Creating Inclusive Hiring and Work Practices | with Christabelle Feeney

Foreign. You're very welcome to the shortlist. My name is Johnny Campbell. I'm your host of today's episode and the CEO and co founder of Social Talent. I'm also the father of four boys, husband to Jill, dog owner to Maggie, who's sitting under me, who hopefully won't bark during the show. And if you're joining us live, you're very welcome. We welcome your comments, your discussion, your questions during the episode. You can join us on YouTube or LinkedIn if you're listening to a recording of this anytime you want to join the live show. If this is your first time on Social Talent, you're very welcome. You can find more about our previous 136 episodes by going to socialtown.com forward/the shortlist or checking our back catalog in your Spotify or Apple app or wherever you find your podcasts. So today's show is going to be talking all around what LinkedIn Learning posted as the number two priority for L and D programs around the world in 2023, and that is diversity, equity and inclusion. So it may seem surprising that in 2023, the year that it is so far, you know that it's turning out to be that DEI would still remain such a high priority for organizations all around the world. It is, and we're going to be digging into that this week, talking about inclusive hiring, inclusive work practices, how it's evolved, how it's come along, how to build diversity, equity and inclusion into every step of your hiring process and also into building, building it into your workplace practices. And to help us unpack these topics, I'm delighted to be joined by a guest we had on, gosh, 18 months ago, I think on the show. And that's Christa Balfini and she's the director of Employers for Change and she's joining us also from Ireland. Nice to have another Irish guest joining us this week. Christabel, so glad to have you back. I'm wondering if you might start by just reminding our audience a little bit about who you are, about employers for change and open doors, what the initiative does and who you work with and what your day to day is and why you ended up doing this job, why this is your passion.

Great. Yeah, thanks so much, Johnny. It's lovely to be back. I really can't believe it's been a year and a half since we spoke last and we had a good laugh at the fact that my life has changed dramatically since we spoke. In the meantime, I had a baby. So yeah, who am I? I, as you mentioned I'm the director of Employers for Change and Employers for Change. It's a program that really supports employers in the area of disability inclusion specifically. And I work within the Open Doors initiative. So Open Doors works much broader. We support participants from a variety of marginalised backgrounds and we do that with our member companies, driving DEI initiatives, the organisations and creating kind of impactful changes that result in diversified hiring processes and ensuring that, you know, people within the organization are supported and have that sense of belonging. I myself am really passionate about all things dei. I'm very passionate about disability in particular, because that's often an element within the DEI structures that gets totally lost. You're left behind. Prior to this, I had a colorful background. I actually worked in politics, but again with very much an emphasis and focus on equality and driving kind of social change and social justice. So it's great to be here today. I think this is a really timely and topical discussion. There's huge interest in the area of DEI more and more. Anybody who's on LinkedIn, I mean, every second post on there is talking about diversity, equity and inclusion and what that means for different organizations and how people can actually bring it to life within their organizations.

The summer of 2020 arguably reignited or sparked the renewed interest and focus in diversity, equity, inclusion with the murder of George Floyd and a lot of social unrest that happened that summer. And many people were nervous, even feared that it would just disappear after a year or two when normality returned, when people begun to forget about the horrendous injustices that were carried out that summer or were highlighted that summer and the very least. But you know, to see DE&I as the number two objective offer L&D programs for 2023, above digital fluency, above compliance, above hybrid working, above employee well being, above large scale upskilling and reskilling may seem a surprise to some of our listeners. But talk to me about what you're seeing and hearing. Does that, does that kind of priority focus resonate with you? Is that similar to what you feel out in the market working with employers? That it is, it remains a priority and still is a top priority for organizations.

