There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere
There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere is a podcast hosted by Jamie Serino and Carlos Arcila that features exceptional people that have compelling stories to tell. Whether it’s a unique perspective, an act of kindness, an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome, or bearing witness to a captivating event, these are stories that must be heard, and from which we can draw important lessons.
There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere
Helping People Thrive by Integrating DEI and Employee Wellbeing into Corporate Culture
Join us for this episode of There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere as we speak with Jennifer Ketchens of Emergence Consulting about cultivating a workplace where employees can thrive and feel genuinely valued. The conversation focuses on employee wellbeing, DEI strategies, allyship, and developing and retaining a diverse talent pool.
You're listening to. There's a Lesson in here, Somewhere, a podcast featuring compelling conversations with exceptional people. Whether it's an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome or simply a unique perspective, these are stories we can all learn from. Here are your hosts, Jamie Serino and Carlos Arcila.
Speaker 2:Hi and thanks everyone for joining us. I'm Jamie Serino.
Speaker 3:And I'm Carlos Arcila.
Speaker 2:And this is. There's a Lesson in here, somewhere. We're here today with Jen Ketchins, and Jen is a DEI expert and practitioner. I met Jen actually when she was a procurement specialist and I'll tell you she was a badass. You did not want to be on the other side of the table, as Jen I was on her side of the table, so I enjoyed watching her work and then she transitioned from that position to getting into DEI, which was also a pleasure for me to watch, and then Jen and I stayed in touch. She's gone on to develop her own consultancy and we're going to talk to Jen about her experiences both in working life and transitioning to a new role and developing the consultancy and really, more importantly, working in DEI and what that entails. So, jen, I'll turn it over to you and you could probably do a little bit of a better introduction than me and you could tell everyone a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 4:Perfect, thank you. Thank you Jamie, thank you Carlos. So yes, jennifer Ketchins, I go by Jen. It's interesting because I am a supply chain executive. I have over 25 years of experience leading global organizations through like supply chain transformations, procurement strategy operations, erp technology and supplier diversity. Recently I've kind of moved lanes and now I also offer over three years of DEI experience as an executive, really focusing on leading global diversity, equity and inclusion strategies, focusing on DEI programs, all those programs that are regarding like recruiting, retention, progression, performance, all of those things that really prioritize exclusive initiatives, you know, globally for companies. So I know that's a mouthful, but actually it's actually fun and it all kind of blends together.
Speaker 4:I do have a new company that I started last year, late last year. It's called Emergence Consulting. That I started last year, late last year. It's called Emergence Consulting. It's a consulting firm and we offer our services specializing in strategy and execution plans. That strategy is, of course, within diversity and inclusion as well as procurement operations.
Speaker 4:We do a little bit of business transformation. We have a team of experts that really focus with our clients to provide comprehensive solutions to meet their needs and we really focus on the small startup companies that are looking to start their organizations with a framework and a foundation in diversity and inclusion. So that seems to be the niche for this organization, but we are available for larger companies as well, especially for like strategies for supplier diversity programs. How do you get them started? You know, maybe you need a business case in order to understand really what it brings to the organizations. We're able to do those things and provide you with templates. So that's my new thing that I'm doing now, which keeps me really busy with the clients that we have that are looking for that assistance for DEI as well as for procurement, but mostly DEI.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great that you're able to blend the two things. Maybe we can start with that transition that you made in your career If you could tell us a little bit about what that was like and you know what, what. Maybe you were worried about the pros and the cons and what drew you to do that and you know your whole experience there with that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I, I love that and that's like the question everyone starts with. It's like, how do you go from from supply chain to DEI? You know it's just not the same, which it actually is, because supply chain have the marketing piece of it, the marketplace piece of it, where you know you have the supplier diversity programs. So in my career, either my team worked closely with the supplier diversity program or that program rolled into my organization, so it just kind of depends on the position I had at the time. So diversity is a huge passion for me, not only for the supplier side of it but also for my internal teams as well, just ensuring that I have the right look and feel of employees that are working for me. You know, I think about, you know, hiring, you know 19, 20 people at a time. I really focus on diversity and I always have been right, and a lot of it is because of where I come from being in procurement.
