Pitfalls

• Focusing on vague criteria such as “cultural fit” and “likeability,” which tend to reinforce the status quo.
• Using narrow filtering mechanisms and requirements that may artificially limit the pool of candidates (e.g., only recruiting at certain schools).
• Focusing too late in the talent pipeline (e.g., recruiting students in their last two years of college with little to no investment in their development as students or professionals throughout their education careers).
• Not including unconscious bias education and real-time monitoring during the talent selection process.
• Using role descriptions and required qualifications in the hiring process with biased language or requirements.
• Focusing on the human capabilities needed today versus those that will be needed to succeed in the future of work.

Baseline actions

Invest in a robust and early pipeline
Acknowledge the depth and breadth of the sourcing pipeline, and proactively invest in skill, curriculum, and career path development across a variety of sources that provide a racially and ethnically diverse talent pool (e.g., schools, associations, after-school programs, mentoring programs, early identification programs, and skills development programs). Invest in curriculum changes at local middle schools, high schools, and universities to develop the skills and traits that the organization is sourcing. Additionally, invest in apprenticeship programs to help students better understand different career paths, develop tangible skills, and access paid opportunities.

Reevaluate selection requirements
Broaden selection requirements (e.g., knowledge, skills, and abilities) against which candidates are filtered and measured. Take a deeper and more accurate assessment of what it takes to be successful in roles and teams (this will vary by role and team). Once identified, explore the many ways those traits may be demonstrated and/or measured (e.g., balancing GPA against life experience). Once the requirements are established, ensure they are incorporated in a way that is ethical and limits bias in filtering mechanisms and technologies, including artificial intelligence.

Courageous actions

Disrupt traditional sourcing orthodoxies and develop skills in the market
Create sources of talent rather than selecting exclusively from traditional, existing ones. Develop and administer open courses to provide potential candidates the skills the job requires today (and the skills that the job will require as work continues to evolve) and skip the resume/interview process once the course is successfully completed. Look to unconventional sources for entry-level candidates; turn to professional associations and “diversity” recruitment specialists to fill mid-career, professional roles.

Equitable outcome: There is racial diversity at all steps of the hiring process—candidates considered, interviews conducted, offers extended—for all roles, at all levels.

Pitfalls

• Holding Black individuals and other PEERs to different standards than their White colleagues, even unconsciously.
• Requiring demonstration or proof of ability inconsistently across identity groups (e.g., Black professionals have historically been advanced, or held back, based on their proven skills or ability, while their White colleagues are advanced based on potential).¹¹
• Expecting preparedness from workers without helping them obtain the knowledge, skills, capabilities, and experiences needed to thrive in future roles.
• Mentoring or sponsoring everyone in the same way with no consideration for unique strengths, challenges, or needs (i.e., Golden Rule: treat others how you want to be treated versus Platinum Rule: treat others how they want to be treated).
• Not providing broad access to sponsorship and instead only offering it to “top performers,” which may simply reinforce inequity.

Baseline actions

Use succession as a development process
Proactively identify candidates early for advancement opportunities, and actively provide them access to the skills, experiences, and roles on visible, important, and complex projects required to develop and advance. This approach looks ahead at the positions for which an individual shows potential and creates the opportunities for growth required to meet the advancement criteria. Focus on development across critical talent pools based on business needs. Provide all workers, especially Black individuals and other PEERs, early access to sponsors.

Establish infrastructure for “reverse mentorship”
Establish a formal program to connect successful, networked senior leaders with more junior Black or other PEER colleagues. This enables junior members of the workforce to share their unique perspectives, creating upward education, and it offers those same junior workers more exposure to senior decision-makers. A project-based approach—that is, providing a shared initiative or task—can also help both mentor and mentee develop new skills.

Courageous actions

Focus sponsorship efforts on improving sponsors
Organizations should focus their sponsorship efforts on educating and enabling sponsors to use their influence and networks to support and advance their protégé; to provide their protégé with high-visibility opportunities; and to extend and strengthen their protégé’s network. In particular, organizations should help sponsors better grasp the unique challenges faced by Black individuals and PEERs and the subtle ways bias impedes success in myriad settings and opportunities. And they should hold sponsors accountable for the successful preparation and advancement of their protégés.

Equitable outcome: PEERs, and specifically Black individuals, advance at an equitable pace and are proportionately represented at all levels of the organization, including in roles of power and influence (e.g., responsibility over managing an organization’s profit and loss). They are proportionally represented in succession plans and candidate slates being considered for key roles.

Pitfalls

• Not considering all users, customers, or consumers of the product or service during development.
• Not testing for ways a product or service can perpetuate oppression and racism (e.g., not considering how facial recognition technologies make many more mistakes when used on people with darker skin tones).¹⁶
• Including only a homogenous group of voices in the development cycle (e.g., underrepresentation of PEER perspectives in clinical trials).
• Leaving equity and inclusion as a “gut check” at the end of development, rather than making it a key input to the product and service development process.

