Now that you have effectively recruited the best and the brightest talent, used an inclusive hiring process to assure that your impressive recruits became employees, and welcomed them on board in an informed and culturally conscious way, how will you develop them so that they stay long enough for you to realize a healthy return on your investment?
Timing Matters
When does employee development begin? Employee development begins on the day your offer of employment is accepted. Development needs to be intentional and effective because development is happening – whether you plan for it or not. A great on-boarding process includes a strategic employee development plan that aligns with and supports your organization’s mission from day one.
How long do you want to retain this new employee? If employee retention is considered and discussed from the first day as part of the strategy for development, you can plot your development plan on a timeline. For example, if the goal is to retain the new employee for ten years, then you can begin with year ten and work your way backwards chronologically. What is your vision for what that employee is contributing to your organization in ten years? What is their vision? Many job interviews include the question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Few employers however, ask new hires this and other career-related questions once they are hired. It is true, that a critical part of the hiring and on-boarding process is providing the new employee with a tremendous amount of information to assure that they can function successfully in the organization, but as I wrote in the previous blog post, this is a great time to learn more about your new employee. This is also the perfect time to map your relationship so that you have an idea of where you want it to go. A critical element of successful plans is the ability to make changes along the way as new information is made available. Remember, this is a development plan, not a contract!
ROI
In the world of Diversity and Inclusion we have many discussions on ROI (return on investment). This question is fundamental to the amount an employer is willing to invest in an employee and what they expect to get in return for that investment. This usually includes the cost of training, the cost of recruiting, the cost of development, and related initiatives.
Employers will sometimes wait for an employee to prove their loyalty before investing in their development. This is a risky decision to make because ambitious employees can become frustrated if they have to wait too long to engage in career development. On the other end of the spectrum those who are considered to be the most loyal may turn out to be great self-promoters with little regard for the well-being of the organization and may leave sooner than expected to join the organization’s strongest competitor.
Finding Your Hidden High-Potentials
Individuals who are not members of the dominant cultural group in an organization may have difficulty promoting themselves and are often over-looked as high-potentials. These are known as ‘hidden high-potentials’. There are ways to find them and develop them into valuable leaders who become loyal, long tenured members of your organization.
How do you develop new hires without investing more than you think you want to risk or can risk? New employees can be mentored as a group by a ‘proven’ employee. Proven employees are those who have been with the organization for at least two years and are considered to be high-potentials. High-potentials are those employees who have been identified as having a high potential for becoming future leaders in your organization. A great way to develop leaders is to have them mentor others, especially new employees. This reinforces everything that you want them to know about the organization, especially about its culture.
Every organization has a unique culture. Every division within every organization has its unique sub-culture, as does every department within every division. Having new hires mentored as a group does not require a large investment. This mentoring experience creates the opportunity to establish relationships early in an employees’ tenure with your organization which will increase the likelihood that they will stay with your organization for a longer period and be more productive while they are there. Another benefit of these mentoring relationships is that they span your organization’s departments and divisions, developing a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, your mission and vision by participants. My favorite benefit of developing relationships between new employees and seasoned employees is the potential for increasing their cultural competency. For example, if a new employee is a wheelchair user, others in the mentoring group can ask – yes, ASK them – what they prefer in terms of having doors opened or people touching their chairs, etc. This is a NO-COST employee development opportunity!
Other examples of development strategies for new hires are to have them join a ‘development plan support group’ or a ‘distance traveled forum’. These two initiatives help new employees to actively participate in their career development and self-assessment from their first day on the job. They also encourage appreciation for how employees’ diverse experiences, experiences outside of the workplace and school contribute to an organization’s success. Developing your new hires using these three strategies are excellent ways to find your hidden high-potentials. Employees who are mentored and part of co-development initiatives are much more likely to speak up, offer input and volunteer for projects. They will come out of hiding because they have been invited to do so and included in your organization’s efforts to innovate and succeed.
How does your new hire fit into your succession plan? Many organizations are lacking viable succession plans and those that have them are not necessarily implementing them consistently. New hires give you a great opportunity to jump-start or revive your succession plan. If you cannot imagine a new employee moving up through the ranks of your organization into a leadership role isn’t this a great time to do so?
People are usually thrilled when they start a new job. The ‘new job feeling’ is not unlike the ‘new date feeling’ or ‘the new car feeling’. It takes most of us a while to decide whether the date will become a mate and if the car is a keeper or a lemon.