Speaker 4:Where I come from being in procurement, uh, procurement is a very um, I want to say it's led by men, right, and most of the men are, you know, white men that it's really hard to get into procurement and excel in your career and grow into that, um, that type of career because of the dominance of the male person in there. And, as Jamie said before, you know, for procurement you have to have different skill sets. You have to be really aggressive, you have to, you know, be really tenacious, negotiator, and how do you make sure that you are spending the company's money the correct way, and things of that nature. So a little bit of the soft skills are not there because you have to be hard all the time. So being in that world was really easy for me for some reason and it's a part of maybe it's like my personality or something like that.
Speaker 4:But I went into my last position to build the organization, to build the procurement organization, and there I was able to use like drastic, monumental experience that I started to look at, moving from supply chain into diversity. So when you think about it like DEI has been a practice, has been a part of corporate America for decades, you know. And when you look at the roots of DEI, you know it goes back to like civil rights and also the 1960s when they had a lot of anti-discrimination legislation that happened in the US. You know, until recently we would hear DEI every now and then, right. So, jamie, you and I were at our company before I became the CDO and we really wasn't talking about DEI. You know, it was something that's more of a nice to have instead of something that's a priority or it's a corporate. You know strategy for an organization. You know strategy for an organization. So, knowing that that's the case, I've never thought about going into that field.
Speaker 4:But in spring of 2020, immediately there was a drastic change, right Right after George Floyd murder and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Spring of 2020, was really a turning point to fight for racial justice on a global scale. Now that movement became like the catalyst of a greater awareness, right education in action on DEI, which pushed a massive push for companies and corporations to take more of a moral and financial stand on DEI. So even at the company that we were with, we started to see a change in how our executive and our board really started to look at DEI and to make sure that we were focused on it. Now at the company, I had already implemented a diversity supplier program, but that wasn't enough. Right, it was like more of a calling, because your customers and your employees were voicing their opinions and their preferences regarding, like you know, companies to publicly commit to DEI as well as to ensure that. You know they were demanding broader investments and resources for the journey.
Speaker 4:So with that, hence the introduction to a large number of new chief diversity officers, and I became a part of that. You know, part of that kind of strategy and as part of that approach, now, with that being the new chief diversity officer, you know we were hired to create strategies and goals and methodology and also, to, you know, execute plans of DEI. Now those executions, of course, were like to install, fix, enhance or maybe mask DEI programs within corporate America. So my story was born there, you know, and my why for that was really I was so moved by the movement, I was so thrilled to have that opportunity to be like the CDO of the organization. You know, even though I had a successful career position at the company, successful procurement career at the company, the challenge to make a difference was a big deal for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So not only you know when I think about the company, but it was like a global movement and it felt bigger than me and I finally felt like I could take all the strengths and expertise that I have built in the past 25 years to build out something for the organization that will inspire people. You know, not only like the people that work there at the company, but also new people and our clients and also my family. You know it's just something that big that was happening outside of your organization. You want to be a part of it. You know, at the time you see a lot of people walk in and they're protesting and everyone's out there. You know the signs and you know it was during the pandemic. So how do you do that when you don't want to be like in around people with? You know your mask on and things like that.
Speaker 4:And I felt like being the CDO and really driving a strategy that's going to impact the company was my way of being a part of that movement.
Speaker 4:You know, and it's like you, you spend so much time at work, right? I mean I've spent like 60 hours with Jamie, you know, on campaigns and things like that, but no matter what I was doing at work. You know my kids wasn't really proud of that. You know, even in my heydays where, you know, I did a procurement negotiation for a hundred million dollar contract, multi-year contract with rebates and volume, price breaks and training hours for the team, my kids wasn't surprised, you know, they weren't impressed with that. But when I became the CDO and I'm negotiating with nonprofit organizations that fight for human rights and civil rights, you know. Or when I created the employee resource groups for, you know, the LGBTQ community, promoting inclusion and belonging, now that's something to be proud of and that's something that they were like yeah, mom, that's great, you know. So it really for me, changing. It was about the why and I really believe my company, I really believe in this new change, in the commitment, so I wanted to take that on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and question with when you know people think of like diversity and they always think of maybe is it? Is it a racial, is it mean female, male, like? There's more in that when it comes to diversity, right, like diverse thought. There's different ways of of bringing diversity into the organization, like, can you maybe expand upon the diversity? And then what does an organization benefit from in having a diverse workforce?
