Diversity, equity and inclusion | with Johnny Campbell

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Shortlist. My name is Johnny Campbell. I'm the CEO and co founder of Social Talent. I'm your host for the Shortlist, our weekly podcast and live show that broadcasts on YouTube and LinkedIn every Wednesday at 4pm UK Irish time. You're very welcome to this week's show. We're going to be discussing diversity, equity and inclusion. It's just more than a year on since George Floyd's murder in the US last summer in 2020 that sparked a renaissance for inclusivity and diversity tactics in large organizations. And this week we're going to bring you a special panel that we hosted not long after that in November 2020 with four leaders who came from large companies, SAP, Oracle, OLX Group and Sodexo, to a session that we ran to discuss what's happening and what are the kind of practical things that organizations can do to drive more diverse hiring and more inclusive practices in their organization. Our panel today is going to be discussing metrics, the obstacles to diversity, some of the international considerations they have in their roles as leaders of large organizations. But first, as we always do, I want to get into this week's news. So thanks Niall. This week's news I want to highlight an article that was published in Forbes and it contained an interview with one of our own speakers on the socialtown platform, the fantastic Joanna Abayi. And if you haven't heard Joanna speak or read her work, you really should check it out. And this article was published in June. It is entitled how to ensure your company's anti racism work is effective, not performative. And we'll put a link in the show notes and also live. To those of you listening right now, in this the interviewer questioned Joanna on, you know, what's happened a year on and our organization still putting as much effort and focus into this topic. And unfortunately Joanna was sharing with the author that she sees that the interest in this topic has dropped. It is not the same as it was in the first six months following the murder of George Floyd. And of course the hope is that that is just a blip and the same interest is there at an organizational level. But the worry is that that interest is going to keep dropping off and it reminds us and the article points to the fact that a lot of senior leaders think that diversity, equity and inclusion is something that you fit. Once you put a big load of effort into it, you announce that you're now done and finished and you move on. Whereas in truth, it's a thing that never gets Fixed or as Joanna says in the article, it is a journey, not a destination. I think this is really present and the article goes down into a lot of detail on this and it's a really great read to kind of remind ourselves about what are the practical steps you can take. There's some really practical things in here around how, how you can develop an anti racism kind of culture in your organization. Some really practical steps that Joanna has obviously used in organizations she works with as part of the organization she leads. For example, asking your staff what they think, but doing so through a mediary, not going directly because that might not be a safe space. Doing research in terms of what is happening, how has it moved on in the last year, next year doing the same thing, using more analytics to develop a long term plan, plan to track metrics and when you deal with things like microaggressions, don't just give people tips on how to overcome microaggressions, but deal with the root cause of them. She mentions the importance of cultivating allyship, something we've spoken about in this show before with Salma Awardani and she gave us great hints on how to do that. And Joanna continues to that by talking about how you can build a culture of safety, psychological safety, through genuine allyship that isn't about people trying to impress other people as well and to get out of your bubble. One of the main barriers she sees is time organizations are