Episode 64 : Why White Leaders Should Go Beyond the New ISO D&I

Dear Corner Office

This is the dear corner office podcast or workplace leaders learn why Black Latinx and indigenous women, Lee, and how to get them back. I'm your host Michele Heyward do to me, you probably haven't heard her heard of this, heard me describe this before. But when it comes to racism and diversity, equity inclusion inside an organization, it often gets pushed off as an HR issue. But what happens in organizations is really, it's cascaded throughout the organization, nobody's really siloed. And I go back to an instance in time a few years ago, I think, is around 2018 2017, where our story broke about the racism black employees were encountering in a General Motors plant in Ohio, to the point where in an employee had hung up a noose in in the facility, and black employees ended up quitting from working in that facility and start telling how they weren't being treated. And so people that Odessa EEOC suit that is that is racism. But imagine if you are a customer who bought a GMC vehicle from that particular facility, and you're continuously taking that vehicle, to the dealership, what we often forget is what people go through in their workday in an organization impacts the customer impacts the service they receive, impacts the product they receive. So now if you the product is defective, because people were dealing with racism, or they were involved in a racist act, they weren't doing their job to the best of their ability. And then it ended the day as a, as a purchaser, as a customer, as an end user, you ended up with a vehicle that had problems. And so that impacts your time and your money that you have to spend at a dealer to get it rectified, but had the organization, right rectified it within that facility, would you still then be at the dealer dealing with those issues. And so oftentimes, we relegate the issues within the workplace to HR, but it's really far it cascades throughout the organization. So today I want to talk about a new standard that came out last year, it was issued from an organization some of you may know called ISO, our ISO to international organization of standardization. And they creep ated ISO 30415 Because of I say 3415 people's here 3415. But it's 30415. I'm familiar with ISO as an engineer, because you often see it in manufacturing facilities, you see it in it, and other areas, but not really in human resources, and especially not for diversity and inclusion. And what they really focus on was really trying to help organization have go through and have their entire facilities, not just HR, right, really reviewed, analyze and study. And to come through and decide what training their organ, their employees need to go through, document everything. And you're in a repeated cycle of improvement because you're going through process improvement. And so one of the speakers earlier talked about, or a couple of them really talked about change management, and how it is very difficult. And people say, Oh, we tried that. Well, how long did you try? Who tried it? What were your metrics? Did you What did you change, right? And so this particular ISO standard, helps organizations really scope out diversity and inclusion by focusing on important issues. But issues but also issues that are often eliminated and ignored, like I said, when it comes to vehicle outputs, or products in the in product that organizations provide to customers. And so it's really a framework that can be customized for your particular organization. And so, when we look at ISO being around in nearly what 200 km countries, not companies, countries, and you know, from 14,000 to 9001, and so forth. It really helps standardize what an organization should be doing to bring in diversity and inclusion because we have turnover within our chief diversity officers. We have turnovers in management had turnover in employees. But what happens to that experience. So trying to capsulate it into a document with has history in it has your processes and it is really what I saw as trying to do. And some of that, Oh, of course it would come out in 2001. Actually, I still worked on this particular standard for 10 years. It actually started out at Sherm Society of Human Resource managers, and Sherm for whatever reason decided they didn't want to focus on it and it and they were able to team that worked on it, were able to get it into ISO. And they worked literally for 10 years, really only about two core people kept it moving for 10 years for it to finally launch in May of 2021. And so it wasn't because of the murder of George Floyd. But there were actual HR human resources professionals that literally spent a good portion of 10 years to make this happen. And so I'm gonna dig into a bit more of this DNI framework. Because it goes beyond HR, it looks at governance within your organization, it looks at supply chain and product delivery. So it has four key parts, human resources, governance, supply chain, and product delivery. And oftentimes, we're like, why do we Why did these areas matter? When you're thinking about governance, one of the things that I found the most troubling and the most difficult when it comes to bring in diversity, equity inclusion in an organization is C suite isn't bought into it. They haven't worked on themselves. And they don't understand what the isms are, and what a gender ideal workplace looks like, right? They're like, oh, we'll hire a chief diversity officer and give them some money. And I end up a small team, and they can go figure it out. But when you look at ISO, and they're looking at governance, they want individual responsibilities for diversity and inclusion and organization. They also want organizational leadership to be focused on it, it can't just be mid management, because that won't stick. And they also understand from that perspective, individual responsibility cascaded throughout the organization, because