Thoughts on Inclusion and Diversity
Conversations about belonging in the workplace
It’s nearly impossible to go to a company’s career page nowadays or read a think piece without hearing about inclusion and diversity. Especially in the tech world, it feels like every company mentions the idea of “workplace belonging” somewhere in their recruitment efforts.
This topic has long been on the minds of employers exploring ways to create an environment that fosters true “workplace belonging.” And while there has been improvement in recent years, less talk and more action needs to happen in order for any industry or business to declare themselves a truly inclusive environment.
At Cisco Meraki, our commitment is more than a recruiting line: we don’t simply slap a statement about diversity on every job description and call it a day. By making it a core part of our corporate strategy, inclusion and diversity becomes everyone’s responsibility. We believe that by building a more inclusive workforce, we have the power to bridge the gap between hope and possible.
There’s still so much to learn about building a healthy environment in which everyone can thrive, regardless of who they are, who they love, or where they come from. To help shed a light on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, Meraki Chief of Staff Denise Thomas sat down with Tiffany Stevenson, Global VP of Talent and Belonging at Box, for our most recent episode of the Meraki Unboxed podcast. Tiffany and Denise share their insights on what it really means to have a completely diverse and inclusive workplace environment, the struggles of getting there, and what everyone can do to make a difference industry-wide. Read on for conversation highlights, and make sure to tune in to the full conversation.
Some quotes below have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
How to make inclusion and diversity a core part of business strategy:
Denise: A lot of times, people want to silo this work. They want to say, “Okay, inclusion and diversity and belonging (D&I), they’re over here, and the rest of business strategy sits over there.” But it becomes really difficult for most businesses to have so many focus areas.
Cisco has been thinking about inclusion for a while now, and I think as with most companies, they started with the idea around diversity being about representation — “do I have X number of purple people? What’s the purple people count?” Then they sort of moved to thinking about inclusion, like “how are people feeling? Do they get a sense of belonging?” Now, they’ve started to reflect on the actual implications of that. They’re thinking, “Alright, if we have belonging, how do we turn that into true collaboration? How do we turn it into true decision-making and business impact?”
I think we’re lucky to be a part of a company that’s really trying to push that trajectory of inclusion and belonging to get to a place of real, true collaboration and business outcome.
On bringing your entire self into the workplace:
Tiffany: One of the values we’ve really spent a long time thinking about is the idea of “Bringing your ‘blank’ self to work.” This means that not only do I understand who I am and all of the experiences that I’ve had throughout my life, but also, I don’t just lock that in a metaphorical box and then come to work. You should actually bring that into a conversation and use that to challenge and push your thinking forward.
Denise: Yeah, you know what I love about “bring your ‘blank’ self”? It gives you an opportunity to define what that is for you. I think for some people, they’re like, “Bring it all to work,” but culturally and experience-wise, that might not be what resonates, right? The thing that feels most comfortable might be bringing this particular amount, or bringing this version of myself to work, and giving people the opportunity to opt into how much. That feels great to state it in that way. I think we’re going to have to steal that here at Meraki.
Tiffany: Steal away! The one thing about diversity and inclusion (D&I) work is it’s the one thing you don’t need to keep secret, because you really win by having these discussions in a safe space. I hold nothing about D&I secret because we really want to make sure that everyone wins.
Why intersectionality is crucial to having an effective inclusion and diversity strategy:
Tiffany: There are so many aspects to what makes somebody a unique person. I identify as a woman, I identify as an African-American woman, I identify as an African-American woman who grew up on the East Coast, so there’s all of these things that make me who I am. This idea of intersectionality becomes so important in sort of driving some of this work.
Denise: I almost think of intersectionality as a bridge, right? We have these identities and we start on one side where I can hold on any given day, “Oh I’m a woman,” and on the other side of it I can hold, “Oh, I’m a black person.” If a company is building solutions that’s trying to address these things separately, [which is] what usually happens is, it doesn’t close the gap. The women-related things get to a certain space and the black-related things get to a certain place, but when they don’t actually connect, there is no way to bridge the experience that I’m having. You end up with a big hole in the middle.
The goal is to create a culture of belonging that allows all of you to show up, whether you are identifying one thing one day, or identifying another, or you are sitting in a room and the collections of your identities are making you feel somewhat like you don’t belong. If you solve it by only sitting in one room, we haven’t solved it.
What the industry is missing:
Tiffany: I think the tech industry still needs to really grapple with the fact that diversity without inclusion is a fool’s errand. There’s so many efforts around recruiting, which I love — you have to do that — but if you don’t have the inclusion and belonging and efforts around creating a great workplace for every person you bring in, they’re leaving.
We have important problems to crack in the tech industry, and if you don’t have those diverse representatives there all hacking at these issues, you can very easily create something that doesn’t have the longevity that it needs to have.
No one comes to work with the express desire to make someone else’s day hard. Yet, sometimes through our actions, that’s exactly the net effect that we can have on someone else. If we don’t spend time as a company really being clear and getting close to where those blind spots might be for us, then it’s less likely that when we bring someone in, we’ve created a place where they can bring ‘their ‘blank’ selves and really outperform.
How to get started:
Denise: There is a group over in Oakland, Project Include. I think it’s a great way for folks to begin to educate themselves, especially leadership, on how they might create a space that really works.
Tiffany: I would challenge any organization to do the good old-fashioned Simon Sinek model of finding your why. Why does this matter for the organization? How does it further and advance your goals? The second thing is to get the facts, so you know what your state of the union looks like today.
Denise: No one should engage in an inclusion strategy without hiring a data analyst. Look at your rate of promotion, look how candidates move through the pipeline, look at your retention rates, look at your employee engagement scores. Cut that data different ways and take a data-driven approach. Again, would you go into a business strategy without knowing your total addressable market? Without knowing your internal capabilities? Without understanding what’s your vision mission strategy? You wouldn’t, so why would you do this work without having the same?
Listen to the full episode of the podcast featuring Tiffany Stevenson, VP of Talent and Belonging at Box, in conversation with Denise Thomas, Chief of Staff at Meraki:
