Pam Jeffords is a Senior Partner at Sapient Insights Group who leads the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Practice. She has over 25 years of experience in the industry and is a member of the Global Leadership Council for Colorado State University College of Business, an advisory board member for University of Denver Colorado Women’s College, and a Limited Partner in The JumpFund whose mission is to invest in women-led startups. Pam has also served as Chair of Women United for the Mile-High United Way where she received the prestigious Frances Wisebart Jacobs award for philanthropy.
We’re also joined by Susan Richards and Danielle White!
Susan Richards is the Founder and CEO of Sapient Insights Group. For more than 25 years, Susan has been consulting in areas of change management, organizational effectiveness, M&A, HR strategy, technology, and operations. Her focus is on helping clients improve business performance by aligning their human capital programs and practices with business strategy.
Danielle White is Collaborative Solutions’ EVP of Global Business Strategy. She brings over 20 years of HR transformation experience from commercial and public sector industries. She uses her subject matter expertise to lead corporate thought leadership, go-to-market strategy, and engagement strategy.
In this episode, Pam, Susan, and Danielle talk about how diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging has changed over the years and how it might change in the years to come.
[0:00 – 3:12] Introduction
- Welcome, Pam Jeffords!
- Today’s Topic: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
[3:13 – 13:27] How People Approached DE&I in the Past
- Attempts at devising “tomorrow solutions” and long-term solutions
- How DE&I outside the workplace affected DE&I in the workplace
[13:28 – 32:16] What does DE&I Look Like Today?
- How differences in employee feedback creates DE&I gaps
- Why job architecture informs DE&I successes and pitfalls
[32:17 – 41:52] The Future of DE&I
- Developing true data-driven strategies
- The importance of helping HR practitioners become better business people
[41:53 – 43:45] Final Thoughts & Closing
- Thank you for listening!
Connect with Pam:
Connect with Susan:
Connect with Danielle:
Connect with Dwight:
Connect with David:
Resources:
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“I did an exercise with a group of people who were very angry with their leadership and asking, ‘Where’s the diversity?’ I asked, ‘How many of you in this room were hired by way of employee referrals?’ Almost all of them raised their hand. I said, ‘That’s why we don’t have diversity.’ Because we’re relying heavily on employee referrals and we’re referring people that look like us. So, if we want to do this differently, go outside of your network. Seek out people, refer them in, and that’s the only way we’re going to have diversity.” -Pam Jeffords
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“When you talk about equity and opportunity, it’s giving everybody equal access. And what we find is that feedback is probably the number one thing where we see the biggest gaps in who’s getting it—[and the same can be said about] career guidance.” -Pam Jeffords
Announcer:
Here’s an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what’s happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here’s your host, David Turetsky.
David Turetsky:
Hello, and welcome to the HR data labs podcast. I’m your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we try and find the brilliant minds inside and outside the world of human resources to talk to you about what’s going on in HR technology, HR data and HR analytics. Today, we have a very special podcast. We are broadcasting live from the HR Technology Conference. And we have with us the brilliant minds from Sapient Insights group …Sapient Insights in so instead of introducing all of them, I want them to introduce themselves, including you, Danielle. Yes. So Danielle, say hi. Hi, Danielle
Danielle White:
Hi. I’m actually a partner with Sapient Insights through Collaborative Solutions. And very excited to be here today.
David Turetsky:
We’re excited to have you, Susan.
Susan Richards:
Hey, y’all. I’m Susan Richards. I’m the CEO of Sapient Insights. And I am absolutely thrilled to be here today.
David Turetsky:
Outstanding. And before I get to our guest of honor, Dwight Brown from Turetsky consulting now salary.com.
Dwight Brown:
Hey, good to be on again.
David Turetsky:
And good to have you. And so today we have with us Pam Jeffords. And before she gives us a little bit of background, I want to tell you, Pam Jeffords is the person to talk to when you’re talking about diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. And we’ve had lots of wonderful conversations with Sapient Insights group over the past. But when you talk to Pam, you get the passion. Pam, how’re you doing?
Pam Jeffords:
Oh, I’m doing great and still very passionate and excited. So thanks for having me.
David Turetsky:
That’s great. So, Pam, you’re in the hot seat? What is the one thing that no one knows about you?
Pam Jeffords:
So I think because I’m a mom of four, and most people have seen me driving the great minivans. SUVs, they wouldn’t know my very first car was a Mustang in 1985 Mustang.
