropped something article that I ran across, called Black people are sharing the rules they follow that most white people don't even know about. And this is so important. And I brought this article up, because as you take your power and your privilege, it is important to understand how marginalized people how black people, specifically black women, more specifically for this conversation, navigate and how they prepare to navigate in these white in these white spaces. And so now you understand how they're now because assumption is, Oh, will you do what we do? Know. And so it taking examples like this, now you have some idea of things that you can utilize your power and privilege for to help black women. And it's not always a monolith, right, as as KC said, you know, skin color plays a huge part, then comes hair texture, as well. And then body type plays another function, and then also vernacular. And so they're all of these different things that are in play that come in certain biases. And so it is really important to understand yourself and how you're engaging. And like, I didn't know you were black, you don't see black, like what exactly does that mean? So it's really important, I get some friends that that identify as black. And people often assume they are something other than black. And so it's really important to understand these things as well. So I share that. And now and I read the title of the article output it in. And it's a very long title. It's on Buzzfeed, but it's definitely worthwhile reading to get an idea of how black people move around in spaces that are not typically black.

Yeah, and that brings up another concept that I want to share real quick is The concept of consent. So oftentimes when we find out about injustice or unfairness that happens with other identities that are not our own, um, we potentially could be so upset and want to make change, because it's unfair. And yet, we may not understand that that person doesn't want us to speak up, because we can actually be causing more harm. So I would ask, and I would propose that we get consent from the other person before taking action on their behalf, or against something that we think is unfair, but we don't know how it could negatively impact them. So I would definitely recommend. The other thing is one example that I like to give a concrete example of how to be an ally. Oftentimes, in meetings, I like to share the tool of amplification. And so what happens oftentimes, is that ideas are proposed ideas or thoughts come up in a meeting. And oftentimes, that idea is not given credit to the person who originally said it. So in order to help and be an ally, you could say, Hey, that's a great idea that you added on to that Michelle proposed, right. So it'd be bringing it back, for example, if someone was sort of taking credit for Michelle's idea, or Michelle's original thought has now been built on by other people in the meeting, but now know what everyone's thinking now, John's great idea. But really, Michelle started that whole idea. So I love the concept of amplification. And so when when we are in a space, it is helpful that we could sort of help support the visibility and bringing back the the just credit of many folks perspectives and insights.
Thank you for that. And that is seemingly easy to do. But for whatever reason, it becomes the biggest struggle. And I want to point out something else that that often happens is when you're in meetings, this is especially for white men. Do you realize black people and black women are in those rooms in those spaces? And really think about that, why they're not in there? And how to get them into those spaces into those conversations. And to actually take action on those. And so when we're talking about Amplifying Voices, right, like you're talking about this person, right, you're giving them credit. But why are also aren't they in that space? Right. And so I think it is also giving credit where it's due, but understanding how barriers may have even pushed not only given a credit, but not even having them part of the discussion, and how much how often they're talked over, or not even invited to the discussion, even if they aren't in a room. And so just take on different levels, even though you're giving them credit. Okay, now, how do I get them to the meeting? How do I make sure that they're, they're included in a conversation, making sure they're not cut off somebody else's and steal their idea in the conversation? There are multiple levels to this. And I know we're just getting started. And some of you may like, oh, I give them credit. Okay, great. Now, here's the next step. Right. And so it is a continued process. When you decide to do this work. It's not one and done. So I'll turn it back on.
I've got another idea that came up from that. What's the next step? So I've actually heard some folks saying, just because I have a great idea, my plate is full. And sometimes folks will be like, well, it's your idea. You run with it, you do it. And so I don't think that that's a great practice, because then it's like, well, then I shouldn't bring up great ideas unless I have time and space to do it myself. And I think that kind of squashes things. And I think it's better to say that is a great idea. And where could we find resources and pool resources that are needed for that idea? Versus just say, well, that's your idea. You do it then. So that's another sort of challenge to kind of shift into, okay, great idea, and how can we collectively figure out how to make this happen?

Absolutely. We see it in organization. Building a great to women are really great with building relationships. And being able to delegate and build a great team is also important. And sometimes that skill set isn't there. And so while you may see men pull together people because they see who's doing their work, or doing work in this in this space, how do you then help them build a team and move from doing the work to having great ideas and helping the work get executed? Right? And so those are different skill sets. And so you have to come in and step in for that as well. So I love I love this conversation, obviously. So, but I'll turn it back over to you for the third. All right.
Okay, final part. So after we talked about the individual level map send yourself an interpersonal level of lending that privilege and or asking for someone else's privilege to be lent to you. I would also talk love to talk about the organizational level. And this is more for the folks who are making decisions around what is being done at your organization in that black history month are Women's History Month. And why am I talking to you? Because the first thing that I would recommend for these months is to really anchor in your why, what is it that we're doing this month? And why? So are we highlighting women in black history to celebrate? It's just celebration, and we're gonna eat some foods and talk about culture? Are we also going to build some awareness? And that's it. So celebrate and awareness? Fine, cool, like, but let's be clear about it. Why? Because I think there's a risk that's been happening that some organizations have been experiencing where that why is not clear. And so they're being accused of being performative. Because there's not a shared understanding of what is the purpose of us highlighting this as a month of women or black history? So being very clear about the why, and communicating that why so that folks don't have different expectations, you still may be called in and say, Well, yeah, you've been building awareness and celebrating for years, we want to move into the next level, which may be self setting goals and objectives. But before I move on to goals and objectives, I will say, if you are at that celebration, and just awareness level, that's fine. What I would challenge you and invite you to do as well is to include your organization and your sector, whenever you're looking at Black history. And when you're looking at women's history, or raising awareness, what and how does that history show up and intersect with your sector and your organization. And oftentimes, it's not a history we're very proud of, and you got to own the histories before we can move forward. So that's the first challenge and sort of invitation for organizations that are spending time and energy, sort of highlighting these different months. The second thing is I invite folks, once you've moved past maybe celebration and awareness purposes and goals, I would say goals and objectives of trying to increase black diet, like diversify your staff at the higher levels, not just at the lower levels, that's something that happens a lot. And folks oftentimes say we're really diverse. But then when I look at their org chart, they're very diverse at the most junior levels. And so I think that I would challenge orbs to maybe look at how diverse Are we at the top, and then go down and maybe set some goals in that order, instead of the other order. Starting at the bottom, I would say start at the top instead to diversify at top at the top, and then work your way down to diversify down at the bottom. And if you don't think that you have access to people or a pipeline, that maybe that's one of your goals or objectives, how do I build up a pipeline so that I can know that when we have openings at these top levels? I know that I have a pipeline because I've built relationships, we now have a scholarship, we now have internships and fellows that have, you know, have had access and worked with us, whatever it may be. But why are you doing it? And if it's because you want to diversify them, then let's let's talk about that in the context of the Month celebration, and awareness. But also, what are the vision?

