At my day job, we LOVE talking about equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). There are several of us here who could easily spend hours every day talking about what we're doing wrong, brainstorming ideas for improvement, and generally wishing we could fix the world. Ah, if only all this talk could solve an organization's EDI shortcomings--we'd be way ahead of the curve.
Unfortunately for all of us chatterboxes, talk is cheap. Even more unfortunately for yours truly--she who never met a checklist she couldn't check or an award she wouldn't strive for--there is no end game. The actual day-to-day work of EDI is itself the goal, which means none of us will ever get to the point where we look at what we've done and think "That's it! Mission accomplished."
So, how do we do the work when we don't have an end goal in sight? More importantly, how in the world do we know we're actually doing the work in any meaningful way? While I can't create a finish line for you, I can offer you some concrete steps you can take, starting today, in your organization.
- Understand--and get others to understand--that the meat of the EDI work lives not in a committee's discussions but in the daily actions and decisions of every employee. Committee discussions are great for setting tone, determining guidelines, and creating visibility, but they can't actually do the work. That's up to staff.
- Create a method to learn what the decision points are in your company's work. This could be a survey of all staff or a meeting with representatives from each department. Learn what people do and where they exert power in their daily work.
- Make a master list of decisions people make in a day. It is at each of these decision points where the magic can happen. When a hiring manager looks at a hiring decision with an equity lens and makes a decision in line with the organization's EDI goals, the outcome changes. It is in the accrual of hundreds/thousands of these outcome changes that the EDI work progresses. Your list can start small--one frequently made decision from each department or team--and can grow once the team members have had a chance to practice.
- Determine what equity frameworks or tools would be useful in approaching a decision. How do we change the outcome to support our EDI goals by changing one staff member's approach to a decision?
- Create an evaluation system. This could look like an "accountability team" that meets regularly and hears and discusses reports from departments on the decisions they've made and the outcomes they've seen. This could be a required monthly report from each department manager that the executive team reviews and shares with the organization.
- Add the evaluation of EDI work to your organization's performance review process. This doesn't have to be a numerical score, but every staff member should be able to articulate at least one decision they've made to which they applied an equity lens during the decision-making process.
That would really be a great start. My organization is working on implementing and improving these steps as we continue our move away from the theoretical and into the practical. I can't wait to see our outcomes.
Feel free to share your questions in the comments, or send me an email if you'd like a little additional guidance!