WiTH

WiTH, Diversity Experts: Transparency Ensures DEI, Accessibility and Belonging

The ability for employees to truly understand and trust a company’s actions requires a fully open-book posture by the organization.

Transparency goes a long way towards ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging (DEIAB), as well as accessibility, in leadership, according to tri-chairs of the Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH) DEIAB Committee and others leading the charge for changes in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Ongoing research also shows that companies making an unwavering commitment to diverse leadership are able to engage and keep top talent, improve clarity in decision-making, and improve customer experiences.

Speaking during the panel presentation “How Transparency Ensures DEI, Accessibility & Belonging in LeadershipMay 12 at the annual Hollywood Innovation and Transformation Summit (HITS) Spring event, moderator Jeanette DePatie, owner of Propellerhead, kicked off the conversation by saying: “Diversity is being invited to  the party. Equity is making sure everyone has transportation to the party and clothes to wear to the party. And inclusion is being asked to dance.”

She added: “Belonging is all of those things with the added idea that you’re welcome to be at the party and enjoy the party, whether you like to dance or not.”

The focus of the panel discussion was how all of those things can be “improved and nurtured using transparency as a key driving force,” she noted.

In her global execution role at Intel, Ana Achaval, a tri-chair of the WiTH DEIAB Committee, works to ensure that international teams have “a voice and a seat at the HQ decision-making table,” she said.

DEI is “so important right now because we – society, an organization – cannot continue to live in a corporate bubble without acknowledging the realities of what’s going on in the world with the issues that matter,” Achaval explained. “It’s not about having a token or filling in that checkbox. It’s about DEI as part of the foundation and practicing it as… part of our core beliefs.” Diversity and inclusion are important to her personally and professionally, she pointed out.

Referring to current industry news, Achaval said, “organizations without diverse environments have decreased levels of trust among [their] partners and peers.”  Organizations that encourage diversity are likely to attract more diverse talent, she added.

Building Products for Everybody

Noting that she works in artificial intelligence and cognitive services, iAsia Brown, also a tri-chair of the WiTH DEIAB Committee, said: “I don’t like using products that were not built for me in mind.”

She explained, if a product she is using does not recognize brown skin, “that’s a problem for me – that lets me know that, at no point in time in the process of designing this product was there a person of color in the room to go, ‘hey, it doesn’t see me.’ And I feel like, if we’re creating things for people, then it needs to reflect all of the people and not just one flavor or brand.”

Every color should be represented, she said. After all, “no one just eats the yellow Skittles,” she joked.

What it comes down to is that “companies have the option to be two things,” she went on to say: “They can be house plants or they can be field corn. A house plant needs perfect lighting, perfect conditions. Everything has to be in sync. You can’t turn it too much to the left. You can’t turn it too much to the right. It just has to be perfect all the time.”

On the other hand, with field corn, “you can throw it out the window,” she noted, adding: “It doesn’t matter where it lands. It’s going to grow and it’s going to spread. It’s going to dominate and it’s going to take over. If they maintain that house plant mentality, eventually the people are going to die out. They’re going to leave. They’re going to find opportunities where they can be field corn – where they can just be thrown out the window and they’ll grow on rocks, they’ll grow in cement, they’ll grow and just continue to spread. That’s why diversity is important – because, if everything is the same, there is absolutely no growth.”

The Importance of Transparency

The organization Supplies For Allies was created based on the need to have “honest conversations and understand where there is confusion on both sides,” according to Lydia Elle, its CEO.

The company provides resources and training to help organizations and people be part of the changes that much of society, especially millennials, is ready to move towards, she said.

Organizations need to first be “transparent” about understanding there is a problem with DEI within it, she noted. Initiatives put in place to address those issues “should be the floor and not the ceiling,” she stressed.

For example, if a company does not have a single female board member, the floor should be to add one female to the board, but initiatives should not just stop there, she said, noting there should be more than that.

Everybody within the organization also needs to each take accountability for that organization having diversity issues in the first place, she said.

“I look forward to the day” when diversity is “no longer is a buzz word but is just commonplace,” she went on to say. “Nobody likes to eat the same food every single day. We want different menus. Without diversity, innovation is non-existent and we are missing out on so much – not just when it comes to profits but employee satisfaction.”

She warned: “If a company doesn’t do this, you will become the next Blockbuster.”

Accessibility and Other Kinds of Diversity

Noting that her background is in entertainment and technology, Gina Cavalier, a tri-chair of the WiTH DEIAB Committee and teacher at The Liberated Healer, which she founded, recalled that she worked at a tech firm building a file to help people with disabilities

The first thing she learned was she “didn’t know anything about accessibility,” she admitted.

She went on to say there needs to be all sorts of educational initiatives at organizations to teach accessibility.

Dr. Michael V. Nguyen, Ph.D., founder and chief innovation and inclusion officer at Inclusive Insights, pointed out that diversity doesn’t always involve just the sex and race of employees.

Dealing with autism and dyslexia can be especially challenging because “their form of diversity is not visible,” noted Nguyen, who said he helps organizations “measure and assess inclusion, equity and belonging,” which is “a bit more tricky.”

The system is “actually not broken,” he went on to say, explaining: “It’s working as it’s designed: to maintain privilege and power of select groups…. In order for us to actually end racism, end social injustice, we actually have to break the system in order to actually fix it.”

Among the very few positives of the pandemic has been that more equity has been achieved through remote work, he said. But remote work also can be made even more equitable going forward, he added.

HITS Spring was presented by IBM Security with sponsorship by Genpact, Irdeto, Tata Consultancy Services, Convergent Risks, Equinix, MicroStrategy, Microsoft Azure, Richey May Technology Solutions, Tamr, Whip Media, Eluvio, 5th Kind, LucidLink, Salesforce, Signiant, Zendesk, EIDR, PacketFabric and the Trusted Partner Network.