'Today, Employees Value Inclusion More Than Ever’
An exclusive interview with Brad Goldoor, Chief Employee Experience Officer, Phenom
Posted on 04-19-2022, Read Time: 7 Min
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“Diversity in leadership can accelerate diverse hiring through the rest of your organization. Along with regularly evaluating internal data, leaders must reinforce and embrace diversity goals, as well as educate employees on building a more inclusive workplace. Training programs are crucial to support and engage a diverse workforce,” said Brad Goldoor, Chief Employee Experience Officer, Phenom. |
In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Brad talks about the changes a company needs to bring in in order to support, engage and build a diverse workforce, how he foresees inclusion becoming a reality, and more.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: How can companies build a sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy?
Brad: Start with the data. Companies can build a sustainable DEI strategy by analyzing data to reveal the diversity of their workplace. Compare those DEI metrics to industry benchmarks to set preliminary goals for your organization. Additionally, companies can survey employees about whether they feel their organization is supportive and inclusive.
Using this data, company leaders can build achievable and sustainable goals to make their workforce more inclusive and diverse. To support those DEI goals, companies must work with hiring managers to help them understand and be aware of their own biases, as well as potential for bias within the hiring process.
Using this data, company leaders can build achievable and sustainable goals to make their workforce more inclusive and diverse. To support those DEI goals, companies must work with hiring managers to help them understand and be aware of their own biases, as well as potential for bias within the hiring process.
Q: What are the changes a company needs to bring in in order to support, engage and build a diverse workforce?
Brad: Diversity in leadership can accelerate diverse hiring through the rest of your organization. Along with regularly evaluating internal data, leaders must reinforce and embrace diversity goals, as well as educate employees on building a more inclusive workplace. Training programs are crucial to support and engage a diverse workforce. These programs provide development opportunities with clear career pathways and can help to reduce conscious and unconscious bias in the workplace.
Employee resource groups (ERGs) go hand-in-hand with learning and development efforts, offering an environment, where employees can talk openly about the challenges they face and provide support and understanding.
At Phenom, we have ERGs to support several diverse groups, as well as a group focused on promoting a healthy culture at our organization.
Employee resource groups (ERGs) go hand-in-hand with learning and development efforts, offering an environment, where employees can talk openly about the challenges they face and provide support and understanding.
At Phenom, we have ERGs to support several diverse groups, as well as a group focused on promoting a healthy culture at our organization.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges prolonging sustainable DEI? How can organizations overcome these?
Brad: Driving organizational change in DEI requires significant time and resources, but the results will always enrich your company culture. Companies can work toward five levels of DEI maturity:
- Compliance: Focusing first on what DEI laws and regulations are in place and how your company is following them.
- Awareness: Understanding, as an organization, what DEI means to different stakeholders, from employees to c-suite executives, and outlining a strategy that works for all.
- Talent pipeline: Integrating DEI initiatives into the hiring process and understanding the candidate perspective.
- Internal operations: Deciphering how DEI is integrated internally and making adjustments, such as ensuring each department’s goals map back to the organization’s overarching goals.
- Ecosystem integration: Taking a holistic approach to look outward at what peer institutions are doing and understand how the organization fits into the needs of its community.
Q: How important and challenging is it to look at DEI not just as a hiring strategy and as a mere data point?
Brad: DEI is not something to check off a company’s to-do list. It’s a living, evolving part of an organization. While DEI initiatives should be embedded into hiring strategies, with a company’s culture and values clearly laid out in job postings and career site materials, those initiatives must be incorporated through the whole talent experience.
Both hiring teams and HR departments face a crucial challenge to ensure DEI initiatives are flexible enough to scale with the changing needs of the workforce. DEI can’t be wedged into project timelines, as there’s no endpoint. Companies must treat it as a permanent part of business, reaching goals and setting further ones.
Both hiring teams and HR departments face a crucial challenge to ensure DEI initiatives are flexible enough to scale with the changing needs of the workforce. DEI can’t be wedged into project timelines, as there’s no endpoint. Companies must treat it as a permanent part of business, reaching goals and setting further ones.
