Transitioning from volunteer, grassroots D&I work to a full time role
This post explores how to turn grassroots, volunteer D&I work at your company into an officially sanctioned and paid role as a D&I professional.
Hi! Before you read this blog, I want to tell you that my new book Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: How to Succeed at an Impossible Job is now available in eBook, paperback and hardcover on Amazon.com, .Amazon.de and Amazon.co.uk! Read more about it here!
Now back to the blog!
Many of the people I know working in D&I roles in Berlin started their journey by getting involved in grassroots, volunteer-based D&I projects at their companies. This includes Employee Resource Groups, mentorship programs, hackathon projects, advocacy work, recruiting projects, working groups, and more. This work often occurred at a pivotal time in the organization before they developed a D&I strategy or invested in long term solutions. These colleagues slowly built up trust and relationships in their organization and were eventually hired full time to do D&I work.
But I also know that this is not the typical case. And sometimes you will work really hard advocating for equity and then your company will hand the work over to someone else or hire someone externally (or even hire a consulting agency). So it’s really important to be careful not to invest too much of your own energy into this work and make sure you still have emotional distance. After all, in this context, I’m talking about working for a for-profit business and no one should work for free for a for-profit business! Also there’s a lot of privilege in just having the ability and flexibility to spend some of your time at work on D&I grassroots advocacy. It’s also important to keep this in perspective and recognize who in your organization is not able to participate in these conversations (for example: shift workers, maintenance or food service workers, operational workers, customer care workers). We have a responsibility to make sure we also include their perspectives in D&I work.
Below is some advice to keep in mind if you’re trying to make that transition from grassroots, volunteer D&I work in an organization to full time paid D&I work.
Ask for neither forgiveness nor permission, but don’t work alone
Just in case it needs to be said: You do not need anyone’s permission to be passionate about D&I. You don’t need permission to ask difficult questions about equity and fairness in the workplace. In my opinion, you don’t even need permission to start your own employee resource group. Frankly, organizations greatly benefit from the work of organizers of Employee Resource Groups, so honestly they should be thanking you for the work you are doing.
But it’s also important to find other people who are interested in doing this work with you. Doing the work by yourself is lonely and exhausting. Also you risk driving the work without any other perspectives or insight except your own introducing your own biases. Once you find your co-organizers, start to figure out what your main objectives are, as a group.
Stakeholder management is crucial
D&I grassroots work within a corporate setting has some unique challenges. For many people, their passion for D&I and social justice work is fueled by a lot of frustration, inequity and experience with discrimination. There’s an important balance between what I would affectionately call “rabble-rousing” and collaboration. As I transitioned from grassroots advocacy work to working part time, then full time in on D&I work, I understood how important stakeholder management is across different audiences. Leaders and decision makers can be very reluctant to empower grassroots organizers to drive D&I work if they don’t think there’s trust or a clear desire to work collaboratively and constructively with the organization. This doesn't mean you don’t have a right to be frustrated (or furious) with your company, you — of course — always do.
Find your allies in leadership and HR
Try to find partners in strategic places within your organization who are willing to support you. I’m referring to people in HR, leadership, your works council (if you have one), Corporate Social Responsibility, even Employer Branding. Essentially try to figure out which people in your organization also have an vested interest (by nature of their role) to see D&I work progress. I’ve found it’s nearly always that case that everyone has too much on their plate, so be prepared to get some “No, I can’t help you”s. But, sometimes it’s just about finding the right person who is interested, is working in a relevant role and has the ability to lend a hand. Sometimes it’s about finding the right leader who is willing to assign someone to help on the project because they are also passionate about the project. To explore what an executive sponsor can help you achieve, check out this article or this book.
Gather data to back up your work
Partners, like those described above, can really help unlock doors to both decision makers and crucial data you need to make your case. Data and research on best practices can be very convincing. Sometimes you need to first SHOW decision makers and leaders that there’s a problem for them to finally to invest in a solution. Especially for leaders who are analytically minded, often they want to see the numbers behind the message. Relevant data could include: employee demographics data (with seniority level and role), hiring and recruiting data, attrition/exit interview data, promotion data, employee satisfaction or inclusion data from surveys, data on discrimination cases, salary pay gap data (gender, race, nationality, parental status, etc.), just to name some. All of this can be difficult to get a hold of, but if you have support from HR, you may be able to gather some of this data. Then you can research how your organization’s data compares to other companies. This is an important way you can make a compelling argument that the company should invest in D&I.
Create a strategy together
I’d suggest the next step is to create a strategy on D&I for your organization. This blog explores the step-by-step process to do so. In the past I’ve done this through a workshop with key stakeholders and others who are passionate about the topic of D&I (ideally a D&I council plus stakeholders such as ERG organizers). We sat together in a room and together came up with strategy statements, that would, five years from now, make us proud of the progress we’ve made on D&I. Then we worked backwards to develop the initiatives that we’d need in order to achieve those future visions. This ultimately became our company D&I strategy.
Be warned: do not think too narrowly at this step. If you focus your entire strategy around one dimension of diversity, such as gender (hiring and promoting women, for example), you will leave out a lot of employees from this conversation and send the message that they do not have the same value as women do in your organization. Think holistically about the type of company you want to work in and how diversity and inclusion fits into that experience.
Make your work visible
Make yourself visible in the work you are doing. When performance reviews come around, be sure to highlight the work you have done in grassroots projects. Nominate the stakeholders you worked with or leaders who supported you to give you performance feedback. Also showcase the progress you’ve made to your manager so they are aware of it. If you have an opportunity to talk about your accomplishments at all-hands meetings or other presentations, be sure to do it. And write about the work you are doing on your company’s intranet or social media to give it visibility across the organization (this is also a great way to find collaborators!). Also make sure you explicitly let leaders and colleagues in HR know that you would like to do this work full time, if the opportunity arises.
Talk with others to compare notes and share ideas
Take every opportunity to meet with people who are doing similar work you are doing at other organizations. This is a great way to compare notes and get inspired by the work of others. I’ve personally learned so much by having conversations with others in the field. It has also inspired a lot of what I’ve written in this blog and helped me to push my work outside of my comfort zone and past my own assumptions. It’s also a great way to give yourself some perspective and remind yourself that many of your organization’s problems are not unique and you can learn a lot from how others have dealt with similar problems in the past.
When an opportunity opens…
When a new position becomes open or when leaders are discussing resourcing for D&I work, be ready to apply and demonstrate how you have already contributed to the work. Make sure you have colleagues who can vouch for your work and are willing to refer you for opportunities.
Take the time you need to refresh
D&I work is especially personal, compared to most types of professional work and because of that, it can suck a lot of emotional energy. Keep this all in perspective and remember to put some distance between the work and your ambitions. It can be tempting to do a lot of work for free, on top of your day to day work because of passion for the topic, but it is not always appreciated by the organization. Be ready to walk away from the work if you do not feel valued or appreciated, if the company is not actually willing to support change or if you do not believe it’s helping your long term growth.
Final Notes
A final message to put everything into perspective: at the end of the day, most of the work we do in a corporate setting serves partially to make a very small number of people much, much richer. So be sure to protect the personal energy you are investing. Make sure the work you are doing also brings you personal value and gratification. And also get comfortable saying no if it becomes too much.
