- 11 months ago
#1 Belong- The Business Case for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.mp4
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00:00Hello, I'd like to welcome you all to Belong, our company's diversity, equity, and inclusion
00:25training initiative. Over the coming months, you will be asked to participate in a series of Zoom
00:31calls that will focus on the benefits and opportunities for embracing DEI in the workplace
00:37and beyond. We've enlisted the help of Deb Barrett, who has extensive experience in the DEI sector,
00:45to help guide us as we continue to work to support and reflect the communities we serve. As a company,
00:51it's not only the right thing to do, but it will also help strengthen us as an organization and
00:58underscore the foundation upon which our company was built upon over 60 years ago. Please do not
01:05hesitate to reach out to me with any questions, and we thank you for your support.
01:16Thanks for those opening remarks, Caroline. My name is Deb Barrett, and I'll be your facilitator for
01:20this session and the diversity, equity, inclusion training sessions we've got to follow. So allow
01:25me to introduce myself. I may know several of you because I've been doing work with Beasley since
01:29last summer. I'm a leadership development consultant who specializes in diversity, equity, inclusion,
01:36and I'm really pleased to be with you today. I also work as an executive coach, and I've worked in this
01:41field for many years. I'll give you a little personal background on myself. While I've been consulting
01:46for about a dozen years now, prior to that, I had a long career at Procter & Gamble. And then the 80s,
01:51when I was hired by P&G to be a sales rep, I was one of the first women they hired into their
01:56management development program. Interestingly, I was one of four that year, and I was the only one who
02:01actually continued on my career after the first year. You see, I was sort of an experiment. They
02:07weren't sure. They really thought women could hack it in sales. And this was a new terrain for P&G back
02:15in the 80s. So I'm happy to say I had a long career with Procter & Gamble. I moved out of sales into
02:21marketing and then into general management. And I ended my career working on diversity, equity, inclusion
02:25for P&G North America. Now, I'll share with you that when I was hired into P&G, it was predominantly a
02:32male sales force. And I was the first woman to do many things at P&G over the years in my career.
02:40And so while that does not really qualify me to do diversity and equity work, I will tell you that
02:47that background helps this information to be internalized and for me to actually try to share
02:52some stories about what this work really means to you. So as I said, I've been working with many
02:57folks at Beasley, even some of you maybe perhaps on this call today. We've been developing a
03:02diversity, equity, inclusion action plan that we have called Belong. I'll share more with that
03:07on the call today. But we want to really focus on three things with this work, the Belong action
03:14plan. The first thing is to really promote better self-awareness and understanding of the topics
03:19of diversity, equity, inclusion. The second thing is to really to drive more accountability and to
03:24really take a look at our representation and make sure we're creating inclusive workplaces
03:28in our markets and at our headquarters location. We're also going to be looking at things like
03:33our recruiting efforts and trying to beef them up to make sure we're really casting a broad net to get
03:38the best and brightest talent. We're also going to be looking at how to partner with our communities
03:43to see if there are opportunities for us to work with organizations in our markets and in our
03:49communities to build more inclusion at both Beasley and in the industry as well. So I'd like to thank
03:57everyone from Beasley who has helped me over the last number of months to try to put some of this
04:03programming together. And today we're going to start with our first session on diversity, equity, and
04:09inclusion. And this is all about the idea of building a business case for diversity and helping
04:14to understand the platform. So here's what we're going to cover today. First, I want to give you an
04:20update on the Beasley initiative called Belong, what that's all about. And then we're going to make
04:25sure we're all on the same page with definitions. And so we're going to talk about diversity, equity,
04:29inclusion to give you some working definitions. That's the what of the Belong work. And then we're
04:35going to talk about the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion to make sure everyone
04:39understands why we're focusing on what this work and why it's so important. So you've probably seen
04:45this Belong campaign. I know Caroline's put several videos out. She's done a lot of discussions in the
04:53markets about Belong. But if you have not seen this yet, the program is really focusing on this concept
04:58of together we can create a culture of belonging and encourages diversity, equity, inclusion across
05:04Beasley and all the communities where we serve. Now, when you read that definition,
05:08different things will probably pop for different people. Some of this might be about the culture
05:12we're building. And frankly, this builds on the successful culture Beasley has been creating for
05:16many years that really centers on integrity and respect. Then we talk about this idea of diversity,
05:22equity, and inclusion, and not just at Beasley, but in the communities where we serve.