It's a huge priority for organizations and as you said there, it's actually, it's grown, I would say, over the last three years. I think there's a few reasons for that. Like you mentioned there about, you know, the impact of certain events actually on, on people and hearing the stories, like what happened with George Floyd in America, it was really horrific. But I think for companies, as time has moved on. They're growing more and more in their understanding of the impact for them as a, as a business as well as an, as an employer. So for a long time we've talked about equality. That was kind of the driving force. And equality was very much based on let's treat everybody the same, let's kind of follow our legal obligations was the key focus for a lot of employers. Now we're moving more towards seeing the value actually in diversity, equity, inclusion and belong. And I think we're seeing a lot more about belonging recently as well. A lot of that comes down to the fact that companies realize a, that they're the employees and the potential employees are no longer looking for a job with, you know, a pension, just, or just concerned with what's the paycheck going to be. People actually want to know what your company stands for. They want to know what your values are. They want to know that when they actually sign up to your organization that they're going to be valued value driver, that individual sense of value for people within an organization. And there's been lots of research as well, which I think is another driving factor in this. Like there was a Deloitte report done in, in 2020 and again that found that organizations that were truly inclusive had a true kind of desire to create DEI within their organizations, that they were actually eight times more likely to achieve better outcomes. We've also seen from other research that actually where you have good DEI strategies and there's a sense of belonging within an organization, you're going to reduce your Turnover by about 50%. Like that is huge for any employer and organization. And that job performance increases right up to 56%. So there are now multiple, multiple drivers in this and multiple reasons for companies to say, actually this has to be, it's not that we even want to be anymore. It actually has to be a key driver for us to be successful and to retain talent.

Yeah, I think you're right. I remember reading an article last year from Harvard Business Review that talked about leadership and its evolution over the years and the role of a CEO. And it highlighted, you know, that 30 years ago, 20 years ago, a CEO was measured by her financial performance. You know, was she able to deliver the results of the business, was the stock price able to rise, et cetera, et cetera, and that today you might nail that. But these days the CEO is being asked what her political beliefs, where does she stand on social justice issues, where she. Has she done in her past, you know, what history does she have? And you might be nailing them financial metrics. But if you don't have a comfortable background, outlook and opinion that the directors and the customers and the employees respect, you're gone. And that just never happened before. You know, that piece you mentioned around the employee value, but even the shareholder value they place on where you stand on these issues, what you're doing to try and combat these issues, it's never been more important. You know, probably, you know, you look at the correlation and the causation piece, but, you know, you will attract better people. You know, you're more likely to attract. To attract people. Because as you said, the surveys are showing increasingly in the last three years that employees are being more and more attracted to companies who are clear in their stance on these issues, who are doing the right thing to try and drive more equity across their workplace and also the societies that they serve and work. And this has become a hot issue. You know, often, in many cases, a hotter issue in certain demographics than salary would be in terms of a motivator to move jobs. So talk to me about the kind of the meat of it. Right. We progressed before we went online, we were briefly discussing how the world has changed in the last five, 10 years. We had a meeting last week to discuss this. When we looked at the curriculum that we have on our platform around diversity, equity, inclusion, and in the early days that we started developing curriculum eight years ago, nine years ago on this topic, a lot of it was about what we could do. There was a lot of aspiration why you should do it. And there was a. It was kind of lacking in the. How. There weren't a whole lot of brilliant examples of how you build an inclusive workforce. We all agreed you needed one. We all agreed diversity was important, but it was lacking. And I feel that that's changed. There's so many more concrete examples of how companies have done it, what works, what doesn't work, what they've tried, what they've experimented in. And, you know, we chose the topic of inclusive hiring to start us off today. Can you walk me through today, Christabel, from a 2023 perspective, what is good inclusive hiring? What does it look like? What does it not look like?