Most new jobs have a three month ‘honeymoon’ period, although many people begin to feel disenchanted much sooner than that. On-boarding is the experience that a new employee has when they first come ‘on board’ at an organization. There are many studies that have demonstrated how critical on-boarding is. Large organizations invest billions of dollars in the on-boarding process for orientation sessions, training, lunches, dinners, etc. The success of these investments varies wildly and can determine how long an employee will stay with an organization, how productive and engaged they will be while they are there, and why they will leave.
Three Exclusive On-boarding Experiences:
1. A woman from India was recruited for a managerial IT position by a Fortune 50 company located in a rural area of a Southern state in the U.S.. She was a Hindu and a vegetarian. She expressed serious concern about becoming acclimated to her new culture as she had no idea where she might go to worship. The meals provided at the new hire orientation that she attended were inedible as every day only ham and egg on a biscuit was provided for breakfast. It was difficult for her to even find a meatless salad for lunch. She would eat at home early each morning and then not eat again until dinner each evening. Her cultural differences were never considered when she was hired and as a result she resigned within a month of her first day of employment.
This company could have saved a great deal of money, frustration and negative feelings if they had learned about their new employee’s culture during the hiring process and had provided cultural competency and inclusion training to those responsible for the orientation sessions and her on-boarding.
2. During a new hire orientation presentation, a representative of an organization’s Diversity Department pulled up a chair and sat down with his legs spread, one foot straddling his other knee such that the bottom of his shoe was facing the audience of new employees. Then he stood and put one foot on the chair. A few of the participants became visibly uncomfortable and were silent during the Q&A segment of the session. The presenter was at a loss as to the cause for the employees’ shift in engagement.
Even diversity professionals can make cultural gaffs if they are not provided with effective cultural competency education. Showing someone the bottom of your shoe, the lowest and dirtiest part of your body, is considered an insulting message in many Arabic countries. Putting your foot on a chair is considered insulting in some Asian cultures. The presenter thought that he was creating a relaxed atmosphere by using these gestures, but the result had the exact opposite impact. Intent vs. impact is a familiar concept in the field of discrimination that is often overlooked in the ‘softer’ field of diversity, sometimes with serious results.
3. A new manager orientation session included ‘partner’ interviews and introductions. The participants were paired-up and instructed to interview each other, asking 5 key questions, including the name of their favorite sports team. One interviewee told her partner that she was not interested in sports. He asked her where she was from and she replied, “New York City.” When he introduced her as a ‘Yankee Fan’ several other participants booed. She was highly embarrassed and complained to the facilitator at the end of the session who told her that she was overreacting and should not take the booing seriously.
Awareness of regionalism, including the impact of sports rivalries, is an important competency for trainers, especially those trusted to facilitate new hire orientation sessions. A new employee’s relationships are established during their on-boarding and any reinforcement of negative stereotypes can impact their success long afterward by creating barriers in those relationships.
How likely are these valuable new hires to become loyal, long term employees at the organizations described above, based on their on-boarding experiences? People need to be invited or included to really feel that they belong as part of an organization and that invitation must go beyond a job offer. Behaving in an inclusive manner is not necessarily intuitive, as we see with the diversity professional described above. Employees, especially supervisors, managers, and trainers need to be developed to be inclusive leaders with high levels of cultural competency if they are expected to know how to effectively create inclusive on-boarding experiences for new employees.
Why Does This Matter?
As the economy recovers, those who have not felt truly invited to become a part of a successful, innovative team will begin to seek out employers who will make them feel welcomed. Those employers understand that a high level of organizational cultural competency is required if they are to succeed and earn profits. Job seekers, especially ‘millennials’, are doing in-depth research on employers before accepting job offers and those who have negative on-boarding experiences are posting those experiences online. So, after investing a great deal of money in recruitment, hiring and on-boarding high potential employees, are you confident that they are being on-boarded inclusively? If not, isn’t it a good time to make that happen?
Scanning job postings one can find thousands of ads with the statement: “Diverse candidates encouraged to apply.” Employers also include the phrase: “An EOE Employer,” indicating that they do not discriminate in hiring. This certainly has not always been the case. There are many examples of discriminatory want ads to share with you and, although some of them may seem amusing now, they were quite serious when they were published. There are many books and articles on how to avoid legal problems when writing and publishing a want ad, but that is not the purpose of this blog entry.
