All in
Diversity demands engagement, notes from lunch with Paria Rajai
Making inclusion part of how your company operates can ensure that it becomes business as usual as you scale and grow
The ability of companies to achieve the advantages of diversity starts with a willingness of everyone, including the leadership, to engage completely.
That’s among the insights that diversity and inclusion consultant Paria Rajai shared with the team at LTSE over lunch recently at our offices in San Francisco. Last year after a decade of working with women in the tech sector, Rajai launched Model Expand, which helps companies recruit and retain candidates from diverse backgrounds.
As Rajai sees it, diversity demands a willingness to be proactive. Though many companies publish data about the composition of their workforce, that alone does not constitute a strategy for diversity and inclusion, she notes. “Companies that have successfully hired diverse talent are ones that are open to trying new things and getting feedback,” says Rajai. “Getting audited and publishing numbers is an initial step.”
The recognition that diverse teams perform better and build better companies is among the reasons that LTSE offers HiringPlan, a software tool that helps companies record the gender, ethnicity and compensation of their employees and monitor for under-representation and inequality in pay.
Hiring and promoting based solely on merit may sound like a safeguard against bias, but the data suggest otherwise. Managers who think of their companies as meritocracies are more likely to exhibit bias, according to research by Emilio Castilla, a professor of management at MIT.
Workforces full of people who look like one another likely mean an element of unconscious bias is affecting the hiring process, says Rajai, who notes that recruiting repeatedly from the same channels can produce a homogeneous talent pool as well.
Taking Hold
According to Rajai, one indicator of inclusivity is when everyone at a company feels that their opinion matters and that they can advocate for ideas that go against a consensus without fear of retribution. In addition to surveying employees, ModelExpand interviews them individually.
“To be successful, everyone needs to be involved and employee data provides an effective focal point to guide time and resources,” says Rajai, who notes that Survey Monkey offers a template that allows you to assess whether your company is driving inclusion. She adds that companies built to thrive embody a willingness to test and iterate on their diversity and inclusion.
Given the shifting workforce, companies can’t afford to wait if they want to have a competitive advantage in hiring and retaining talent. For Generation Z, which is expected to outnumber Millennials, equality in pay and promotion ranks as the top factor for trusting an employer, according to a study by EY.
“The new generation coming into the workforce grew up with Obama as their president and LGBT rights,” says Rajai. “There have been major cultural shifts that are norms for them. They have a much higher expectation in terms of diversity in the workforce than we’ve seen with previous generations.”
Since companies each have their own culture, strengths and challenges, Rajai explains that the approach to diversity needs to work in context to have a real impact. “While sensitivity training can be helpful, the most effective workshops help the audience in understanding how they can make adjustments to their day-to-day,” she notes. “Canned trainings assume a one-size fits all approach and the reality is that each company has its own complexities.”
Timing matters, too. According to Rajai, companies that establish diversity and inclusion early benefit, as ramping up those efforts can get more challenging once organizational processes, practices and culture take hold.
“Systematize diversity and inclusion practices early,” Rajai advises startups. “This allows for inclusivity to be a natural part of how a company operates and scales.”