05:26Now, the way we're going to try to make sure we're building an understanding of Belong
05:30is through this training program, where we'll have eight different training topics, starting with
05:35what is the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Last month, your management,
05:41your executive team, and your market managers went through the training. This month here in April,
05:46we'll have five different sessions on this topic. Now, the topics to follow are things like best
05:51practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion. So we're not just going to talk about this conceptually.
05:54We're going to talk about how we can put this information into action. Then we want to talk about how to drive
06:00accountability in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and addressing things like unconscious bias.
06:04We're going to go back to doing more on best practices to do a deeper dive on recruiting and
06:10retention. And then we're also going to talk some specific topics that we think will be really
06:14helpful, like understanding more about generational diversity and understanding more about multiculturalism
06:21and race. And then we'll wrap up the program with inclusive leadership. So we've got a very robust
06:27program. And what we're going to do is cascade this through the organization, starting first with the
06:33executive team. What they'll see is the same information you're seeing. They'll just see it on
06:38earlier timing. Same with the market managers. So in month one, they'll both get this information.
06:44The following month, we'll get to the next 150 managers in the organization across five different
06:50executions. That's the piece that's going on right now. So without further ado, let's dive into the
06:55material. So what is diversity, equity, and inclusion, and why is this important? That's going to really be our
07:02focus for today. And the first thing I want to talk about is this idea of these words coming,
07:08tumbling out together, are really the umbrella term for the programs, the strategies, the work
07:15that we're doing to create and sustain this diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace for Beasley.
07:22And it's really all about making sure that we're creating the right space for people to bring their
07:28full selves to work every day. We want people to have a positive experience at Beasley. We really
07:33want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to keep the turnover rates low and our employee
07:38engagement high. So you'll see all three of these working together. But for many years, we just talked
07:44about diversity and inclusion together. It was kind of like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You heard
07:48those two words together all the time. And there's a reason for that. We're going to first talk about
07:53diversity. And this is really the collective mixture, the demographics of the group. The focus
08:00is not just on the differences in the group, but also the similarities. So this is not going to just
08:05be about race, ethnicity, and gender, but things like what are our individual backgrounds and experiences?
08:10What are our values and belief systems? And how do those preferences, background, experiences help us to
08:16individually contribute more fully to the organization? Now, when you think about this, it's going to be
08:22important that we don't just have diversity, but that we leverage that diversity. I would submit to you
08:26that in most of our locations right now, we've got really some great diversity, but we may not be
08:32harnessing that and may not be fully leveraging it. When we think about the way we think about the world,
08:39our different perspectives, where we come from, we probably have a lot of diversity right now at Beasley.
08:44Now, when we talk about diversity, it's important we understand that there's a lot of terrific research
08:52that I will unfold in just a moment, but that talks about how important it is for us to have
08:58good diversity in the organization. And what I'll share with you is there's a lot of research that
09:03centers on like-minded groups versus differently-minded groups solving problems. And when you have a
09:09heterogeneous team, which is really a mixture of race, ethnicity, gender, age, versus a homogeneous
09:16group that is same, and you ask them to solve the same problem, here's what we find out. The group of
09:22like-minded individuals, maybe you've got five people who are all the same, that really come from the same
09:27background and come to things in the same way. They're going to solve the problem at hand quickly
09:32because they work together pretty easily because they have that common understanding of how things get
09:37done in their world. But their solution set is going to be about this big. So we'll have some
09:42good solutions, but some of those, these may be some of the run-of-the-mill kinds of solutions we
09:45would expect to see. When we have a heterogeneous group, this is going to be the group that is going
09:51to take a little longer for them to get started, to figure how they're going to work together, how
09:55they're going to leverage those differences. But when they do finally figure out how to work well
09:59together, they're going to come back with a solution set three times the span of the
10:04homogeneous group. So there's a price to pay for innovation. We need to make sure we help
10:10corral all the differences in the organization and help people understand we want everyone to be
10:16part of the conversation. That's how we leverage that diversity and that mixture of thoughts,
10:22experiences, and backgrounds in the organization.
