Diversity is the new black
Diversity & Inclusion is the talk of the town in the corporate world, but are companies really making a change or merely using it as a smokescreen?
Janaina Machado, group member | People and Operations | Inclusion, Diversity and Belonging Advocate
In 2014, I left my job as an HR Consultant at Luandre because I was suffering sexual harassment from my manager. I remember back then when I had to hide this information if I wanted to land another job because if I dared to say in an interview the real reason why I left, I would be ostracized — it was a rule: you could never, ever criticize your last employment or their culture, because you’d be judged for saying it, rather them for doing it.
This is the first time I talk about it, but it’s not the first time that I question how messed up is the business environment. Women couldn’t talk about the aggression they suffered; companies denied interviewing Black candidates, even if they were qualified; trainees’ programs with requirements such as Ivy-league universities and top grades, which narrows their candidates to a majority of white and upper-middle-class people. These are true stories from places that I’ve worked. And even then, young and naïve, I was questioning these structures, bothered with the clear race, class and gender prejudice. Later, I found out that there is a name for the fight against it inside companies: Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging.
I am telling this because a few weeks ago I had a phone screening interview with a company that tries (really hard, might I add) to present itself as a cool, innovative, and inclusive company: their career page has a job description that says you should apply even if you don’t meet all the requirements — which is cool. There are a lot of pics of the team and their descriptions: an activist? a tattoo lover? It looked great. I felt safe enough to apply and see if I would be given a chance.
I’d like to add that my name is a typical Brazilian name. It is not meant to sound great and easy in English: Janaina. This is the first thing someone sees on my CV and it should not be an obstacle in the hiring process, but it is. It screams: different. Immigrant. It has been really hard for me to get back to the job market. I’m not out of work -I create embroidery designs, I’ve had my social business, I’ve freelanced at stores and have even worked at a hostel. But it has been challenging — not to say impossible — for me to get a regular 9–17h job in an office.
And if you think this is something I made up, hold on — research shows that in the UK, white people have a 24% chance of receiving an invitation to an interview, while ethnic minorities have only 15%. If you place two resumes side by side, with similar experiences and educational background, David is 3 times more likely to be interviewed than Muhammed. Here in the Netherlands, students with an ethnic minority background are 20% less likely to have a job.
Going back to my recruitment process, my resume got there through a referral. Someone thought that I was a good fit because of my dedication to equity and inclusion. So I got a chance. You see, I was a recruiter years ago, but I’ve been away from the market since the end of 2014, so I tend to get nervous about interviews.
The call that was supposed to last 45 minutes, took only 20, and I hung up feeling that it had been a courtesy call. Zero-interest in my experience, or the gap in my CV. It was like the interviewer hadn’t even read my resume. I gave my best during that call, asking questions about the company, especially about their Inclusion program — since they make a lot of effort to show that’s what they are all about. I got some evasive replies, especially when I asked about the diversity amongst their employees and if they had an Inclusion goal for 2021 after the recent BLM movement around the world. Not a single answer I could use to spark an interest.
If you want to see how serious a company is about their Diversity and Inclusion, check their About and Career pages, their board members, and their C’s. And then, tell me what you see.
Today I got a feedback email saying they wouldn’t move forward with me. That’s ok, I’m used to it. But for a company that claims to be so different, I was expecting at least a reason, not the standardized email I got. Normally, for Recruitment positions, there’s a question often asked that I was dying to answer — “what would you do differently from what we do now to attract talents?” It was a Tech Sourcer position and I was sure this question would come up. It didn’t but here is my answer to it anyway:
A D&I strategy begins with the branding and marketing of your company; it’s part of what attracts talent and helps them realize that it’s a good and safe place to work. However, the video company and the photos of their employees only show white people. The majority of their employees are men, and the photos in their “About” and “Career” pages are from people who look like models and not real people. Not a single photo proves that they are actually inclusive and diverse or that they are paying attention to the needs of the talent they are desperately seeking to attract.
What I learned from this is that the inclusion speech is trending right now, but when it comes to putting it in practice, companies don’t seem to be taking it as seriously. It’s easy to be complacent and settle for performative activism. Here are some data for a better understanding:
- Millennials are seeking a place to work that is diverse and inclusive — 47 per cent of them look for D&I programs before accepting a job offer;
- Gen Z will represent 30% of the US workforce by 2030, and they will be even more demanding than Millennials towards D&I;
- In the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, top-quartile companies outperformed those in the fourth one by 36 percent in profitability, according to this report from McKinsey;
Still, many companies keep using D&I as a smokescreen, as shown in this article from Susan E. Reed. The commitment to implement a D&I program must go beyond the “window”. It should be in the roots of a company, mostly because people tend to leave jobs not because of their tasks, but because of a toxic environment and bad management. It should embrace every step of the recruitment process: the branding, the sourcing, the interview, and especially the feedback and the on-and-off boarding of an employee.
Take the Nubank case as an example: the rising Brazilian fintech is proud of the diversity numbers: with 40% women and 30% LGBTQ’s in staff. Yet, they suffered a (well deserved) fall in its popularity and numbers after co-founder Cristina Junqueira said in a TV show that Nubank couldn’t level down their recruitment process, in response to suggestions for a policy for hiring Black employees. After this racist statement, instead of apologizing, she tried to say that she had expressed herself poorly. Only after seeing the social media commotion towards the episode, Nubank co-founders published a letter where they apologized and compromised to invest R$20 mi in measures against racism.
This is where companies fail when implementing D&I initiatives; they focus on numbers trying to prove that they are diverse and inclusive, and they forget to build the most important pillar: engage their community. Are the numbers important? They sure are, but people matter more.
Here is an exercise: have a look at job opportunities and check the bottom page. There is probably a message saying that they welcome every background, ethnicity, gender, and so on. Then, check their About and Career pages, their board members, and their C’s and tell me what you see. There is probably a statement there as well, saying how everyone will have equal opportunities. They tend to misread equality and equity. But let me leave this for a following post.
Truth to be told: for a D&I strategy to be successful, it should start with a big change within the corporate culture.
But how many leaders are ready for such a radical change? How many leadership teams are ready to actively listen and value their employees, paying decent wages, implementing internal development of talent, and making everyone feel comfortable to be their true self in the work environment?
