Employees have a meeting with their manager.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion has become an important part of corporate culture. Many companies are hiring DEI officers to ensure that the workplace is a safe place for everyone. Whether you’re a person of color or someone with a disability, you should feel welcome and respected at work. Although 76% of DEI officers are white, people of color in DEI are on a mission to make diversity efforts non-performative.
For example, Asif Sadiq has worked in DEI for 20 years. He is currently the chief global diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at Warner Bros. Discovery. He is a big believer in approaching DEI from a genuine place. “You’ve got to find your own purpose while driving change and doing it in a way that is authentic,” he says.
Being authentic is just a small part of diversifying a workplace. We’ve come up with a list of ways to make your company even more diverse.
Form Partnerships
According to Jerilyn Castillo McAniff, the managing director and head of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Oaktree Capital, it’s very important to form partnerships with organizations that align with the mission of your company. She recommends employers “look outside your own firm and work with others in the industry with a shared vision or purpose.”
Working with others is a great way to increase diversity. Look for partners that have people of color in leadership positions and internships for young adults of color. Warner Bros. Discovery is becoming more diverse through programs like their summer internship in partnership with sports task forces from several cultural journalism organizations including NABJ, NAHJ, and AAJA.
“We work with many multicultural organizations and institutions that can support in reaching out to all of our clients around understanding that we sometimes don’t have access to engage with the communities that we need to reach out to,” says Sadiq. Discovery is just one of many companies forming partnerships to uplift and support more BIPOC talent.
Expand Your Candidate Pool
If you are hiring interns or fellows, recruit students from historically Black colleges and neighborhoods. From Howard to Spelman there are plenty of HBCUs to recruit from in the United States. Make sure to look for students at public schools in urban areas rather than solely looking for talent in predominantly white cities and schools.
Students and people of color deserve access to the same opportunities as their white peers, but that isn’t always the case. Firms like Oaktree Capital are trying to create more opportunities for people from underrepresented groups and underserved communities to get hired.
Create Programs
Having inclusive programs is a huge part of diversifying your company. Castillo McAniff has played a major role in developing inclusive programs during her 15 years at Oaktree Capital. For example, Alt-Finance is a non-profit Oak Capital founded alongside Ares Management and Apollo Global Management to attract more talent from historically Black colleges.
The program “opens up the lens of finding candidates at schools or backgrounds you haven’t historically recruited from,” Castillo McAniff tells Forbes.
Sadiq thinks creating programs is a crucial part of diversifying the workplace. He believes that is one way to create lasting change. “I think what’s most important for any company is to focus on long term sustainable change,” he says.
Be Transparent
You can’t have diversity without open channels of communication. Remain open to the prospect of employees being honest in meetings, on calls, and at conferences. Ask employees from underrepresented groups about how they feel about your company’s approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Part of being transparent is having dialogue where you actively listen to your employees— especially your BIPOC employees. Castillo McAniff believes transparency is the key to creating a safe work environment.
“You have to measure outcomes and be transparent to a cadence or frequency at which you share data. All of that together helps build accountability,” she says.
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