it has to not only be from the top down, but from the bottom up, or midway through. And so it really looks at everything. But also the other key part is accountability. And it really focuses on bringing in accountability and organization. And that's why I really love this framework, because that's a key part that has been missing is the accountability when it comes to getting dei done in an organization who's accountable other than the CTO, the chief diversity officer when it doesn't work. And I think it's really important to understand that it also in the governance part, we're looking at your practices, policies and procedures. Are they equitable? Are they only written in follow up for certain people and other people, I have unwritten rules that they don't have that they go by? And, and how do you document and how did you change that in that organization. So the governance part to me is really different than what we've seen in other frameworks. Supply chain is, is you know, and it focuses on supplier diversity, for the most part, I still think that's really important because you are focused on small businesses, like somebody mentioned, 75% of Americans work for small and midsize businesses, or they work for themselves, and understanding how to bring in diverse suppliers, how to engage with them, how to pay them for that net, 60. Net 90 may not be the best thing for them, it's really important to understand. So supply chain is there. And it is important for supplier diversity, but it's not as smooth as some of the other things. Then the other part that was really, really interesting about it, they went through human resources, but it looked at that entire employee lifecycle, and forgot into the fact that we look at promoting women. And we look at who's on the board. So women at executive level and women on boards, right? But what happens when we're looking at data around succession planning, and data around promotion? And so what what does that really look like? And oftentimes, there's not a lot set or looked at, or they don't look at the data at a intersectional lens, right? They're like, Oh, we recruited all of these diverse talent, which is a whole other discussion that go on I've had About that Freezy
what does it look like throughout your organization? And who's getting promoted? And who's not getting promoted? Who is getting pushed out of the organization? Right? How are they getting pushed out? It is notoriously it is notorious, or well known that black people often are put on pips performance improvement plans, to push them out to organizations. And so one thing we're focused on here at positive hire is utilizing intersectionality. Right? Not just looking at gender, but looking at race, looking at parenting, or caregiving, looking at education, social economic status, and access to executive to sponsors to mentors, to see how that is impacting people's careers, and an income and pay and access as well, because it truly makes a difference. And so I like how ISO sets it up. To go into organizations asked for this information, you're going to get more more most of the information from HR, but you can still go to supply diversity, right? You still want to have sit downs with ERG leaders, and other employees in the organization. But even outside of that, you're looking and asking people, What are their individual responsibilities to the organization, what you may find is, some people, I have no accountability, I just come here and do my job. And it's really understanding more of, of course, the culture within the organization. And I think it's a great opportunity to do that. Under supply diverse supply chain, along with supplier diversity, we talk about procurement, and organizational stakeholders. And oftentimes we think about external stakeholders, stakeholders, right? But what about organizational stakeholders? How do they fit in? And how are they impacted with diversity and inclusion? We're like, well, I'm, I've talked about employees, are you talking about vendors? And yes, we are. But we don't often really understand how diversity equity inclusion impacts them, whether it's negative and or positive, and what does it look like for those people in organizations that are stakeholders. And so I really encourage you to really take a deeper view as to what it can be, because I so is really pulling in on different parts of companies that we haven't looked at before. And then next, we're looking at product delivery. And we will return talking to Christina, and we were talking to Lori, and they were both talking about learning and development and inclusive instruction design. We have to also think about that in product development and product delivery. Because if we, and I get and I push back on this often, and I do it with my own development team, and that you're developing something with you in mind, I need you to develop things with various users in mind. What does that look like? How can we make a product or service easiest and most beneficial to these types of people, people who are disabled people who don't have access to high speed internet like me, when I'm at home in rural South Carolina, how are they able to deliver a product. And so as we said, in the pandemic, and students were sent home to work virtually the assumption that Oh, they'll just jump on the internet. Rural areas do not have high speed internet. And so now you're sending three kids home on a on computers and tablets. And you're pulling in all of this, the slower internet, it's not high speed, I'm just say a slower trying to do their schoolwork. And so you're going to get a lower result because you didn't develop software, with people with slower internet in mind, based on assumption they had high speed. And so you really, with with this ISO 30415 standard is having companies really dissect and understand what is that like for people overall that they serve? And not just and really how dei or DNI as it's