David Turetsky:
So for those of you who don’t remember, Mustangs went through lots of generations. But this is the one when you were graduating high school, you wanted a Mustang because it was still cool. And it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the 64 and a half or the 65. It wasn’t a convertible. But it was fun, wasn’t it?
Pam Jeffords:
It was still a Mustang, I can still say I drove my dad bought me a Mustang. Oh,
David Turetsky:
no, that’s really good. Actually, everybody wants one, even now. So we have a really fun discussion for you today, people, we’re going to be talking about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. And so what we want to try and do is talk about the past, present and future. Why? Because it’s really important to talk about context. So Pam, let’s talk about the past. Let’s talk about what happened in the world of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in the history. What what did people used to do companies, people were was this a long time ago?
Pam Jeffords:
So I’m guessing you won’t expand past it just stopped engine work?
David Turetsky:
And actually, we can stop there and go on. That was actually really good. No, no, it would be good to get a little bit more. Yeah.
Pam Jeffords:
In the recent past, yes. That’s not the distant past.
David Turetsky:
That is actually the recent that’s
Pam Jeffords:
One of the reasons that you’ll hear me avoid using the phrase best practice around diversity, inclusion, equity and blogging. Because if there was a best practice, we wouldn’t do. So let’s be clear. One thing that George Floyd murder showed us all is we were not doing enough what we were doing wasn’t working. It wasn’t working for women at worse. Color. It was not working for sexual orientation disabilities. No boats were rising. Right. And I think in the past, it was a well intentioned approach that said, if we looked at it from a numerical standpoint, if we take the largest group of underrepresented people, and we fix that largest group, statistically, we would be good right? While the largest group of underrepresented people are women in leadership Right. So we knew we had women graduating college at greater rates. We knew they were in the workforce at the same rates as men. So it just made sense. And in fact, Warren Buffett said, it’s a tomorrow solution. Right? So women were in the workforce at the, at the rate we need to be, they were reaching right at that manager, director level, and then it was stopping. So he’s like, if I can figure out that gap between director to VP for women, that’s a tomorrow solution, compared to when we look at some of the barriers to race and ethnicity. It was actually, before they even got in the workforce, like I was various to education, there was socio economic barriers. And so we needed to address those for sure. But they were a little bit of a longer term solution, right. And so everybody said, that makes total sense. So let’s go and address that barrier. And then maybe all boats would rise, because we know didn’t work. And no boats rose, there were no, not more many more women in leadership than when I started my career in the 80s. And certainly did not benefit people of color or any other identity. So so then we said, what if we flipped it? What if we actually looked at the smallest group of historically underrepresented individuals? And what if we took that group and eliminated the barriers, right? And then maybe then, so I think, in the past, it was well intentioned efforts, focused mostly on white women, assuming that if we took care of that group of people that it would release the various for all. And in the end, it just it didn’t work.
David Turetsky:
Tell me about the word opportunity, and how not just people of color, not just white women, but all groups having the same opportunity, as white men entering not just education, not just higher education, but also entering the workplace, on us on the same platform in the past. Because we know, or we imagine that there were barriers to entry for a lot of people.
Pam Jeffords:
Very, very real barriers. I mean, you know, looking back, you know, just in the voting rights, right, when you look at it wasn’t too long ago, a little over 100 years ago, that women had the right to vote. And then you look at that, and you said, we didn’t really discuss it, because intersectionality wasn’t really something we understood, but it was white woman’s right to vote. And if you look back at that moment, when they were deciding, there was actually discussions like, Should black men have the right to vote before white women? Or should we include women of color into this conversation? No, like, no, let’s just start with women. So 100 years ago, was white women’s right to vote. And then it slowly became, you know, to where the other barriers to voting were addressed. But But you look back, and you’re like, who would actually have that conversation today? But to say, Well, no, let’s start with white women. And it’s a stunning, right.
David Turetsky:
But, and I know, we’re not getting to today yet. So I’m the moderator. I shouldn’t go there. But today, we actually are having those conversations around the opportunity to vote because of some of the laws, either the perception or the reality of some of the new laws in some states, where their perception and potential reality is that voting rights are being narrowed. Because of restrictions on time and opportunity, as well as identity, who you are, can you prove who you are? And all those things?