What are the goals of this organization in relation to women in relation to black folks?

And I would just say, when you're making those goals and objectives thinks think about not only the areas of leadership, but also what is our structure look like? What does communications look like? What are the programs look like and policies and practices? How about the vendors that we spend money with? Are they black owned? Are they women owned? Are they black women owned? And is could that be a goal? You know, could we make sure that when we start approving and searching for vendors that that's something that we're interested in, in assessing as as part of alignment with your organization's values and goals? The staffing which we already talked about also partnerships, who are we partnering with? What organizations are we partnering with? what schools are we partnering with? I don't know your sector, but whoever your partners are, how much representation and leadership do you have with women and black folks, and specifically that intersection of black women, right? How could we sort of assess where we are and then work and set goals to increase that? And then finally, so we talked about celebration and awareness level then we talked about goals and objectives level? I think that folks who have already done some of these goals and objectives setting, I think these months are a great time to also highlight and make space for accountability. And what do I mean by that? I mean, sharing out and reporting out progress on those goals and objectives. And what are the iterations that have been made in those? In that work? After we set these goals and objectives? How is it going, what iterations and new learnings have we learned because we're not going to get it perfect, we've been socially conditioned to operate in a way that is status quo and gives us outcomes that are not in alignment with our equity and liberation values. So when we start on our journey, it is going to be imperfect. And I invite us to be in that more lean agile mentality where we build something, we test it out, and we measure it and we iterate according to that, and keep doing that until we continue to get better. And then I invite us to celebrate our successes, not just the big successes, but the small ones, to all of them. All progress is progress, I'd love to see the big progress. And I love to also give us incentives to keep going because this work is ongoing, it doesn't have some final end, because even when we meet our goals and objectives, we still have to uphold them in a society that is not built for this to be sort of the status quo and the norm. So we're always sort of holding back the sort of outside world that isn't conducive to equity and liberation. So that those are sort of the levels of organizational lenses that I would apply to these months of women's history and black history.

Thank you for that. I love that. And again, it is a process. And oftentimes we hear people say, Hey, I'm afraid to fail, I'm going to get it wrong. The assumption is you have it right. In the current state. We don't and so the feedback of I don't want to get it wrong, like you aren't even in a place where you're getting it right now. So so this is a place to learn. And then like you say, take action and lay out that plan. I, I will say this much is you can learn a lot from your employees and asking them questions. The problem that some of these organizations have is number one, you have not you do not have a relationship with your employees, especially those that are marginalized, that they feel as though they can trust you to share experiences, and what's really, really going on. And so sometimes you can bring in a third party, but other times, you're going to have to rely on some basic metrics and data to get the ball rolling. And you're going to have to show that you care by taking action before you have sometimes some immediate data real time data in your in your organization and workplace. And that scares some people like, well, we don't have the money for that. You don't have the money not to in this in this current situation in this current market. In this current time of social justice. I can tell you Gen Z's they are looking mine. And even generations, they're looking and they're watching. And if you're a big brand, medium sized brand, they're going to know and they're going to go back because unfortunately, everything Fortunately, everything I guess is on the web. And so it's really important for you to lay out that plan, you have metrics, and to invest the resources in it, because it's not a short term investment. It is a long term investment for your organization. It is a long term investment. Some of you are in your 40s. And you're like oh it will take us 12 years. I said so you'll be in your 50s it's not the end of the world, it won't stop. And it's really important. You have a starting point, you have a plan. You realize, like a kid, like if you have kids, you're gonna mess up something right? The first one is really hard. That's that first step, that second kid got better use, like, I just let let the kid second kid cry. I was on a call with somebody, they had the first kid, they were driving home after picking them up from daycare. And then the second kid was kind of like, we can't hold you, Honey, we're driving, we're in car and you got to stay in your car seat. And she cried for 20 minutes. So like I don't so so you have to understand you're going to go through some growing pains and it but you can't get to those points of ah, we've gotten to this milestone without you literally putting in the work. And it's really important to have that. So finding that getting that commitment, even if it's a small core group and organization with sufficient budget. And support is really, really key. But you have to show on some level some immediate changes in organization, some intermediate changes in the organization. And what are the long term goals in the organization. Oftentimes pre the murder of George Floyd organizations would not share any of this information or data and that has tremendously hurt you. In the current state more of your sharing that data information. But I can tell your black employees are there at two years, and they haven't seen anything and you haven't shared enough to them, you haven't done enough, because they've been living in this lived experience for 3040 50 years. And so now you're seeing more turnover, and you can't understand why we've made the commitment, but they aren't seeing the action and you aren't sharing enough information. And and so they, they've heard you, they've given you a chance, but they don't see the equity that you said you're pursuing, and that they require in order to stay in those organizations. So we have a comment, a question, how do you navigate data capture for reporting? My logic is that employees self disclose during our share this self disclose during onboarding, then we should be able to analyze and understand leadership transition rate. However, we are told that this is somehow not possible, because it's violating laws violating right, please understand how some companies can publish benchmarks and some can't. Some companies won't publish benchmarks because they don't want to period. There are very few instances when they cannot publish that benchmark. There are some things like that are ADHD, HIPAA compliant, things that I should say that companies can't.

