NOTEBOOK: Expert: Keeping diverse workers is the hard part
SUZANNE BEHNKE Dec 26, 2018 | 9:06 pm
3 min read time
655 wordsBusiness Record Insider, Education, The Insider Notebook At the Business Record, we’ve heard business leaders and public officials bemoan the ongoing lack of skilled workers to fill jobs (we’re at 2.4 percent for unemployment as of the latest numbers released last week).
We need more workers — and recently the conversation has also included that we need more diverse workers.
Diversity and inclusion are the hot topics, so it was helpful earlier this month to get some input from Darlene Slaughter, United Way Worldwide’s chief diversity officer.
Her work includes “leading efforts to expedite and advance worldwide diversity and inclusion strategies, partnerships and initiatives by working closely with local United Ways, as well as corporate and community partners.” Before joining United Way in 2014, Slaughter served as the principal consultant and chair of the Linkage Institute for Leading Diversity and Inclusion, and at Fannie Mae, and designed the first Executive Diversity Council as Fannie Mae’s chief diversity officer. She’s also published a few books.
Slaughter happened to be in Des Moines at area United Way offices, and we caught up with her by phone to get some expert advice for businesses large and small.
Slaughter said becoming aware of biases or issue is one thing, but there have to be programs and strategies with the goal of getting and retaining more diverse workers. Attracting diverse workers may be the easier part, she pointed out, but it’s keeping them that can be more difficult if there is no support for specific populations of workers.
She also defined diversity as encompassing gender and age diversity. “There is still diversity – even without the race. A lot times people forget that,” she said. That’s significant in a state in which the majority of workers are white.
She used gender equality as a specific example that is getting more attention.
“From a community and from what I see in the world, many people are focused on equality and gender parity. How do we get women paid the same as what men are paid for the same job? That’s a big gap.
Senior leaders have to set the bar for their organizations and be willing to be front-runners for change, Slaughter said. “How are you educating women and developing and training women to move into leadership position?”
One pernicious bias: Women don’t stay in the workforce for family reasons. That assumption can keep women from re-entering the workforce. Organizations of all sizes need to look at how they let employees, male or female, leave for caregiving of family.
“When the dad says, ‘I have to leave,’ no one ever questions that he has to leave early. Kudos to dad for doing that. But when mom has to leave early, sometimes people are saying, ’You always have to leave early.’ We don’t talk about this outwardly.”
Slaughter also pointed out that while the MeToo movement has shed light and brought needed conversation, it has also had an unintended consequence that hurts women. “Men in leadership who are fearful of being alone with women. … A lot of the conversation is not happening in the office. … [Women] are left out of the conversation.”
If Slaughter gave advice to Iowa’s leaders, she offered this: “You have to cast a wide net. You have to go to places you haven’t gone to before. You have a lot of baby boomers. You have a lot of intellectual capital that’s going to walk out the door. How do you create reverse mentoring programs? How do you create a space where it’s conducive to people saying I’m going to move from this city because I have all these benefits and this state can tap into my lifestyle? I can have a career, I can have a home, I can have a family. … I have to feel like it’s a city that is open and welcoming to me. What are the support systems in town that would attract new talent and keep talent?
We need more workers — and recently the conversation has also included that we need more diverse workers.
Diversity and inclusion are the hot topics, so it was helpful earlier this month to get some input from Darlene Slaughter, United Way Worldwide’s chief diversity officer.
Her work includes “leading efforts to expedite and advance worldwide diversity and inclusion strategies, partnerships and initiatives by working closely with local United Ways, as well as corporate and community partners.” Before joining United Way in 2014, Slaughter served as the principal consultant and chair of the Linkage Institute for Leading Diversity and Inclusion, and at Fannie Mae, and designed the first Executive Diversity Council as Fannie Mae’s chief diversity officer. She’s also published a few books.
Slaughter happened to be in Des Moines at area United Way offices, and we caught up with her by phone to get some expert advice for businesses large and small.
Slaughter said becoming aware of biases or issue is one thing, but there have to be programs and strategies with the goal of getting and retaining more diverse workers. Attracting diverse workers may be the easier part, she pointed out, but it’s keeping them that can be more difficult if there is no support for specific populations of workers.
She also defined diversity as encompassing gender and age diversity. “There is still diversity – even without the race. A lot times people forget that,” she said. That’s significant in a state in which the majority of workers are white.
She used gender equality as a specific example that is getting more attention.
“From a community and from what I see in the world, many people are focused on equality and gender parity. How do we get women paid the same as what men are paid for the same job? That’s a big gap.
Senior leaders have to set the bar for their organizations and be willing to be front-runners for change, Slaughter said. “How are you educating women and developing and training women to move into leadership position?”
One pernicious bias: Women don’t stay in the workforce for family reasons. That assumption can keep women from re-entering the workforce. Organizations of all sizes need to look at how they let employees, male or female, leave for caregiving of family.
“When the dad says, ‘I have to leave,’ no one ever questions that he has to leave early. Kudos to dad for doing that. But when mom has to leave early, sometimes people are saying, ’You always have to leave early.’ We don’t talk about this outwardly.”
Slaughter also pointed out that while the MeToo movement has shed light and brought needed conversation, it has also had an unintended consequence that hurts women. “Men in leadership who are fearful of being alone with women. … A lot of the conversation is not happening in the office. … [Women] are left out of the conversation.”
If Slaughter gave advice to Iowa’s leaders, she offered this: “You have to cast a wide net. You have to go to places you haven’t gone to before. You have a lot of baby boomers. You have a lot of intellectual capital that’s going to walk out the door. How do you create reverse mentoring programs? How do you create a space where it’s conducive to people saying I’m going to move from this city because I have all these benefits and this state can tap into my lifestyle? I can have a career, I can have a home, I can have a family. … I have to feel like it’s a city that is open and welcoming to me. What are the support systems in town that would attract new talent and keep talent?
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