or more of the executive and management roles, according to Bloomberg. Hispanics make up 18.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet in only four of those companies do they occupy 15 percent or more of executive and management roles. Meanwhile, white people make up 60 percent of the U.S. population, and all 37 of the largest employers have at least 50 percent white representation at the executive and management levels.
To advance diversity in the workforce, we have often looked to changes we can influence in public policy. In June of 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court made history by declaring that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protected gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals from discrimination based on sex. For the first time in American history, employers were prevented from firing employees because of who they loved or how they identified. Although this was a victory, it shed light on the cruel reality that the LGBTQ+ community had always faced. It took 56 years for them to be granted the protection under law that their heterosexual and cisgender coworkers had all along.
Slowly but surely, progressive lawmakers are pursuing legislation to grant individuals access to the most basic protections in the workforce. But we can't wait for changes in the law alone to ensure equity for everyone at work. We all need to focus on what we can change, and that starts within our own organizations.
WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE
If we want to increase diversity in our organizations in a sustainable way, we have to abandon old ways of thinking and shift our approach entirely. This begins with stepping back to recognize why most organizations have struggled so immensely to grow their diversity. Most employers have lacked unity or alignment around the issue. They have approached the work with a short-term mindset that has limited the focus to isolated parts of their organizations. They have lacked a sense of shared responsibility in diversity hiring, which has left the work resting on the shoulders of far too few. These challenges combined have collectively stifled the march of diversity and prevented organizations from truly transforming. Here is what we believe must change:
To improve diversity we have to start with inclusion.
If we are serious about increasing representation in our organizations, we have to begin with a unified and inclusive definition of diversity. Many leaders look at diversity through a narrow lens, focusing solely on attributes they believe they can see. But there are visible and invisible aspects of diversity. To accomplish our mission, we can't paint diversity in broad strokes and leave people out. We need to ensure our definition of diversity encompasses all the underrepresented communities we hope to hire.
Next, to grow diversity among our teams, we have to constantly ensure our organizations themselves are places where people feel empowered and included. It's easy to think that driving diversity mainly depends on hiring, but this equality depends on investing in our existing teams and building cultures within our organizations where people feel embraced, supported, and have room to advance. As the civil rights activist Deray McKesson says, “Diversity is bodies. Inclusion is culture.” In other words, diversity is the act of identifying and hiring the right people. Inclusion is about creating a space where those people feel welcome. They are two different concepts, but neither one is sustainable without the other.
We need to reframe diversity hiring as a long-term, strategic priority.
Many leaders see diversity hiring as an urgent but short-term effort, a terrible oversight that has often led efforts to feel more like one-off posturing rather than longterm sustainable change. But if we really see growing diversity in our organizations as a strategic priority, we must acknowledge that change often comes slowly. Just as we would never say that growing revenue is a near-term priority that depends solely on one department, we must never approach diversity hiring as a sprint, or a single team's “project.” We need to pursue the work in a systematic way that persists regardless of short-term wins or losses. To do it right, we need to reframe diversity hiring as a permanent strategic imperative, an ongoing journey.
We have to inspire collective ownership of diversity hiring across our teams.
In most organizations, people see growing diversity as someone else's job. Most employers don't galvanize their full organization around the shared diversity vision in a way that inspires everyone to feel a sense of responsibility. Instead, diversity hiring typically falls on the shoulders of HR and recruiting teams. But if the rest of your team isn't aware of the need, they might not refer underrepresented candidates or consciously address their personal bias when participating in the hiring process. By mobilizing everyone in your organization around diversity hiring, articulating shared goals, and aligning incentives to meet those goals, you unlock the capabilities and involvement of your full team. This helps the work become a collective effort and, most important, one that is ingrained in your organization's culture and values.
COMING TOGETHER TO WRITE THIS BOOK
We came together to write this book for a multitude of reasons. We were inspired by the thousands of remarkable job seekers from underrepresented communities we've gotten to engage in our daily work. We felt our understanding of the challenges these communities face in the hiring process could help empower employers struggling to make a change. We've been able to intimately partner with many employers on this journey through our company, Mathison, which provides software that sources candidates from diverse backgrounds and reduces bias in the hiring process. We've gotten to hear employers’ stories, see their common gaps in the hiring process, and observe which diversity hiring tactics and strategies have made the greatest impact. Finally, we felt a sense of urgency, looking at all that has happened in the world through the lens of our own lived experiences, which have always informed our approach to this work.
From Arthur
I grew up in an evangelical community in rural northern California, and I was taught in church that being gay was a sin. When I came out as gay halfway through college, I was completely lost and uncertain about the effect my identity would have on my career. I was blessed with a mother who was the greatest cheerleader a son could wish for, but as the first in my family to graduate from college, I was often without the professional guidance and mentorship that many of my peers took for granted. Unsure of how to navigate my future, I decided to hide my identity in my earliest job interviews, afraid it would hurt my chances of getting hired. Walking into my first job in a corporate office setting, I overheard colleagues using homophobic and derogatory slurs, and I felt utterly crippled. I realized at that moment I was not safe there. I could not be myself. I had to hide. As this sunk in more, I became convinced for much of my early career that my professional identity and personal identity could not be one and the same. I felt an undeniable sense of shame, anxiety, and frustration.
All this changed, however, when I applied to a mission-driven technology company that embraced diversity and made me feel included at every stage of the hiring process. I was placed on a team that included people from across generations, races, and sexual identities. My new manager was openly gay and proudly out at work. He introduced himself by showing me a picture of his husband and family. It was clear to me that this was a place where I could belong. Within weeks of starting the new job, I came out to my colleagues and was immediately embraced. A weight had been lifted from my shoulders as my professional world invited in the person I was at my core. I felt the most authentic sense of alignment between myself and my work, and I immediately realized a newfound energy to build, to go above and beyond, and to make a difference. By feeling a sense of belonging at work, I was confident and unstoppable.
I imagined how many others in the workforce shared my early experience of not being embraced for who they are, not feeling as if they belonged. I began to feel a deep calling to focus my work and life to advancing diversity and inclusion at work. Over the last decade I've had the chance to work with hundreds of leaders on the journey to grow diversity