up against to fill vacancies quickly and they go the cheapest and fastest route, which isn't always the best way to fix this. And focusing on recruiting as being one of the front doors of diversity for an organization. It's a great read and a great reminder of the work that still needs to be done and a reminder that the effort that may have been put in a year ago, great faith and good intention, has to be continued. It reminds me of something that another good speaker on this topic gave me a good analogy to use a few years ago around exercise. And I've used it on this show before, but I'll use it again. We all agree that being fit and healthy is a good thing, but agreeing on it isn't the same as being fit and healthy. Being fit and healthy requires decisions you make every single day. To exercise, to walk, to eat healthily, to not eat poor food. It isn't something you can just say, well I agree with that, so it's done. It's an active thing you have to do every single day. And creating an anti racist culture, a diverse and equitable culture, that's inclusive requires that thought. So let's move on to our panel. And before we do, a quick reminder for those of you looking to check out a full list of the shows we've had in the past to reference any of the previous shows we've covered on diversity, equity, inclusion and allyship, etc. Please go to SocialTalent.com the Shortlist, where you'll find a list of our live shows, the videos you can watch, or links to the podcast which you can find on Spotify or Apple. So that brings me to the panel that we ran last November. Really relevant panel very much today and will be I think for some time on the panel. As I said, we had four fantastic and I won't use the word expert lightly, but four individuals who really are responsible for a huge volume of hiring for very well known organizations. We had IME Mehr Homji, who at the time was the VP of Talent Acquisition in Sodexa, who's now with Adidas. Since the show we have Manjuri Sinha, who's the Global Health Talent Acquisition of OLX Group with Jan Akerman, the Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition with Oracle, and EL Kamanje, the Global VP of TA with SAP. So this panel I found really enjoyable. We tackled what's driving the kind of demand behind diversity, equity and inclusion and the new resurgence in it in this topic at the time, with the metrics that each of the organizations were using and thinking about some of the obstacles they'd uncovered as to really progress this topic forward and some of the international considerations that you should have as an organization. So I hope you enjoy this conversation about 30 minutes long with these four individuals. We always welcome your live comments. Please do add them in if you're listening live on LinkedIn or YouTube or you can check out any links to the article I just referenced from Joanna Abay, who was also a speaker that day. We had several other speakers such as Salma and Joanna on the day on Torun, three individuals we've had on the show before and hopefully you'll be familiar with them and do check out the previous show notes and links to try and find their talks. But without further ado, I'll pass you over to this panel discussion that we had last November and welcome you back in a few minutes. So I hope you're okay with us jumping into some of the questions that I've been dying to ask you and we only have 20 minutes or so to spend together and just in the interest of inclusion, don't let me Just be the only person asking questions, stop me and ask each other questions. I really encourage you to do that as I know you guys haven't had enough probably time to spend with each other. I'm going to jump straight in there if you don't mind. And Jan, I'm going to start with you, Jan. For better or worse, diversity efforts often fail. Sorry, fall to the HR department or the diversity equity inclusion team. What are your thoughts on this in terms of it being a HR problem and who do you actually think has responsibility? And has that changed over the last year?