called diversity inclusion for ISO specifically, what does that look like? And I don't think we've gotten that. So I'm gonna pause here to see if anybody else is Has anybody else read or heard of the ISO 30415 standard? And I would love to know your thoughts because I think it's an interesting approach to go through and Started doing assessments with inside of your organization, positive hire I went through to get certified. And because I really like, these core parts of it, looking at your product delivery, and how di plays a part in that, also how it you're looking at your governance, and you're looking at responsibilities and accountability. Because when you do that assessment, you're documenting who is responsible. So if it's Sarah, in, in production management, if it's Chad in finance, whoever it is, they're literally listed as being responsible for this part of the DNI plan. And that generally isn't what happens, we'll see more of the diversity, diversity and inclusion team, or the chief diversity officer being held responsible when things don't go right, or when they do. And I think this puts a different spin on it. Now. Is it easy to do you don't like anything, the best part of I think, of this particular standard, is the Plan, Do Check Act. So you're consistently in this process of movement is not as though a consultant comes in and does it. And so Okay, here, this is what we recommend. But you're consistently going through the process to improve how many of you have ever gone to work ever hired a trainer, and you worked out one time and you're done, you're fit, it doesn't work like that is consistently changing your diet, doing different exercises, you may be on medication, so you have to figure out which exercises are are better for you. You may be over 40 or perimenopause or, or in menopause. And you may find different exercises that work for you and your 30s don't work for you now, right? So it's really important that with the ISO or with whichever process you're using, you have a plan, Do Check Act, because you want to consistently go through change management. But it takes time and it takes effort. And it takes you being consistent. And that is really what I like the best about this particular process is it is not a one and done type of process. If this is something you're interested in, definitely, definitely let me know, we can definitely set up a call with you. We want to know where your organization is, in, in, in really doing dei throughout the organization. Are you looking at your data analytics? How are you looking at your data analytics, we get a lot of people that are still focused on gender, and not understanding the different levels of intersectionality. Even age, right now we saw a lot of boomers leave and older Gen Xers retire at the beginning of the pandemic and even now, saying, You know what, I don't want to I'm not going to stay for this. I'm gonna go ahead and leave I went through 2008 recession, I'm done. I'm stressed out enough, it really start dissecting it understanding what are the experiences of the people in your organization? Because that's truly truly important. But more importantly, how can you help those people be successful? How can you help them feel as though they belong in the organization? And how do you do it in a way by giving them the tools and access to training and access to people so that they feel as though they belong? And that they can be a success in that organization? No matter where there's not not a promotion? Maybe they just want the company to pay for I don't know pet insurance has gotten really popular. Maybe they're looking for paid maternity leave. And you really haven't pushed that before I thought about what is what does it look like in your organization, or even priced it out and find that it's actually beneficial to offer it in your organization. A friend of mine here in South Carolina, he was working at a college and we're just telling Gen Xers he was working with a lot of millennials and they were decide, you know, got married and decide to have their first children they found out they weren't getting paid maternity leave, they quit. This is pre pandemic. So trying to find instructors now but these young women soon to be mothers quit when they found out the organization. This particular college did not offer paid maternity leave. They was like That's ridiculous. Well, my friend and his spouse found out they didn't offer anything at all for paternity leave, they ended up adopting and, and the husband ended up utilizing all of his PTO the wife is was working for a fortune 10 company If they didn't offer paid maternity leave, or any
paternity support at all, and it was so surprising, even heard, the wife's manager was so surprised. And so these are the things that I saw can help organizations go through and assess, because as their employees are going through experiences, whether you're sharing an exit interviews or not managers are sharing why their employees have left, and the things that really matter, because they lost good employees that brought so much to the organization that may be difficult to replace. All right. So this everybody, if you have thoughts and questions, go ahead, my calendar link is in there. Love to have a conversation with you about where your organization is, whatever sector inclusion, what work you do with people analytics on an intersectionality lens, to really help you retain that talent and grow the talent that you currently have in your organization and finding gaps of maybe where you need to recruit talent. Now. What I want to say in the chat if we could drop in the survey for my talk, I know I'm wrapping up a little bit earlier than I told my team but I want to get you out of here in time. But I want to say thank you for joining us joining us for day one. Don't forget to rate review and subscribe to the podcast. It helps me grow. Visit positive hire.co That's positive hire dot c o