Baseline actions

Include diverse customer perspectives in development process
Include representative samples of customers with different strengths, weaknesses, needs, and preferences across the development cycle (e.g., requirements gathering, design, testing) to ensure product or service is not biased, oppressive, or adversely affecting any demographic.

Establish a representative development process
Create diverse product and service development teams, processes, and infrastructure. By listening to a diverse collection of voices—at every stage of the development cycle—leaders can better ensure varied points of view and lived experiences are considered and accounted for.

Courageous actions

Design for anti-oppression
Intentionally design products or services to work against oppression, beyond just removing biases. For example, a telephone operating system may include preprogrammed shortcuts to provide users access to support services.

Design for underserved populations
Expand customer segments to actively develop products or services that serve underserved populations. For instance, a financial services organization might develop specific products or services for the underbanked population, addressing and pulling down historical barriers.

Equitable outcome: Product or service meets the needs of every individual in the organization’s identified customer segments. There are no oppressive, predatory, or otherwise adverse impacts on customer segments or individual customers due to the organization’s product or service.

Pitfalls

• Narrowly defining who is a supplier rather than considering all the ways the organization spends money on the necessary inputs that allow it to run.
• Limiting efforts to only diversifying spend on minority-owned businesses rather than further developing, investing in, or connecting minority entrepreneurs.
• Believing that there is an economic or quality penalty for diversity.
• Believing that it is unfair or inappropriate to consider DEI-related criteria as part of procurement and contracting.

Baseline actions

Increase spend on minority-owned businesses
Increase purchase of raw materials, goods, and services from minority-owned businesses. Actively set targets by business unit. This includes expanding the conventional understanding of an organization’s suppliers to include providers of a wider range of services beyond materials and components, such as insurance policies, 401(k) or other retirement plans, legal advice, or technology required to perform the job.

Define DEI criteria for engagement
Include DEI criteria in procurement and contracting. Require that both minority-owned and non-minority-owned businesses meet specific diversity and/or inclusion criteria inside their own organizations, such as representation metrics, programs, or external communication. Criteria can be documented throughout contracting processes and ongoing relationships.

Courageous actions

Develop and support suppliers
Actively invest time, money, and resources into developing diverse suppliers. Provide infrastructure, industry and function expertise, and training and capability development to established suppliers; create shadowing programs, self-auditing processes (e.g., benchmark against other suppliers), and tools and templates (e.g., planning, quality, analytics dashboards) for developing suppliers; commit investment dollars, networking opportunities with business unit leadership, and other access to capital for growing entrepreneurs.

Equitable outcome: Organizational assets and spending directly support diverse businesses and entrepreneurs, building wealth and integrating Black- and other PEER-owned enterprises more fully into the American business landscape. An organization’s suppliers are racially and ethnically diverse and foster equitable environments.

Pitfalls

• Assuming the only “rules” that need to change are those set by the government and not the private sector.
• Assuming that existing business or industry rules and standards are set in stone or would be too much trouble to change.
• Assuming any one organization does not have enough power or influence to change the rules or standards.
• Accepting that “that’s just the way it is” or “that’s just the way things have always been done,” or conflating tradition with the best option for the future.

Baseline actions

Assess the rules and standards
Join a coalition of other organizations within the same industry or sector to review the rules and standards within their influence or control that may disparately affect Black individuals and other PEERs.

Courageous actions

Establish new rules
Create or elevate third-party organizations, agencies, or measurement tactics to define and uphold widely accepted standards.

Redefine sector and industry standards
Collaborate with other organizations to redefine sector or industry standards that dictate how organizations operate. For instance, consider the Business Roundtable’s 2019 statement redefining the purpose of a corporation from shareholder primacy (from Friedman’s “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”) to a commitment to all stakeholders—including customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.²³

Equitable outcome: Organization- and industry-wide systems, rules, and standards confront systemic barriers and oppressions with no disparate impact on Black individuals or other PEERs.

Pitfalls

• Believing topics of race are not the place of business to speak out, step up, or stand out.
• Keeping silent out of fear of saying the “wrong” thing when public or social controversies go against the organization’s values.
• Writing statements on racial equity with limited depth, undefined action, or no specific commitment.
• Sharing inauthentic messages that do not align with the organization’s demonstrated values, beliefs, and behaviors (e.g., words and actions are misaligned; leaders and organizational values are misaligned).

Baseline actions

Speak out
Leverage organizational platform and power to speak out against issues that do not align with company values.

Elevate issues in industry groups
Within industry coalitions, companies should use their organizational voice to elevate public or social issues that need to be addressed.

Courageous actions

Organize for change
Use organizational power and platform to inform, influence, and advocate for changes that align with company values.

Pave the path for policy
Incubate or launch equity projects and solutions that are beneficial and demonstrate an adaptable model that government officials and policymakers could replicate across communities and sectors.

Equitable outcome: There are anti-racist, systemic policies and/or programs that confront systemic barriers and oppression.