Pam Jeffords:
And can you take time off? I mean, sounds like something’s silly, that I never have to think about, you know, do I have time to vote? Or can I do I have a home in which to have my ballot mailed to me? Or do I have parents? Because let’s be clear, I have three kids now who can vote? Do you think they actually registered to vote? No, I ag registered to vote…to be clear. And so I made sure when we moved our house address it, everybody’s registration got moved, right. So now you take these people that don’t have those people who are taking care of that for them, like our parents didn’t like I didn’t for my kids. So I think that you know, it blends itself into let’s just take internships. I’m going totally off topic. Sorry, but it relations, okay. Like all of my kids got internships, right? Because I was like, you’re going to freshman college, you’re gonna get an internship. I make phone calls to my friends to say you do have internships, you know, and had my kids applied to get the internships? Well, when I talk to a lot of these first generation college students and people of color in these universities, they’re getting these amazing degrees. And it’s great. What’s your internship, they’re like, oh, no, I’m working at Jimmy John’s. I’m working here. And I said, Oh, my God, where are your waitering at? Right? Why, why? Why? Why did you let that happen? Exactly. And so it’s because their parents didn’t understand, too, that they should be getting an internship but
Susan Richards:
so many parents so many parents didn’t go to college. Right. And they did. I mean, they didn’t know Right? They depended on whatever was available at the university right or at the school that they Your child was going to. So the those those, it’s like the first generation of college graduates, those parents didn’t know it, my parents didn’t know that to the directly to an internship.
Pam Jeffords:
And let’s, let’s be clear, we didn’t I didn’t have internships in college. So it’s, it’s, it’s a double bind, right, because it didn’t have a college experience. But it has changed to where interns have. So you have to be in the workplace now. And under an understanding there’s internships out there that, by the way, are paying sometimes 25 and $30 an hour compared to Jimmy John’s, which, again, a luxury spending, like 12 or 15. Right. So,
David Turetsky:
But one of the things and now we can transition to the current situation. But I will lead you into that by saying there are some educational institutions, especially in the secondary ed, that are actually encouraging kids to get internships, not just, you know, in their senior year when they’re checked out, and they want to enjoy their summer, but even before because in the northeast, a while in Massachusetts, with both people on in Massachusetts, they actually do tell kids to do that. Not that they do because they want to have friends fun with their friends during the summertime, but they at least encourage that to set them up for having a better experience or resume for college.
Pam Jeffords:
Right? And then so then, but here’s, here’s again, the other barrier, the majority of internships, go to employee referrals. Interesting, right? So you talk about and again, but again, just a balance here is how cool isn’t that your employees want to refer their family and friends to your amazing right employee engagement, they love it. And you know, it’s great to say what my sister or my brother or my niece or nephew to work here, right. But what referrals do is they look exactly like you. So if you’re looking to have diversity, and you have this homogeneous workforce, you’re going to get referrals that that are that that tend to reflect. And so these kids that even if their colleges or tongue go get an internship, it’s still about who you know, it’s still about having that connection, that open door to get that internship. And and so we did an exercise because a lot of early include, because we can’t say young, maybe we cannot podcast, anything you’d like Thank you. Well, I’ve been told early in career people, but they’re calling kids. But they’re very upset with us, rightfully so that we don’t have a diversity, right? And so they’re like, where is the diversity? And so I did an exercise with a group of early and career folks, they’re all standing, and they’re very angry with their leadership. Where’s the diversity? Like, great. So did you realize that the majority of our hires come from employee referrals, how many of you in this room came by way of employee referrals, and almost all of them raise their hand? So that’s why we don’t have diversity, right? Because we do rely heavily on employee referrals. And we’re referring people that look like us. So if we want to do this differently, go outside of your network, right? Seek out people and refer them in. And that’s the only way we’re gonna have diversity. So
David Turetsky:
And I think that really speaks to where we’re going to get the leaders of the future. Because if you’re finding those people, and you’re bringing them in, people say, hey, these young folks, they can’t stop they, and they’re not, they’re not stupid. And let’s bring them in. And we’d like this experience, kind of cool. We’re learning new things about about culture. Bring them in.
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David Turetsky:
So let’s talk about the current situation in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and talk about how all those things are coming together in the situation we’re in today, whether we’re talking about compliance, whether we’re talking about technology, whether we’re talking about data, how does that resonate around today?