It's illegal for them to have that information or share that information outside of that employees needs. What I found, though, sure, is that companies would rather say for compensate for competitive sakes, we won't share that data. And it's really to the point where in, they're just hiding their lack of diversity, their lack of inclusion and belonging, and willing to take the hit publicly, by disclosing that information. Let me tell you, let me tell them a secret that they don't know that we know we talk about you already. We don't apply. We don't do interviews with you. Because we've already gone and talk to the last black person let go that didn't get hired, that was only asked for their their data, so you can show that you are compliant. We talk about this all the time, we talk about you all the time on social media, in our social social circles, the only people you're hiding this data from is other white people in the organization who think you're actually doing the work. every black person out organization, every Hispanic person, that organization, every Latino, every Asian person or organization, or know what's going on. You're the only ones who think you're actually hiding something. And so what we're doing here at positive higher, is we actually have benchmarks for organizations. Because for fake for meta, it's called meta now. And Google, there's like, oh, well, Facebook had or meta has 1.2% black women, and we have 1.3. So we're good. No, you're not. You're comparing poor practices to poor practices. When you look at a true capacity, which could be 4%, guess what, then you're like, Oh, we shouldn't show this data, because now it's competitive. Now, we just show it to prove that you are underperforming it, you need to change things in your organization. So sometimes Shurl organizations won't do it. And so you have to find a way or find somebody that's offering you built a bitch market benchmarks for your industry. And then there's pushback on that. And so be when you do get the benchmark, let me tell you, some way organizations will hide this information as well. Is there a roll up bipoc Your Roll everybody of color that is not white, it to bipoc but then when you break down by PA, they're black is less than 1%, or Hispanic is less than 1%. And that 80% or 8% is show or Asian and they're gonna end a will try to also roll in people that are international, not necessarily US citizens, right. Then the other game they will play is in a job types and titles and they will definitely mix those up. So what are considered professional roles and what are considered blue collar roles or white cup, they will mix those up. So the numbers look a certain way. And so it is very, very important that you ask questions. They they may look at you like Why are you pushing this because, you know, the reality is they're hiding that data and they don't Want to see as they truly are, which is not diverse, not inclusive, not equitable, definitely not creating a place of belonging by hiding those numbers and they don't want to take action, this is what I say to this for some of those places, please continue to be that way and this is why you will lose in the end, number one, number two, you did not bother myself, you did not bother KC, you did not bother Shirl in, in doing performative work. Not even like doing a call with you not doing a presentation on how we can help you solve your problem not coming in even doing a contract because you're going to try to lowball us. It is really going to piss us off. And even if we do accept the contract, not even doing the work, do not waste our times. So continue to be that way. Let us go help the people that actually want to do this work that are actually doing the work. And those employees that you decided we're not for your play, your place of employment will go there. And they will grow great careers help impact positively impact those organizations while yours will stay at the status quo. Things change, you will become an a&p and not a Trader Joe's. That's all I have. Okay, KC, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now. But you know how I do?

I have a couple of thoughts on that. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Sometimes it could feel difficult, or you're unsure if you can or should collect some identity data, some alternatives to that if you don't want to do it, or have been told you can't I think you could continue to do climate assessments and hire an outside person to do a climate assessment to see the perceived experience of your staff. And that's done through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and document review, just just kind of see what's happening in the organization. And then also, I would look at, you know, your hiring rates and promotion pathways, how clear are they? How are they how well are they understood? What is the climate around that oftentimes folks will say, I don't even know how to get promoted, I don't know when and how to get that raise. I don't know what my colleagues make. So you know, what, what are the salary bands are their salary bands, and a lot of times staff are just piecing those together, because an organization started implementing salary bands. And so now they just look at the new job postings, but they don't know what they make, or what their colleagues made before the salary bands were made. So I think sometimes, you know, just clarifying that and looking at that internally, and then correcting it, if people are outside of those salary bands, bring them up into it. And I would probably give them more or a bonus, or what, you know, some something because they missed out on that salary for however long that that seller abandoned exists, and they were already underpaid. So I think the just correct thing to do would not only to raise their salary, but also back pay them for what they weren't paid in some way, shape or form. Also, in addition to that, I think I would double click double, I would underline and bold, what Michelle said. And I would absolutely continue to say benchmark against yourself, not against the failed status quo of other people in your sector. That is not helpful. And the final thing that I will say just this has been coming up, and I've been talking to more of my clients around this is compensation benchmark marking is wonderful to stay competitive in your sector. I also don't want that to be convoluted with a living wage. So oftentimes, I will recommend to organizations to make sure that not only are you competitive and doing compensation benchmarking to be to be competitive and get, you know, the best possible stuff. Also look at raising the floor of that living wage. And that's a different process that's looking at a living wage calculator for the location in which people live and also the value that they're bringing to the organization and making a calculation of like at a minimum. This is what it takes to live in Washington, DC, New York City, Los Angeles, wherever, as an individual and I always like to recommend not only as one single individual but with one dependent. And that to me is a living wage for one person. So that's it. Those are the thoughts that came up for me. Thanks.

Thank you for that. I had so many things about the living wage and number one, if I would love to know if you're in the chat if you're watching this even if it's on the replay if you're on the podcast. Message me tweet me DM me if your current employer is given you or your employer or your co workers, just the workplace, an increase in your pay because of inflation, I'm looking for something, right? Because it's real. And companies like, oh, we aren't prepared, some of these larger companies are making really great profits right now. Now, I'm not talking about generating revenue, but profits, and alcohol, like, we can't possibly give everybody a 7% increase in match inflation. And I'm looking at your money, like, really maybe I'm doing your math wrong, but I'm just looking like, Okay, so see, see how that goes. Because some people are going to quit, to make more money just to cover inflation. So you have to figure out what you're going to end up paying. Either way, you can pay the people that are there that know your systems, processes and culture, or you're going to bring in new people to learn your system processes and culture. And you're going to pay them more than inflation. So you really, really think about that as well. So KC, I will let you do a wrap up. And then we will get out of here.

All right from the top, inviting you all to map yourself and your identity and your privileges. Depending on your dominant identity or marginalized identity. In any given situation, it always changes. So practice building those muscles of sort of understanding where you are. And then the categories of race, gender, class, education, language, contract worker, not religion, ability, hierarchy, tenure, all of those goodies, then the second one was intrapersonal level. Once you've mapped your identity, and can do that fluidly in different situations, then you're more, you're better positioned to be able to lend your privilege and or ask for someone to lend you their privilege to get what it is that you want, and need and deserve. And I would also remind folks to do deep listening to understand before taking action, because a lot of times when we're in the dominant identity, we think we understand the problem before we listen. So listen, before we take action, ask for consent, before taking action on behalf of someone else, because we've may unintentionally cause them harm or put them in a place of discomfort or fear for because of retaliation and other concerns that may be there. And then finally, at the organizational level really root down in your why why are we celebrating Women's History or Black History Month is it to celebrate and to raise awareness about culture. If that is then the challenge for you is to also look at the history of women and black folks in your organization specifically, and in your sector, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it makes you feel ashamed. That is some sort of rooting down in the y we want to make change, which is the next level of setting goals and objectives in those months that pertain to women that pertain to black folks in your organization. And articulating what is that vision? What are our goals? And how are we tying that into how we show up in the areas of leadership structure communications, policies, programs, vendors, staffing, partnerships, all of that pipeline work. And then finally, accountability, use those months to report out on the progress you're making on those goals and objectives also on the iterations that you're making, because we know we're not perfect, because we know that we're trailblazing and trying to do things in a different way. So iterations are going to be necessary and celebrate your successes big and small. Because we do need to know that we are making progress and that it's worth it. So when we see signs of success, it helps us reinvigorate our desire to go through sometimes some of these painful sort of changes in evolution. It's not always fun. It doesn't always feel good to do this work because we're we're going against status quo and that status quo is difficult sometimes to push up against. So let's do this work collectively. And let's celebrate the successes along the way.

Thank you, KC so much for that. Everybody. Be sure you connect with KC here. That's the letter K, the letter C. Atha, on LinkedIn. It is so fantabulous to have you back. We're gonna have to do this again real soon. So until then everybody, this is the equity pursuit. I will be on here about every two weeks sharing different actions, why management can take in organizations to bring equity to marginalized employees and really bring change. Don't talk about it, be about it. And we will see you in a couple of weeks. Bye, everybody.

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Thank you so much for joining us today. I am Michele Heyward, founder of positive hire where we connect black indigenous and Latin X women who are experienced scientists, engineers and technology professionals to management roles. Today, I'm absolutely excited to kick off this great series of conversations we were having called the equity pursuit. And today to kick it off, we're talking about, really the barriers to progress and the things that white leaders in the workplace should be doing to bring equity. And this all came about because we've been seeing more and more companies celebrating and marketing Black History Month, a Women's History Month, even Equal Pay Day, which is interesting if you if you're on Twitter. And you know what you bought, I'm talking about when it came to, to women's Equal Pay Day. And so today, I'm really excited to dig into why there are so many barriers to progress and how can White management and leaders really push past those barriers. So joining us today we have Jesse Santana and Jess McFarland so just so you know, you're gonna say Jessie, and Jess, because we might have a panel have a Jess but one escena Jess with two answers, and it's gonna be really interesting. So today, just take it we got a Jesse and a Jess, and we're happy to have both of you. So Jesse, if you can introduce yourself first and then we'll go to Jess.

Thank you so much, Michelle. I'm so excited to be here and part of this conversation. So my name is Jesse CYN. Santana disease, I'm Diana. My pronouns are she, her and ADA. I am an organizational culture strategist. I focus on developing inclusive and culture driven leaders to build legacy and create impact by focusing on CO creating spaces of intentional inclusivity and fierce belonging. So I'm so just glad to be here and in this space with both of you, all of you.

And hi, everyone, I'm Jess McFarlane, I use she her pronouns, I'm really glad to be here. Thanks, Michelle, for inviting me. I call myself a racial equity consultant. So I help organizations and individuals live out their values of equity and how they're showing up day to day with a race centered, race conscious approach.

Thank you both for being here. So first question I have for both of you. Should organizations and companies be celebrating things like Black History Month, Women's History Month, women's Equal Pay Day? Or not? Like what what what are your takes on that, and I'll start with Jesse.

So, in my opinion, absolutely. 100% commemorative days should be sub celebrated. However, they should be followed with action. Because if you're celebrating a commemorative day, if you're making this public announcement that you're you have equity standards that you're about inclusion, it needs to be followed by action. And it needs to be followed, not just in reflected in your behavior, change your learnings, but also reflected in your systems, and reflected in your policies and accessibility, and is everyone have equal access and opportunity to all that you offer, including your clients and those other other stakeholders outside of the internal ones as well.
And I would just add in thinking about who is most impacted in our workplaces, and by these commemorative days, so I agree, Jesse, that these sorts of commemorations can be really powerful, really to, you know, create an environment of belonging but you know, celebrating LGBTQ pride, right and affirming LGBTQ identities in the workplace or celebrating Black History Month. But I'm also thinking about if there's that gap between declarations and action. Because I have a background in psychology. So I'm always thinking about sort of what's the what's the psychological impact, and there's a term or a concept known as the stress of racial disappointment, and that is where it's sort of this gap between making a statement and lack of action can actually be more stressful and more harmful for folks in marginalized groups than if you didn't make the declaration at all right, cognitively and emotionally. It's easier for us to deal with someone who says, you know, Black History Month is not important to me, right? It's actually more difficult to deal with someone who says, Yes, Black History Month, and we're not doing anything to make sure that, you know, we're following through with equity and belonging for our black employees. So it's really important, as Jesse said, to follow that up with action, and so that you don't create more stress and more harm internally.