I have heard variations on the following statement many, many times: “I cannot find any women who qualify for the job!” We can replace women with any other word describing a ‘diverse candidate’, meaning a person of color, a person with disabilities, et al. My response is always the same, “Where did you look?” This may sound flip, but it is an important and valid question to ask recruiters. For the past several years we have all been aware of recession conditions and high unemployment rates. There are many statistics showing that more women (of all races) than men have been earning college degrees in recent years.
There is still a gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields between white males and everyone else, but that creates a great opportunity: organizations can sponsor academic scholarships for diverse students at high school and undergraduate levels and begin their recruitment in the sixth grade. The earlier an employer recruits candidates for employment, the more successful they will be in hiring a more diverse range of employees. Employees who are in obscure jobs are thrilled when they go out and speak at local high schools and middle schools with the response of the children. This helps with employee engagement, recruitment and marketing. The children go home and tell their parents how great the presentation was by employees from the “Acme Company” and the parents get a subliminal ad for that company’s products.
One way to create a viable ‘pipeline’ of diverse candidates in STEM industries is to have strong internship programs. This is a terrific way to find out how competent an employee is and for both the intern and employer to find out if they are a good cultural match. So, why is it so hard to hire ‘diverse candidates’?
Many job descriptions are ineffective. They do not tell the candidates what they need to know about your organization. A job posting needs to provide three sets of information:
1. What are the job duties?
▪ Is the job description up to date?
▪ When is the last time it has been updated and by who?
▪ Are the job listed duties both accurate and relevant?
Potential candidates will often be dissuaded from applying for a position where the job duties do not match their experience.
2. What are the job qualifications?
▪ Does the candidate really need experience in a particular industry to be able to successfully carry out their job duties?
▪ Does the candidate really need a master’s degree in business administration to schedule conferences?
People will not usually apply for jobs if they do not meet the requirements, such as a specific degree or industry experience.
3. What is it like working at your company?
▪ Do you know what the organizational culture is, particularly in the department or location where the selected candidate will be working? Is the workspace open or are there offices or cubicles?
▪ Is it a highly socialized environment or more isolated?
▪ Is the team interactive or independent?
▪ Are work hours flexible?
Savvy candidates will do research on your organization before applying for a job with you and if their information conflicts with what you state in your ad or website, they may not apply.
Philadelphia – During WWII
Some of my clients have told me that they are successful at attracting and recruiting ‘diverse candidates,’ but they are not successful at getting them hired. ‘Diverse candidates’ are getting rejected at the interview phase of the process. Recruitment professionals who have pre-screened and pre-interviewed candidates are often baffled as to why their candidates are not being hired. There seems to be a challenge developing interview questions that focus on the Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications of a particular position and developing interviewers with a high level of cultural competence. Very few interviewers who I have spoken with are aware of Transferable Skills and their value. For example: If someone is great at planning a meal for 20 people, they can probably handle organizing board meetings or employee events. The skills are the same they are just being applied differently based on the specific need. Another great opportunity for employers to increase the diversity at their organizations is to provide transferable skills workshops for their human resource professionals and any employees who are part of their selection and hiring teams.
Even employers who are committed to increasing the diversity and inclusion at their organizations are sometimes stymied as to how to achieve those goals. Sometimes this results in hiring of ‘diverse candidates’ who may not be fully competent for the position. This creates a couple problems: first, the new hires are set up for failure if they are not fully qualified for the position; second, this reinforces the urban myths surrounding affirmative action. So, I urge you to hire only the most highly qualified candidates for every position that you are filling. I also urge you to reassess the jobs that you are seeking to fill, what they entail, and what someone really needs to know in order to do them well.
Employers invest a great deal of money in the recruitment and hiring process. Fees for search firms are in the many thousands of dollars for each position, and the salaries of HR and other staff when prorated for each new hire brings the investment to quite a high sum. So, how sound is your investment? Are you selecting and hiring the best candidate for the job? Is the job being described in the most effective and honest way possible? Have key members of the selection team been developed to be as competent as possible? If you are confident that the answer to these three questions is yes, BRAVO! If not, isn’t it time to reassess your process?
Please let me know what you think of this entry. If you cannot comment directly on this blog, please do so via twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or email me.