Pam Jeffords:
Yeah, so So one of the reasons we’re all here in the tech conference is because technology is a disrupter of trends, right? And if there’s one trend that needs to be disrupted is the stagnant you know, diversity metrics, right? We’re just not making progress. And so if you look at what technology has to offer us and the diversity, equity inclusion, Amazon, all foreign, and I tend to separate them apart, right, is diversity we’ve always kind of have a handle on most companies know what their representations are. So if you think of the D, it’s just a fact what now, where technology is bringing us is understanding what your diversity is globally, because we’ve always known diversity in the US. But as you tried to understand what your your representation was outside of the US, it got harder because of the laws restricting your hrs from capturing that. Well, now with with things like virtual focus groups, where you can get 1000 people on a platform at the same time, and you can ask them demographic questions about themselves. You just can’t start back in your hrs, but you can’t ask them. So for the first time companies are understanding the demographics of the workforce globally. And now I can say ask them the demographics, maybe ask them 10 questions. I asked nationality, sexual orientation, gender identification, and and then I asked them, are you receiving frequent and valuable feedback? So seems like it seemingly nothing to do with this question. But now I can vary. Yes. And so now I can actually tell you who’s receiving feedback, is it your majority employees? Is it your historically underrepresented? Is there any differences in age and I can tell you, I don’t know any all the workforces that are on the phone, but I can tell you that you’re likely going to find people over 40 Not getting feedback, you’re going to find people of color in the United States not, you’re going to find that women are getting very frequent feedback, but it’s not very valuable. And actually, right, you’re going to find men getting very valuable and actual feedback, but not very frequent. So all of a sudden, again, all I’m asking is a few questions, how often are you getting feedback is invaluable and actual, and I can start to see the gaps across this demographic groups. And then I can start to say, when we close the gaps, because when you talk about equity and opportunity, it’s giving everybody you know, equal access. And so what we find is definitely feedback is probably the number one thing where we see the biggest gaps and who’s getting it, and, and also guidance around your career. So so we know that, you know, I started again, my workforce in the late 80s. And everything was a very paternal letter going to take care of my career, I had a management training track, they’re going to take care of my retirement with a pension plan, they were going to take care of my health benefits. And then we shifted that over time to remove the accountability for all three of those over to the employee. And but we didn’t really enable them. And especially we’re starting to enable them around health care, without a doubt with all the from from health care and retirement with 401k, we started sending them, the one we still haven’t figured out is the career. So we pushed the accountability to your career, you can do anything you want to do be anything, right. But we didn’t give them the tools, because what our research is showing is that most companies are not prioritizing internal mobility, and career frameworks and job architectures. So if I don’t know how to navigate my career, then it means I have to rely on my internal network to help me answer and David, you say, hey, Pam, did you see that job? You should post for that. Well, if I’m not connected to 1000 people in my company, nobody’s telling me about that job or that opening of that opportunity.
Danielle White:
And it’s so interesting to hear you talk about the about the feedback component, thank you. Because, you know, it’s one of those things that is so key and being able to progress a career track. And like you said, number one is still having a plan for career track, which I hear badly lacking. But along with that, you have to have that feedback component to continue to build the skills and to address weaknesses, build strengths, and those sorts of things.
Susan Richards:
I think there’s a there’s a generational gap there. So and with so many generations being in the workforce at the same time, if those of us who are leading organizations or leading divisions within organizations, who have been there done that, we might be Gen X, we might be baby boomers, and we might might be part of the greatest generation, it’s not natural for us to ask for, or to provide feedback other than in that box of once a year or twice a year. And and quite often what I’m seeing with clients that we’re working with, who are trying to change that dynamic, is there’s there’s this just built in resistance with our millennials, and now our Gen Z’s who are coming along and who are not just asking for feedback, but they’re demanding the feedback, and we as leaders, and that those more mature generations. We never learned later, later in
David Turetsky:
the program. The program
Susan Richards:
teaches me something we did we didn’t learn how to provide feedback. We didn’t learn how to ask for feedback. And and sometimes there’s there’s there’s this built in resistance to those who asked for feedback. So just building that awareness that there is a criticality for feedback is I think that’s that’s a step in the right direction, right.
David Turetsky:
Look at the mechanisms though, that are set up for feedback.
Danielle White:
And feedback is not a one size fits all phenomenon, right? Whether it’s the generations wondering how do they get the Phenom that’s meaning or the feedback that’s meaningful to them. Right? And I like the concept of actionable feedback, right? There’s tons of women, especially who get feedback. What do you do with it? Right? Did a great job or better job next time, right? That the next step in between it, but but the newer at-work generation, right, they’re looking for something different, whether it’s the timeliness of it, or the accuracy of it, or the relevance of it. And so it’s hard for organizations that have those in three, four generations, right, working in the workforce, you can no longer take a one size fits all approach.
