equity: painting a complete picture
published 7.22.20
Equity can seem at first like an abstract concept that no measurement can truly capture, like happiness or well-being. To an extent, that is true—numbers can only show us parts of the picture. However, attempting to measure equity is the next step (after defining what equity looks like in your workplace) towards making ambitious, quantifiable changes that better your workplace. Improving equity doesn’t just improve your employees’ experiences at work, although that should be the primary goal. Improving equity can set your company apart from competitors and attract diverse talent, giving your company an enduring advantage in this globalized economy.
For the final part of our conversation series, Leading Humans [in 2020], we chatted with Michael Collins, Lead Diversity Business Partner at Google, and Jason Limerick, HR Business Growth Partner at BHP, about what equity looks like in their workplaces and how we can measure equity with intention. Here’s a quick recap of our conversation.
what does equity in your workplace look like?
Championing equity starts with acknowledging the resources that have been afforded to your employees upon entering your company. Your employees have each had vastly different opportunities and resources at their disposal throughout their lives for a multitude of reasons, including race, gender, sexual orientation, geography, etc. Equity means acknowledging these gaps in resources and being mindful of the perpetuated systems and stereotypes that may work against employees, then asking how you can better distribute your resources to provide equal opportunities.
Understanding what equity currently looks like at your company means putting your ear to the ground and conducting listening tours and culture audits of the entire employee life cycle. This includes steps like selection, onboarding, retention, performance management, internal mobility, advancement, and offboarding. Identify the gaps in experiences, then decide what to drill into.
what should you keep in mind when measuring equity?
Ground your people processes in data. This can be data that your company has already collected, Census data, or data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that is publicly available. For Google, the success of their equity efforts in the hiring process are based on the external talent pool for underrepresented populations. After identifying the percentage of software engineers that are Black, for example, Google will aim for that same percentage of Black hires in a new class. Pay attention to how key metrics are distributed across identities. If a certain demographic is experiencing a higher pass through rate, dig into why that is and how your hiring process may be the cause of that.
Only aiming to hit a data point is not enough, as Michael pointed out. Telling a more complete story around equity requires qualitative data. Continuing our hiring example, ask people who went through it: how was the hiring process for you? Don’t forget about the people behind the process too: gauge the cultural competency of your hiring managers, interviewers, and sourcers. Put the work in to ensure that at the earliest stages of the process, even before seeing candidates face to face, you’re showing up with the right information to approach the process equitably.
Don't get lost in the numbers. Numbers can be deceiving because they can be used to paint the picture you want to see. Nadia recommends cutting the data you collect by group. Your company might have a high net promoter score for your industry. That’s great, but what is that score when you cut that number by women? Or by people of color? When looking at demographics in your company, it might look like you have great representation overall, but what does representation look like at each level? Is there a healthy presence of different identities at the manager, director, and VP levels? What’s important when committing to any kind of DEI work is to lead with inquiry, not with assumption.
how can you set effective goals?
Besides setting goals based on data, think about setting goals that are substantial enough to send a message to your entire organization and set the tone of your intention in pursuing equity. BHP’s CEO set a goal a few years ago to be gender-balanced by 2025, which is a big aspiration for an organization that employs over 70,000 contracts globally, said Jason. The metrics to measure gender-balance were subsequently raised to sit right next to business metrics like productivity, safety, and cost. In elevating the importance of DEI metrics and showing employees that achieving equity goals is a priority of executives, these goals can more easily permeate throughout your company.
Work with different departments to set goals and put metrics in place. Studies have shown that including people in the process of ideation for decisions will make them more likely to be invested in the success of the outcome. Give employees ownership over equity goals so they can understand how they personally fit into them and champion these goals in their teams.
how do you value people?
Performance management must be reevaluated, especially as our workplaces adjust to accommodate the strains of COVID-19. Now more than ever, managers need to come from a place of empathy and work to understand the variables outside of the workplace that affect employee performance. Are your rating processes based on manager commentary? How might this make space for bias in the performance process? What kinds of metrics are you collecting data on in performance evaluations and why might these data points be skewed? We constantly need to be asking ourselves these questions and thinking like lifetime learners, always aiming to raise the bar when it comes to equity.
As Michael put it poignantly, if we don’t want a tale of two Americas, then there should not be a tale of two Googles or a tale of two BHPs. We should work to ensure that there is consistently a just, equitable, and inclusive experience for everyone at all levels of the organization.
If you’d like to learn more about measuring equity at your organization, please reach out. We’d love to chat.
By Sophia Wu
Research Associate