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width=”198″> People are usually thrilled when they start a new job. The ‘new job feeling’ is not unlike the ‘new date feeling’ or ‘the new car feeling’. It takes most of us a while to decide whether the date will become a mate and if the car is a keeper or a lemon.
Most new jobs have a three month ‘honeymoon’ period, although many people begin to feel disenchanted much sooner than that. On-boarding is the experience that a new employee has when they first come ‘on board’ at an organization. There are many studies that have demonstrated how critical on-boarding is. Large organizations invest billions of dollars in the on-boarding process for orientation sessions, training, lunches, dinners, etc. The success of these investments varies wildly and can determine how long an employee will stay with an organization, how productive and engaged they will be while they are there, and why they will leave.
Three Exclusive On-boarding Experiences:
1. A woman from India was recruited for a managerial IT position by a Fortune 50 company located in a rural area of a Southern state in the U.S.. She was a Hindu and a vegetarian. She expressed serious concern about becoming acclimated to her new culture as she had no idea where she might go to worship. The meals provided at the new hire orientation that she attended were inedible as every day only ham and egg on a biscuit was provided for breakfast. It was difficult for her to even find a meatless salad for lunch. She would eat at home early each morning and then not eat again until dinner each evening. Her cultural differences were never considered when she was hired and as a result she resigned within a month of her first day of employment.
This company could have saved a great deal of money, frustration and negative feelings if they had learned about their new employee’s culture during the hiring process and had provided cultural competency and inclusion training to those responsible for the orientation sessions and her on-boarding.
2. During a new hire orientation presentation, a representative of an organization’s Diversity Department pulled up a chair and sat down with his legs spread, one foot straddling his other knee such that the bottom of his shoe was facing the audience of new employees. Then he stood and put one foot on the chair. A few of the participants became visibly uncomfortable and were silent during the Q&A segment of the session. The presenter was at a loss as to the cause for the employees’ shift in engagement.
Even diversity professionals can make cultural gaffs if they are not provided with effective cultural competency education. Showing someone the bottom of your shoe, the lowest and dirtiest part of your body, is considered an insulting message in many Arabic countries. Putting your foot on a chair is considered insulting in some Asian cultures. The presenter thought that he was creating a relaxed atmosphere by using these gestures, but the result had the exact opposite impact. Intent vs. impact is a familiar concept in the field of discrimination that is often overlooked in the ‘softer’ field of diversity, sometimes with serious results.
3. A new manager orientation session included ‘partner’ interviews and introductions. The participants were paired-up and instructed to interview each other, asking 5 key questions, including the name of their favorite sports team. One interviewee told her partner that she was not interested in sports. He asked her where she was from and she replied, “New York City.” When he introduced her as a ‘Yankee Fan’ several other participants booed. She was highly embarrassed and complained to the facilitator at the end of the session who told her that she was overreacting and should not take the booing seriously.
Awareness of regionalism, including the impact of sports rivalries, is an important competency for trainers, especially those trusted to facilitate new hire orientation sessions. A new employee’s relationships are established during their on-boarding and any reinforcement of negative stereotypes can impact their success long afterward by creating barriers in those relationships.
How likely are these valuable new hires to become loyal, long term employees at the organizations described above, based on their on-boarding experiences? People need to be invited or included to really feel that they belong as part of an organization and that invitation must go beyond a job offer. Behaving in an inclusive manner is not necessarily intuitive, as we see with the diversity professional described above. Employees, especially supervisors, managers, and trainers need to be developed to be inclusive leaders with high levels of cultural competency if they are expected to know how to effectively create inclusive on-boarding experiences for new employees.
Why Does This Matter?
As the economy recovers, those who have not felt truly invited to become a part of a successful, innovative team will begin to seek out employers who will make them feel welcomed. Those employers understand that a high level of organizational cultural competency is required if they are to succeed and earn profits. Job seekers, especially ‘millennials’, are doing in-depth research on employers before accepting job offers and those who have negative on-boarding experiences are posting those experiences online. So, after investing a great deal of money in recruitment, hiring and on-boarding high potential employees, are you confident that they are being on-boarded inclusively? If not, isn’t it a good time to make that happen?