Speaker 4:Oh, I love that question and diversity is interesting because it's a large I mean, it's a really big definition, right? So you have to. I think one of the challenges for me was to really define diversity, and it's not up to like the DEI expert or specialist, it has to be the company, right? You have to sit with the executives and decide what is diversity? How do we get our company and our executives behind diversity and how do we make sure that, however we define it, that it's supported, it's something that will get us to what you know, what our end game is for the organization, you know. So, when you think about not just defining diversity but also measurements excuse me, there are three components for deod you know inclusion is the hardest to measure and to track and that's one that really matters. You know it's like don't give me my thoughts on diversity and what I believe is like the right thing, but I think when you're in this position and you're looking at you know executives and they're looking at you and say, okay, how are we going to measure this? What are we measuring? Why does these things matter? So the hardest thing to track is inclusion. You know, for diversity, you can track race, you can track gender and age Very easy. You know that's information that's provided by the employees, but something that we can track. For equity, you can track outcomes and performance and compensation. Right For equity. You can track outcomes and performance and compensation. You know that's something that, based on HR and the things that we have in an HR system, we're able to track that and be able to kind of measure those things. But measured inclusion is like how do you feel? Are you safe at work? You know, are you supported at work? Are you valued at work? Are you valued at work? Do you really belong there? Those are all those things. It is really hard to figure that out. And then for that piece of it, after you define diversity, you have to make sure that that's part of your engagement for your employees, engagement for your employees, and it's a part of your surveys to make sure that people that they know as leaders, we understand that feelings are important, right, and then we want to make sure we're asking the right questions.
Speaker 4:So back to definition of diversity. You know, first you start with gender. Gender, you know, between males, females, those, those things are first the second piece it's it goes into race and ethnicity. You know. Those are things that you can measure and you can track. You know, especially if employees feel comfortable with giving that information, because right now still, even in 2023, some employees don't know what companies are doing with that that data. You know.
Speaker 4:Are you gonna take that data and use it against me? Are you taking that data to? You know, implement a, a program that is for someone that's on a different, a different ethnicity than I am? It does that. Is it going to harm me? But until then that's on a different ethnicity than I am. Is it going to harm me? But until then, that's when I? That's why I brought up about the inclusion piece, because it's so important. If you don't feel safe, then you're not going to give the data, then the company will never, you know, get and execute on any of those goals, any of those things that they're trying to change. You know you won't see any change because employees won't give you that data.
Speaker 4:Yeah really important for the definition as well as the measurements.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oftentimes you know some employees get the post survey, whether it's from a Gallup or some other organization, and you know there's almost like one side of it is do I answer this honestly or do I answer how the company wants me to answer it? And it's always challenging to get those you know the truth out from employees. How do you overcome that?
Speaker 4:from employees. How do you overcome that? Yeah, and that was as you were saying, that in my mind. I was thinking. You know, as a DEI leader, I received a lot of emails to say hey, jen, is this really anonymous? Can I be honest? You know, and I really believe that Honesty depends on your leader.
Speaker 4:So if you have a leader and you trust that leader, that leader supports you, that leader provides a safe space for you to grow, to develop, to make decisions whether you make a bad decision or you make a good decision to give you that kind of decision rights, you know, to take a risk. You're never going to grow if you're not able to take those risks. Now. If you're in a position like that, then that survey is easy for you to fill out and you're not going to question. But if you're not in a position like that and you don't feel safe at work and you don't feel support or value and you don't have a great relationship with your leader, then you're never going to be honest on that survey yeah, because you're thinking oh my god, if my leader find out, yeah, but I'm going to give the company a three instead of a ten.
Speaker 4:Then I'm going to, you know, have some type of backlash on me or some type of retaliation and that matters, you know, and that's one of the reasons why DEI is so important, because if you have employees that don't feel like their thoughts and their opinion matters, then you're never going to have a great DEI outcome. You know it's not going to be there because you're not comfortable, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's reminding me a little bit, this notion of locus of control and locus of responsibility, and it was brought up by Daryl Wing Hsu in the 70s actually, and it was in relationship to counselors and therapists, and the idea behind it was to try to get into the mindset of the people that you're trying to help. But I think that it can also be used by corporations, right? So in his paper he was saying that Americans tend to have a very high locus of control and a high locus of responsibility, and what that means is that they feel that they are in control of their lives and they feel that they are responsible for changing things. And people from other countries, depending on their forms of government or the socioeconomic standing, might feel that they don't have as much control. Other people control their lives. They don't have as much responsibility.
