KEEP BEING DIFFERENT.
ORDINARY NEVER CHANGED THE WORLD.
Illustration by Jessica Wetterer.
Harness the power of a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce.
DIVERSITY
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Your One-stop Shop for building a Diverse and Inclusive Culture We are experts at engagement. We understand that it’s not just having great tools, but making true progress that makes a difference in your organization. Our software, services and content help you build a culture that yields great results and give you all the tools to measure and report on your success. SOFTWARE
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Diversity & Inclusion Training, Workshops and Events
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onthedotdiversity.com | To learn more, contact leslie@onthedotdiversity.com.
DEI Reports and Publications
Dear reader, We are thrilled to have this opportunity to showcase and learn from some of the most dynamic diversity, equity and inclusion leaders in the industry. The following pages are dedicated to not only helping to start important conversations within your own organization, but to arm yourself with the stats and facts we all need to truly know what it is to build an inclusive culture that fosters employee engagement, retention and advancement. When I speak to executives and employees of medium and large organizations, a recurring theme is the limited access for women and all diverse employees to build peer and mentor networks. Recent studies have shown women and men who make it to leadership and C-suite positions invariably have a strong community of people supporting them along the way. Because of this, I knew we had to do more than just tell the stories of role models; we had to build a platform that fostered those relationships in real time. With a deep passion for diversity and inclusion, an expertise in storytelling and the moxie to believe that an internal community-building platform could change the trajectory of opportunity and advancement for women and all diverse employees, On The Dot Diversity was born. On The Dot Diversity is a platform through which companies can create an internal ecosystem that connects women and all diverse employees to a network of peers and allies. Creating this platform for medium and large companies allows thousands of employees, in one fell swoop, to build the network and resources critical to advancement and success. We hope you will use this publication as a resource to ignite conversations in your own company and feel free to reach out to us for resources, services and, of course, our signature diversity software platform. We can be reached at onthedotdiversity.com. Keep being different,
Melinda Garvey Founder, On The Dot Diversity
DIVERSITY
GENDER
Fact Versus Perception
At companies where senior leaders are 10 percent women and 90 percent men, half of men see women as being well-represented at their company.
Executive teams that are highly gender-diverse are 21 percent more likely to outperform on profitability.
Some 70 percent of women feel women are underrepresented in leadership within their company. They’re right.
RATES OF PROMOTION BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY
100 80 60 40
By 2025, millennials are predicted to make up 75 percent of the workforce.
20 0
SUPPORT STAFF
PROFESSIONALS
MANAGERS MEN
SENIOR MANAGERS
EXECUTIVES
WOMEN
WORKFORCE DEMOGRAPHICS AND DIVERSITY
2020
NON-WHITE WHITE
2050
About 67 percent of job seekers said a diverse workforce is an important factor when evaluating companies and job offers.
NON-WHITE WHITE Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Gartner, McKinsey & Company; Mercer; Brookings; Josh Bersin; Glassdoor; Deloitte LLP; Korn Ferry; Pew Research
AN INCLUSIVE COMPANY CULTURE PAYS OFF NON-INCLUSIVE COMPANIES
INCLUSIVE COMPANIES
TWO TIMES MORE LIKELY TO MISS CRUCIAL COMPANY INNOVATIONS
1.4 TIMES MORE REVENUE
29 PERCENT LESS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE ABOVE-AVERAGE PROFITABILITY
35 PERCENT MORE LIKELY TO OUTPERFORM COMPETITORS
2 TIMES LESS CASH FLOW PER EMPLOYEE
83 PERCENT ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT FROM MILLENNIAL WORKERS (75 percent of your 2025 workforce)
LYNETTE BARKSDALE
SETH SMILEY-HUMPHRIES
“By doing the right thing for people, you do the right thing for business.”
“Implicit bias may be unconscious, but each of us can consciously reduce the habit.”
Q: What are the key tenets of a strong DEI strategy in a company? What are the key benefits of implementing these strategies?
We’re not born with cognitive structures like stereotypes. We learn much of this from our parents before rhetoric is reinforced through media, culture and public institutions. We learn to assign values and characteristics to others based on classifications like age, race, ethnicity, gender and weight—even hair color. This habit leads us to make critical judgments of others based on their appearances or associations, oftentimes leading to belief systems like racism, sexism and other bigotry. Unchecked unconscious bias comes at a price, particularly for underrepresented people. As part of a study conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Chicago, researchers mailed 5,000 resumes in response to job ads in both The Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune. Four resumes were sent for each job posting: two well-qualified resumes, each with a “black” and “white-sounding” name, and two lesser qualified resumes in the same manner. For resumes with so-called white-sounding names, theoretical applicants had fewer gaps in employment and higher-level skills, giving them a 30 percent greater chance of receiving a response. This was not the case for the resumes attached to the so-called “black-sounding” names. Overall, resumes associated with “white” names had a 10.1 percent chance of receiving a response, while resumes associated with “black” names only had a 6.7 percent chance. It’s not illegal to harbor stereotypes, but when cognitive bias leads to a difference in employees’ terms, conditions or privileges of employment, it counts as discrimination and qualifies as an actionable offense. Implicit bias may be unconscious, but each of us can consciously reduce the habit. By acknowledging our propensity to pass judgments unconsciously, we can own our biases and their resulting impacts. A great place to start is through the Implicit Association Test offered by Harvard University through Project Implicit. The evaluation measures the speed with which you associate concepts through words and/or pictures, indicating the strength of your neural pathways and allowing you to understand just how hard-wired your associations are. In any case, the first step in bringing these unconscious functions back to a conscious level is to practice greater self-awareness and to be more aware of your emotions, both inwardly toward yourself and outwardly toward others.