As it is early in the year, I thought it would be interesting to start delineating some inclusion strategies in chronological order, in terms of an employer’s relationship with an employee. Recruitment marks the beginning of every relationship between employer and employee, think of the first accidental glance across a room exchanged with someone who later becomes a friend. Employers are recruiting all of the time without being aware of it: manufacturers are recruiting every time they advertise their products; non-profits are recruiting when they ask people to donate or volunteer for their cause, and governments are recruiting when they send their employees out to serve the public. If people like what they see or hear or taste or use they may think about joining those who helped to create their positive experience.
Word of Mouth
Many employers give their employees a financial reward if they refer someone who is hired by the company. Employee referrals are highly valued, especially in the for-profit sector as the data is impressive in terms of employee retention rates for employee referral new hires. Governments have much lower turn-over rates than the private and non-profit sectors, but increasingly are modeling their management styles on the private sector, including paying bonuses to high performing employees and terminating those who do not meet the standards established for their function. This means that government employers are also paying more attention to recruiting high-potential employees. The greatest source of information about an organization is its employees. If they are unhappy, they let people outside of the organization know. There is a great website, glassdoor (www.glassdoor.com), which posts anonymous employee ratings of employers. Savvy job hunters go there before applying for jobs. People who have left companies telling their exit interviewer, “I have a better opportunity elsewhere,” tend to be more honest with their friends and on websites such as glassdoor. Employers would be well advised to visit this and other sites to find out what people are saying about them, and more importantly, to use that information to improve their employee relations.
Diversity Attracts Diversity
We, in the diversity field used to worry that employee referrals limited the diversity of new hires, but not anymore. Well, not if you already have some diversity. “Diverse” employees (people of color, LGBT employees, people with disabilities, etal) will refer employees like themselves, just as white, male, heterosexual employees will do. Sometimes, employees will refer candidates who are not from their affinity group, but people primarily refer candidates who are similar to themselves. So, the more diverse your employees are, the more diverse their candidate referrals will be. This will also have a positive impact on your employee retention rates as the ‘diverse’ new hires will have an easier time adapting to an organizational culture that is diverse not only in its representation, but also in its innovation. Employers that are intentionally inclusive get real bonuses as they get the attention of ‘high potential candidates’.
Inclusive Recruitment is NOT Affirmative Action!
Inclusive recruitment welcomes stellar employees – regardless of their affinity group affiliation. Talented people come in all races, nationalities, ethnic groups, orientations and abilities. So, if you want to hire ambitious, highly talented people, invite them intentionallyto contribute to your organization. There has been a great deal of buzz (not to be confused with buzz words) regarding “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) and the lack of diversity among the actors on the show. SNL’s management responded to a great deal of negative press regarding the stark absence of diversity at the season’s kick off by hiring Sasheer Zamata, an African-American woman. This process took about three months and is the first time in six years that there will be an African American woman on the SNL cast, which is interesting considering that Lorne Michaels, the top executive on the show said in an October interview with The Associated Press, “It’s not like it’s not a priority for us, it [hiring black women], will happen. I’m sure it will happen.” The announcement this week that Ms. Zamata was joining the cast has been met with a flurry of comments on both sides of the diversity debate. I have been thinking about how much pressure she will experience as those who are cynical of the process of creating an inclusive workforce think of her as an ‘affirmative action hire’. If she is not incredibly entertaining and hilarious during every single skit that she is in, she will be vilified by those skeptics. The writers of the skits, the director, the other actors, will not be subject to the same scrutiny. Ms. Zamata’s qualifications and expertise in her field will not be held up as evidence for hiring her. She will have to rise above the haters and their words and remember – just like all of the other cast members at SNL – she has managed to beat the odds and get selected to be on show. Many employers talk about how creating a diverse workforce is a priority, but few take intentional, strategic action to make it happen.
The Good News
The good news is that any organization, regardless of their history in terms of recruitment can become an inclusive recruiting organization! A great first step is conducting an anonymous employee survey. Many employers are reluctant to do this for two reasons: 1. They may not like what they hear (and this makes those in the legal department very nervous). 2. They may not feel ready to implement the changes that employees recommend. The executive team of your organization would be wise to honestly and openly discuss the possibility of improving your organizational inclusion by doing some real assessment of your current workforce. If you are satisfied with your employees’ performance and engagement and diversity and retention and development and succession – KUDOS! If not, isn’t it about time that you do make it a priority?