So I believe it has changed significantly over the last year for the positive. But diversity and inclusion is for everyone in an organization. It starts with hr, but it very much is a very integral part of talent and acquisition. And so we're a critical piece of that from the hiring perspective. But most importantly, it's really the hiring managers, the interview panels that we engage with and our employees as a whole that make it a great place to work. And so I think it's really everybody's responsibility. More importantly though, with the advent of what's happened over the last five, six, seven months here in the United States, it's become a very hot topic, as you all discussed in the first part of this presentation. And so I think it's incumbent on everybody that we recognize that it's important to everyone in the organization and there's a keen awareness to that. I've got hiring managers that are reaching out on a regular basis and want to engage with us where in the past we didn't always have that engagement. So it's pretty exciting. And so I think it's everybody in an organization, but particularly HR and talent now are at the forefront of that.

I'm going to ask next question to Manjiri. I think you're right. And you mentioned particularly the US in particular, Jan. Right. But Manjuri, how do you navigate this wider issue if you're in a global environment? So global companies can't just consider one country's environment or what's happening. You have to look at a much more, you know, multi jurisdictional view of diversity, equity and inclusion. What's your perspective on this?

Absolutely, Johnny, thank you. And definitely also plus one to what Jan said about talking about everybody. It is everybody's responsibility. DNI is everybody's responsibility in the organization. Coming from a global perspective, I think the way, the way we, we drive it is with a council approach where we have representation from all different backgrounds, that is the management board including we also have HR representation. Tech representation. So that's the council approach. We combine this in different layers. So this is just one model. I'm not saying that one model fits all or that is the best and the winning model in the world. You can combine it in layers of having different committees. So I come from an organization where we have 30 plus offices and 30 plus countries and we have to look at different aspects in these countries. So when we talk about aspects of gender, then just as an example, we can portray figures of male and female. When we go involve man and woman and distributions across different countries. In a country like Germany, we also do that in a binary and non binary fashion. But when we look at countries in the Middle east, then we have to be definitely respectful also of the law of the land and be careful about what we are talking about in the organization and the numbers that we portray. So I think that's something that in a larger perspective we have to keep in mind, but also do the right thing that is within the organization, within the realm of our organization. What can we do and what can we really support to further this cause? And with this, we have committees in place in different countries. So they are the ones that actually call on the ground realities. They are the ones that take care of the local needs and aspects of the local countries, offices, communities. And then we have the larger groups, for example, we have larger erg groups of LGBTQ plus. We also have a group for racial discrimination. We also have different groups and the life cycle overall work streams that drive this. So this is just one example, Jonny, of layering this. So you have a global view, but you don't lose touch of the local and ground realities that you have to work with.

I think it's a really interesting perspective. It's often forgotten the complexities of multi geography, multi legal environments as well. When you deal with this issue, many people just look at the hot topic in their region and see it from their perspective. Thank you for sharing that. It's really interesting. Aimee, I'm going to ask you a question if you don't mind. I know you've come from, you've worked in many very large organizations during your career. And you know, obviously the geographical thing and the spread is one area to tackle with and very important area. But what do you see as some of the other common obstacles that organizations face beyond just that when it comes to diversity? And how have you seen organizations or people overcome them?

That's a great question, Jonny. And I think it really depends on the type of organization, the size of the organization, all of those factors, of course, it's everything that Manjuri just talked. But then also it all depends on where the organization is on the D and I continuum, for lack of a better term. So different organizations, of course, have had different journeys. And it's interesting when you look across the landscape, across industry, some of the larger, bigger brands that you would assume would be very mature in some of their D and I frameworks are actually not. So that's been interesting as well. I think we've all seen the news and impacts of that. So I would say common obstacles then, having said that, tend to be things like does the company have a coherent strategy around diversity? Even before that, is there a definition of diversity? And of course, most companies define it as diversity in all its forms. I think that's a very broad way to start. But then when it comes to actually focusing on which aspects of diversity are important, which ones are tracked and measured, because as we know, what gets measured gets done. And so that also tends to be interesting in terms of looking at what where companies would like to focus and which geographies. So as an example, and this is not news to any of us, given recent events in the U.S. i'll just talk about the U.S. there seems to be now a much bigger focus, not that there wasn't before, but more so. And still the work needs to be done around the aftermath of the George Floyd killings in Black Lives Matter. And so there is now a focus on companies, rightly so, looking at what are we doing for our African American populations and black populations within the organization. So it's something that they're focused on now. But I would challenge companies to say, you know, don't take the foot off the pedal on all of the other dimensions as well. And so I think sometimes that's where the company tends to focus because that's where the, you know, certainly the, I would say the visibility is. But again, it does, it should not be in conjunction with not looking at some of the other aspects. So the point is the obstacle, if you will, is really focusing on everything all the time and firing on all cylinders.

And then, yeah, if I may add to that, Joni and I fully agree, Amy, to what you elaborated. One obstacle that I see as well is to some extent the mindset topic. I think we should talk about that openly. And for me it's the way about how we look at talent, both from a leaders, but as well from a TA perspective. And I think here we can make a big contribution to help leaders see the value in talent beyond ticking the boxes that we have in a job description and that we want candidates to bring as they join us. Right. Maybe we can ignore some of those and be a bit softer on them, but then embrace more of a cultural enrichment or competency enrichment that people can bring.

