Care Early and Often: Our journey to building with DEI at the core

Written by: Lindsay Verstegen, Chief People Officer

In the midst of undergoing great growth and transformation at ShopRunner, we had a radical* hypothesis. If we want to build our company with a solid foundation, we need to care about diversity, equity and inclusion not only early and often, but literally all of the time.

In my previous lives, I had the good fortune** to work on DEI initiatives as part of my role (in addition to all of the more traditional tasks an HR person is expected to perform). Although I was thrilled to work on something that I consider a crucial mission, I was always disappointed by the fact that the problem of rampant inequity had sprouted from seeds that we, ourselves, had planted. In these roles and at those companies, we hadn’t talked about the importance of diversity and equity early in the game, and years later we were doing our best to triage the situation we had set in our foundational stages.

I’ll be the first to admit our journey has been far from perfect, but I believe it’s important to call out the positive signals we’re sending and the progress we are making. Progress in equity doesn’t come through huge announcements, but rather by adjusting the million small ways that systemic issues come together to create inequity at work.

When I came to ShopRunner, the thesis was that caring about DEI and not shying away from having real conversations about it would make a difference. We’d plant different seeds this time, starting with a cultural assertion that inclusion is an integral part of who we are.

In short two years, here are just some of the ways we’re showing up to champion inclusion while we continue to build:

1. We celebrate our women leaders.
2. We acknowledge and celebrate the identities of our non-binary employees.
3. We make what has been implicit, explicit, and through our actions, we put an end to secret parenting that can be so rampant in workplaces today.
4. We look at our policies and work hard to make them progress our business but also become table stakes offerings to the best and brightest employees.
5. We use gender-neutral language throughout our employee handbook.
6. We have used salary bands from the beginning of our hyper-growth to ensure equity in compensation across employees and departments.
7. We are committed to seeing a diverse pipeline for each and every role we hire for and always hire the best person therein.
8. We have a call out for equality at the bottom of each and every role we post.
9. We have INCLUSION as a value amongst a strong set of values we hold dear across the organization.
10. We expanded our parental leave policy to be inclusive of any way a family comes together to expand with fully paid leave for both primary and secondary caregivers.
11. We’re always on the lookout for ways we can set the stage for better equality and inclusion which means the above list is only the start.
12. We create lactation rooms where employees can feel comfortable with peace of mind that they’ll get the privacy and space they need to transition back from time away.
13. We nurture wellness through mandated PTO and a wellness room that creates a calming environment and allows employees to meditate or pray as needed.
14. We bring in harassment training to ensure that all employees are ambassadors for harassment-free workplaces. We set the stage for zero tolerance on bad behavior.

We are owning who we are and that inclusion and equity matters to us. We yearn to serve a diverse set of customers and help our entire communities thrive in each place we have an office. “You can’t be what you can’t see” and we try to give a window in wherever we can. We hope we become what people see and inspire other workplaces to champion diversity, equity and inclusion at each and every time and place possible.

We’re proud of what we’ve built and it’s only the beginning. The foundation is strong and we’re continuing to be transparent about who we are, proud of showing up authentically and leading with our values out in front, fueling our business’ success and creating a workplace we love.

*it isn’t that radical

**this is sarcasm as it shouldn’t be “good fortune” but rather the way things are, everywhere