Speaker 2:Like I can't impact what's going to happen here too, where I think senior management sometimes is baffled by the fact that maybe entry-level people don't feel the wherewithal to go out and just go and do something they are constantly asking for permission or if a person from a certain race or a person from another country, if it's an international corporation they're not understanding that they might be behaving differently and it's because they have a completely different mindset.
Speaker 2:And so if your locus of control is lower because of, maybe, the neighborhood you grew up in or the country you grew up in or the type of life that you had, then what's going to happen is then the company does need to invest more in trying to gain that trust and trying to instill that into people. The same with locus of responsibility, that if the company is constantly directing things and not letting people take responsibility, then they're not going to pick up and take that responsibility. I was just thinking through that a little bit and I think the idea of trying to get into the mindset of different people in the company ends up being really important. And how does one do that, especially when there might be thousands of people, when there might be so many different backgrounds in even different countries? How do you factor all of that in?
Speaker 4:Well, it's really tough. You know this job for DEI is not for the weak, right, it is definitely not for the weak because you have all of those different components to it. You know and you have, you know, thousands. You know, at the last company that we were at, it's almost 10,000 people. How do you ensure that 10,000 people feel safe, supported, valued, counted? You know all of those great fuzzy feeling things that comes with this work and it's hard, it's hard and you know you have to have a pulse on the employees that are working for you. You have to make sure that you are, you know, speaking to them, not only in those surveys, but also have these connection groups, these ERGs, the business, you know the BRGs, the business resource groups, the networking. You want to make sure that there's programs that you know are pushing and I don't want to say pushing, but programs that are supporting your goals for these people. First off, you have to have a goal for the people. So when you think about it, it's like you know, like you said, Jamie's like you have all these thousands of people with these different thoughts and these different mindsets, thousands of people with these different thoughts and these different mindsets. You have to somehow put them in different buckets. You know, and they do that. You know HR does that all the time. You know you have. You know people come in and they put you in the bucket. But you have to make sure that you're not putting them in buckets for just a reason because they're similar in color or similar in, you know, gender or similar in anything that's inclusive, like lgbtqs or lgbtq community or um. You know people that are older. You know their age groups are different. You know, for a company and being in the CDO position and really looking at the company, there's so many political things that happen in the back end. You know really understanding privacy and how can you keep some. You know data and how can you bucket people, um, but there's a way to do it. You know that there's a way to do it that helps with the employees in their safety right. So there's a way to kind of have the pulse on them to understand it and then create programs on them to understand it and then create programs and spaces for them in an effort for them to feel that way. So then you don't have this. You know you can kind of take the mass of, you know, thousands of employees that have these different thoughts and need to feel a certain type of way in an effort for them to be successful within their position, just to make sure that the person that's in charge of the belonging and the inclusion space of it they're actually looking at the people, having that pulse, understanding what they feel and what they think and trying to create the right programs that will help them in the long run, which is tough, you know, dei is definitely. It's a tough space because it's not easy, you know, and I think about procurement, where you know my entire, you know 12 months was focused on savings and you know it's easy to know savings. Like if I'm spending a hundred million and I need to save, you know a hundred thousand.
Speaker 4:But with DEI you can't do that, you know you can. You can say, hey, I want to focus on representation, you know, at a different level. But what does that mean? You, you know, and how do you ensure that you get that representation if you don't have people, if you're not, you don't have your pulse on the people that's in the company internally that can be in that position, you know, are there programs to help people that are right at the level to go to the next level. You know those things, you don't. You know it's kind of tough to figure that out.
Speaker 4:And then you also have to understand what type of company you're working for. You know that is so important and I have so many lessons learned, not only from the company that I worked for, but also from the companies that you know I am I'm working with as a consultant. You know it's interesting because I know this is kind of going off on the question, but there's companies out there that really want to be involved in DEI. They want DEI for their company but they don't know how to do it and they don't know if DEI is really something that is real. You know they don't want to invest in a person to come in and lead something before they have data that they absolutely need it. And that piece of it is really interesting because if you go in, I think going in as an, being an executive and being in charge of a company is totally different than coming in as a consultant.