In my last blog entry I asked, “What’s in a word?” I examined words used in hateful, specifically racist ways. Now, as we begin a new year, our thoughts tend to focus on how we want this year to be an improvement over last year. We wish each other good health, prosperity, happiness, and peace. Being in the diversity and inclusion business, I wish people greater diversity and inclusion. These two words do not come without their own baggage. The word diversity is rife with double entendres for those who resist inclusion and is sometimes misused as code for ‘workplace representation quotas’ or ‘political correctness.’
New York Botanical Garden
W. Wark, 2012
Diversity
Why am I wishing you a year filled with diversity? Well, first, I would think that without diversity your year might be pretty boring. In wishing you a diverse year, I am wishing you more diversity in terms of your experiences, thoughts, and relationships. This may seem incredibly simple and obvious; however, many people still cling to old, familiar ways out of habit and sometimes this means sustaining an ‘us and them’ culture. How many times, for example have you heard someone say something like, “If it were not for those people …?” People would likely find other things to cling to, in terms of their personal comfort and assigning blame if their engagement with diversity increased, but the more diverse people’s relationships are the more likely they are to accept different opinions, ideas and lifestyles. So I wish you an incredibly diverse year!
Inclusion
Why wish you inclusion? Well, being inclusive requires an action on your behalf. One cannot sit at home and expect inclusion to come to them. It may in very, very small ways, such as the person delivering the Thai food who is from Guatemala. But, we would not know where the person was from without asking them as they would not be likely to volunteer that information. So, we need to be proactive if we are to be inclusive. There is so much that we can learn, enjoy, and gain by extending invitations. I hope that you are reaching out and inviting inclusion into your life!
History
Throughout these blog entries I have carried a thread, or a theme. I am always wondering how to take this complicated and rather arduous subject of diversity and inclusion and break it down into digestible segments or bites, but more than sound bites, I am trying to nurture thoughts and discussion about sensitive and challenging subjects. I believe that we can only move forward if we explore and respond to our past. Reading history and checking a box or filing away the information without learning from it or applying what we have learned to the present is, in my humble opinion, worse than not learning at all. What if a doctor studied biology, but forgot most of what they learned? Would you want to be treated by that doctor? No! Similarly, we all live in a complex world with relationships made even more complicated by our history. This is why I take an educational approach to diversity and inclusion and have provided you with historic context through this blog.
School of Athens, Raphael
Fresco (1509-1510)
Rhetoric
I want to discuss one other word – rhetoric. Rhetoric or buzz words tend to dominate the sound bites about diversity and inclusion. When I think of the word rhetoric, I often think of the word bluster, which is really the opposite of the original meaning of rhetoric – which Aristotle taught us was the art of persuasion through the development of arguments based on logic. Bluster on the other hand, is loud, pushy, empty talk. Those who use bluster to distract us from the main argument and point of discourse or rhetoric are often successful, at least in the short term. Rhetoric has become commonly used to mean exaggeration, or hyperbole, using words that lack substantive meaning. I usually begin educational workshops by asking the participants to define diversity and inclusion. The results are often fascinating. These two simple words – diversity and inclusion – represent a wide range of things to people, sometimes emotionally charged things. So, as I have stated for years, words matter. Words are actions – actions that have meaning for us. We need to develop a common vocabulary where the meaning of words is understood by all parties; then we can begin to have constructive conversations about difference.
Organizations need to do more than recruit diverse candidates, such as create inclusion strategies if they are to experience organizational change that is reflective of our society as a whole. Our society as a whole, whether locally, regionally, nationally or globally, needs to take assertive action if diversity is to become recognized as the precious commodity that it is. The transition to an inclusive world begins with you and with me. This may sound like rhetoric, but having witnessed and benefited by the words of individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sojourner Truth, I know that my argument is sound.
So, I wish you all things wonderful in this New Year, especially diversity and inclusion!
Please let me know what you think of this entry. If you cannot comment directly on this blog, please do so via twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or email me.
I want to let you know about some of the great work that the UN is doing to advance women’s equity in the workplace and beyond, and about an amazing and dedicated woman who is helping to make our world a better place, one woman at a time!
Thanks to a recent U.N. initiative, businesses worldwide now have guidelines that spell out seven principles that create a gender equitable workplace environment. In just three years since its inception, 664 companies in 51 countries have signed “The 7 Women’s Empowerment Principles” (WEP). The WEP document offers standards about how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community.