Yeah, an excellent point. I remember it hit me a few years ago a different definition of diversity when one of my team gave me her psychometric assessment and it showed her style. And I realized her style was very similar to me when it comes to decision making. And we'd often been in the room making decisions together. And it struck me as I need to not be in the room making decisions alone with this individual because we are two alike. And I need diversity of thought in the room because we're going to do it the same way and agreeing the same way and it's not going to be the best outcome. I think that's a. It's often forgotten when we talk about diversity. We focus on what we can see. We focus on what's topical and we forget the actual reasons is because, you know, you actually have better outcomes. You know, when you have more diverse groups working together. This is, you know, this is a really important, important reason to focus on this from a business perspective, of course, and interesting. And I know, you know, thank you IME for addressing that, you know, big, big hot topic, because it was asked by one of our audience members around, you know, how do you prioritize what your big focus is? Because a lot of organizations try to pick out one version of diversity and say that's our priority. And El, I know in SAP you guys have looked at many different areas of diversity. I'm going to ask you, if you don't mind, I can focus on one the areas of particular interest to me, my wife works with children, she's a teacher, works with children with special needs on the autistic spectrum. I'd love if you could perhaps share a little bit more about SAP's autism.

At work program with us.

Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do that. We started the program in 2013 with just around, I think the first batch was five participants. And in the meantime, it's a program where we have 180 roughly people in. Those are kind of full time unlimited employees at SAP, but as well, interns or vocational trainees. Because I think it's important here to look at the demographics as well and make sure there is a generation who sees and experiences that this is something natural and normal. Right. The program itself is actually aiming to reduce barriers. Right. We're looking at People with autism as bringing special abilities and unique abilities to the workplace and admittedly we have ignored them for many years as well as talent and the program has helped us change that and we started a bit narrow minded I would say because we saw these people are primarily skilled to help us with data heavy jobs, so to say. In the meantime though we have them employed in very different jobs because we have learned people at autism Spectrum themselves are a very diverse group and you have those people who are who are really good in data and data science jobs, but you have as well people who are extremely good in communication and relationships. Right. So there's a very broad spectrum there in terms of the abilities they bring to the table and we've learned through these many years to kind of provide opportunities to all of them and learned about the value they can bring. Now I think it is important to consider that to your point Jonny, these are people with special needs and they're there needs to be some special support to make sure that they are integrated in the workplace and the environment is such as they can be successful. So there is a bit of success circle so to say around we have external partners who are really experts in this topic and are coaching both us but as well the employees. And we do make sure with some internal support system assigning a body to them so they find their way through the daily small topics and orientation and whom they can reach out to for what and so on. So really the basic questions to help them. We have internal mentors to ensure that really the social inclusion is taken care of. So there is a support system that needs to be there from our experience to make this successful.

I think it's a fascinating program. It's great to see such work being done in that area. And I think it's been pointed out that some of the challenges are that when there's hot topics around gender, race, often others who are perhaps marginalized aren't getting the focus, aren't getting the attention. If you don't mind, ask question to Jan Jan, we've talked a lot about metrics in the past, right? Recruiting metrics, et cetera. I think most organizations they love to throw metrics out. I've spoken to many talent acquisition leaders for example who've been recently post may throw in a new metric around diversity. What are your thoughts on success metrics to demonstrate the effectiveness of diversity efforts? 1. Is it important to have metrics from a business perspective and if so, what are the ones that you've seen work well to drive the right behaviors?