Speaker 4:You know, as a consultant, I get to hear how they really feel. You know, like, oh, you really feel like that and we have these difficult conversations. But I think they're willing to have those conversations with me because I'm not a part of the team, do you know what I mean and you're able to really some honesty, because there's some leaders out there that are really honest. They're like, yeah, this is something that everyone need and everyone want to do, but do we really start with, do we really need to do it? And then, if we do, how do we do it without, you know, impacting other people that are not a part of the dei movement? You know, because you have to think about there's programs that should be created in every organization that everyone should have access to. You know, and my, I think what makes me different from a lot of DEI practitioners is that I believe in equity first, I don't believe in diversity first.
Speaker 4:I believe that if your company is an equitable company, then everyone would have the same opportunities, you know, and that should be the first thing. Like, I shouldn't be a white male and I can't be a part of a management program. That's not right, you know. So if we have these programs that are equitable, then you can have a DEI person to come in and say, hey, we have this program and now we want to make sure that it's equitable across the different ethnicities and the different genders, right, and then make sure that that piece of it is there.
Speaker 4:But you first have to have a consistent, equitable experience, and I'm really for that, because I think you shouldn't need DEI if you're doing that the right way, you know.
Speaker 3:Jen, do you find that there's a difference in terms of goals between maybe an established, larger organization and, let's say, a startup, and what? How do you address, like their goals and based on the differences, right, like, would a startup look for x, would a large organization look for y? And how do you get to x? How do you get to y?
Speaker 4:yeah, and you know, carlos, that's a great question, because I don't think it depends on startup versus mature, right, it really depends on the leadership, and I never thought of it that way until I became a leader, right. So leadership is so important and having DEI come from the top down is so important right.
Speaker 4:Because once you're trying to find DEI in the middle of an organization which it should be, you know we can talk about like managers, middle managers, right, middle managers are hiring more people than an executive, right, our CEO may get to hire two people within three years. Because that turnaround is not, you know, there at that level, right, usually it's not there unless something is wrong with the company, right? But they don't have that opportunity to change the makeup of the organization. They do have the opportunity to change the representation at the top, right. So we do have to make sure that we put the ownership on them and make them accountable for that. But really, if you look at companies, companies are made in the middle, right, and those middle level managers are so important because they're hiring people constantly, you know. And if you think about, how do you create the culture, right, how do you make sure that you're having a movement of DEI goals? And you know progress that you're looking for, whether your goal is to hire more. You know progress that you're looking for, whether your goal is to hire more. You know Latinos in the organization or is it to hire more. You know Black Americans in the organization.
Speaker 4:Whatever the goals are, you have to get to that middle level, because they're in control of that. And those middle level leaders, are they inclusive? Do they have an inclusive mindset? Do they understand that? Do they understand that they kind of hold the keys not only to DEI but also to culture? And until a company connects DEI and culture together, then you're not going to be successful. Because it's there. You know it's like that's how you get people in the door and then, once you have them in the door, you retain them and you grow them and then they're able to move up and then they are part of your representation because they're part of your leadership and you know, so on and so forth. Because some companies won't hire leaders external. You know they like to have them grown within. You can't grow within if you don't have them coming into the organization at lower levels.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that point is definitely the leader and not the size of the company is yeah that's that's interesting to hear that viewpoint, because it doesn't matter if it's a five-person organization, if it's a 500 person organization. So then you know, I think with our listeners we would consider they may be listening to this and then they're asking themselves, like so how do I know if my company is like truly committed to dni, like how I love that question, I love that question and you really have to research the company you.
Speaker 4:You have to. Let me give you an example Before I go through roadblocks and challenges as an employee and you're looking at an organization, it is so important that you do your research, you see if they have a CDO or they have some type of leader for DEI. How long have they been doing it? Where's their journey? Right, because really, what organizations you have to go in and say, okay, if you look at the leadership, where are they on their journey? You know, because DEI is a very long journey, I know. When I started as a CDO, you know, our CEO said it's a journey, jen, you know. So you got to be in it for the long haul and it is, you know. But on that journey, what type of goals do they have? What type of mission do they have their mission statement? Is DEI a part of that mission statement? Is it a part of their values?
Speaker 4:Do you see DEI, you know, represented in their senior leadership? Look at their website, you know. Pull up their executives, you know. What do you see there? Do you see gender? Is it represent? You know, does that look, look good to you? For how many roles that are leadership roles.