10:26Now, I'll give you an example of where this hit me early in my career. For many, many years,
10:33I led many sales teams across the U.S. and eventually moved into general management where
10:40I started leading multifunctional teams. When I did that, I realized that being an extrovert myself,
10:46I had a bias for extroverts. And when we were in meetings, oftentimes I would allow the extroverts
10:51to really speak often and early and even over-talk and interrupt some of the introverts in the group.
10:58Now, sooner or later, I realized that the sales folks and the extroverts were
11:03getting more than their share of voice in the room. And I had some extremely bright,
11:07fantastic introverts who weren't contributing as fully in the meetings as I would like.
11:13And I realized that wasn't their fault. That was my fault. And I had to make everything available
11:17to them and work with them to help them understand that I wanted to hear their ideas. And we wanted to
11:22be able to collaborate in an effective way. So as a leader, I had to change my approach to how I led meetings,
11:28how I encouraged people to participate. I had to have some one-on-one conversations.
11:32I had to break through some barriers to make sure that I had people coming to these meetings
11:37prepared and ready and confident that their voices would be heard. It was a real change of mindset for
11:44me and a really good example of early in my career, things I had to do to make sure that I was
11:49leveraging the diversity that I had on my team. Let's turn to inclusion. What's inclusion all about?
11:55Well, this is about that workplace we're trying to create where people feel valued, respected,
12:00heard. They feel like they're treated fairly and respectfully. We're putting the right conditions
12:05in place so that people feel like they can reach their full potential and they have equal access to
12:10opportunities. So when we think about inclusion, this is all about this idea that we're all at the
12:18center of being human beings. We all want to be part of a tribe. We want to belong. We want to be part
12:23of something bigger than ourselves. We want to be part of that in-group and be accepted. And so when
12:28we're included and we're feeling comfortable, a lot of times we feel like we can contribute and do more
12:33and be more loyal to the organization and feel like we have more innovation to offer in different
12:40perspectives. Now, I will tell you, I do a lot of consulting in this area and oftentimes I have
12:47companies that will come to me and say, hey, we have really changed how we are recruiting.
12:52We're bringing more diverse talent in. We recently just added a historically black college to one of
12:57our, to our slate of colleges where we recruit, but we're losing that new representation faster than
13:04we can bring it in. And I call that the leaky bucket syndrome. That's where we're bringing some
13:09terrific talent into the organization. But if the culture isn't right, if they don't see role models,
13:14people who look like them, who are succeeding in the organization, if we're not creating the
13:18environment where people feel like they're heard, respected, understood, regardless of their walk
13:23of life and their background, then we're going to lose those people as quickly as we can add them
13:28to the top of the bucket. So as we think about this idea of innovation, we've really got to think
13:34about holistically how diversity and inclusion have to work together. And that's why we have those words
13:39oftentimes together. And we've got to think about how we invite people into our tribe and help them
13:46feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. Now, the last word I want to talk about
13:51today with definitions is equality. And this is the word that most recently has been put into the
13:56framework of the DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion work. Although it's always really been in there,
14:01it just hasn't been called out separately. And this is about everyone needing and really receiving
14:07respectful and dignified treatment. Now there's a difference between equality and equity that I
14:12want to underscore. And that's why I've included this picture on this slide for you. Equality is
14:17really about making sure we're providing the same to all, which feels like it's, there's fairness
14:23involved, but we're not always acknowledging that some adjustments might be made for imbalances.
14:30Okay. And so when we look at the three individuals here, trying to watch a ball game over a fence.