I absolutely agree. I can remember early on in 2008, after the murder of George Floyd having a roundtable and some attendees saying how their employers didn't say anything. And it said as they should, because we know who we work for. And they knew as want to be allied, so they felt not good, but they knew exactly where that employer stood. And so it was really, really important. And it was others whose employers came out, made a statement, they didn't even like the statement, they didn't address really what was happening. And so the message fell flat just from the beginning, because some organizations felt pressured to make a statement, when, like you said, it was better not to say anything. And so let's let's go into that, what should organizations be doing? Like they've done these celebrations? Jesse? What should they be doing? After celebrating? And because you brought up something very important, like you're in the education phase, but you've been in education phase as well, for two years? So what should organizations be doing?
Yeah, I think that it's really important to not sit in the overwhelm in the information overload. Because a lot of people, you know, the book clubs are great. They, you know, a lot of authors are getting lots of buzz around their books, and it's amazing supporting those authors. But the reality is that if you're not taking a systemic approach, if you're not taking a one step at a time, what is our strategic plan look like, for implementing these things into our workplaces? Thinking about psychological safety? Thinking about? What what marginalized identities we already have within our employee networks, and how to support and facilitate their well being? And also, how do we include other others into the conversation? That's also really important. So I think that a lot of times people are just sitting in that overwhelm and afraid to take one step forward. Because they're, they're, they're, they're afraid of the misstep, right? They don't want to come across as being tone deaf, or they don't want to come across as not doing the right thing. But if we do nothing, then what is that? How is that different than the 40 plus years that diversity and inclusion has been a topic of discussion for organizational development, it's been around for a long time. But it's only now recently that people are actually paying real attention to it. And it's a lot of societal pressure. Because we live in different different times, however, that that pressure, and the release of that pressure by taking some form of action doesn't necessarily reflect that transformative change that organizations need to have. A lot of organizations were really focused on that diversity pipeline. But I always like to say that you can invite people over if your house is dirty, and a lot of organizations houses are filthy. So first, we need to like look at what we have in place, and improve upon that process. And then we can start focusing on recruitment and retention practices that actually will be effective for marginalized identities.

Thank you so much, Jesse. Jess, what are your thoughts about this?

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with everything that Jesse just said. And I think what's coming up for me, as I'm thinking about how you framed this series, in this conversation, Michelle, which is really looking at the role of white leadership and white management. And so for me, I would say, an important place to start is to examine one's role. People often examine their role as a leader right in the organization. But I would say that you have to examine your role as a white leader, what does it mean for you to be a white person in leadership? And if you're doing that work and reflection, then that will move you along the path? And if you feel like I don't know what it means that I'm a white leader, I don't know why that question is relevant. I would encourage you to get support around that and to really work with someone who can help you to bring a lens of what it means to be a white leader to the organization because we know that the racial dynamics are there and they matter, right? We can't be colorblind. That's what You know, one of the big revelations, I think that's come out for folks in the past two years is that we can't pretend anymore that racial dynamics aren't operating in our day to day work, right. So I think that's an important place to start is examining one's role as a white leader. And then to work through, Jesse touched on this, but I spent a lot of time talking about the anxieties, specifically, the racial anxiety that can come up for white leaders in being worried about doing things wrong, right and taking the wrong action. And there's a lot of fear about that. And an important piece of that is really working through and naming that, you know, it's okay to have that worry about, I'm worried about doing the wrong thing. But the problem is that we allow that to get in the way of taking any action at all right. And so I can say more on that. But I'll just stop there. Yeah, back to you, Michelle.
Thank you both for that. And I love how you brought up, these are the actual things that are stopping you or slowing you down. But but really, you have to, like write it down. Like so many things, it's the things that are in your head, that keep you from really progressing. And once you write them down, and you address them, they can show up very differently. And oftentimes, they're just literally it's the story you're telling yourself in your head. And so that's really where the power is. I want to go to the next question was, which is What does white management or leadership have? What impact do they really have when it comes to the stress of racial disappointment? In Oregon, in organizations? Because that was something you you brought up? Justin, I really want to hone in on that for a while. Can you define that and really talk about it a bit more, so we can get a better understanding?

Yeah, so just to be clear, it's essentially the the psychological and emotional impact that can come from being disappointed, you know, folks not following through on on what they're declaring, right? So talking the talk, but not walking the walk. And so that can result in employees, bipoc employees, in particular, feeling really disappointed, like, you know, I thought that you were committed to these actions, essentially, I thought I could trust you. And now your actions are not aligning with your words. And so that results in mistrust. And, you know, can really undermine one's sense of belonging, but also one sense of, sort of, you could you could use the term, I just use this psychological safety within the workplace.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that, it's also important to reflect on the fact that a lot of organizations have not necessarily built that trust and rapport with their employees. You know, oftentimes, when people leave an organization, and they're asked, Why are you leaving, they generally share? Well, I'm doing it for this, you know, this better experience that I am hoping I will get in this next organization. But beyond that, generally, people unless they had an atrocious experience, don't necessarily share all of the details. And it's probably because of that report. It's, you know, absenteeism is related to the fact that employees are not necessarily engaged at work. And so when you have people that don't show up, are you asking questions around, you know, what you're doing doing in order to make sure that people are feeling empowered and engaged at work? Or are you just attributing it to other factors? And so a lot of times, we're not even asking the right questions, to get to the right answers. And sometimes I feel leaders, because they're afraid to just like, dig deep, and be honest and authentic in this way. Because they have that that barrier and that that that point where they need to, you know, assume leadership and what does leadership look like and whatever tropes are running around in people's heads, about what a leader looks like. It often prevents people from having that that trust in the organization because their leader if there's, you know, greater hierarchy, that leader seems so far away, and the person that you may be reporting to, doesn't necessarily follow the same narrative that the leader may present. However, it hasn't been filtered through all departments, all people leaders. And so it's really important not just about creating a culture that is aware of these things, but a culture that's actively working towards eliminating some of those barriers, and one that is focused on creating that sense of belonging at all levels and not relegating it to an HR, you know, person or department, but everyone is responsible for culture. And that's, you know, an important aspect of the organization.

Thank you so much for that jazz, I want to go back to something you brought up, which was your employees are telling you. They're not telling you why they're leaving, and tying it into what just said, which was stress and racial disappointment and that impact an organization's like, Well, how do we know what they want? And we talk about of employee surveys, the purpose they serve, the power white management and leadership leaders have when they have those surveys, and they have those responses, and also the responsibility that they have to actually do something with that information that data, especially as relates to marginalized employees?
If you want to go first, yes, sure,

I can start. I mean, I would just say, I think employee surveys are a really powerful tool. I've been helping organizations implement surveys for about seven years and have found that it's really, really important because often, you know, I'd work with clients with organizations, and they would try to give me a sense of the organization. And the reality is that if you are in a position of power within the organization, it's likely that people aren't really telling you their true experience, especially if you hold dominant identities. And they are part of a marginalized group. And so it's, I think it's really powerful to have, you know, especially when conducted by a third party, but if it is done internally, that can be done as well, just to space for people to truly voice, their experience, anonymously within the organization. But what's really important is, I've seen companies employ or use employee surveys, but then they don't disaggregate the data. And so you're actually obscuring some of the most important information, which is really looking at how individuals of people, people have different identity groups are experiencing the workplace. So it's nice to say, you know, that most of our employees, you know, feel really respected by their supervisor. But then if you disaggregate it, and you see, well, the white employees really feel respected, and the black employees feel less respected. That's a really important findings. So I'm a big advocate of surveys as an opportunity for employees to actually, you know, have a voice. But then to your point, Michelle, you can't just leave it there. So it's not just about gathering information and taking that, especially his leadership, holding on to it and saying, Okay, now we have information there that's used to inform strategy, as Jesse was talking about earlier, building out a strategic plan based on those findings. So yeah, we'll leave it there.