Speaker 4:Then you look at ethnicity and I'm sure there are a lot of companies that provide representation and you can actually see it. There's companies. When you start interviewing with them, they provide you with you know, diversely the interview of the interview panel. That's important, you know in your questions, because as you interview with companies, you're interviewing the company too, you know. So ask some questions about their diversity programs, about what they're doing with diversity. You know about the representation.
Speaker 4:You know I was talking to a company the other day and we're talking about procurement and it was a company that was looking at me for, you know, a leadership role, like a permanent role, and I started to talk about the women in their organization. You know I didn't see any women on the, on the website. So talk to me about that. What are you guys doing about that? Are there any programs? How does a woman come into your organization and hit the ground running, you know? Does she have a mentorship program? Is there anything that helps you know in this, in the organization for a woman?
Speaker 4:And then you go deeper and talk about your ethnicity, or if you're a parent, right, or if you're a caregiver. Talk about those things. What matters to you and what would make you be your authentic self matters in the interview. Don't wait till you get the job because it's too late. You know it's like, okay, I have the job, I'm going to have to go try, and then you try it and you know it's 50-50. So research it. You know, when I think about I'm going to shift a little bit, but when I think about roadblocks and challenges, right, because when you said, hey, how do you know the company's committed how many.
Speaker 4:So, personally, I've come across a lot of challenges. First off, dei, having a conversation about diversity, and that's a day-to-day challenge for a leader, excuse me, because you have these conversations at work that you know five years ago you couldn't have these conversations. You know a leader in the organization and talk about hey, jen, I know you're here for diversity, but I don't see that being an issue. You know, because when I look in the you know the Zoom calls, I see enough colored faces, right. Or I have a conversation with a leader that is, you know, a global leader that lives overseas, that reads books about. You know African-American people in these novels that they, you know that you read as a child and in those novels, you know, the Black people are called Negroes. And having a conversation with the leader to say, hey, jen, is it okay to use that? Can I use that? It's like never, but you always have these conversations that are hard to have, right with leaders in the organization on a daily basis. So with that you have to, like it's so critical for you to ensure that you talk and really understand what you know, what the company, where the company is in their journey, because they may not be as far along as you are, you know, and even as a leader for me, for a company that I was leading, you know, some of the executives were right there with me, some of the executives were ahead of me and some of them just started their journey and we had to talk about why we're doing DEI right.
Speaker 4:When I see so many, when I look in the town hall, you know and it's like, yeah, but let me tell you why. Let's go through the why. And you know again, my big thing for me personally is my why. And when I'm speaking to people that have a different perspective, a different thought than I do, then I want to know their why. And when I'm speaking to people that have a different perspective, a different thought than I do, then I want to know their why. Because I really believe, like you can learn from, you can learn from anywhere. You know, just because you don't have the same thoughts or the same opinion or you don't agree, doesn't mean that there's not a lesson in there. You know, and no pun to the name of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for saying that we have our pullout quote for the for the.
Speaker 2:There you go I really liked what you said about starting kind of coming from the middle and how many people you know middle managers might hire versus how many people the C-suite might hire. And I think it's the same for how many people a middle manager might talk to in a given day versus how many people a CEO might talk to. And so I think you're right that a lot of the influence is coming from the middle. So, knowing that, what kind of tools would you give those middle managers you know so like? One thing that comes to mind is like I've been in companies where you would do interview training to help you with implicit bias, right, and that's really helpful.
Speaker 2:Then, at the same time, I hear complaints from middle managers saying I want to hire more, you know BIPOC, but I'm not getting those resumes. So my pool of candidates you know BIPOC, but I'm not getting those resumes. So my pool of candidates, you know so. Is there a way to address that? Or what other tools would you try to bring to an organization to help with that middle layer, to give them the ability to create change?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that's a great question, jamie, and it's really all about education, right? So the middle managers you know, in my, in my past, we focused on training, learning how to have inclusive mindset. What does that mean? Right? And that inclusive mindset is a series of allyship, and that inclusive mindset is a series of allyship.
Speaker 4:You know, there's so many things that happen in the world that people bring to work. You know, police brutality was a big thing, you know, and it's still a big thing, unfortunately, but it's a big thing. Some of that trauma that they see out in the world comes in, you know. I know, I live in Georgia and when someone killed, you know, eight Asian Americans in their place of work, that was traumatic and you bring that into the company, you bring that to your, you know, you bring that with you because you can't just leave it at the door.