Yeah. So what's interesting, I suppose, is we actually open doors and employers for change. We carried out research last year. It was with the Atlantic Technological University in Sligo, what used to be Sligo, it, and it was specifically on this. So we really are. Our drive and our focus was to create a toolkit that would enable employers to put practical steps in place to create an inclusive hiring and recruitment process. And that looked to the nine protected grounds under the Equality Acts from an Irish perspective. But the steps, they're included in it, they're relevant to any organization anywhere, I would say. And it looks at kind of the key and the core parts of any recruitment process. So like the first element is your advertisement. The first time somebody is going to think about applying for a role, they're going to look at your job advertisement. And for a lot of people, when they go first of all to the hiring site, it's not accessible, right? So that's the first thing. The second thing that came up from people was the stock imagery. The use of stock imagery. How frustrating and how tokenistic that actually is. So a lot of organizations, you know, they have their careers page, they have these lovely images of people who all look different and very diverse. And then the person goes into the organization. It's not like that at all. So I'd encourage organizations and employers to stop doing that and ensuring that when you're putting those advertisements out there that they're very much, you know, competency based. You're being very clear about what the requirements are. Gone are the days when we're just going to copy and paste standard information into every job advertisement. Like we've all seen it. Strong communication skills, you know, maybe you don't actually have to talk to anybody else the organization. Maybe it's email, maybe it's presentation, whatever it is. So just being very, very clear on that, ensuring the language that you're using as well. So, you know, like gender neutral language, really important, avoiding jargon too. And I'd also say being clear that actually you're advertising roles for your organization. You're not meant to advertise a perception of the individual you think is going to fit it, because we do that as well sometimes. So there's lots that can be done in that. Also when we're talking about, you know, the application side of things, how people can apply for those roles, looking at that given options as to how a person can make that application if somebody needs it, in an alternative format, for example. And I'd also say it's important that you're stating your commitment and you should be doing that even at the advertisement stage. We should be stating our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. We should be providing opportunities for people to request reasonable accommodations if they have a disability, for example. And we very much want to ensure that we're giving all candidates from diverse backgrounds the very best opportunity to put themselves forward for those roles and encourage those applications. So actually you'll see more and more now on different job applications. Kind of a line that says if you don't fulfill all of the requirements of the above role, but you would like to apply, we would encourage you because sometimes we know that people from different backgrounds will actually deselect themselves from that application even though they could be a great candidate. So as much encouragement as you can give as possible. And then I'd say around the interviews, the interviews are so important. Again, diversity of your interview panel, making sure that your interview panel are properly educated around dei, your company's policies and DEI as well before they start those interview processes. Asking people competency based questions, avoiding things like, you know, two pronged questions. People are under pressure. If you have somebody who's neurodiverse, for example, if you have somebody for whom English isn't their first language, it can be very, very difficult to process the those two pronged questions in that high pressure kind of scenario. And again, offering the accommodations. And similarly, when you're bringing somebody in and you're onboarding them, when you're even getting to that stage of the process, what are you doing then? How are you ensuring that that transition period is fluid for the individual and that you're providing the same standard of supports that you provided right through the hiring process because you don't want that to end. What happens is, you know, companies put huge effort into these hiring drives. They'll do all the things right around their DUI for those the person is taken on. If there's no follow through, you're going to end up with having conversations about performance when actually it's about the person not being adequately supported as opposed to it being a performance problem.

A few weeks ago we had Stacy Gordon speak at the ERF conference here in Dublin, a recruiting conference, talking about inclusive hiring. And she made an excellent point of thought which talked about the style of interview that you actually have. And she pointed the fact that the majority of organizations still have a screening out approach to interviewing where you're looking for reasons why someone would not be suitable, trying to find the problems, the errors, the gaps, etc. And that know to be more inclusive and also be more skills based. So even dropping the whole DNI conversation for a second, focusing on trying to find skills to do the job rather than experience, which most of us have to do for most professions these days because there aren't enough people with the experience out there that you have to have a more screening in approach. Yeah, is that something you you've talked to employers about. And for you, what does screening in versus screening out mean?

Yeah, I think it's a really good point. Like when we're talking about screening in, I think we're looking at understanding the diversity of applications, actually appreciating that not every application is going to look the same. Reducing our expectation, maybe even removing our expectation that applications are going to fit into this little box of our perception of what a success and a role is going to look like and really open up our mindsets to the fact that you could have two individuals who have very different qualifications. That doesn't necessarily decipher which is going, which person is going to be better qualified to actually do the job. Because skills, as you said, are so important for people from marginalized backgrounds in particular, if they haven't had the opportunity to actually gain experience, then it's very, very difficult to enter the jobs market at all. So really looking at CVs from the perspective of look at the value, the diversity of this individual, their skill set, how they've obtained those skills, look at the value that's going to add to our organization. Not looking at this is our organization, they need to fit into it. And that kind of falls into that similarity bias. And this is an interesting one because I've had had conversations with companies where we talk actually about culture Fit, because culture fit is a big one. Johnny, in I think being a blocker for people getting into organizations. And when organizations talk about culture Fit this, they often say, oh, well, you know, the person needs to be very good culture fit. And that's a strong criteria for selecting them. And when you try to drill down into what that actually means, different people have kind of different attitudes or different responses. But it all comes back to the idea that people actually are looking for somebody who's like them. And if we all are the same and think the same and look the same, you're losing that kind of diversity of thought diversity of what people can bring to your organization. And for any organization that's got a customer focus as well, you're not going to interact very well with your customers because you're not going to represent them. People are different, we're all different. So I think really removing that kind of similarity bias, even from, you know, CVS and all of that, like, again, some people, without even realizing it, could look at a CV and they might say, oh, they, that person has attended the same university as me, or they did the same degree as me, they'd be a great fit for the role. It's not a good criteria for getting the right person job fit.