14:35And if we all give them one tire, two of those individuals can see the game, but the third one's
14:42going to struggle and have trouble seeing it. If we can acknowledge that maybe someone needs
14:46a little more and give the person who is the shortest one here, two tires, then everyone can see the
14:52ball game and everyone can enjoy the outing. So it's about really thinking about where people start
14:58from, where the imbalances might be, and what adjustments we need to make sure that we're
15:03counting to make sure everyone feels like they can have equal access to the same opportunities.
15:10Now, when we pull all three of these together, they serve as the backdrop for our Belong campaign,
15:16our initiative, where we believe we can create that culture of belonging and encourage this idea
15:21of diversity, equity, inclusion here at Beasley. Now, I'd ask you to take a moment to really think
15:27about what it means to be creating a sense of belonging. So I want you to harken back to a time
15:33when you really felt like you belonged somewhere. And then contrast that with the time when you felt
15:38like you didn't belong and you were uncomfortable. I want you to think about what contributed to that.
15:43If you want to pause the video right now, I'd encourage you to do that. One thing you may want
15:48to think about doing is creating a tea table like this, where you're throwing on one side what it takes
15:53to belong. What are some of the things that contributed to your feeling like you didn't belong?
15:58So feel free to hit the pause button right now if you'd like to. Now, what I want you to think about
16:03is when you compare and contrast these different sensations and how you feel when you belong versus
16:08you don't belong. As a leader at Beasley, we're going to expect you to be able to think through
16:13how to have this kind of conversation with your co-workers. So when you think about that sense of
16:18belonging, how did you feel like you were part of the tribe? What are some things that were done
16:22for you and around you to help you to feel like you could succeed and bring your whole self to
16:26work every day? Conversely, what are some of the behaviors we want to stop from happening so that
16:32people don't feel like they cannot belong to the organization? When you see things happen,
16:39we're going to have to call some of these behaviors out. But I want you to think about things that were
16:43done or not done that contributed to your feeling of belonging, because that's going to be an important
16:49hallmark for us to return to. And we'll come back to this time and time again during this training
16:54series. Now, one of the things I want to share with you is if you're trying to explain to somebody
17:01what this work means, this is a pretty good analogy. Diversity is like being invited to the party.
17:07Inclusion is being asked to dance while you're at the party. And belonging is dancing like no one's
17:12watching. So as we think about this idea of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, that's the
17:18type of feeling we're trying to foster. So people feel like they can bring their whole selves to work
17:23every day with some terrific innovation and great productivity following as a result of that.
17:30Now, before I leave this segment of the training, I want to introduce the concept of the diversity
17:34wheel to you. Maybe some of you on the call have seen us before, but if you haven't seen it before,
17:39it's really going to be important for you to think about this concept of diversity
17:44very broadly. And so I introduced this diversity wheel to you to help you understand how we think
17:51about diversity. So first in that outer ring, you've got organizational diversity. And this is
17:56going to be really important for us because this is going to talk about things like what's your
18:00management level? Where are you located? What's your role at Beasley? What's the content? What's the
18:07division? What's your seniority? So these are things that as we work with other people, we get
18:11to know these things. Then we come to the external division or dimension. And this is the part of the
18:17wheel where we get to know people. We learn these things about them, but we clearly don't know these
18:23things until we have conversations with people. You know, this is things like, where did you grow up?
18:30You know, what is your hobbies or habits or things you do on the weekends? What are the things you
18:35like to do with your spare time? What's your educational and work background? What's your
18:39marital status? Even things like your appearance, do you choose to grow your hair long or short?