VICE PRESIDENT OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION GOLDMAN SACHS
A: The most important tenet of a company’s diversity and inclusion strategy is that the strategy is rooted in what is important to the business. If a business is focused on sales, knowing that the demographics of our country are shifting at a rapid pace, they may want to think about whether they have the right voices at the table and decision-makers to be able to stay relevant with their customer base. The second most important tenet is that the work is not solely driven through a human resources or diversity and inclusion team. These teams are usually the smallest teams, and if you want the work to scale, you must have leaders that are willing to carry the responsibility of implementing and holding their organization or business unit accountable. Additionally, the work can’t be held by one person because changes happen within organizations, people leave jobs. You want to ensure that the strategy is sustained. Ensuring your message aligns to your actions is pivotal. When these tenets are implemented, it is my belief that employees will trust the organization, and the company, in turn, has higher productivity. There is a sense of freedom that releases innovation and creativity when you are able to be at your best with people who push your thinking. Q: What was the spark for you that made you decide to commit your career to DEI efforts? A: I can remember clearly an example with kids on the playground when I was 5 years old and debating with other kids why we needed to treat the new kid fairly. My passion for serving and fairness is something that is part of my DNA. I remember the moment when I knew I wanted to do this work as an adult. I was running a nonprofit whose mission was to provide additional tutorial time for kids who needed extra support in school. When I started in my career about 15 years ago, working for Target, we were already talking about diversity and inclusion and forming councils around this work. I haven’t turned back since then. I would say my commitment has only gotten stronger, and even though this work is hard, I have evidence through some of the teams that I have led that focusing on DEI makes a difference. By doing the right thing for people, you do the right thing for business.
DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION LENOVO
CLARISSA FUSELIER
SHARON BROGDON
OPERATIONS MANAGER, DEI ADVOCATE BAZAARVOICE
HEAD OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION RETAILMENOT
“The worst thing you can do is not take action but claim to have the DEI culture.”
“Achieving true, sustainable change requires more than just the persistent work of a relative few individuals.”
Q: What can companies do to attract diverse candidates? A: I suggest companies truly embrace inclusion as part of their workplace culture DNA. It’s a mindset, which means it’s often a new behavior and a new way of prioritizing your business. You have to go all in and be accountable. A mission statement on inclusion is a great start, but educating your leadership and talent team on how to be inclusive galvanizes your approach. Review your hiring practices and your performance-review processes to prevent bias from flourishing in your company. The worst thing you can do is not take action but claim to have the DEI culture. With more than 60 percent of employees saying inclusion is important in their job-seeking choices, lip service is a surefire way to waste your cost-per-hire budget because that talent will often leave once they realize the truth. Q: What are some of the top DEI initiatives that every company can—and should—implement? Why? A: I’m a big fan of employee resource groups. It gives employees a space to connect and support each other. Companies should also audit their hiring and retention policies and procedures to ensure they are not being exclusive and/ or biased. Remember, meritocracy is often a cover where biases can hide. Putting this inclusive focus on policies and procedures makes for a systemic culture change, one that is foundational, not just aspirational. Q: What are some of the pitfalls that companies inadvertently step into in the DEI space? How can they avoid some of these missteps? A: Some companies may believe this is just a trend or fad and therefore believe DEI doesn’t require ongoing work. Diversity and inclusion work is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing because your workplace culture isn’t. Don’t focus on the metrics so much that you forget the employees behind the numbers. This isn’t a quota game. It’s about keeping your company thriving with stellar, supported talent where their uniqueness is valued. Sometimes initiatives forget the intersectionality or overlap of gender, race and sexual-orientation marginalization. We tend to think of just one or the other. If you fail to recognize the disparities of those employees who identify with more than one, your programs will exclude them.
The diversity and inclusion landscape has changed and I have seen progress in the last 10 years. There is greater awareness and acceptance of the business case for diversity and inclusion. With progress, particularly in the technology industry, I still see a significant lack of people of color and women in senior levels and positions of influence and decision-making. One might think after so much time, we should be further ahead. I agree. It has long been said this is a marathon, not a sprint. Achieving true, sustainable change requires more than just the persistent work of a relative few individuals. It requires the effort and dedication of each and every one of us. Community engagement and education are important strategic focus areas for all RetailMeNot’s employee resource groups. Leveraging that lens, each ERG strives to deliver programs and activities that educate and engage both our employees and local communities. In early 2019, our LGBTQA+ ERG created a Trans Healthcare panel experience moderated by the ERG lead and featuring members from The Kind Clinic, Out Youth and University of Texas School of Nursing. The panel covered a history of health-care services for individuals contemplating or undergoing gender transition, discussed the challenges of access to care and offered resources, opportunities for allies and guidance for how to navigate identified challenges. The ERG is partnering with our Parents ERG to host an event this year for parents of children navigating their sexual and gender identities. What I love about RetailMeNot ERGs is they were created by our employees, for our employees and based on our employees’ specific needs. Ensuring our remote employees feel included was important early in our company’s diversity and inclusion journey. This led to the creation of our Connect ERG, focused on creating community and cultivating an experience of belonging for remote employees. With remote workers becoming more of the norm, their inclusion is a consistent thread through our strategy.