I totally agree. It's funny, you know, we hate the phrase values fit, our culture fit, but we use values fit. But value fit on its own doesn't begin to tell the story because companies I find still have, if you don't mind me saying, bs, values. So Erin Meyer wrote a great book about this. When she talked about, she was talking about Netflix's culture and she talks about their definition of values and she gives great examples of a good value and a bad value. For example, she talks about how a bad value will be something like we value respect. You might say, why is that a bad value, Johnny? But she argues it's a bad value because who doesn't value respect? Like, you know, like you're going to meet someone. Oh no, I, I'm big into disrespect. That's my personal thing. So will I be a fit? Of course no one's out there, no company's out there looking for people to value disrespect. For point being, a value should be something that in the moment allows someone to make a decision. So for example, one of Amazon's values and Netflix's values has been frugality. Where you go like, you know, if faced with a decision, we opt for frugal. That's our company's value. And if that's your company's value, it is fair to assess for that value because you look for people who have experienced decision making in that environment where there are two forks in the road, at least you can go. And you want people who are more aligned to the decision making process in your organization. They can come from any sort of background, they can have various different universities, they come from non university, different cultures, etc. But it's more the decision making and the value alignment. You can build great assessments for that. But I think, you know, when people say culture fit, you're dead right. They talk about, you know, familiarity and similarity bias. But even there's a danger if you just say, well, it's value fit. They just replace the word value for cultures and still mean the same thing. I think there's not enough work done to really dig into what are the values and are they, are they actually going to help us make better decisions around hiring or is it just something that we use as a proxy for culture? But you find that's a still a challenge, that even if you change the name, people aren't, they're missing the point around what you're assessing for.

I Think, I think there, I think you have to do a lot of work with companies and with teams that there's self reflection. I think you need, I suppose to work with people to bring them on their own path to actually understand and where they're kind of going a little bit wrong. And we in open doors have actually done that. We've, we've done that kind of inclusive recruitment training with companies where we've done things like walking debates which are really great because it, it gets people to really delve into, you know, what their thought process is and see as well the diversity on teams of people agreeing or disagreeing. And I think you need to do that because awareness raising and awareness building and kind of one way conversations are not actually going to do it. They're just not human. But you know, human nature is that we, we have to feel like we've really come to this decision to some degree by ourselves or on our own accord in order for real change, I think to happen. So I do think organizations are very open to all of this. As you said at the very start, like there's a huge appetite within organizations around DEI and I think there's a huge understanding that this has value, added value for the organization. But it just, it's really important that it's not all simply oh, let's just raise awareness. Because awareness and understanding aren't the same and we, you just need a lot more self reflection and deep thought on it.

So we've talked a bit about inclusive hiring, which is the front door, right? So it's saying how do you make sure that your front door policies are the most inclusive so you can arguably create more diversity in your organization. But what about once you're in, talk to me about the work practices that you see employers focusing on or that you recommend they focus on first to drive more inclusive environments and to create that sense of belonging.

