‘HR leaders Must Be Willing to Expand Beyond Their Average Hiring Pool to Build a Diverse Workforce’

In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Ashley, touches upon how companies can build a sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy, challenges to DEI, role of technology in aiding DEI, and more.

Excerpts from the interview: 

Q: How can companies build a sustainable DEI strategy?

Ashley: As companies build out their diversity and inclusion strategy, HR leaders need first to make sure they know their identity and find what is not matching their company's values. Part of your DEI strategy should be influenced by what is taking place behind the scenes and across the ranks of your organization, across your candidate pool, and so on. 

Transparency is critical, and sometimes that means acknowledging your flaws and listening to how you can do better. To be successful, a DEI strategy must be an initiative everyone believes in and supports from the ground up. It is critical for HR leaders to be the ones to establish this identity while educating leadership on its importance.

Q: What changes does a company need to bring to support, engage and build a diverse workforce? 

Ashley: For companies to support, engage, and build a diverse workforce, HR leaders need to be willing to expand beyond their average hiring pool. This does not mean hiring people who may not have the appropriate qualifications but learning more about their experience where it may fit the mold of the role you are looking to hire. 

Companies need to take the time to evaluate how different experiences or backgrounds can make someone an asset to the team. This will also cause HR leaders to question the historical ways of the company's traditional processes in seeking out candidates. This will prompt HR to examine old practices and embrace new hiring methods with a DEI lens.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges in prolonging sustainable DEI? How can organizations overcome these?

Ashley: The most common myth associated with creating a diversity and inclusion strategy is that it is the sole responsibility of the human resources team. Organizations implementing DEI initiatives and taking a proactive approach toward DEI efforts can face challenges with change management and sustaining the support of those programs if everyone is not committed - from executives to management to individual contributors. 

Beyond our recruiting, hiring, and culture-building efforts, we take measures to ensure our workplace is a safe environment, where employees feel comfortable. For example, we have mandatory training to help employees identify and understand when discrimination is taking place and how to take action depending on the situation.

It is also essential to assess and be transparent with where your organization stands, even if there is still work to be done to improve. This level of accountability continues to bring awareness to how existing protocols and initiatives are performing to allow for refinements and course corrections as needed.  

Q: How important and challenging is it to look at DEI not just as a hiring strategy and as a mere data point? 

Ashley: DEI is an essential component of a successful business in today's society. High-performing teams result from a psychologically safe work environment with diverse members that are seen, heard, and valued. Why would a company not push for a diverse workforce? Many DEI practitioners are exhausted trying to share that these efforts are not just a moral responsibility but good for the business's health.  

Q: How do you foresee inclusion becoming a reality?

Ashley: DEI cannot just be an HR effort for inclusion to become a reality. It is the responsibility of the client success specialist, the marketing manager, the engineer, the product manager, etc. It is up to everyone to embody the company's values, and it is either 'get on or off the bus.' When the company says DEI is important, everyone needs to believe, practice, support, and encourage those behaviors and cultivate that type of community. In a place where it is just a reasonable effort, it will be driven a hundred percent by HR. In a place where it is a great effort, it will be something that everyone believes in and practices.

Q: How can organizations pave the way for equitable workplace culture?

Ashley: If companies and organizations are looking for new ways to create an equitable workplace, the following tactics should be considered: 
 

1. Pilot new initiatives
2. Surveying team members of all levels to provide further context
3. Partner with the people that you are trying to attract and retain (e.g., professional organizations, universities, target job boards, etc.), and co-construct the environment of the business with their experience at the center
4. Measure your hiring, promoting, and rewarding practices, along with involuntary terminations and RIF data to be your guide 
5. And lastly, do not be afraid to scrap something and start again.

Q: What would be the role of new technologies in aiding DEI?

Ashley: Technologies can quickly automate workflow, but we always build checks and balances into workflows to ensure that specific steps are followed. For example, filters in recruiting funnels or identifying consistently high performers (through reviewing performance management ratings over multiple periods) can help identify new types of investment. This is where areas of opportunities can be identified, including potential programs, sponsoring courses or training programs, accelerated promotion processes, new growth programs, and more. 

I am also excited to see how technology can help source diverse, niche, or mobile populations. 

Q: What has been your experience with building DEI culture? What have been the challenges? What are the learnings?

Ashley: It is crucial to acknowledge that not every DEI initiative you take will succeed, but it is also important not to let your failures stop your efforts. At SWZD, we have tested out different initiatives and expanded several programs, including 'returnship' efforts, campus hiring as a global effort during different days/seasons throughout the year, community partnerships (e.g., Latinx in Tech, National Society of Black Engineers, Womenhack, Mom Project, Techqueria, etc.) to post on their job boards and attend their events, and more.  

The key is to be transparent and accountable for how initiatives are performing and then determine if you need to refine, expand, or completely pivot in a different direction. 

Q: What changes do you plan to bring into your strategy to build a sustainable DEI culture?

Ashley: A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for our company. We have people in the U.S., across the EU, in India, and regions across the Asia Pacific. We plan to refine our global strategy with more region-specific pilot programs that acknowledge and lean into the global nuances in the different areas in order to meet the diverse needs of our employees. 
 

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