Your organizational equity confidant (Psst: it’s not HR…)
Human Resources are often tasked with inclusion & equity initiatives. However, are they the right team to be taking this on?
Source & artwork by Amanda Mustard
In our most recent newsletter issue, we suggested using design research to make inclusion initiatives real, transparent, private & safe. To ensure these parameters, we must also be intentional about who is made responsible for inclusion initiatives — especially if we’re going to expect staff to share difficult stories about their own organization.
Because inclusion related projects are often given to internal HR teams, HR has been a popular discussion with women I interviewed about their experiences in the workplace. Here’s what they say:
“I approached our HR person at the time and said I was experiencing sexism. Her response was, “well, welcome to the working world.”
“When I went to HR, the response I got was so completely unacceptable.”
“I was naive at the time to think that HR was on my side.”
“HR should not be an internal function. They have f*cked me over so many times. Their objective is to save the company money.”
What I’m hearing between the lines is: I do not trust HR. It might be called human resources, but most women feel that it’s actually more company resources.
So, who should be your organizational equity confidant & changemaker?
The women who are disappointed with HR also said that they would be much more comfortable if HR were a third party. Most HR personnel report to the Head of Operations — and most Ops divisions goals and incentives are more aligned to serve the organization rather than the humans of the organization. Misaligned incentives = lack of trust.
Some organizations lean on their Chief Diversity Officers or their Diversity, Equity & Inclusion teams — but these teams too, have often found themselves with limited support from leadership or with impossible expectations.
Maybe the question of organizational equity confidant isn’t just about the who. It’s also about how the responsible party is set up to succeed — whether they are 3rd party or internal. We should also be asking the following questions as we design our inclusion projects and initiatives:
- How are the project incentives aligned with the top level leadership?
- How is success measured, and what constitutes as success?
- How is the responsible party supported by a leadership team that may have to hear negative comments about themselves?
I would go as far as to say — set up success measures and goals for each key phase in the process. A success metric for inclusion design research could be a higher number of negative stories about the organization. This might seem contradictory at first, but if your goal with design research is to identify opportunity areas to make change — you’re going to need those stories to point you somewhere!
Has your company set up inclusion initiatives to help them succeed?
This post is an excerpt from Unconforming: a newsletter about Design for Women. Unconforming goes out every two weeks and also shares learnings from experts, job and other opportunities, examples and articles — all to make an impact in the women’s space. Sign up here to get it in your inbox!