David Turetsky:
So I know you guys know, Marcus Buckingham was part of ADP now and he espouses immediate and constant feedback. And the tools he set up our check ins every week, where and if you’ve ever been a part of check ins every week, they become a check the box approach every week, where you just say how you feel. You don’t mean that mean? It, but you have to do it because compliance becomes a compliance exercise, right. And so there’s got to be happy medium here, where you’re getting valuable feedback that is actionable, that feeds into what you need, personally. And that manager needs to get trained, or needs to be a better manager about what it is that you need, uniquely, not just me, the manager. And this gets me to another question that I had, which is the structures that we built. And you talked about job frameworks before, tell me how Job frameworks like Job architectures with descriptions, and the things that you see in listing and then you know, in a job ad, versus the things I expect you to do, and this is the feedback you’re getting? What are you doing? What are you supposed to be doing? Where’s the gap? There is major problems with making sure all those things fit together, and that you even understand what job description you have today?
Pam Jeffords:
Oh absolutely, I mean, there’s so so much to unpack there. And I know saying Job architectures occur frameworks isn’t a sexy solution to diversity and inclusion light, because everybody’s looking for that nice, big, you know, well, and but but also a marketing campaign, we’re going to be at 30% by third 2030. And everything has arrived, and there’s gonna be a number. And let’s do a branding around it. And then I say, Well, what’s your job architecture look like? And they’re like, what does that have to do with my Dina, I just wanted to some cool advisory council or he was like, so but but the issue of job architectures so much, right, is, I can’t tell you if you have equity in how people move around your organization, if I can tell, I can’t tell how people move around. So when companies are looking to see, well, Pam, I’m not sure if I have a problem. But let’s go look, whether it’s pay equity, whether it’s promotion rates, or if you don’t have an actual job architecture, how can I tell you if you’re paying people fairly, you can’t. It’s impossible. So you’re, you’re having to rely on your, your gut instincts, so on anecdotes, and, you know, and hypothesis and we as a human being, we don’t have to, I don’t care what it is, right. And so we had a client once who said, Pam, I think that we’re promoting our men when they have potential, and we’re promoting our women only when they have the experience. And right. And so that’s we’ve heard that forever, right? So it’s not like it’s a new thing, right? But he brings us and we’re like, okay, great. Well, let’s, let’s go look. And sure enough, what you find is, indeed, the men were getting promoted based on potential. And you could see that there were some things that they had in common, like they were people, managers, they had, you know, client facing roles, you know, there were like two or three common things that they had to have for their promoted. And indeed, your women had to have like, all five, right? And they weren’t, like, on average in their role five to seven years. So they got promoted, whereas men were only in there, two or three before they were getting promoted. And we could show him, right, you know, men were being promoted very quickly, they some potential women had to actually demonstrate the job. So we bring this in and people of color. So we bring this in. And we’re not super excited about this. Because, you know, again, they pretty much let us do it. And we’re like, indeed, and I literally thought he was gonna cry. He said, like, like, what you found it, right. Yes. You know, the research tells you it’s happening. You thought it was happening. We just produce a paper for you not smoking and super excited. And he was like, Oh my gosh, so until people see it is happening in their organization to them at that moment, right. We don’t take action. And then at that point, he was like, he went, he was like, let’s go, right? So he took action because we don’t take action. So I call it the Jennifer Lawrence effect. So do you guys. So Jennifer Lawrence was an Academy Award winner. And every piece of data in the world would tell Jennifer Lawrence that she is being paid less than her male counterparts, because of the gender gap, right? Every research says women actresses are paid less than men, actors, actors. So it wasn’t until the Sony hacks when the person or people hacked into Sony’s database. And they pulled out her salary. And they sent it to her. Not only then was you aware that she was actually paid less, even though again, every data point that she’s has, she’s been born. So then she sees that, and I think the movie was, we don’t want to believe it. And nobody, men don’t want to believe it. Women don’t want to believe it. And so until she saw that her co stars were being paid more than even though she was the Academy Award winner. And so and one of them was Bradley Cooper. And then it was Jerry Brown that you know, and so she’s decided, and by the way, several of them have the same manager. So it wasn’t that he wasn’t negotiating, what was her manager was not negotiating. Because there was some formula behind him. Yeah, there was all this reason. So what she did is say, I will no longer do a movie with anyone, unless everyone shares their pay. And some people opted out. So some of them said, Hey, not my problem. Great. Some people said, I’m in so. So we have to, you have to have that transparency around it. But until you have proof, it’s happening to you in your organization in your department.