In March of this year, 5 companies from around the world received the inaugural WEPs Leadership Awards at the annual “Equity Means Business” event in New York City. Nominations are now being reviewed for 2014. Before I list the principles and tell you about the amazing Turkish woman we are supporting for a WEP award, here’s a brief background of how the award originated.
Background
In 1995 I was privileged to travel to Beijing, China with representatives of 180 New York City-based women’s organizations. We were among 17,000 supporters of women’s rights who were in China for the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women. I was the Acting Executive Director of the New York City Commission on the Status of Women (NYC CSW) at the time. The NYC CSW sponsored four workshops for the NGO Forum in Beijing on the subjects of outreach, education, domestic violence, and sexual harassment. The outcome of that conference was the “Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,” a 132-page document detailing a commitment to women’s equity that was adopted by all 189 countries in attendance. One of the results of that declaration was the eventual establishment in 2010 of UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/
The 7 Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP)
The Women’s Empowerment Principles (subtitled “Equality Means Business”) are the result of collaboration between the UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact. They are adapted from the Calvert Women’s Principles®. The development of the WEPs included an international multi-stakeholder consultation process, which began in March 2009 and culminated in their launch on International Women’s Day in March 2010. http://www.weprinciples.org/
1 Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality
2 Treat all women and men fairly at work –
respect and support human rights and nondiscrimination
3 Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers
4 Promote education, training and professional development for women
5 Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing
practices that empower women
6 Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy
7 Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality
WEP Leadership Awards
The WEP Leadership Awards salute business leaders for their exceptional championship of gender equality and support for the Women’s Empowerment Principles. Some weeks ago, my partners Tresa Eyres and Nebahat Nebahat Timur Tokgöz, and I were discussing the WEP Leadership Awards and one organization in particular came to mind: B-fit.
B-fit is Turkey’s first chain of women-only gyms. It was founded in 2006 by Ms. Bedriye Hülya. B-fit does more than promote physical health. It is a women-owned and operated business that implements WEP principles and raises gender equality by: (1) promoting women’s entrepreneurship, (2) increasing women’s employment, (3) improving the health of women through exercise and education, and (4) providing a safe and supportive environment that increases women’s self-esteem and social well-being.
B-fit’s 230 franchises and services are available to women of all ages and socio-economic levels in many geographic regions in Turkey. B-fit engages its franchisees and customers in developing social projects that benefit communities in the 48 cities, large and small, that it serves. We are incredibly impressed by B-fit’s mission and vision:
B-fit’s mission is
To enable women at every age group and income level to develop the habit of engaging in sports activities as a way of helping them increase their physical and mental powers
To increase the power of women in their economic lives by promoting women’s entrepreneurship and creating employment for women
To motivate and enable women to create and engage in social activities and community projects and to increase their awareness about their own lives and environment
B-fit’s vision is
To create a platform where women can freely use their power to create a better world for themselves, their families, and their communities
To grow by giving women the opportunity to exercise and to learn and practice business, entrepreneurship, and life skills
To create a platform where women can become more aware of their own lives and environments and use their power to be equal with men
Ms. Hülya’s passion for helping women and her commitment to advancing equity are contagious! Upon learning about the WEP Awards, she enthusiastically signed the WEP CEO Statement of Support – bringing the total number of Turkish Corporations to 16. [The total number of U.S. corporations that have signed is: 17.] One of the B-fit partners submitted the nomination of Ms. Hülya for a WEP award in the “Community Engagement” category.
We now eagerly await the judges’ decisions.
To learn more, please visit the WEP and B-fit websites!
I am thrilled to announce the addition of two partners to assist me in leading Inclusion Strategy Solutions LLC to greater heights of collaboration and success!
It is my honor to be associated with these dynamic, exceptional, and visionary women – Tresa Eyres and Nebahat Timur Tokgöz. Collectively they add a wealth of knowledge and experience, competency, and professionalism to Inclusion Strategy Solutions LLC. They each also bring something even more valuable to me:Passion with a purpose.
Inclusion Strategy Solutions LLC was founded on the principle that all people are valuable and hence, should be valued. Tresa and Nebahat have given tirelessly, through their careers and pro bono endeavors, to achieve that mission. Nebahat has also developed a rare gift of painting as a further means of expressing her passion for people and the creative process. Our diverse backgrounds and complementary skills and experiences will provide our clients with greater opportunity to strategically create success through inclusion!