18:45These are choices we've made in our life, things we've brought to help us to be the human beings
18:49we are today. And then we have the internal dimensions. These are innate. And while we might
18:54want to change these, these are really who we are. And these are things that we were born with. So
18:58things like age, I may want to change my age, but it ain't happening. These are the things we focus a lot
19:04of our diversity, equity, inclusion efforts on. It's things like race, ethnicity, gender, but it
19:10also includes differing abilities and things like sexual orientation. And the last piece of the
19:16diversity wheel is at the heart and soul of all this is our personality. So you could have two people
19:21doing very similar roles with Beasley, the same age group, the same gender, and they may have some of
19:26the same common interests, but because of their personality, they may be very different. We're going to use
19:32this tool, again, to help us think about diversity very broadly. And as we think about our efforts,
19:37we want to leverage all aspects of diversity as we think about the Belong initiative. Now, when I talk
19:44about Belong, and I think about the efforts that we're going to try to make to help you really think
19:49about contributing to this sense of belonging, I wanted to leave you with one thought before we go
19:56into the business case for diversity, equity, inclusion. And that is we've got a lot of
20:01research that talks about the sense of belonging and helping people to feel comfortable and fully
20:06contribute. And one of the things I want you to think about is we need three C's. There's three
20:10ingredients to creating this sense of belonging. First is comfort. We want to make sure people feel
20:15comfortable in our organization. Secondly is connection. We want to connect on a very human level
20:21with our coworkers. And last, contribution. We want to make sure everybody has things they need
20:27to contribute fully in the organization. Now, Deloitte's done a lot of work in this area,
20:32and one of the things they've researched and found is that 73% of respondents in one of their surveys said
20:39that fostering a sense of belonging was important to their organization's success. And 63 of the
20:46respondents agreed that a sense of belonging drives organizational results. So it's important for us
20:52to be thinking about looking out for that workforce. We look out for the workforce, so the workforce will
20:56then look out for us. There's a real gratuitous cycle to doing this work. All right, so I want to move on
21:04to the business case, the reasons why we want to do this work. And I want you to really think about this
21:11idea of what it's going to take for us and how do we share information about belong so people understand
21:18not just the what, what is diversity, equity, inclusion, but why do we do this work? What are
21:22some of the benefits of belong? So we're going to see in the research that it's going to improve
21:27business results. We're going to get better talent, attraction, and retention. There's better both
21:33productivity and innovation. Both are enhanced when we think about the benefits of diversity,
21:39equity, inclusion. And then lastly, we've got employee empowerment and loyalty goes out,
21:44really improves dramatically when we think about this. So the first thought I'm going to show with
21:50you has lots of different research on one page. There's a lot of information to share here.
21:56And I did this purposely, so if you wanted to have a one-page takeaway to help people understand why
22:02we're doing this work, it's all in one slide. And we're going to make sure you have this available to
22:05you after the video today. So first and foremost, as I said earlier, the big piece here is that
22:12focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion helps to create improved results. In fact, the Boston
22:18Consulting Group found that organizations with a more diverse management team actually had 19% higher
22:24revenues. And McKinsey's done some research and has indicated that gender diverse companies are 15%
22:31more likely to outperform competitors. And ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to do the
22:38same. And then we want to talk about innovation. And as we think about where Beasley needs to go in
22:43the next decade, it's going to be important that we're really thinking about innovation.
22:47One piece of research indicates that inclusive companies are 1.7 times more likely to be the
22:53innovative leader in their marketplace. So there's a hardwired correlation between inclusion
22:59and innovation. Now I talked to you earlier about some of that, the research that takes a look at
23:05like-minded groups solving problems versus a more diverse team. But it also helps us with
23:13attraction and retention. And in fact, right now, millennials and Gen Zs in particular are really
23:18looking for a more diverse workforce. And Glassdoor will share with you that 57% of all job seekers said
23:24a diverse workforce is really paramount and fundamentally important to them in deciding an offer
23:28to take or not. And then the last piece is we have to think about what diverse equity inclusion does
23:35for us to promote a more positive company culture. This idea of inclusion is going to help us to
23:42attract and retain more employees. And it's going to help us to really think about creating the right
23:47work environment for people to be doing their very best. But as I said earlier, the comment or the
23:55quote there on the bottom of the screen, it's going to be what's really important. And this is we don't
24:00want to promote diversity for diversity's sake. It's really about increasing effectiveness. And what
24:06matters is how we harness that diversity, how we leverage that diversity that is an organization.
24:11So some of the work we're going to do during these training sessions isn't just explaining what it is,
24:16but trying to explain how do we do this work. We're going to get into some details on best practices and
24:21things like that. Now, I want to shift gears here and share with you some of the information
24:25that has been brought to us by the 2020 U.S. Census data. And if we think about demographics being our
24:33destiny, it's important for us to look at the trends, see where we've been and understand where
24:38we're going. And so when we look at some of the key findings from the current 2020 U.S. Census data,
24:44we've actually had an unprecedented population stagnation in the U.S. from July 19 to July 20.