Yeah, I agree. I think that employee surveys are a great tool, I would also include focus groups, and leadership interviews. But all of this needs to be intentional, and we need to do something with it. Because a lot of times, we do all of that work within an organization and find all of these trends and hotspots of information. But it's a little bit like being a doctor and telling someone that you're that these are the things that you should do in order to make things better. But the organization is just there to tick a box because they were audited, or they needed to prove that they were doing something without actually doing anything with it. And that's the unfortunate reality at this moment. For some organizations where they're just doing the heavy lifting of putting all of these systems in place, but not really following through on all of the information that they're doing, because maybe it's too hard. They don't really know where to start. And so it's important to work with individuals or organizations that have that ability to help people walk through what are the exact tools that we should be looking at what are the what are the things that we should be honing in on in the surveys, and making sure that we are being transparent with our internal stakeholders, and making sure that they understand that we're working through this organizational change is not something that happens overnight, but we need to make sure that we're informing those in those invested parties, that we are doing something and we are taking action towards this off One times people like do a lot of this stuff in, you know, in one division or another, and then everybody else, you know if they're working in silos has no idea what's going on. And they're they feel that racial tension, or they feel that tension from the fact that it's just anxiety from ambiguity.

Thank you both for that. But that was definitely definitely insightful. And I can say what comes to mind is because I talk to the employees, right, because that's the community I build a black, indigenous a Latinx women, and it was like we, you know, I gave my feedback, yet they've done none of these things. I've talked to other co workers, who are similar in demographics as them, and they haven't seen any change, either. And they keep coming back with you surveys now. And you know, what, they have an open end. And I said, Well, why do you keep doing these if you aren't going to make any changes, right? Because the employees are seeing this. And so when you're like, well, we don't understand why they're leaving. If you're, you're continuing asking them what they need help with, and, and where their issues in the workplace. And you're not addressing them mine, when Jesse says some things take time, but they're also things that you can do in the interim, to let them know we're working on the longer term things and literally share that plan. Sometimes, so many organizations don't want to share what their diversity equity inclusion plan is for organization, they definitely don't share the numbers. But I can tell you, as a black employee, I can name I remember being the St. Louis office, for a large international engineering, construction and architecture firm, I could name all five black people. And those guys, and that included me and I wasn't even part of that office, we just ended up being renting space. And I was the only black person on my team. And so to really understand, you may be thinking legally, you're hiding the numbers, but you're black and other marginalized employees know what's going on, and they're talking. And so you really aren't changing anything by not disclosing what you're not changing anything, period, which is the point. But you're not hiding anything, because we already talked about it, we already know about it. And so the only person you're trying to save is really yourself. And at the end of the day, you probably aren't doing a great job of that, unfortunately, either. So I want to get into something else. We have a few minutes left, which is really on the accountability side, which is which is often lacking, and it's not there or it's it's pushed in places that generally have limited or no power and limited resources to get this work done. How do we bring about different types of accountability? We see NASDAQ is trying to hold accountability to companies that are listed on NASDAQ, we see certain laws in certain states and counties and cities like California passed a crown act well, you cannot legally say you can't hire me because my hair my afro is not or natural hair is not professional. What can we do around accountability? To get organizations to make these changes? What are your thoughts on that? And I'll start Jesse, like you're ready to go?

Well, I was gonna say to two things to your question. I think that there's still a lot of burden of education and emotional tax expected from marginalized identities to educate everyone else on their identity, instead of other interested parties taking that burden of education onto themselves, in making sure that they're going to, you know, research by and for the groups in question rather than, you know, asking an employee who's openly gay about pride month, or asking a racialized employee about Black Lives Matter. So I think that it's important to, for accountability, make sure that you are, you know, reaching out to organizations or individuals who have thought leadership in these spaces, because there's lots of them now. And that's, you know, a great thing to see. And also do this from a place of humility. We are people at the end of the day, and we are all going to make mistakes. I constantly find myself unlearning as much as I am learning. And I have this lived experience. But this is not necessarily what I was talking about five years ago before I started to do this work, because I didn't feel safe enough in my corporate spaces to be able to do so. And so it's important to understand my journey as much as it is understanding where you find yourself to be. I think that it's to just as point earlier, you know, 80% of people who call themselves allies think that they are an ally. But what does that actually mean? And do you actually know how to be an ally and act an ally ship with someone or group of individuals, but then understanding that when you call yourself an ally, you're still centering yourself, like no one should be calling themselves allies. That is a moniker that's reserved for the community that you act an ally ship with, first and foremost. And a lot of people forget that, because we're all about, you know, especially in North America, we love the eye, and ambition and ownership of, you know, challenges or what we call go getters. But there's a lot of humility in this work. And I think that if we brought more humility to leadership, as opposed to the ego, that this would actually work better and more sustainably and could have far reaching effects. Because the business case has been the business case for a very long time, really, to get past that. And in order for people to understand the reasons why this work matters.