Please join me in welcoming Tresa and Nebahat to Inclusion Strategy Solutions LLC!
Tresa Eyres, Partner
Tresa is a learning and development professional with more than 25 years helping clients improve their leadership and productivity. In the years 1994 through 2001, she was a key member of Bank of America Advisory Services, Inc., which provided on-site consulting to a number of financial institutions in Turkey.
Nebahat is a seasoned business professional with more than 30 years of demonstrated success. At a time in Turkey when few women held executive office, Nebahat was one of the first female Assistant General Managers of a financial institution and the first (non-family) female member of a Board of Directors.
Hans Christian Anderson illustrated the vulnerability of leaders who are unable to self assess in his wonderful tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Another important observation that Anderson made was that the Emperor’s ‘executive leadership team’ would not tell him the truth about his lack of coverage, or protection for fear of retribution. So, because of his vanity and inability to engender trust in others he paraded through the streets of Denmark in an invisible suit of clothes. The only one who pointed out the truth was a boy in the crowd. “Out of the mouths of babes..”
Nolo Contendere
Nolo Contendere is a Latin legal expression meaning that the accused neither accepts nor denies guilt. A recent example of this is Bob Filner, Mayor of San Diego, who has been accused of sexually harassing as many as 16 different women during his career. Mr. Filner claims that he has never been trained in sexual harassment prevention and so is not responsible for his own actions and that the City of San Diego should pay his legal bills pertaining to these accusations as a result of his lack of training.
Take it From the Top
As I was about to begin a training session for the executive leadership team of a former employer, the head of the organization approached me, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Wendy, does this really need to take three and a half hours? You can make the session shorter, can’t you? Say, two hours?” He gazed at me very directly, you might say, with emphasis, to make sure that I understood the message. He was not really asking me to shorten the session. He was tellingme to do so. We had customized the session for this group, to assure that they understood their role and responsibility to prevent harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Now, after months of preparation, I was being told to cut the session almost in half. I was not happy, but I knew that I was not empowered to defy him. How could hebe exempt from this training that every employee in the organization was mandated to participate in? When organizations are committed to preventing harassment and discrimination, they hold everyoneaccountable to upholding the law, regardless of rank. Successful leaders understand that in order to be effective they must lead by example, by exhibiting impeccable behavior, not by establishing a double-standard.
On best behavior?
If a consultant had been retained to facilitate the training session that I describe above, the intimidation that I experienced would never have occurred. The head of the organization would have been on his best behavior. This may seem self-serving coming from a consultant who stands to benefit by those who take my advice, but I have spent many years as an ‘in-house’ subject matter expert who was hired because of my expertise and asked or told to bring in ‘experts’ to facilitate training after I was on board. I learned that outsiders could be more effective, not because they knew more about preventing sexual harassment than I did, but because they would be taken more seriously than I would by the organization’s leaders. My mission has remained the same regardless of whether my role is employee or outside consultant – to end discrimination and harassment in the workplace. Sometimes that has meant bringing in an outsider to effectively get the message across, rather than conveying it myself.
Learning is fun!
Most organizations provide mandatory sexual harassment prevention training although the quality of that training varies wildly. What matters most is not whether education is mandatory or not, but that the education provided is effective. [I intentionally use the word education instead of the word training here, as we are discussing changing one’s behavior and competencies, not how to operate one’s cell phone.] If the education provided is not interesting to the participants, they will not retain critical information. Adult learning theory is very clear: make learning fun if you want it to make a difference! This rule is applicable regardless of the subject matter. To be clear: I do not think that sexual harassment is fun, but the process of helping others to identify it and prevent it should be. Even serious topics can be made approachable. So, the opportunity for subject matter experts is to think about how people learn, why people need to know how to behave in the workplace and elsewhere, and how to capture the attention of everyone in every educational session. The opportunity for employers, regardless of sector or industry is to make sure that everyone in their organization is accountable, even the Emperor.
In the world of Diversity and Inclusion we have many discussions on ROI (return on investment). This question is fundamental to the amount an employer is willing to invest in an employee and what they expect to get in return for that investment. This usually includes the cost of training, the cost of recruiting, the cost of development, and related initiatives.