Yes, this is interesting because actually only last week I had a conversation with an organization and it kind of came about in the conversation that diversity had happened organically right within the organization. And that's the case for a lot of organizations. Depending on the type of roles that they have and where they're based, diversity can just happen. But that kind of inclusion and equity piece, it is an active decision you have to make within the organization and it is something that you have to build for once a person is actually hired. So I would always say to organizations, what are your policies? So do you have a DEI policy? Who actually knows about it? How are you sharing it? So when somebody Starts with an organization, what type of information is shared with them? Do you have things like your internal networks? So again, and we spoke about this before the start the podcast Johnny, about you've got lots of organizations that have kind of ergs and internal networks. And they're a huge asset to creating that deeper sense of kind of equity and belonging within the organization. But they have to be utilized properly. So for a long time there was onus is sort of being placed on your di ergs and internally to really drive inclusion within the organization. The companies who are doing it well are actually involving their ergs in the core policies and processes. So, you know, what's our hiring process like? Well, let's talk to our ergs. Let's actually talk to our people. Let's get them involved because people want to be involved in the decisions that are happening that are actually going to impact them. And the organizations that are creating that true sense of kind of inclusion and belonging, they're doing that. They were involving people from the get go. That's really important value. Every person wants to be valued in the organization. And last week I was kind of on this discourse where people were talking about kind of inclusion of belonging and what does that mean? And we see all these quotes on LinkedIn where people try to basically summarize what DEI means in about six words. And I think you really lose the depth of what it means when you try to do that. But I was saying to them, when I think about inclusion and belonging, I think about how you actually make somebody feel. So how does somebody feel when they actually start in your organization? Do they feel that there's somebody they can reach out to? Do you have a buddy system within the organization for your employees? Do you have very clear reasonable accommodation policies that an individual with a disability knows about? Maybe you could go further than that. Like I know, for example, I was at an event this morning in Wicklow with a representative of Mr. Price. And Mr. Price has won multiple awards over the last 18 months for work that they've been doing. And they were talking about the reasonable accommodation passport, right? This is something that's been utilized by bank of Ireland, lots of other organizations to accommodate predominantly employees with disabilities. But they've actually broadened it out to all employees where a person can actually come to their manager using this kind of process, talk to the manager about an adjustment that they need in their work because of a personal circumstance. Maybe, you know, it's, you've got care and facilities, maybe somebody in your family has become ill. Whatever it might be. But again, it's creating a safe space for an individual to actually talk to their manager, somebody in work and get work to actually fit in with their lives as much as anything else. And that's positive for your staff turnover as well because you're much more likely if something changes for you in your life or if there's a barrier that you're facing, you're much more likely to go and speak to your manager in that scenario. Whereas if you don't have something like that built in, if people aren't aware of your policies, if they don't feel like they, they're included and they belong, they're much more likely to go and look to another organization where they will, you know, agree.

And just for our, our audience inside Ireland, Mr. Price, a large international retailer, kind of discount retailer, has a significant presence here in Ireland. Just to kind of give, give some context to our audience in case they're wondering, is this one person who employs a lot of personal. Mr. Price Doing a wonderful job. So I want to talk to you about a dilemma that a recent guest raised on the podcast. I thought was really interesting. And this guest brought up the fact that you can have an extremely diverse organization but no sense of inclusion or belonging. Equally, you can have a very inclusive organization where everyone feels like they belong, but there's no diversity. How do you reconcile that kind of, that dilemma that one does not equal the other? First of all, do you agree that one does not necessarily equal the other? And how do you reconcile those, those things?

Yeah, like of course, one, one doesn't equal the other. I think it's, I think it doesn't, it's a dual approach. It's funny, I again was having the exact same conversation with somebody last week. I think one can compliment the other and the ability, you know, of an organization to both create a sense of belonging and to create a diverse workforce. So for example, in some industries you see quotas, right. Being introduced and the idea of the quota is to get a much more immediate sort of reaction and an immediate result. Whereas if you're putting kind of policies in place in your organization, you are more likely to attract to talent. It's, it's a, it's a softer approach and it probably has much more long term value. Similarly, you might have, you know, a diverse organization and as a result of that you're starting to see changes in your, your policies that are going to create a sense of belonging. So I don't necessarily. It's kind of like the, the whole chicken and Egg thing. Like it's very much that one will impact the other and it can go either way. So sometimes it's that companies put a huge emphasis on creating those kind of internal policies to drive dei and as a result that's the driver for people to actually join the organization. But, but it can be, it can be the other way around either. I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it's a black and white. You need to do one first. I think it depends on the starting point. Every organization is going to be totally different and it's going to be totally different for like a small or medium enterprise compared to a multinational and the approach that they're going to take, that's going to work for them.