Speaker 4:So how do we ensure that the middle managers can have conversations with employees in regards to those things? Right? In regards to the trauma, no one's going to be a therapist, right? No one's going to be a therapist, right? So how do we ensure that they have the right education, the right tools in an effort to have those conversations or to just at least be supportive of a conversation of that nature. So it's really important to educate Right, and it has to be like customized education of what how to be inclusive, how to be an advocate for people that you are not a part of their community.
Speaker 4:That is so important Like how to be an ally. What does that look like? Are you a bad person if you're not an ally? You know, and those things need to be talked about as well, because you're not, you know, you may not know what an ally is and you may be at the beginning of your journey. So you have to meet people where they are. You have to have mandatory training. That is something that I fought for in my entire CDO career was mandatory training, and there's some companies that are not ready for that. They want to give you know bias training or microaggressions, and they want to give you little sound bites and five minutes of this and five minutes of that. Does that really help? You know there's certain things. In a day, you receive 100 emails. Do you remember all the emails you read? Probably not.
Speaker 3:Do you remember?
Speaker 4:all the emails you read? Probably not. You know just the big bullets, the ones that you had to spend time on, the ones you had to really think about your response to that email. Those are the ones that you're more intentional about how you interact, how you speak, how you. You know you show up and represent the company. We can't just give you soundbites. It's to be something that is mandatory. You know we're going to do compliance training, security training. You know, code of conduct, training, manually, and that takes, oh my God, takes an hour to do.
Speaker 4:Dei should be just as important. You know, and that's again going back to Carlo's question. Again, that's one of the questions you ask the new company Do you have any DEI training? How am I going to be a better DEI person, supporter, advocate, if I come to your company, what will you do for me? You know I want to make you accountable, to make sure that I'm still like, I'm growing and I understand and as I grow into your organization as a leader, what type of training am I going to get so I can be the best leader that I can be? But also when it comes to DEI and those types of tools that are essential to be inclusive. So I would do the training that is so important.
Speaker 4:And then the next thing for those leaders is for those spaces, like you said, jamie, where you know I am not getting you know resumes I don't have a pipeline. That's another strategy and program that needs to be in place, because I hear that a lot, right, when my last position, I heard it. We don't have a good pipeline of diverse candidates. Why, right? So are we still at a point for a company where we're just going to wait for people to apply and we hope and cross our fingers and pray that they're diverse and qualified, because we have to be qualified? Right, so we can't live like that. You know there's some companies are not an Amazon. You know Amazon, you know many people Google I want to work at Amazon, or you know Google or one of those types of brands, right. Until your company becomes a brand of that caliber where you don't have to go find this pipeline because they're looking for you, because that's the place to be Right.
Speaker 4:Then you have to have intentional programs that your recruiters are pushing to go to, places that where the diverse talent is. You have to have some technology that helps you with a platform so you could source that type of you know caliber, of you know candidates. You have to make sure that you have a retention program to help you. Once you get these people in. You finally found your, your diverse, uh, candidate.
Speaker 4:How do we keep them? You know, do you have a really good environment for them to be successful at? Will they walk into your company and they're able to continue to, to thrive and have a great career there, or would they feel like there, or will they feel like they're isolated? Will they feel like they're, you know, not a part of the team? You know, will they not see people that look like them? You know, how do we keep the people there?
Speaker 4:So you have to have intentional programs at every point of the employee life cycle.
Speaker 4:You know, and that's why, and that's yeah, and that's another thing you know, you think about dei.
Speaker 4:People think dei should be in hr because, really, just because you need to be a part of those connectors, doesn't need to be.
