Labor / Employment, On The Job

Why Diversity Really Matters

Five tips for employers seeking to enhance diversity, from employment lawyer Beth Robinson.

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diversity 2 diverse minority law firm associates young lawyersDiversity isn’t just good, it’s good for business.  Why does this matter to an employment lawyer? In my practice, I help companies report on their diversity as required by federal law, and understand what their diversity numbers should look like.

Some employers don’t like this. They also have all of the problems non-diverse companies have. Because diversity reporting, stripped down to its essence, is actually about how you measure in the industry. The process is actually pretty simple. You look at the jobs held by your employees, and the expected amount of diversity based on those jobs, and see if your numbers are good.

For example, if you run a hospital and all of your nurses are male, you have a problem. If none of your nurses are male, depending on where you are located, you may have a problem. The goal is for it to not appear, on its face, that your company is biased.  I help employers in administrative actions and litigation resulting from conflicts that often center around diversity, and often during the process, I get asked: how do I avoid this in the future? The goal is still the same: don’t look like a biased place to work.

From my experience, it’s no surprise that diverse companies do better over the long term, both financially and in terms of staying power. They avoid pitfalls with brand image, because they have the right voices at the table. As I said last week, with more diversity at the table, Pepsi might have avoided nearly uniting the internet against it. But there is a dark side to diversity efforts: women and people of color who advocate for peers of color pay for it. And there is a real backlash seen when a company make “diversity” an emphasis.

I can say with great certainty there is no magic fix to issues of diversity. A company can’t “train” its way out of a diversity problem. Employers can’t “new hire” their way out of it.  But when diversity is done right, it means a real boost to the bottom line, and a real benefit to corporate decision making. So here are some tips I would suggest to companies who want to capitalize on the bottom-line lift of diversity, but avoid the pitfall of another pointless diversity initiative (or the poor decision making that comes with lack of diversity):

  1. Remove as much bias as you can from the initial process. I’ve had clients in the same industry that were on the opposite ends of the diversity spectrum. Curiously, the most diverse company didn’t have a “diversity policy”; the other company did. So how did one company get over the hurdle of “diversity” while the other continued to struggle? Part of it is diversity breeds diversity. Diversity is easier in more diverse companies. If your company, for whatever reason, has a critical mass of women employees in a male-dominated industry, you will have more women apply, get better qualified applicants, and have your reputation continue to grow for women employees. And that will be to the cost of your competitors. However, there are policy choices that stand out as well. One big difference: the diverse company focused their hiring function on the best person for the role, and took out the bias that comes with other hiring shortcuts. They don’t hire primarily based on internal referrals. To meaningfully increase diversity, an employer must start with the hiring process. Because when your candidate pool is diverse, the candidates who come in for interviews are more likely to be diverse. And when the candidates you interview are diverse, you are more likely to have diversity at your company.
  2. Start at the top. If you want diversity, real diversity (diversity of thought and experience), it can’t just be an emphasis at the bottom ranks. Companies take their cues from the top down. If there is one woman on your 15-person board, you aren’t going to have meaningful gender diversity anywhere in your organization. Companies need to be honest about why they are the way they are (e.g., homogenous in a bad way), and when making diversity a priority take accountability for why it wasn’t there in the first place. And begin any diversity efforts at the top.
  3. Don’t make the few diverse employees you have “tokens” for diversity. At a diversity training event I attended a few years ago, the presenter used an example of a male of color who mentored all the employees of color. And that statement passed without comment, and was later applauded as “giving back.” I knew intuitively that didn’t sound right. Because women and people of color pay a penalty for helping out others who are “like them.” Rather, to be successful, any diversity initiative should be headed by people who aren’t its targets.
  4. Hire for competence and not connections. There is a lot of press coverage about how diversity in tech is so hard, because of course there are no engineers who are women or of color.  Except there are. Tech’s diversity problem is bias at work, because even Asian candidates, a group that is overrepresented at every point in the “pipeline,” face discrimination in tech. An often overlooked fact is that tech companies hire heavily based on referrals. Given how segregated this country is, it’s no surprise that this can make diversity at a company even worse. Instead of focusing on diversity as an abstract concept you donate money to and then hiring the best friend of someone who is an okay performer, companies should hire based on competence and recruit in a variety of places. And emphasize a broad reach in the hiring process, rather than “diversity.” Diversity is really a symptom of a bigger problem, and one that can, with good processes, right itself.
  5. Companies with healthy cultures retain everyone, including diverse talent. In addition to diversity pipeline problems, companies that are not diverse cannot keep diverse talent. But a company that values diversity will treat it as an important part of the company and not a one-off emphasis. At a diverse company, there are no “diversity” hires. There are just good employees who all matter for the team, and the company focus is on building the kind of culture that results in an environment where employees are valued for their contribution, and not their conformity. I can’t say I’ve seen a company that does this perfectly, but I’ve had a few clients who come close, and their secret seems to be their ability to focus on being a good place to work for everyone, highlighting the similarities in all of their workers and working to strengthen bonds based on what every employee has in common, regardless of gender or background. The companies who get their diversity right don’t have much fanfare about diversity, because it’s part of who they are.

Maintaining stable levels of diverse employees is a signaler of a good place to work. It means an employer values all of its employees. If you find this rare company, buy some stock. The more diverse company always does better. Because diversity is good for the bottom line.

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beth-robinsonBeth Robinson lives in Denver and is a business law attorney and employment law guru. She practices at Fortis Law Partners. You can reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter at @HLSinDenver.

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