Susan Richards:
We just don’t take action. So that points back to the conversation we were having earlier today about pay equity, and this concept of radical transparency and pay and how uncomfortable it is to have that happen. And how cathartic it can be sure in organization, when it actually happens. And you allow the organization to go through that and process it and come out on the other side of it. It. I think it pulls away that veil of secrecy that we we have had for dozens of years. So very
Danielle White:
It’s a generational thing, and it’s a very US centric thing, right, like generationally, we’re all of the generation that you did not talk about your salary, anybody. You could get fired for it. Whether and this is the part that we have the conversation with clients all the time, whether you are going down the path of pay transparency or not. Your employees are going down the path of pay transsparency tThey’re talking about it when they are whether you want them to or not. We see it in the social media posts coming from companies all the time glass door. I you know,
David Turetsky:
but there is a concept in the US of transparency. Look at municipal workers look good? Institutions, absolute federal government, there is transparency. I know but it’s not. It’s not like it doesn’t exist in the US. You know what your sheriff is getting paid? Right? You know what your school teachers get paid, even though they’re paid awfully right, which is total, Shonda, as my grandmother would say,
Danielle White:
don’t have the higher compensations. Right? It’s very much in the nonprofit, public sector, the higher education realms where their pay is not equity with, you know, you know, private companies anyway. And that’s the ones that we’ve allowed to be open.
David Turetsky:
But you know, what’s hysterical? And I know we’re totally getting away from where we are, then look at CEOs, no offense, but look at CEO pay, look at the top five pay that from a public company, and how uncomfortable should we really be with what’s happening from an equity perspective? When you see what the packages are? My 80 year old father in law is we’re sitting, we’re having coffee, and we’re talking he’s like, how is it possible that this person could get this package and get paid this much walking away from a big company? I think it was him what he says, you know, how is that guy get the all these millions of dollars for walking away from a company? Right? And that still exists? And it’s public. We all know about it. It’s part of all of these SEC documents.
Pam Jeffords:
And that’s one of the reasons that I don’t love the gender pay gap reports, right? Because they talk about this, you know, women make 80 cents on the dollar man. But it’s because we’re not in this high paying roles that you described, right? So really, the the pay gap has become a proxy for women and people of color not represented in those big roles. Right. And so and I think, let’s be clear, that’s a problem, right? But it’s not equal pay for equal work, right? Which is, which is what is the gap that you and I are doing the same job because I’m your man, you know, we’re getting paid different and So so I think it’s, it’s more about those jobs, who’s in them? And are they well represented, right? Because you know, whether they deserve that big amount of money or not, you know, we can, we can discuss, but it’s the majority of those big jobs are held by men. So that’s typically the gap that we’re seeing in inequity. And and let’s be clear, you know, we haven’t made progress on that. Right? So you look at the the top CEOs have, it doesn’t you pick an industry, right? And it’s one of those things where the oil and gas industry is constantly, you know, telling No, the tech sector right now is saying, can we just don’t have a pipeline of women, and we don’t have the pipeline we have. So we don’t have women in our leadership. And so I always ask them, so if I were to show you an industry, where it’s predominantly women, then when you expect, would you expect women to be more represented in leadership than men? And they’re like, Absolutely. Great universities in healthcare. Right? So universities, how many of us have women is our teachers? Right? Yeah, so women are the majority of teachers, then you come up, and they’re faculty, but then they’re less likely to get tenure, men are more likely to get tenure. And then you look at the heads of the top 100. Universities are almost all dominated by white men, who are not the primary group of people in faculty. And so it’s the same thing with healthcare. Right? You got nurses and doctors, very diverse, right? Then you get to the top heads at the hospital systems. There was a separate I think, one, I think, you know, you look at the pharma industry, and and I believe he just retired there, he was a black man. So now, once he retires, I don’t know that there’ll be, you know, many, if any people of color that are leading large healthcare institutions, even though again, the the percentage of the representation of white men is not there until you get, but let’s just we’re sitting here talking about human resources.
David Turetsky:
But then you see really strong CHRO is like my friend, Zoe Switzer, from Jenny’s Splendid Ice Cream, who is a great example of a futuristic CHRO, who really understands the pulse. And we’ve had her on the podcast. And, you know, she brings so much energy to the position, and it’s a joy to talk to us definitely do that. So now that we’ve set context for the past and the present, now, let’s talk about what is the future for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging? Where is it going to go? What can we expect? And do you think it could come soon?
