Building Diversity
How to ensure the nation’s skilled workforce reflects America’s growing multiculturalism
Thomas Harwell was an air force brat. Born in Germany, he hopped from Georgia to Japan, Texas to Alaska, which taught him to continuously test his assumptions about new communities. As director of student diversity & inclusion initiatives at Questrom, he encourages students, faculty, and staff to expand and understand the diversity within their community—and to think about how they might carry these values forward as industry leaders. He was formerly assistant director for career exploration at Boston College and also served on the executive committee of its Black Faculty, Staff, and Administrators Association. Everett spoke to Harwell about how and why companies should strive for inclusivity.
Photo by Dan Watkins
Everett: What do we mean when we talk about building a diverse workforce?
Harwell: I think every organization needs to define diversity for itself. Try to define where you think you want to be in 20, 30, 50 years, and work backwards. Ask yourself: What are going to be the markers of success that allow your value proposition to outlive your competitors’? How do you start to prepare your workforce to be more reflective of the changing demographics of our society—and then seek out qualified employees who are representative of that society? I think people get caught up in the day-to-day of their job, without understanding the long-term value proposition of their work and how it’s going to fit into an evolving society.
How can diversity help an organization adapt and thrive in this evolving society?
In America, the Hispanic population is expected to double, from 53.3 million in 2012 to 128.8 million in 2060, according to the US Census Bureau. It will represent a growing percentage of our country, and companies need to understand how that impacts their markets. Companies that want to have global reach must appreciate the cultures at play in the countries where they wish to expand. One way to do that is to hire people who identify as a part of that culture and who will leverage their experiences in your work environment.
Is it a matter of attracting diverse employees, or seeking them out?
Both. You have to be active in this process. Getting top talent is competitive, and you have to be proactive if you’re going to get the representation of different identity groups you want to be part of your workforce. Companies should be actively engaged in making sure potential employees know that who they are will be valued at work. Technology has given well-qualified candidates many choices about where they take their work, so you also have to put effort into making sure that they can see themselves as a part of your organization for a long time. It’s not enough just to get people in the door, because they can leave.
How can a company retain a talented and diverse workforce?
We’re seeing a lot of companies, like Disney, develop employee resource or affinity groups to form a sense of community within their workplace. Individuals, institutions, and systems are trying to uncover their implicit biases to make sure they are offering an equitable work environment when it comes to promotion, hiring, and retention. For example, PwC has the Blindspot initiative to coach their team to understand bias. We’re seeing mentorship programs for millennials, and companies becoming more civically engaged in sustainability and ethical business practices. Many companies, like State Street Corporation, are creating chief diversity officer positions, and companies like She Geeks Out are helping to address underrepresentation in industries through networking and education.
Chart source: Deloitte and the Alliance Board for Diversity, Missing Pieces Report: The 2016 Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards
What would you say to a company that might hire employees just for the sake of building diversity?
While I’m sure that there are some people who conceive of this notion of diversity and inclusion as transactional, it’s not going to be sustainable for their workplace or their workforce. And it’s illegal to make a hiring decision based on race and other identities.
What you really should be focusing on is how to make sure that people who qualify for a role want to be part of your organization, and that you’re sending your offer to the best candidate. They may happen to be a woman. They may happen to be a person of color. They may happen to identify as LGBTQ. They may happen to have a disability that will require an accommodation at work. All of these things may be true, but it’s only because you increased the applicant pool that you were able to find that they were the best person for the job.
“While I’m sure that there are some people who conceive of this notion of diversity and inclusion as transactional, it’s not going to be sustainable for their workplace or their workforce.”
Thomas Harwell, director of student diversity & inclusion initiatives
What if the most qualified person is a white, straight, 50-year-old male?
If you do a great job of making sure that your applicant pool is representative of the people you serve, and you establish clear metrics about what it would take to be successful in the role, and where you want your company to be in the long term, and it happens to be that person, then that’s who you hire. To do otherwise would be unethical.
At times, people think of these ideas as mutually exclusive; however, the most qualified or ideal candidate may also be a person of color, a person who identifies as LGBTQ, or a person living with a disability. And having that representation of identities and experiences will add value to your organization.
How can companies remove biases from their hiring practices?
Some people say recruiters take six to seven seconds to look at a résumé. If you’re judging something in six or seven seconds, then you’re making assumptions—based on that person’s name, where they went to school, what club they were in—about whether or not they’re a good candidate for your job.
Take time to understand your own identity and how it was influenced by your social strata, the way your parents raised you, the different things you were taught to believe. And then, for identity groups that you’re less familiar with, become a critical consumer of the media and the world around those identities. Harvard’s Project Implicit offers a series of implicit-association tests that might help you discover your biases. Once you realize that you have a bias, you have to become conscious about not allowing that bias to dictate your actions, and mitigate it.
