Championing Diversity in the Workplace

Recently, I attended the Allyship & Action State of Equity Summit. It was a 2-day virtual event led and attended by celebrities, executive leaders, agencies and creative professionals, set up to facilitate and engage in meaningful conversations related to driving workforce diversity, specifically in the advertising and marketing industry. As a marketing consultancy and staffing agency, JeffreyM is committed to driving diversity and systematic change to create a more equitable & inclusive advertising community. Inspired by some key learnings from the State of Equity Summit and reflecting on our own company initiatives and goals, here are some 3 ways you can champion diversity in your business, career or within your own community.

1) Celebrate Diversity Year-Round – From Pride Month to Diwali, making sure you acknowledge and find ways to celebrate diversity holidays year-round is a simple but impactful way to promote diversity and inclusion.

• Incorporate these celebrations in your recurring team meetings, newsletters or regular updates.
  • For Women’s History Month (March), one of our teams asked people to share a woman that inspires them and published answers in the monthly team newsletter.
• Give team member’s the opportunity to share something unique about their heritage and highlight on social media.
  • During Hispanic Heritage Month we allowed a few of our employees to share their story and pride in their culture on our blog and social media.
• Notable Diversity Holidays: https://www.diversitybestpractices.com/diversity-holidays-and-heritage-months

2) Remember Diversity is NOT about quotas – As your company drives towards increasing diversity, you must be aware of “tokenism.” Tokenism is the practice of doing something such as hiring a person who belongs to a minority group, only to prevent criticism and give the appearance of equality in a workforce.

JeffreyM believes that diversity and inclusion is necessary in order to achieve and sustain excellence and be more effective. Recruiting and retaining a qualified diverse employee base allows us to best promote our values of excellence.

• Studies have proven that businesses are more successful when there is a diverse team in place. Diversity in gender, race and work experience all have a positive impact on a business.
  • According to the McKinsey study “Why Diversity Matters,” companies in the top quartile for gender-diverse executive suites were 15% more likely to generate above-average profitability
  • When it comes to staffing, companies that have higher degrees of racially and ethnically diverse employees have a 35% performance advantage over companies relying on a “culture fit” that tends to trend white and monocultural. (Source: McKinsey & Company)
• Expand your recruiting and referral efforts.
  • Intentionally seek candidates from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) or smaller community colleges.
  • Invite interns from organizations like INROADS, a national organization that actively develops and places talented minority youth in business and industry.
  • Partner with companies like YearUp, who mentor young adults and allow companies access to a diverse pool of candidates they wouldn’t otherwise reach with traditional recruitment channels.

3) Expand Diversity and Inclusion Efforts – If you currently have D&I efforts in place, you can always level them up, and if you don’t now is the time to implement a D&I program. These efforts should be continuous and integrated into overall company goals.

• Launch Mandatory Employee Training. Diversity, Inclusion and Bias training is a great first step in ensuring your employees are educated and understand you are prioritizing these efforts. You can hire a D&I consult to conduct the training or utilize Learning Management Systems like, Litmos, which has curated content available ready to push out to your teams.
• Survey your employees to get a pulse on feedback and current engagement levels. In times of change it’s important to make sure employees know their voice is being heard. Feedback received from these surveys can help you create a program and set goals.
• Create Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) – “group of employees who share the concerns of a common race, gender, national origin or sexual orientation” – ERG’s are a great way to create community and belonging. As employees begin to feel more connected, this has an overall positive impact on a companies success.

Everyone can become a diversity champion – don’t just rely on your companies Diversity & Inclusion team. And, if your company doesn’t have a team focused on these initiatives, these tips can help you become the champion they need.

If you are looking to take things a step further, I would recommend these LinkedIn Learning Courses, to further your education and inspire you to drive diversity everyday:

From Bystander to Upstander

Confronting Bias: Thriving Across Our Differences

Out and Proud: Approaching LGBT Issues in the Workplace

Unconscious Bias

Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues

Fighting Gender Bias at Work

Reach out to me at [email protected] if you would like to continue this conversation, share ideas, or provide feedback.