Hey Johnny, If I can just comment on Elkie's question and discussion. Neurodiversity, as you mentioned, is a topic that's also near and dear to me and to our organization. We just recently started our first ERG around neurodiversity, and it was quite surprising to see how many folks, when we had our first meeting, how many folks came out of the organization to support it as allies and folks who were members. You'd be surprised how many folks in your organization that are neurodiverse that don't feel safe in some environments letting folks know that they are, but that they feel safe that we do now have an ERG to support them and to support their growth here in the organization. I think that's really, really positive. And the other thing I would comment on that is these folks that fall on the spectrum or in the spectrum, are some of the hardest folks to find employment out there in the marketplace. It's so difficult for them. And so I strongly urge folks on the call to engage as an ally, to engage with your HR and your talent organizations to support any neurodiversity efforts. And let me answer your question if I can, Johnny Metrics in the area, DNI are critical for success, I think, in talent as a whole. If you're not measuring what you're doing, how do you really know how well you're doing? And so it's really at the core of what we do, but specifically around D and I, and it starts from the beginning of the talent continuum and measuring success all throughout the. If you just look at the end result and just say, okay, so how many black, how many Latinx, how many LGBTQ folks, veterans that we hired? That doesn't really answer the success of how well you're doing. And so what we look at and what I strongly urge folks that are considering measuring their success is look at all aspects of the talent continuum. Are you sourcing at the right places? And are you measuring the success of the folks that you're putting in at the top of your funnel? And then as you go through your interview cycle, first level, second level, you're getting to your semifinalists and then your finalists, Are you looking at the talent pool in each of those? And are you bridging the gap where you don't have representation so that when you get to a slate of candidates for a hiring manager, manager to choose, is that a balanced slate of candidates? And so it's critical that you're measuring at each one of those stages in order to measure your success. And it's absolutely critical to I think a successful program.

I think I agree and we all agree with that in terms of getting the right metrics in place and then figuring out who can actually influence those. I'm going to ask when we talk about metrics, I think side by side to metrics and measurement goes budget and money. Right. Funding something. If you want to change something, it's probably not going to just happen. Right. And amanjury, I know that we've covered this before and I know you're passionate about this topic. I'd love to get your thoughts on, you know, budget, like where should you put your budget to be successful and how do you go about securing that from your experience? Anyone else who'd like to jump in on that question as well?

That's a great question, Jonny. I think and definitely this is something that I really believe in that if you don't have a budget for DNI and belonging initiatives, then it is simply lip service that the organization is, you know, they're just jumping onto the bandwagon and yes. And calling it out like. Like it is. So yes, there has to be. There has to be. As, as we budget for headcount, as we budget for resources, as we budget for non HC costs, as we budget for travel in a non Covid world, exactly the same way DNI budget has to be drilled in. Of course you have to look at and there I'll go to what I may mentioned that what is the maturity of the organization? Where are you in the DNI journey? Are you looking at communication and creating and sensitization? Are you looking at different groups? And obviously you have to prioritize what is it that you're focusing on? Are you keeping aside money for the ergs to start their initiatives? Are you looking at community engagements when we talk about maybe mentorship for younger women in stem, et cetera. So these are definite aspects where you have to look at what is your priority, what do you want to achieve and you can have some milestones for the years. So what do you want to achieve this year, in the next year and the third year and then park out that initiative for talent acquisition. If we particularly talk about the recruiters and sources, I think it's very important to start with the awareness, start with communication and training and that's also where social talent definitely comes in. But there is sensitization. So we running unconscious bias trainings for talent acquisition teams, be it coordinators, sources as well as interviewers, starting from investments in simple tools and it could be a huge investment Like a textio or a huge or a simple investment like a diversely even communicating outside with job descriptions, are they neutral, do they have any age bias in them, et cetera. So all these aspects come into play from the attraction to the onboarding from TA perspective to look at each step and ensure that there is budget involved. This also talks about interviewing training. This talks about the time invest needed from the hiring decision making because you should have a voice of or voice of reason that calls on to bias aspects within that hiring decision making aspect. And even looking at how salaries are compensation is approved, the offer packages are approved. We should not just go in for a offer because a particular woman did not negotiate higher than that. So these are certain things I think it's five minutes or three minutes is too less to kind of broaden it out.

Thank you. I ask okay, I know you should jump off now and about less than one minute but maybe any last comment for you to follow on for that or any last comments you want to leave us with before you get to jump off.

