How woke are your diversity efforts?
“What does that mean?”
It was an earnest question posed by several of the 30 attendees of a recent retreat I organized with the aim of advancing LGBT (This should be common vernacular to you.) diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace.
“Does anyone know what cisgender means?” the facilitator challenged.
To my relief, three hands went up. I was unsurprised to see that they all belonged to younger attendees. Later in the conference, the same phenomenon manifested in response to the term intersectionality. On the second day, a passionate conversation ensued around terminology: Was it enough to say LGBT? What does the Q stand for? The term queer is back? And it’s not offensive anymore? What the heck is intersex?
These instances fit a pattern I’ve witnessed throughout my near-decade of experience as a diversity scientist, practitioner and consultant who also happens to be a millennial Black woman from the south side of Chicago. My distinct vantage point leaves me concerned about the sustainability of current approaches to workplace D&I. As more and more companies develop infrastructure to embed D&I into their operations in an effort to attract and retain talent, increase revenue, extinguish fires and/or embody organizational ideals, the cultural fluency gap between current leadership and next-gen talent can go unrecognized. In turn, I fear that D&I initiatives are being constructed more to remedy the past than to reflect the future.
Most organizations are not progressive Silicon Valley powerhouses with the luxury of building the inclusivity plane while they’re flying it — many have legacies and cultures deeply rooted in an era in which “diversity” maybe meant Jewish. Many have C-suites and HR offices filled with egalitarian-minded professionals who devour the literature on Millennial and Gen Z work habits but don’t dig deeper to investigate how these populations conceive of diversity, inclusion and equality. This lack of intersectional insight makes me question if current D&I trends will resonate with the 2020 workforce.
Alex [Dunphy from “Modern Family”] is a true Gen Z: conscientious, hard-working, somewhat anxious and mindful of the future. — Lucie Greene, J. Walter Thompson
Alex Dunphy and her generation are woke and they’re coming to an office or open work space near you. And if you are a business leader, D&I practitioner or D&I champion who doesn’t understand the references above, this primer is for you. To remain forward-looking and culturally responsive (i.e., get woke), you should:
1. Consume.
You might cycle through the NY Times, Washington Post and local paper every morning but do you take the time to plug into what’s happening on college and university campuses? There’s an exciting revolution unfolding all across the country. Gen Z’ers have social activism in their blood. They are open, self- and other-aware, notice when D&I are missing and are unflinching in demanding that organizational leaders remedy systemic inequities.
What does that mean for your business? It means that if your D&I efforts are merely a series of programs (Employee Resource Groups, cultural events and promotional campaigns), this generation will see right through you. Now’s the time to develop a robust D&I strategy with the aim of disrupting the systematic biases that affect business decisions. Gen Z’ers will be quick to discern if D&I-mindedness is truly integrated into how you do business and will leave quickly if it isn’t — that’s if you’re able to attract them in the first place. Subscribe to college newspapers, keep your ear tuned to university news covered by popular press and stay tuned to your alumni magazine if you have a higher ed degree. I am unabashed in saying that MTV can be a great resource too.
2. Ask.
If you’re fortunate enough to have Gen Z’ers in your midst, leverage the opportunity to solicit their input about your D&I efforts. Instead of trying to predict if the elements of your D&I initiative and corresponding marketing collateral will resonate with future talent, why not ask them directly? Formulate focus groups and fun competitions with your interns to get their feedback on what they want to see and hear from you. They’ll cultivate leadership and communications skills and will contribute directly to the business. Beats making photocopies. (If your company is still pushing paper, that’s an entirely separate challenge to be tackled.)
3. Respond.
The most important action you should take is respecting young talent enough to preempt and proactively respond to their values. That doesn’t mean you have to agree or are organizational equipped to accommodate, but Gen Z is a beautifully inclusive generation that eschews hierarchical divides. The least you can do is be forthcoming in communicating with the Gen Z’ers you employ or woo about what you’re doing in the D&I space, what you’re not and why. The transparency will be valued even if you’re not quite ready to add -QIA+ after LGBT.