Susan Richards:
I’m really excited about the future.
Pam Jeffords:
Yeah, I’m excited to be here. I think, you know, we’ve gotten a lot out of the table in terms of conversation, I do think that from a technology standpoint, we now have access to the data we just simply didn’t have before. So what we’re able to do now, from a data standpoint, it just wasn’t possible before. It wasn’t that it’s just easy. It wasn’t possible. Now, it’s possible. And so when I would, a lot of companies talk about having a data driven diversity, inclusion strategy, right. But they didn’t really know what that meant, right? It typically men, I have a hypothesis, and then I go prove it with data, as opposed to a true data driven strategy means I’m going to look at all of these metrics across all dimensions of identity, and across my entire workforce. And then I’m going to see where there’s gaps. And when I see a gap, I’m going to go and look and see what’s going on. Right? And so I love it, because then I get away from this. What about is, well, what about this? What about this? What about this group over here? What about this country, let’s just go look into how our data is telling us. And if our data is telling us that we have gaps in experience. So again, looking at whether it’s virtual focus groups, or employee engagement surveys, if I have a gap in my focus group across a dimension of identity, I’m going to pause and go, what’s going on there? Yeah, and I don’t care where the gap is, right? It doesn’t, you know, if it’s with white men, it’s with younger white men, if it’s with older black men, whatever the cover is, if I see a blip, I’m gonna know what’s happening there. And then I’m going to go and look at what’s what’s going on.
David Turetsky:
But you mentioned, and this is really, really critical. The amount of data and all of those metrics means that you need to almost have and we’re talking about the future here, you need to have the robots looking through the data, and trained on being able to find those books, don’t you?
Pam Jeffords:
Well absolutely. But it’s, I think we’re getting now. So if you think about a car, right, and so when I started driving, again, my Mustang in the 80s, right, we had a bit of a dashboard, right? It didn’t tell you everything that was happening under the engine. But it did tell you, Hey, let’s lighten up. So we need to first understand what should be on the dashboard. But then if you think about the other thing that happened is the mirrors like we had blind spots in the car. So but we were trained on where those blind spots where it was, you’ll look over to your left shoulder, here’s your blind spot your mirror Where’s your wife adjust from yours. Well, technology came and has almost virtually eliminated all this blind spots. But we first had to identify them. And now I’m teaching my children to drive and they’re not taught about blind spots, right? They’re taught Look at the camera behind you and forgotten to look, they can frickin drivers, their eyes closed, because all they have to do is listen for the beeps now, right? Everything’s beeping, right? All 360 degrees. And then But then also, the car starts to shake when you’re crossing the line right? Now now, but you still have to make a decision because the car’s gonna shake, but you can say no, what are you gonna, what are you gonna do? But you’re still like, I do want to exit. So I’m shaking. It’s I know, hey, like, that’s that nudge. But I’m going to still exit. So I still have to have a human to say, Okay, I’m going to exit, right? But but in the workplace in the talent, we have a template systems, we haven’t yet identified all the blind spots. Or if we have, we haven’t told people from a transparent trend is step one, where are the biases most likely to occur? And so once we do identify them, we both remind people that they’re about to happen. And we remind them at the moment they’re about to happen. And then we have technology that nudges going, Hey, are you sure you want to make that promotion right now? Now, you might say, Yeah, I do. But it might kind of natural and learn and say, Hey, this is an out of cycle promotion? And did you realize that the last 10 out of cycle promotions, all occurred to majority group individuals, and all the other promotions for the rest of groups are done in cycle? And you can still say no, I still want to do it. But it nudged you to say, hey, here’s what’s happening. So I think that’s where we’re gonna go. Not notice.