Thank you so much for that, Jess. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, so there's, you know, a lot of talk about accountability. And I think for folks, including for me, when I was first hearing about it can feel really esoteric, and sort of what does that mean. And I'm really inspired by I participated in a workshop led by the People's Institute for survival and beyond. And they talked about writing a personal accountability statement, or within an organization, writing an accountability statement for your team or for the organization as a whole depends on your, you know, your size and scope, but really thinking about who sort of who's impacted by your behavior? And who do you need to be accountable to right, what is the community that you're serving, or that you're supporting you're giving voice to? And if your behavior goes sideways, or you don't follow through on your actions, who is actually most impacted by that? And to set up a mechanism where, how are you ensuring that you're receiving feedback, or you're being held to what you're saying? So I'll just say, for me, personally, you know, I'm an independent consultant, right, I work for myself. And so there could be, of course, in my work, I'm trying to be accountable to specifically bipoc employees, right when I'm working with institutions or organizations on equity and belonging, but I'm also thinking about I'm in close partnership, I use it usually collaborate with another independent consultant. And we try to have cross racial pairing. So usually, my co facilitators are black women. And thinking about that my work and how I show up is I also want to be accountable to my black female colleague, right. So how am I engaging in, you know, in collaborations with our clients? How am I showing up for my colleague, and really, with a mindfulness around that across racial dynamics? So I've been inspired by engaging in that work with the People's Institute to really write a personal accountability statement, right? What does it mean for me to be accountable? And how will I make sure that I'm being accountable, so it needs to be really action oriented, and clear and specific with the community that I'm, you know, supporting, lifting up with them in mind, not with me and sort of, I want to make sure that I achieve X, Y, Z, right. It's really about keeping the impacted folks at the center.
Thank you for that. And just you bring up a point I want to go into which is oftentimes, especially white men don't see a place for them. It diversity, equity, and inclusion work. And so I want to know, what role does being a white leader in an organization take when you're focused and looking at Dei? And I'll start with chess, and then I'll come to you Jesse.

Yeah, I would just say, as a white leader, you have a lot of power. And so I think there is there can be strength in that. And I absolutely, personally think that there's a lot of room for white men in this work. I would love to see more white men being outspoken about racial inequities about patriarchy, right. Because you have less to lose, right? There's less for you're gonna get less criticism, and then folks who have marginalized identities and so you can take you can push the envelope more. So if you are a white man, you know, on a board or on a leadership team, with other men with other white men. It would be fantastic if you were bringing them in, you know, and really helping them to see the importance of This work.

Thank you. And for that, Jesse, what are your thoughts?

So I completely agree with Jess, I think that it is really important to have people who have that, that perspective to be a part of the conversation as well. And it's also understanding that when you are a white leader, you have a greater sphere of influence than somebody who may not have that position. And also, because of the societies that we live in, you have also a greater sphere of influence. So it's also really important to, to lend that sometimes, you know, working in ally ship means giving the stage to somebody else, or offering somebody else the microphone, so to speak. And so it's important to understand that you have that ability and power to to share and bring other perspectives into the conversation into the room. And it's especially important, when, to justice point, when you sort of have less to lose, when you are the one person who's talking about these things, and you are that identity, it's seen less as. And understanding that that that was my lived experience, I didn't want to be the Latina talking about these things. And so it's important to to know that you have that power and use it in a way that uplifts us. All right.

Thank you both for joining me today. I love those answers. I absolutely agree. I love the personal statement part, as well as what you said just about the internal accountability. So everybody, if you're out there, and you're like, the barriers to progress, like why are we not seeing action, start with yourself, then look in your organization, and make those commitments. But more importantly, if your order can tie in accountability, some of you are already seeing that accountability being tied in from organizations like NASDAQ or government, again, as well as your board and stakeholders, and they're publishing it in your 10k report. But at the bare minimum, and it's not even, it's not the bare minimum. But on an individual level, which is the most powerful, what are your account before and like just said, as a white man, the EI does include you and your voice and your power has to be part of this dynamic in order to make progress and make change. And I'll say this, oftentimes, I find when I'm talking to white cisgendered men, they see dei as taking things away from them. And I want I want them to reflect on that. Imagine if you're fearing having something taken away from you. Imagine what it was like to be taken away from your homeland, from your country, come across the ocean, not knowing where you're going to never ever being returned. Imagine having the child you bear, the spouse that you jumped the broom with and culturally is what we do in black communities to jump through and we get married, literally separated from you for a price. Imagine living that fear every single day. And so the fear that you have is losing something intangible, but the fear that we have and have for generations and losing those around us, their lives and the ability to literally have them as a part of our lives. And so there's always the fear but the reality is, there's so much greater, greater when we all work together to really bring about what is now America and to break apart the systemic, um, policies and procedures and practices that we have in organism in organizations in government that really have to change and, and Jimsy is not waiting for so just to give you some dollars, just an n and i because like we say we've been making a case for it right. And the case still hasn't worked. Globally, companies are paid paying about $10 billion a year for global DNI lawsuits. $600 billion in annual corporate turnover costs, you can justify $600 billion in turnover costs, but you can't justify you know, making this personal level change and accountability and are you looking at $300 million none litigation monetary benefits in the US? As absolutely imagine if that was actually paid to people salary and close the pay gap. So everyone they could sell much for joining us just, um, any any closing thoughts you want to share?

Yeah, you just inspired me and Michelle, which is that I totally hear you on white leadership often worrying about having to give up power. But I would just say that it's helpful to come from that reinforces the mindset that there's not enough, there's not room for everybody. And I would say, it's really helpful to have the perspective that there's enough resources, there's enough for everybody. So you don't have to lose for other people to gain right, we can all be leaders, we can all get what we need. So getting rid of that sort of scarcity mindset, I think is really important. Because it really gets in the way when we're gripping, and we're saying, you know, I'm going to lose something, then that, to me, that's not really living out the life, the the world that we want, right? We don't want people to be in a place of fear and, and worried about losing power, who want to, for everyone to be empowered. So that's a closing thought for me. Thanks.
You're welcome. Jesse. Closing thoughts?

Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth. Your city is definitely not where we want to start. And even just reflecting on why we feel that fear, and why we have these these thoughts in our head, especially when it comes to, you know, unconscious bias of the whole thing. But they're all of these things running around in our heads and wherever we are sleepy, tired, hungry, that's where we used to make decisions that are our baselines. And if we don't do something to acknowledge and mitigate those biases, that's how they show up in the world. And that's how they become a part of our institutions and our systems. And we need to do extensive work in order to reflect the society that we have now in the US, as opposed to the society that was, you know, 400, I don't know how many years ago, it's, it's no longer about an a business case. It's about Are you still going to be relevant? And if that's not a bigger driver than fear of losing out, then you know, to Michelle's point, Gen Z is not waiting for anybody.