Speaker 4:You should be a part of hr, right, because there's certain things that dei again, this is back to my thoughts certain things that dei should be, and if you really come at it as something that is important, something that is a corporate goal, it's a part of your corporate, you know strategy, then it should be in its own world, right? Because in that space then you're not. You know you're not a piece of compliance. You know DEI shouldn't be compliance, it should just be how you should be, a part of life, it should be a part of the way you do business, you know, as Carlos said, hey, it's not just gender and ethnicity, it's also a diverse way of thinking, right, it's the diverse place of where you live, right? So we haven't looked at the global aspect, especially being in a global company, that you're going to have different, diverse thoughts and diverse, you know, perspectives and cultures and things like that. It's bigger than just gender and race.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that you know you look back on any kind of discipline in a company and it always took decades before there was a chief, you know blank officer, like even a chief marketing officer wasn't always like a thing CEOs, but it's not a given, like you're saying. A lot of people tuck it under HR and it seems like it needs its own world because it's a little bit bigger than that. But I love what you said about intentionality, because the organic nature of a company and how a company grows, they tend to attract like-minded people or people that are maybe in the same, you know, same race, same socioeconomic category. So there needs to be intentionality to break break outside of that. So I think that's a really that's a great tip. Thank you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's it is and it's it's so important. You know it's like. You know it's like it's one of those things that if you don't pay attention to the details, you know it's like a, it's like a, like you're painting a picture and if you don't pay attention to the details, then the picture that you paint is not going to be very accurate of what you're trying to depict. You know, and it's like DEI is one of those details of this painting of employees that you have in your, you know, in your environment, and if you don't have it, then it's more, it's blurry. You know, because you don't really understand and have the understanding of what's going on. You know one of the major things as a CDO, you have to understand if the company is ready for change. You know, and, like you said, all these titles and roles are changing and they're adding to it.
Speaker 4:I saw, you know, a chief, what was it? A chief direction officer, which I have no idea what that means, but it sounds pretty cool, right? I don't know what direction you could go in with that, but it sounds cool. But there's all these different roles, right? So when you think about, like diversity, equity and inclusion, um, and also social responsibility, wouldn't talk about that piece of it, but it is so important to understand what type of what's the company's appetite for change. Yeah, yeah, you know, because you're going to change, you're going to find out things that are going to be tough to hear.
Speaker 4:You're going to see that some of your programs that you had in place for years and years and years don't work. Are you going to be able to pivot? Are you going to be able to change it? An impact, the greatest impact, the greatest value. Then everything should be on the table. You cannot do what you did, you know, 10 years ago. Even today, five years, two years ago, everything needs to be enhanced, adjusted, adjusted, you know, in an effort to make sure you're doing the right thing for the company.
Speaker 2:And it's, it is a lot. You used the word business transformation earlier. It's, it is a transformation and any sort of transformation journey, you know, unfortunately, like you know, or if you want to be neutral about it, you need to show quick wins. Right, and the D&I journey is years long and if management changes or something happens with the company, hard times right, it's a business, right. The economy goes up and down and if it's a hard time, then all of a sudden you start seeing the money dry up and you really do see like is this an important goal for the company? And a lot of times, showing the quick wins helps sustain the long term effort. I can't believe the time has flown by and I still have a thousand questions, thousand questions, but anything to say like in conclusion, or you know a final tip or anything that you feel like you didn't get to tell our listeners.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know I it did go by really fast and I actually have enjoyed this conversation with you guys so much. I forgot about the listeners and forgot that I was supposed to be making points for them to put in their pocket. You made a ton of great points.
Speaker 3:You just made a ton of lessons learned.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, yes. Well, I just want to say that you know there's so many different reasons to want to be a part of DEI, to want to lead DEI, just as a person. Understand your why, understand why you want to do it, understand what motivates you. I know, with my experience as a CDO, it was the most challenging experience I've had to date, but it was also the most rewarding experience I had to date. Like I am forever thankful and grateful that I had the opportunity to lead an organization into something that was the unknown, you know, and I was able to build a strategy and see things and build programs and ERGs and things like that that are still going on to this day, because it was built the right way and it was built with care. You know care is a big part of being a CDO and care is a big part of being an advocate or an ally.
Speaker 4:You know, understand those buzzwords. You know those buzzwords are new and you know what is this allyship? It's important, you know, and you don't have to be at the level of the person sitting next to you. You can stay at your own level, at your own pace. Make sure you're at a company that's gonna continue to feed you, give you education, give you opportunity to understand DEI, the programs, the different ways of being a part of it. You just really need to understand that piece of it because I think it's important. It's important as an employee, it's important as a leader. So I'll end at that, but just want you to know that it's a journey. It's a journey, it's not a destination. And building DEI strategies and building DEI strategies, it's not about success or failure or precision. It's really about progress and taking steps forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great advice. It was brave what you did. I think the risk that you took and hearing about your personal why I think it was wonderful and makes sense and the work was the work and it doesn't matter, you know it's good work had an impact. All right, well, thanks for joining us. I love this conversation and I appreciate you taking the time and thanks everybody for listening.
Speaker 4:Thank you, jennifer, thank, thank you. Thank you so much. Bye, now Take care.