Yeah, so I'd agree to what Manjuri said. I do think the commitment to these topics and as we I guess all agree, it's a really broad topic with various facets as well, articulates itself in the budget that you are putting in amongst other activities to really make sure you are perceived as inclusive employer first and foremost. Right. I believe you need to get your stories out there. So people with autism, for example. But as well any other, any other people that start with women understand that you are a workplace that embraces inclusion and that wants them to be there and be there successfully. So I believe that's the starting point. But then as well, you know, you need to the broad support from the employee base through different groups that we are supporting as well because they are doing really valuable activities in terms of driving an inclusive culture. But you need as well the support from the top. So I do believe that the top leaders in the company must reiterate the message again and again and again because we all know unfortunately we still need to overcome some mindset issues not only as companies, but as well as society.

And thank you very much, Elka for that. And thank you for joining us. I'm going to leave our last word. I can't believe we've run over this section already, but I may, I'm going to ask you, if you don't mind, to close with kind of in a minute or less, what advice would you give to a new TA leader who's coming in to Try and kick start D and I efforts for the first time or kickstart them again. What one piece of advice would you give such a person?

Yeah, so I'll need more than a minute for sure, Johnny, but I'll try to sum it up. So, honestly, it's everything I just heard from the other panelists from Manjuri, Jan and Elke. And I would say for a new TA leader, I think it's important to first of all start to establish that relationship with the Office of Diversity or the Diversity Function, whatever that may be. I see those two as synonymous. I think also it would be important for this leader to come in and very quickly understand the strategy. As I talked about earlier around dni, what is the intrinsic brand promise that company is offering when you're attracting talent? So master that, you know, add to that if possible, and then ensure that talent acquisition is in line and aligned with that. But beyond that, I do want to say this, too. We heard a lot about what we need to do, especially what Jan talked about, different stages of the hiring process. And there's a ton we can do around hiring. But I do want to say it goes beyond that, of course. So I think the talent acquisition, partnering with talent management, ensuring that there is that seamless journey of bringing in diverse talent, supporting them through sponsorship, wraparound, all of those wraparound services, and then ensuring that they get to the top. Because ultimately, I think any diversity strategy really doesn't have teeth or is ineffective if it's just the hiring that's working well, but not the rest of it, where ultimately you want to see people stay, you want retention, and you want to see it at the top. So I hope that was under a minute.

I think you'll get a hallelujah from all panelists here on that. Jan, do you want to jump in with something?

Yeah. I just want to say one word to somebody who's trying to engage in this, and that's intentionality. You must be intentional in what you're doing.

It's a good closure.

It's a good closure. So to be intentional. I want to thank Jan. I want to thank ime. I want to thank Manjiri. I want to thank Elke. I really appreciate you taking your time for your busy schedules to join this panel. Hopefully, that's given lots of advice and tips and insights for our listeners and viewers, and hopefully we'll have you on again in the near future. I want to thank again those four fantastic speakers, Aime, Manjuri, Jan and Elka. A really enlightening discussion. I really thank them for tackling the head on issues and sharing with them their insights on how diversity, equity, inclusion plays out, particularly at a hiring level in such large organizations. Really hope you enjoyed that insightful sharing of knowledge from those four individuals. Thanks. For those of you who put in your life comments and chat, I really appreciate that. We'll be back next week for our live interactive show. As usual, I welcome you back at Wednesday 4pm UK Ireland time, which is 11am in the east coast of the US or 8am of the Pacific Coast. If you want to join us live just go to my LinkedIn profile Johnny Campbell or go to YouTube.com SocialTalent alright, to find out more about the show and find out about future shows, you can always go to socialtalent.com theshortest I'll leave you with this thought as you're thinking about the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts of your organization. Are you just agreeing with the concept of fitness or are you working actively every day to stay fit and healthy because that's what it takes to really drive a more diverse and inclusive culture in your organisation. Thanks for listening.