Q: How do you foresee inclusion becoming a reality?
Brad: Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is always the right thing to do — no matter what context it’s viewed in. The workforce is changing, and employees today are valuing inclusion more than they ever have. Organizations must adhere to this change or they risk losing valuable people, degrading their company culture and hurting their business success.
Q: How can organizations pave the way for equitable workplace culture?
Brad:
- Encourage authentic storytelling and ensure diverse voices within the organization have a say in decision-making.
- Evaluate and restructure your development and training opportunities to be more equitable and inclusive.
- Train managers to really listen to team members, understand their challenges and provide actionable solutions.
Q: What would be the role of new technologies in aiding DEI?
Brad: Promoting DEI initiatives has to include the technologies that support teams through the entire talent lifecycle. Your career site is a vital component that leaves a lasting impression on job candidates, so it should showcase your commitment to DEI goals and accomplishments with transparency.
Explain why DEI is important to your organization, offer details about your DEI initiatives, and share statistics about your current workforce. If you have ERGs, talk about them, and include video testimonials from team members if possible. In addition, an AI-powered talent experience platform flags potential biased language in job listings, captures applicant flow data to measure equity and advancement, and reveals hiring gaps.
Within the employee experience, a comprehensive platform surfaces employee resource groups, promotes internal events, and gauges employee sentiment around inclusion and belonging. Making progress toward DEI goals relies on humans at the helm of your organization, but technology must align with that progress.
Explain why DEI is important to your organization, offer details about your DEI initiatives, and share statistics about your current workforce. If you have ERGs, talk about them, and include video testimonials from team members if possible. In addition, an AI-powered talent experience platform flags potential biased language in job listings, captures applicant flow data to measure equity and advancement, and reveals hiring gaps.
Within the employee experience, a comprehensive platform surfaces employee resource groups, promotes internal events, and gauges employee sentiment around inclusion and belonging. Making progress toward DEI goals relies on humans at the helm of your organization, but technology must align with that progress.
Q: What has been your experience with building DEI culture? What have been the challenges? What are the learnings? And, what changes do you plan to bring into your strategy to build a sustainable DEI culture?
Brad: My new role as chief employee experience officer at Phenom gives me the opportunity to focus on the importance of the employee as a whole person. A sustainable DEI culture has to be ingrained into my efforts to ensure every member of Phenom’s team feels comfortable bringing their whole self to work.
Here, every new employee tells us what makes them #NotNormal, and we pride ourselves on encouraging our teams to embrace what makes them unique. And while we give our teams opportunities to share more of themselves, we recognize that the playing field isn’t as equal as it should be for everyone. That’s why transparency is central to our DEI work, so everyone knows where we stand and where we’re trying to go.
Bias is always changing, and it’s a challenge for every company to stay two steps ahead. We understand that this hard work never ends, and we’re constantly identifying and educating against bias at every level of our organization.
That leads to the lessons I’ve learned in this work: Listening to your employees and job candidates is essential. It helps you keep a pulse on what’s working and where you need to focus greater effort. Listening takes many forms, and in addition to surveys, ERGs, and regular communication with managers, your data will speak volumes. But listening is the beginning: You have to use that feedback to effect change.
Here, every new employee tells us what makes them #NotNormal, and we pride ourselves on encouraging our teams to embrace what makes them unique. And while we give our teams opportunities to share more of themselves, we recognize that the playing field isn’t as equal as it should be for everyone. That’s why transparency is central to our DEI work, so everyone knows where we stand and where we’re trying to go.
Bias is always changing, and it’s a challenge for every company to stay two steps ahead. We understand that this hard work never ends, and we’re constantly identifying and educating against bias at every level of our organization.
That leads to the lessons I’ve learned in this work: Listening to your employees and job candidates is essential. It helps you keep a pulse on what’s working and where you need to focus greater effort. Listening takes many forms, and in addition to surveys, ERGs, and regular communication with managers, your data will speak volumes. But listening is the beginning: You have to use that feedback to effect change.
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