Exactly. So where can people find you Jesse? How can they connect with you?

So I am on LinkedIn, I am you can always check out the way we the way hyphen, we work.com or my personal Jessie santana.com. But usually LinkedIn is the way to go. I am trying to really push that as my place to be so yeah, definitely.

And how about you just?

Yeah, I would say the same LinkedIn is a greatt place to find me Jess McFarlane, you can email me Jess MacFarlane. consulting@gmail.com. But LinkedIn is the best place to find me.

See, we have some LinkedIn lovers. I'm number three. So you can definitely find me on LinkedIn as well. But you probably got to spell my name incorrectly. So I'm just gonna but it is Michelle with one l and h e y w ARD so definitely, definitely check us out. Both of you. Thank you so much for joining me today for kicking this off. Jess is coming back for a couple more times. I'm gonna see if I can snatch Jesse back as well. But we will be doing this series for the remainder of 2022 I can't believe it's 2020 I just graduated college the other year. I can tell you um, so everybody, have a great week and we will talk to you soon.

Thanks, Michelle.

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We need to build our organizations assuming that everyone's racist and build it so that we mitigate it and minimize it. What is the type of policies and procedures and structures that we can put into our organizations that end violence? I'm using the word violence more broadly thinking about the workplace, but it still hurts, it still hurts us in so many different ways.

That's why all of us need to be fighting to make our workplaces and to make our society at large, more racially just because we're all going to benefit from it.

Download the "What Is An A.L.L.Y?" Guide here: http://positivehire.co/ally/

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Learn 5 ways organizations can create an environment that encourages staff to vote. During a pandemic, employees will need to think ahead about election day. What are ways employers can help prepare their employees for election day.

Download the "What Is An A.L.L.Y?" Guide here: http://positivehire.co/ally/

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Mental health is critical right now especially for children. While parents are worrying so are their children. But what can parents do to help their children during these uncertain times?

Christina Broderick is clinically trained Licensed Social Worker, a Psychotherapist and a Certified School Social Worker. She’s worked in K-12 educational settings for nearly a decade. She is also the founder of  IgnitEDU.  It helps every student to learn, build and strengthen their mental health foundation within their education journey.

When Christina started working with students, she realized there’s a consistent gap that existed related to mental health. Christina established IgniteEdu which she’s the founder that helps every student to learn, build, and strengthen their Mental Health Foundation within their education journey.

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This was an interview to introduce one of our speakers for the Women of Color in STEM summit in Feb 2020

Are you wondering how to stop harassment?

If you’ve been struggling with not knowing how to interrupt everyday sexism, racism, and other microaggressions, then you’re in luck!

In this episode, I talk with Krystal Atha, entrepreneur and founder of Sembramos, who provide education & community to conscious leaders aiming to improve their capacity to cultivate organizations that are safe, inclusive, and equitable.

• Her 'why' starting in social justice and liberation ethics, and experience with intercultrual dynamics and international administration
• Then went into the Peace Corps, then journalism, starting her own nonprofit and working in tech and user experience
• Realized that she was trying to create safer spaces and the world a better place, but blindspot was doing the work "at home"
• Realized that her own organization was missing DE&I and had a lot of her own internal work to do before helping others
• Why it's important to develop strategies and safer spaces by not judging yourself or talking yourself out when facing microaggressions

Watch her summit talk at: https://summit20.womenofcolorinstem.com/speakers/krystal-atha/

Connect with her at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sembramos/

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/positivehireco/support

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This was an interview to introduce one of our speakers for the Women of Color in STEM summit in Feb 2020

Are you wondering how to stop harassment?

If you’ve been struggling with not knowing how to interrupt everyday sexism, racism, and other microaggressions, then you’re in luck!

In this episode, I talk with Krystal Atha, entrepreneur and founder of Sembramos, who provide education & community to conscious leaders aiming to improve their capacity to cultivate organizations that are safe, inclusive, and equitable.

Her 'why' starting in social justice and liberation ethics, and experience with intercultrual dynamics and international administration Then went into the Peace Corps, then journalism, starting her own nonprofit and working in tech and user experience Realized that she was trying to create safer spaces and the world a better place, but blindspot was doing the work "at home" Realized that her own organization was missing DE&I and had a lot of her own internal work to do before helping others Why it's important to develop strategies and safer spaces by not judging yourself or talking yourself out when facing microaggressions

Watch her summit talk at: https://summit20.womenofcolorinstem.com/speakers/krystal-atha/

Connect with her at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sembramos/

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/positivehireco/support

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This was an interview to introduce one of our speakers for the Women of Color in STEM summit in Feb 2020

Learn how to position yourself and your brand to get hired for jobs which are not posted.

In this episode, I talk with Tamara McLemore who quickly worked up to a PM role in IT through finding the right support.

• How mentors accelerate growth and creates new opportunities
• Leaning into personal power to build confidence and skills along the way
• Why it's important to have a culture that supports you
• From Tamara's coaching, most women have never asked for a raise, or negotiated additional benefits
• It's OK to move to different industries as long as you know what you bring to the table
• Understanding your net worth and formulating it into words to connect with your network on LinkedIn

Watch Tamara's talk from the summit at: https://summit20.womenofcolorinstem.com/speakers/tamara-mclemore/

Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaramclemorepmp

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Depending upon your organization’s culture, how do you position yourself for success so when opportunities arise, you’re ready? Better yet, how do you position yourself so that opportunities may be created specifically for you?

Watch her summit talk at: https://summit20.womenofcolorinstem.com/speakers/krystal-atha/

Connect with her at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sembramos/

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Corporate culture gatekeepers too often cause negative impacts on the careers of women of color. Today we'll discuss how to identify them, how to maneuver the workplace with them and how they can become an ally.

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Professional women of color STEM too often work in environments which are not only unwelcoming but hostile. The level of disrespect from coworkers and management cause many to leave. Today's episode discusses the hostile work environment at General Motors plant in Ohio.

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In this episode of Dear Corner Office learn about the unconscious biases women of color encounter in the workplace. Too often they are assumed to be the admin and not the engineer, scientist or IT professional.

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Latest episode of Dear Corner Office

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