Racial Equity Playbook 3.0
If you’re reviewing Playbook 3.0, you likely have a professional (internal or external) leading this effort. While each professional in this area will have a different perspective, they should still be addressing the key components we have identified: commitment, accountability and action towards diversity, inclusion and equity. Consider these tactics as guidance, not a prescription, and a way for you to evaluate the quality of your efforts.
Affirm Your Commitment - Ultimately, your leadership needs to be diverse. If you’re not there yet, consider the following guidelines for organizations in the United States:
Diversity - bring diverse people into the organization at all levels
Affirm Your Commitment - Ultimately, your leadership needs to be diverse. If you’re not there yet, consider the following guidelines for organizations in the United States:
- Achieve at least 40% non-white male composition of the Board (including at least one Black member). You may need to expand your Board or replace existing members to make room.
- Achieve at least 50% non-white male composition of the Executive Team (including at least one Black member). You may need to expand your team or replace existing members to make room.
- Publish your DE&I metrics publicly, so anyone can see them.
- Tie DE&I results into compensation (See examples)
- Make achieving DE&I results a requirement for promotion for managers
Diversity - bring diverse people into the organization at all levels
- Debias your hiring process. Remove names from resumes when screening. Use a structured interview process. Free flowing interviews lead to biased outcomes and research shows they underperform as a hiring tool. Test blind hiring. Here’s one tool for de-biasing interviews.
- Interview for capabilities, not "cultural fit" which often results in bias and a lack of diversity. Hire for cultural add (i.e., people with experiences and backgrounds not already represented), which will provide unique perspectives, ultimately improving your understanding of the broader environment.
- Build your own pipeline for Black candidates. Create internship programs and education programs. Find new training programs.
- Evaluate vendors. There is a wide variation in what you can achieve through vendor relationships depending on the type of vendors you use and the power you have in the relationship. Some things you can do:
- Inform new and existing vendors that racial equity and real progress on DEI is important to your organization and is something that is part of the evaluation process for vendors.
- Ask your vendors what they do on racial equity/DEI as part of the vetting process. Do they have stats that they can share? What programs do they have in place to improve outcomes.
- If a vendor provides a team that you are interacting with, let the vendor know that you prefer a diverse team and would not be comfortable with an all-white team.
- Train, train, train. Train new managers on how to manage, evaluate and promote in non-biased ways. Train all employees on how to spot and disrupt bias, such as bias interrupters. Training on Covering is highly recommended by Kathleen Hogan at Microsoft. Test what training leads to meaningful differences in inclusion measures.
- If surveys on inclusion show black-white disparities in experience, develop data driven plans to improve results. Be sure to consider intersectionality in evaluating differences in experience.
- Work to expand your culture and evaluate what drives performance versus what may have evolved organically. The “work hard, play hard” culture that encourages staying late and company happy-hours can be off-putting and restrictive to many potential employees. Be careful that team-building activities are inclusive.
- Audit pay annually across the organization looking at both pay rates and employee grading. Often under-represented employees are in lower pay grades for similar skill levels as compared to white employees. Audits should be done on a routine basis. Pay discrepancies frequently reappear over time.
- Consider making pay transparent. Many companies (Slack is a prominent example) are exploring this as a way to reduce pay inequities.
- Create a "sponsorship" program in your organization. Mentors and coaches can provide advice to employees, but sponsors advocate and invest in an employee's success. Employees from under-represented groups often have less extensive internal networks, and sponsors can help compensate for that.
