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Recruitment and Retention
I remember a call I received from a CDO who had been on the job about 10 months, and nothing was going their way. They were the head of DE&I for a large tech company. They were not sure what to do, the initiatives they tried were not working, and they were convinced the employee resource group (ERG) leaders hated them. The ERG leaders were questioning all the decisions they did make, and there was no way to show progress. This person realized that as CDO, they were supposed to influence every hire made by the organization and help the CEO and every other senior leader set expectations and goals on DE&I. They were coming to the end of their first year, and they were going to be held responsible if the goals were not met. On top of that, they needed to set more goals for year two of the fledgling program. This was overwhelming, to say the least, and generally not all of this was going to get done. They wanted my help, and because I had seen this before, I knew I could offer some good guidance.
Generally, I found there were certain issues that continued to come up. First, there was no manual to help them run a DE&I program. Second, they were overwhelmed by all the things that needed to be fixed. Third, the company had unrealistic expectations of what a DE&I program could do and of the timeline necessary to make the desired change.
The combination of these three issues make it impossible to be successful. When there is an overwhelming list of things to be done, the expectations are unrealistic, and if there is no manual to help you show results, you will struggle. It is a no-win situation for both the diversity officer and the company. As I always say, the toughest part of a DE&I job is unrealistic expectations.
The solution for this CDO, and what I have helped others understand, is that most of these issues arise from making DE&I goals too theoretical and impractical. I told them that there are two main things that all DE&I programs do: recruitment and retention of employees (Figure 2.2). Approximately 90% of the work falls in these two categories. As a company, you are either recruiting staff or you are trying to retain staff. Your DE&I program may also include students or customers, but the fundamental goal is the same. You are recruiting students and customers, or you are retaining them. Understanding this principle will make your DE&I program highly impactful. Additionally, because you've narrowed the parameters, it's easy to figure out the numbers, the quantitative data, that you need to track and report your success.
Figure 2.2 The Recruitment Retention Link for DE&I.
JASON-ISM
There are two main things that all DE&I programs do: recruitment and retention.
Using the framework of recruitment and retention will help prioritize the many objectives and goals DE&I officers are given. By understanding how to frame your DE&I work and using CAPE, the puzzle pieces will start to make sense, and you can stay focused, thus building an exceptional organization.
The practical reason for categorizing DE&I work into recruitment and retention is to create a simple matrix to prioritize your resources and the work you need to do. For example, when I developed the Diversity Scorecards for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), I used this basic framing. You can see the Diversity Scorecards on the Team USA website, but I have created the CAPE Diversity scorecard that is more widely applicable regardless of industry (Figure 2.3). The USOPC is made up of over 50 independent national governing bodies (NGBs) representing each sport within the Olympic and Paralympic movement. The CEO of USOPC at that time wanted a simple way to measure the DE&I work. This was no small task because each NGB is an independent nonprofit with their own board and leadership team, and I was required to help each of them create a plan and execute it. When I started, I had no staff and little budget. At that time the only DE&I-focused program USOPC had was called FLAME. I was told to take over the FLAME program, but the HR director at that time refused to transition the budget to run the program. So, there I was trying to launch a DE&I program with little budget and given a program to run with no budget. I was eventually able to get the FLAME budget transferred to my department, and I did run a successful program, but needless to say there was a lot of work to be done and little support.
Figure 2.3 A Sample CAPE DE&I Insights scorecard allows for easy-to-visualize DE&I solutions.
Source: United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
The USOPC had made a commitment to DE&I, but they didn't know where or how to start. I built Diversity Scorecards to show the diversity of every NGB within the USOPC and compared them against one another in a way that also valued the uniqueness of each sport.
This simple way of framing DE&I around recruitment and retention meant everyone had usable data, and it helped them understand what needed to be done. By having the demographic data in an easy-to-digest format about the employees and where they were in the company by department and level, the US Olympic and Paralympic Team leaders had a good understanding of the company's needs for recruitment and retention. Therefore, we set up programs and priorities that could be successful. We identified where we needed recruitment (diversity) efforts and where we needed retention (inclusion) efforts.
One of the successes of using the Diversity and Inclusion scorecards while I was at the United States Olympic and Paralympic team was that I was able to quickly show the CEO that the organization had a lack of diversity at the director level and above. In response to this, I created and implemented a program to increase diversity. It was designed so that hiring managers could quickly understand that they needed to interview four candidates, two of whom needed to be women or People of Color, and by doing so the odds of hiring a woman or Person of Color was 50%. It created no advantage for any one candidate. (Chapter 6 has a more detailed explanation about this process, which I call the 4-2-50 program.) This simple approach to recruitment leveled the playing field because it helps hiring managers overcome bias. At USOPC, the outcome was a threefold increase in the hiring of women and People of Color at the director level or above. This was well received because I was able to identify the problem and provide a specific solution, using the CAPE approach of collect, analyze, plan, and execute.
Another example of the power of the Diversity and Inclusion Scorecards was a time when I sat down with the person tasked with DE&I for the US Soccer Federation. This person had been with US Soccer for many years, but they were not a DE&I professional and had been given the responsibility of US Soccer's DE&I program as a project. The person was feeling very overwhelmed and said to me, “There's no way we could be successful because look at USA Basketball, we are never going to get there!” My response was, “Being like USA Basketball should not be your goal. USA Basketball is an example of over-representation. There are a lot of Black/African Americans but no Asians, no Latinx, and too few women on the staff.” I showed them the US Soccer Diversity Scorecard and said, “This will help you set goals and identify the best use of your time. You can't fix everything at once. You have limited resources and bandwidth. Pick a recruitment or retention effort and build a plan for your organization.” When I made this suggestion, I could see the relief