24:52Now, some of that is COVID, unfortunately. And some of that really is the fact that we've got an
24:58aging population. But it's really important to understand that there's been for the first time
25:03since 1790, a decline in the size of the white population that has been a source of growth for many,
25:09many years. And the increase in the population really comes from a racial ethnic diversity amongst
25:16our younger population. So let's dig a little deeper in that. What I first want to do is look
25:22back and see where we have been in the last 40 years. So I've got three pie charts for you here,
25:271980, 2000, and 2020. And what I want to share with you is when you look at the demographics
25:32and you see where we are, you can see that we've got information here that talks about the population
25:41back in 1980. The white population was 80% of our U.S. population 40 years ago, 40 plus years ago.
25:50And then in the year 2000, 72% of the population was white. In 2020, 64%. Now, when you look at the
25:58other ethnicity in the makeup of the U.S. population, the black population goes from 12% to 12% to 13%.
26:06So they've seen some modest increases. But the real growth is coming from Hispanics at 6%,
26:11going to 11%, and then up to 16%. We also do see a small growth of the Asian population in the U.S. as
26:20well. Let's look forward and see where this goes as we move forward in the population. And this is a
26:27projection from the U.S. Census Bureau that takes a look at 2010 population versus 2050, right? So we're
26:34going out to 30 years from now, 30 plus years from now, and take a look at the ethnicity. And you can
26:40see the U.S. white population goes from 65% down to 46%. The Hispanic population grows from 16% up to 30%.
26:49The African-American population stays pretty flat at 12%. But the Asian-American population goes
26:57from 5% up to 8%. So as you take a look at this, our total bucket grows as we go from 310 million
27:03Americans to 439 million Americans. But it's important for us to really see where this is going.
27:11Some of the other dynamics here at play is you'll see the all other number is growing. And a lot of
27:16that is multiculturalism at its best. We'll see that we've got new ethnicities coming into the U.S.
27:21every day. We also have multicultural, multiracial people in the U.S. population as well.
27:29So when you reflect on the business case diversity, all the stats I've shared and the research I've
27:35shared, I want you to just pause again and try to think about what are the benefits for Beasley of
27:41doing this work? What are some of the outcomes we can expect from doing this work? What are some
27:46real reasons that make sense to you? And if you think about what I've covered today on this video,
27:52we've talked about four different things. One is the definition of diversity, equity, inclusion.
27:58Secondly is understanding Beasley's commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion. Third is really
28:03understanding why Beasley wants to focus on approving D&I. And then lastly, what are some of the
28:08facts of the business case that the U.S. Census data has provided to us? So we've tried to make sure
28:14we've given you a balanced understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion on this, our very
28:18first training session for today. And we're moving into wrap-up. And I want to just pause on this very
28:26last slide and really thank all of you at Beasley who have helped me to understand your dynamics,
28:33your culture better, understanding where diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative like Belong
28:37could be really successful at Beasley. And I encourage you to talk to your coworkers who've actually been on
28:42some of these sessions that were live and interactive and talk to them about the conversation
28:47they've had. One of the most important things we can do is keep the dialogue open and keep
28:52ourselves curious to learn more about people who are different than ourselves and to learn more about
28:58what we can do to be an integral part of Belong. Well, that's it for today. I will see you again in a
29:04month. We'll be bringing another topic out and we'll be talking about things like accountability and best
29:09practices for diversity and inclusion and trying to help you understand how to apply some of these
29:14complex issues in your work setting. But I appreciate your time and attention today. These
29:22are going to be posted on a library and they'll be available to you and your coworkers. Anytime you've
29:27got questions, feel free to reach out to me. Again, Deb Barrett. I'll be working with you guys over
29:32the course of 2022 and I hope to meet you personally sometime soon. Thanks again for your time and attention.
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