Insights from DEI Leaders: “Nothing worth doing is easy and so we just have to keep at it.”
We were so lucky to have some of the top HR professionals leading the charge in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as panelists on our webinars. When you put such intelligent and passionate minds together, you end up with some inspiring conversations!
We pulled together some of the juiciest quotes, tips, and best practices to inspire your work today. If you want to listen to the whole conversation, you can find parts one and two on the webinars page.
“These conversations are important because our world is full of talent. And with a commitment to diversity, inclusion, and accessibility we turn a market of tight talent pools into a market of talent oceans.”
- Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek, Progressive HR Founder & TEDx Speaker
“It has to start with yourself. We all have unconscious biases. We need to understand what those unconscious biases are. We need self-assessment. We need to understand our own leadership gaps.”
- Aleta Howell, Global Director, DEI Business & Recruiting Strategy @Cisco
“If you have data, if you are able to tell that story, to demonstrate the impact, you can go back and say here’s our conversion throughout the course of the pipeline funnel, here’s what are demographics look like for our team 18 mo ago and here’s what it looks like now — these are the benchmarks that we are striving towards, against what the broader industry is seeing.”
- Taris Mullins, Senior Manager, Culture, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Talent Management @Telesign
“We want to make sure that we really go for problem-solving, closing gaps that are data-informed or data-led rather than just following trends. Because often the loudest or most visible symptom isn’t really indicative of the root cause problem.”
- Judy Ellis, SVP, Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory @AMS
“Bring the data back to the business.”
- Joe Borsari, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager @Stash
“Data is so important because without it you can’t establish benchmarks, identify gaps, set goals, measure your progress, or stay accountable.”
- Judy Ellis, SVP, Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory @AMS
“This urgency to hire, hire, hire goes directly against some of the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion because that’s where unconscious bias can get brought into the process — in our urgency to rush.”
- Taris Mullins, Senior Manager, Culture, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Talent Management @Telesign
“Leaders really need to understand that the DEI journey — first of all, it’s a journey, everyone is in a different place on their journey — but it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
- Aleta Howell, Global Director, DEI Business & Recruiting Strategy @Cisco
“Tether diversity, equity, & inclusion to culture. That is how you start to evaluate how this shows up in our DNA, where do we see this reflected in our values and how we assess performance or who is seen as effective in the organization.”
- Taris Mullins, Senior Manager, Culture, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Talent Management @Telesign
“We’re having a moment right now where we’re rich in DEI activity but poor in discerning what’s really measurable outcomes.”
- Judy Ellis, SVP, Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory @AMS
“With AI + automation, it is important that the AI training data itself represents a diverse range of people, including people with disabilities. And this requires people with disabilities to be involved in all aspects of designing, testing, and the implementation of AI systems.”
- Dr. Christine Firkins, Account Executive @ConvoRelay
“Ethically they know that DEI is the right thing to do. And it’s also competitive, but the resistance comes from ‘what do I do with this’, right?”
- Dr. Frank Gonzalez IV, PHR, CDP, Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion @Momentum Financial Services Group
“Leaders need to understand that it takes time to move the needle, but when they have the commitment and they engage, amazing, amazing, amazing things can happen.”
- Aleta Howell, Global Director, DEI Business & Recruiting Strategy @Cisco
“As a Deaf person enters a company or joins a company, you have to understand that it’s not a one-size-fits all. There may be a variety of hearing levels, there may be some Deaf people who don’t speak ASL, some Deaf people can speak themselves, can read lips, so there are different accessibility needs and it’s really important to recognize that.”
- Dr. Christine Firkins, Account Executive @ConvoRelay
“The biggest thing I think leaders and managers need to have to lean into this space is to be vulnerable.”
- Aleta Howell, Global Director, DEI Business & Recruiting Strategy @Cisco
“That’s really the resistance you get a lot for DEI efforts. You’re trying to umbrella a number of different initiatives for different functions and those priorities are completely different.”
- Dr. Frank Gonzalez IV, PHR, CDP, Director of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion @Momentum Financial Services Group
“Nothing worth doing is easy and so we just have to keep at it. And all of us that have passion around this work, we just have to keep at it…Ultimately, I think we’ll leave the world better than we found it.”
- Aleta Howell, Global Director, DEI Business & Recruiting Strategy @Cisco
Watch the full webinars and get all the insights here:
THE TRENDING TOPICS IN DEIA FOR 2023 Part 1