Well, How Did That Happen? [+The Systematic Recipe for Workplace Underrepresentation]

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Recently, I perused the website of a reputable public relations firm and decided to check out the gender and racial demographic make-up of the team. Because of the work that I do, diversity is naturally top of mind for me, so I couldn’t help myself. I noticed that of the 15 employees that made up the team, 14 appeared to be white and female and one was a woman of color.

One team. All women. One woman of color.

Well, how did that happen?

My mind usually jumps to that question almost like a toddler who sees a rainbow in the sky for the first time. There is no judgement, just pure curiosity. How did that happen? How did the 93% white, 100% female team make-up come to pass, especially when there is an available, diverse, workforce supply?

What is the systematic recipe that created this firm? Or let us think more broadly than this PR firm. When the workforce supply is abundant for people of all races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, abilities, etc., what is the systematic recipe for underrepresentation?

If you have founded a company, are a leader in a company, or even recruit for a company that is overrepresented in one population, the purpose of this article is not to question your intent. I believe deeply that people are well-intended. This article is not to question whether you are a good or bad person, or whether you and your organization are racist or not. This article explores the impact of the seemingly small decisions that we make as well-intentioned leaders, recruiters and owners that have tremendously negative downstream effects on vulnerable populations. Throughout our research at JTC, we have found that there are four common ingredients behind this systematic recipe for organizational underrepresentation.

Ingredient #1: The organization has historically relied on network referrals to fill open positions, creating homogeneity. According to a PayScale Survey, referral programs benefit white men more than any other demographic group. Women of any race and men of color are much less likely to receive referrals than their white male counterparts: white women are 12 percent less likely; men of color are 26 percent less likely and women of color are 35 percent less likely to receive a referral. So, it is no surprise if I hear an employer say that their top recruiting method is a referral program and the outcome is that they are an organization that is predominantly white and male.

Image Credit: Source

Try this. If you plan to continue using a referral program, talk with your employees about the network gap and the importance of taking inventory of the diversity within their own professional (and personal) networks. Empower your employees to consider taking LinkedIn’s Plus One Pledge. In addition, use multiple methods to advertise open positions. Consider the groups that are underrepresented in your organization and begin to advertise your job openings on websites that focus on these audiences. 

Ingredient #2: The organization’s recruiters do not feel comfortable, capable and qualified to engage in topics about diversity, so they do not. As humans, when we do not feel comfortable, it is likely that we do not lean all the way into the work. We tend to engage just enough to check the box while remaining in our comfort zone. Do you know the downstream effect of this? When an organization implements diversity recruiting initiatives, recruiters who want to stay in their comfort zone tend to start with gender diversity because it is most comfortable. And do you know who benefits most from gender diversity recruiting—white women.

Image Credit: McKinsey & Company | Women in the Workplace 2019 Report Source

Try this. Make sure that your recruiters are properly trained in diversity recruiting. Effective training goes far beyond where and how to source for talent and includes additional important elements like understanding effective language to use, cultural competence, and working through one’s own resistance to people who are unique to them.

Ingredient #3: The organization’s hiring managers believe that being “a good person” is enough to increase diversity, but it is not. Countless times, I have listened to hiring managers say that they respect all people and believe in hiring good people from all backgrounds. This is a great human philosophy, but it is important to understand that “good people” struggle with their own unconscious biases too—just like everyone else. In a statement by Dolly Chugh, a social psychologist and professor at the New York University Stern School of Business, “What we know as social scientists is that the human mind relies on lots of shortcuts—and those shortcuts do lead to mistakes sometimes. No matter how good my intentions are, I am going to show bias. I have internalized bias from the world around me, and the ways my bias is going to show up are not going to be visible to me. I’m going to think that I’m doing fine, when in fact I’m having a negative impact on the world around me.”

Image Credit: UKCoaching.org Source

Try this. Recognize that bias has nothing to do with whether you are a good or bad person. It shows up in all of us. So, proactively learn about bias and how it shows up in hiring managers, especially when they are interviewing and making selection decisions. Learn about how bias shows up in people who identify similarly and/or differently to you. Look for signs to help you recognize your own bias when it presents itself and make a proactive plan to address it. That's what "good people" do.

Ingredient #4: The organization condones performative diversity recruiting, so recruiters get let off the hook. CEOs are making bold commitments to increase diversity, but how? What will be done differently to follow through on the commitment? When your recruiters come to you and say, “we’ve tried everything,” “nothing works,” and “these groups just aren’t attracted to our company,” will you continue to accept this rather than auditing the policies, practices, and behaviors of recruiting and suggest new and more effective strategies?

Image Credit: Source

Try this. Make diverse candidate slates mandatory before interviewing. Also, make it mandatory that any exception to interviewing without a diverse candidate slate must be data driven (i.e., there’s data driven evidence of an unavailable workforce supply). According to one Harvard study of 598 finalists for university teaching positions, results suggest that when there was only one woman or minority candidate in a pool of four finalists, their odds of being hired were statistically zero. But when a new status quo among the finalist candidates was created by adding just one more woman or minority candidate, the decision makers actually considered hiring a woman or minority candidate.

Underrepresentation is not a coincidence. It is not happenstance. It is not even an accident. We did not just wake up one day and women, the differently-abled, people of color, veterans, and the LGBT+ community disappeared from the workforce supply or even our organizations. The same way that we did not just get here accidentally, we are also not going to change the outcome without some intentionality too. Just as there were decisions that led to underrepresentation, we must try new strategies to increase representation.

Join the conversation in the comments. What additional ingredients do you believe have created a systematic recipe for underrepresentation?

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