David Turetsky:
But and everything you mentioned, was a phenomenal example, that was a really good, the thing I always go back to them. And again, we’re talking about the future is data and must be perfect. data has to be pristine underneath all those things. Because if there is any data, that’s not good, then you are going to get blips, but the blips are going to kind of distract you. So it’s like, in my car, I had a car that used to slow me down when it felt that I was too close to the car in front of me. But there were times when stuff would come up and hit it hit that bumper, cut that sensor on the bumper, and it would slow me down while I’m going 60 But only 65 miles an hour. So what I’m saying is, is that you’re right. Again, we’re talking about the future where data needs to be pristine,
Pam Jeffords:
pristine, or pristine enough to be directionally correct. Right. Because again, we’re not talking about an individual. So it’s not about his to white specific, promote his pants. Right. It’s, it’s, it’s if we’re looking at it from an aggregate standpoint, are we directionally correct? And I think that’s where most people are, okay, you know, we presented to a client the other day, and and we showed them, you know, it was their path to client manager. So we do also the future is, what are the roles of the future. So diversity, equity inclusion, why programs need to focus on the goals of the future, not the roles of the past. So I’m not going to a client says, Hey, Pan helped me go figure out how to get more women on oil rigs, I’m gonna go no, right? Because that job stinks. And nobody wants it anyway. So good luck, right? What are the jobs of the future? What are the you know, hydro power, you know, solar jobs for the future? Let’s go understand what, what’s the diversity for those jobs. So first, pick the jobs that future that are more likely to get promoted, and more likely to be here in the future. Let’s go attack diversity strategy there and figure out what’s going on. And so when we do that, it narrows down the pool. So now we’re not talking about 1000s of jobs we’re talking about, let’s go look at these jobs. And then I was able to show them on their career path. You said client facing roles are your highest paid roles there, they’re most likely to get promoted. And they’re very critical to the organization. So let’s figure out what the path is to there. And is there a barrier for your women in your people of color? And so what we found was those of your for every, like, why people weren’t getting into those jobs, they were being promoted from outside. And so and it was like, you know, a few 100. So we bring this to the executive team, and they’re looking at it. And they’re, like, I said, you’ve got a career framework issued, across all of your identities, we just happen to pull it out. Because we can see that there were no women and people of color in this roles. And somebody started off by going, Wait a second, you know, I know that these three people were promoted into that role. And so they start down the path of accuracy and perfection. And then somebody else wanted their peers contestants. And is that really relevant out of the hundreds of job? Exactly? Any kind of that you’re, you’re so I think people are looking is this directionally correct? Where are the barriers? Right? And and once we uncover the barriers, right, but it’s gonna be amazing once we can, but data and the ability to look at the data is going to help us again, not because if we hadn’t had the data, somebody would have assumed that there was a bias that people don’t want women In those client manager roles, and the bias was actually the process wasn’t different. Anyone,
Danielle White:
I think that’s one of the great segues into the future of work in general is that role of being able to read the data and understand the data and tell the story of the data is one of the key future work roles in HR, right, you have to be able to understand the data. And it’s kind of you’ve made the point earlier, it’s not about having a hypothesis and finding the data to support your hypothesis. It’s actually understanding the data and generating the hypothesis and generating the story out of the data, right, so that you can actually make the changes that you need to make.
David Turetsky:
And that’s a really critical point. Look at our HR organizations today. Do they have people who are set up to have success to be able to read that for themselves? No, but you can call Pam Jeffords. But, but But you have to have that skill in HR.
Susan Richards:
Yeah. It is. It is critical. And that’s one of the things that we’ve been focused on for the last five to 10 years, is how do we help our, our HR practitioners be better business people? So it’s not, let’s be better HR people, let’s be better people, people, let’s be better business people. So let’s use fabulous pieces of data that we have interpret that and use our human judgment. Because yes, we know the data is not going to be 100% clean, never is never has been never will be doesn’t matter how much we want it. How do we how do we take our ability to to reason and use judgment to and apply that to helping our organizations further themselves and be better organizations and more profitable and and add to the common good? Exactly?
David Turetsky:
Well, this has been an incredible conversation, we could go on for hours, we actually just went up for one hour. Typically, the conversations are half an hour, but I have to tell you, this has been a phenomenal discussion. And what I’d like to do is invite you back again, if you want all three of you can join, but definitely invite you back again to do another podcast sometime in the future. Okay, fabulous. So thank you very much, Danielle, Susan and Pam from sapient insights group, that Sapient Insights Group. And seriously they are they are brilliant beyond just diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. There are a full service HR and technology consultancy. And I have lots of friends are including my friend Terry Zipper who’s not here. Yay, Terry. Yeah, we miss you, Terry. But thank you very much for joining us sapient insights group, we really appreciate it.
Pam Jeffords:
Thanks for having us.
David Turetsky:
We love it. And thank you very much, Dwight. Thank you for letting me be on it. My pleasure. And thank you for listening. And we will be podcasting from the HR Technology Conference many times over the next few days. So we hope you can join. And if you know somebody who would like to listen, please send us their way. Otherwise, thank you very much. Take care.
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