I like that because I think people often lose the fact that you have to perhaps do different things to create diversity. Then you would have to create inclusion, that doing all your work for diversity won't mean you get inclusion. Doing all the work for inclusion won't mean you get diversity. You have to look at different tactics that are going to achieve those different aims. And there's a lot of overlap. Don't get me wrong. I find personally that, you know, looking more at equity tends to drive both objectives, diversity and inclusion. Because if you build more equitable processes, more equitable workforce, you know, will come from that because you'll be, you know, you will generally attract people who would, you know, who gravitate themselves towards your organization because you are being more equitable than others. And that will create a much more inclusive environment. Again, not exclusively on its own, but we've had that argument put to us in the past. I want to come back though, full circle, if you don't mind, to the inclusive hiring piece, because obviously you can bring in a diverse workforce by having an inclusive hiring process. It doesn't mean you have an inclusive work environment, but let's say it's a step towards it. A big issue that we're hearing this year is the development of more mobility opportunities, opportunities for talent to move around their own company. And, you know, this is a big thing to progress people who've come into the business, whether they're, whether they're marginalized or not marginalized, but to try and attract talent after 18, 24 months, when they get to that point where they feel the itch to move on. Companies are doing a lot more in the last couple of years to drive more career mobility in their own organization. And it hit me recently when I was interviewing for a role that we had, and I had an internal applicant, that the process is typically not very equitable in that an external candidate has a huge number of advantages over an internal candidate. They typically are interviewing for many roles and therefore there's a lot more practice. They may be represented by a third party agency or expert that's giving them coaching, advice how to prepare for that. And the internal candidate, who may have been very loyal, done a great job for the organization, done fantastic stuff, they haven't written a CV or resume in years. They no interview prep for years. They're not being coached to the same degree as the external applicant. Have you come across that issue where you're trying to drive more equity internally for hiring? Because there seems to be, you know, a lot of focus on making it more inclusive for different types of marginalized people. But they're all external and we kind of forget this, this huge audience of hopefully people we hired last year, two years ago that maybe had, were quite diverse from different backgrounds and we're not providing them with the same, with the equity required to give them an opportunity for these roles. Has that come up in your conversations with employers? Do you see it yourself? It's something you think about.

I wouldn't say that that particular scenario that you're talking about really has come up. I have seen organizations where they've had a focus maybe on like their, their clients, their service users. You know, their focus has been on kind of DEI in that area. Like I'm even thinking about third level institutions where they're very much focused on, you know, their, the inclusivity and the, the policies that they have for students. But actually they hadn't, it had never occurred to them maybe that they should be doing this internally for their own staff, for their employ, their own employees, and how are they supporting them, be it at the hiring stage or, or promotion or whatever it might be. But I think it's a really interesting point that you're making. The only thing I suppose that I would say about, about that is that you also have the other side where you know, internally your, your internal employees will probably have a much better understanding of, you know, the organization's values. They'll have a much better understanding of the expectations of different roles in the organization between. Because I think, I think when you work internally in an organization, you do have much better knowledge and understanding of the expectations of any specific role than what you can ever try to outwardly explain to a new person. So there's probably a little bit of an up and down in terms of Balancing on that. But it is an interesting point and it isn't being honest, something specifically that I have seen or that I have been asked about, but, but I, I think that the scope there certainly for companies to ensure that they're given the same time, effort and value to progress on their existing employees as they are to actually hire a new talent, because that comes back to longevity and staff turnover. Again, you know, and that's, that's a big expense for companies.

It is. And I think the danger of not doing that is that we see attrition for marginalized individuals is higher. So you have this challenge of your being perhaps successful in your hiring efforts to bring in a more inclusive, a more diverse workforce. But then within your organization you are churning more of the, of the marginalized staff members because they just feel like they're not, not marginalized, but they're, they feel like they're, they're just not represented in the organization as much. And then as they leave on a faster rate, the problem gets worse for people who are left because they feel even more alone and, and not part of the, the same community. So you have this vicious circle. You know, I know that a lot of, a lot of companies have gone to great efforts to reverse this, you know, with big initiatives. Again, big multinationals have bigger budgets to do this. And you hear the stories where they're, you know, particularly taking, let's say underrepresented groups which tend to be in, let's say their hourly staff or their, their manufacturing, our delivery kind of staff, and they're trying to upscale those talents to work in, let's say more the corporate roles or software engineering roles or whatever they might be. So providing the initiatives, which is brilliant, I think, you know, deliberately putting the training in place and I've used it several times in this podcast. But Amazon have an initiative where they're upskilling employees to be software developers. And 60% of the people who've taken that program are their hourly workers in their warehouses. And for someone like that, you end up doubling your salary at the end of it. Like it's, the significance is unbelievable. So they end up solving a DNI problem on the kind of in the software engineering space by moving staff from warehouse where they have the opposite. They typically only get people from underrepresented communities applying for the jobs, but they're able to make it more equitable across the workforce by saying, well, let's make sure that the average salary is improving by upskilling people from this team to move them over to this team. But I think there's, there's a gap there in the human side where having the skills is only one part of it. You know, are you networked? Do you, do people know who you are to get the position? Do you have the skills to pass the internal interview, get the job? Are you going to be successful in your first six months? Do you. The confidence, do you maybe suffer from imposter syndrome coming in there because you've never had that opportunity? I think we, we do focus on the skilling, which is fantastic. But I just see myself, the, the, the real story is a little bit more complex when you look on the ground of an individual person who perhaps is an hourly worker who's doing online training to be a software developer. That by itself won't necessarily make her a software engineer, make her successful software engineer. And I think sometimes we forget about the resources there again, from an, from an equitable perspective, equity perspective, you know, maybe the person who's doing the hiring and software engineering would never imagine, you know, the life that this person leads and the challenges that they have because they're perhaps quite different to their own. You know, what are you, what are you seeing around, you know, opening up more perspectives, you know, to show that so more people can understand different communities, different backgrounds. Beyond the tactical stuff, where I'm making it more inclusive processes as well, what about the awareness side to just better understand that not everyone is the same as you, whoever you is, and that people come from different backgrounds of different family circumstances, different things going on, different abilities, different strengths, different weaknesses. But what's, what's happening in, in the workplace around that?

I think that there's a few different things happening. And actually, based on what you said there, there's just two quick points I'd make. One is there's every opportunity for organizations to provide a chance for applicants, internal and external, to give feedback on the process. I don't think enough organizations actually do that. We may not like, we may not like the answers. We may not be comfortable with asking the questions on the basis that we don't really want to hear the answers. But actually, if you want to create real change, you need, you need to give people an opportunity to give feedback on how they found the application and the interview process and ask people internally and externally. Really important to. The other thing that occurred to me there as well was we do a lot of job shadow days, and there's no reason why there can't be something like that done internally within an organization to give people a better understanding of the expectations of different departments, the type of roles that are being advertised, what the process really is for selection. Because at the end of the day when people have all of the information, they're going to be much better equipped to actually put themselves forward and put themselves forward for promotion and all of that and give people a much more equitable opportunity to gain those promotions. So they're just the few things that I would say on that in terms then of kind of giving people that understanding of different life experiences of other individuals. I think mentoring is a great thing. We do that in Open Doors. We've got a mentorship program and it means that member companies, their staff can get paired up with participants from marginalized backgrounds and they support those individuals with, you know, their career progression, looking for interviews, all of that. But it really gives you a much better understanding of the challenges that people face, the barriers that people can face because of their background. And I don't think you'll beat that actually, that kind of real life, one to one engagement with a person. So I'd really encourage people to get involved in that and give time to it. I also think, you know, doing kind of placements and working with different organizations, like if we're constantly putting our, our opportunities up on the same boards of the same places, we're going to get the same result. So I think really directly engaging with organizations who support people from marginalized backgrounds is really important and it builds that awareness piece and, and it's a two way education piece where the organization is learning and you're also giving an opportunity to somebody who just needs the experience, who just needs to get their foot in the door. So while it's really important that all of this stuff is being done in the main and the mainstream, I think organizations really need to be going beyond that as well and doing very kind of specific programs and partnerships to ensure that they're getting that in depth knowledge and understanding.

I love that last point we had about a year ago, Nick May, who's VP of TA from Equinix in the U.S. join us. And he talked about how he solved the hiring challenges of, of his organization by hiring from underrepresented communities. And the, the tactic he used was to work with organizations like Open Doors to say, well, I don't have the expertise, I don't have the understanding of these, this community's needs, I don't where they hang out, how I can basically attract them, you know, any raise I need to provide in my process or in the job for them. And he said his success was solely down to identifying new organizations to work with and leaning on their expertise. He was the employer, he had the jobs, but they had access to the talent. They understood that community and were able to make that, make that transition. And you know, as somebody used to teach people how to search and attract talent, you know, people come to me looking for the magic words to search for, to find diverse talent. And time and time again the real stories are partner with organizations who understand these communities, ask them for advice, lean into them. It's not about just sending your jobs back to Open Doors, it's understanding those communities, leaning into organizations like Open Doors to learn more about those communities. It's not just about the advertising process. But then on your first two points, I love that the first point you made around getting feedback, if I can add to that, I talk to organizations, we do get feedback and you go, when do you survey people? And they might only survey people after they do an interview, but there might be a whole problem in the application process they'll never uncover because you did. You don't actually survey people until they get to a point. So what if they can't get to that point? You know, and so you're missing. So I think surveying is so right, but I think it's serving as early in the process as possible. Capture as much feedback because you know, you'll only get, you could miss the really important information because nobody can get to that point. The people who really struggle never get to the point where you survey them, which is really, really important. So I think you brought up some excellent points there, Christopher.

Thanks. Yeah, and that's, that's a really great point. I'm delighted that you said that because it's so true. Like if somebody never gets to that point and their, their feedback is as valuable as anybody else's because they didn't get there. Actually these are the people we need to find out what was the barrier because a lot of the time it's barriers at the organization or unknowingly is placing in front of individuals. But yeah, and I think, I think as well, Johnny, like we, we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, what, what companies should be doing when they've taken people on and you know, when they're in the organization. And it occurred to me there, like we see a lot of posts online, right. And very well intentioned and employers are, you know, celebrating different holidays, different cultural and religious holidays. But I think it's really important that they're making sure that that's drilled through their whole organization. So I know, you know, they've been, it's been great. We've seen lots of posts around Ramadan and all of that. But I think it's important like that employers are thinking about, well, actually, what are we doing in the organization? Have we thought about during this period? We're not expecting people, you know, to come in and do an interview at 3, 3pm in the day or we're not, you know, making it pizza, pizza Friday at 2:00'. Clock. And that's our, our only social interaction with her employees. So there's just lots. There's, there's actually so much that companies need to do and it's not enough to be just putting a post online to tell, tell people, well, we're inclusive. It has to be more than that. Like, what are you actually doing? How do people feel when they go into work and how do they feel when they're leaving at half five to go home?

I love those really specific examples. There are things that don't immediately jump to mind and you think you're doing the right thing, but you're missing the whole point and step into someone's shoes who actually has to do an interviewer. Avoid the staff session for a couple of months because it doesn't suit them and they, again, you know, you're less likely to feel like you belong. You're not going to feel like you're included in that situation. Christopher, I'm super conscious of time. I got so much advice and knowledge and insight from you and I really thank you for that. But I gotta push just a little bit further and ask you for the second time ever on the show, to leave our audience with one piece of advice that you feel will help anyone listening. Whether it's something from your own career that you've garnered through your own experience, or it's been passed on to you by somebody wiser who had a great bit of, bit of experience to pass to you. What's the, what's the piece of advice you'd like to leave our audience with today?

I think probably the best advice is, is very simple and it's listening, listen and engage with people in your organization. Actually be there for people to give honest feedback. And don't see that feedback as a criticism, but understand it's there actually to improve your organization for more people, for you to have more diverse talent and for people to actually feel valued when they come to work. So really giving people that opportunity to support you and give you feedback and really feel like they're part of every process within your organization and they're not just kind of being used maybe for your, for, for the diversity of your career site and all of that. But give people a real voice and really listen to them.

I love that. It's, it's brilliant advice and I know from my experience again, back to the pushing it one step further, you know, get the feedback but make sure that be respectful of the feedback. But I've like has been said to me by wiser people than me is to say, you know, when feedback is precious, don't just take it and run. You got to come back to people and explain what did you do with the feedback. I think, you know, people give you feedback but if they keep, they keep giving you feedback and they don't see anything happening, they don't know what's been done with this feedback, they'll stop giving you the feedback. But you want to say I listened and here's what I did. And it might be I'm doing nothing for these reasons because we can't right now. But that's enough to go, okay, I do value it and actually I thought about it and we have made a decision of what we're going to do with that feedback. I think that's, that's equally important to close that loop out.

Yeah.

Christmas, it's been great to have you back on the show. Hopefully it won't be so long to have you back. But Kimir, you've had good reasons to be to be off the air for the last 18 months. And so we leave you to your additional responsibilities. Thanks for joining us again. Great insights, super practical, practical. And I hope to see you soon.

Thanks very much, Johnny. Thank you. Bye.

And thank you to you listening here today for joining us. We're going to be basically back with our next episode. Not next week. We'll be taking a little bit of a break next week for the next couple of weeks. Actually it's busy around here in Social talent. But we'll be back with the next live episode on the 17th of May and I'm going to meet George, joined by Giorgio Panasi. And I'm really excited about our chat, but I'm going to hold back on what we're going to be chatting about for the next couple of weeks. But you can enjoy our back catalog of 137 episodes including this by going to socialtown.com forward/the shortlist. Searching back through our back catalog, we've mentioned lots of previous episodes throughout today's episodes on lots of different topics and there's tons there smart people. I'm just the person who ask the questions, although I too often throw in my own opinion as well. But hopefully you'll find some great episodes, great insights to go back on and revisit again. But we'll see you again live in about three weeks on that May 17 episode. Until then, take care.

Sam.