We all know that we live in a very different world today. Sure, the pandemic’s wide-ranging effects come to mind, but that’s not the change we’re going to focus on here. Rather, it’s a longer-lasting and more positive shift in our collective consciousness. There are many aspects to consider (and clearly there is more work to be done in each area). For starters, today’s workforce is more multi-generational than ever with people working longer into their lives. It’s also more representative of our multicultural society than ever. Layer on a slowly growing representation of female leaders in top positions. Add in a more visible community of LGBTQ employees. It all adds up to a more diverse and inclusive workforce than ever before for HR to manage.
A more representative workforce is unquestionably valuable. From a pure human rights perspective to a corporate strategy and consumer experience lens, it all adds up. We know that diverse experiences, backgrounds, opinions and inputs create stronger, more resilient and representative organizations. These companies, in turn, reflect a wider view of the general population and can better connect with a wider swath of consumers. This, in turn, delivers more revenue and more opportunity for business growth. Win-win-win, right? So why are we still figuring out how to do this effectively in most organizations?
According to Sheila Avari, Founder and CEO, Senior Communications Advisor and Chief ProvocateuHR at Fusion Consulting Group, a boutique HR strategy and HR communications consultancy, this is finally the moment so many have been waiting for. Sheila and her team specialize in change, talent, inclusion and diversity. She’s proud to have worked with small shops all the way up to the largest leaders, including CBS, Prudential, Schering-Plough, Estee Lauder, Arconic and Allergan.
A New Model for HR
For some, Human Resources, or HR, may still mean “payroll” or the person who can tell you how many vacation days you have left. However, Sheila knows that’s just a fraction of what HR can deliver. She says more strategic HR leaders have a marketing mindset. Leading organizations today invest in HR for, by and with all teams to help employees drive the employer brand.
Having a deliberate, intentional focus on the people on your teams is a number one priority and it’s one of the reasons why more Chief Human Resource Officers (CHROs) have a seat at the executive table.
This is refreshing, shares Sheila, since a lot of recent research shows that most business leaders want to be sure they have the right people in the right roles. That’s an important conversation to have and it’s one that needs the right insights. Effective CHROs have the data and insights to know who is where and who needs to be where to deliver on the business strategy. The other requirement for an effective CHRO is a proactive approach to consistent, on-the-job learning. For Sheila, this makes her recall the old cartoon where two leaders discuss “what if we train them and they leave?” And then the other executive says, “What if we don’t… and they stay?” That’s the biggest fear.
Sheila is adamant that having a strategic HR thinker available to make those decisions or advise on those decisions is paramount. It’s the answer to the question of how companies are going to survive this forever ‘VUCA’ world (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). It’s about supporting the leaders who can navigate change with an open mind, willing to move fast and flexible enough to be iterative. Sheila has seen that they are the ones who are going to keep up. It’s no different than making sure your products are relevant – not obsolete – and always advancing.
Responding to Changing Workforce Demands
For the post-war generations, HR was primarily focused on protecting the employer from employee-centric risks. These included lawsuits, managing hiring or dismissals and driving productivity from the top down. But, as with most things in the last decade, the Millennial graduate happened. Millennials, just like generations before them, joined the workforce. She noted a new phenomenon emerged as many collectively said “oh, this workforce isn’t working for me.” Concerns around workforce formality, hierarchy, access to executives and rigid promotion rules were apparent.
For Gen X and the Boomers, they accepted workforce realities as their parents did. But not many Millennials. With their digital savviness, familiarity with steep learning curves and comfort with risk, this latest generation demanded changes.
Millennials wanted to make their work experience more agile, diverse and inclusive. Companies had to respond to keep and attract the best talent.
What became clear, Sheila said, is that people wanted to work for an employer brand that aligned with their own values. Millennials wanted a seat at the table in a company where their voice mattered and was being heard.
Sheila shares that’s a huge cultural shift right there and social media drove a lot of it. That’s how employees started telling their stories which either attracted or dissuaded more similar talent from joining the organization. The result was (and is) that employer brands must market their values in a different way than ever before. Effective people and organizational leadership became focused on marketing an authentic, employee-first approach.
2020 As A Watershed Year: COVID
Fast forward to the present and two significant shifts are underway. First, with COVID meaning that anyone who could work from home was asked to do so, CHROs had to work closely with tech teams to ensure business continuity. On the whole, Sheila observes that has been largely successful, but not without its negative impacts. Stress, claustrophobia, a lack of casual engagement and other mental health issues have made their presence known. This pandemic burnout created a situation where many employees are simply holding on until the pandemic is over. When the economy opens up more fully later in 2021, there is a massive appetite for new professional challenges.
A significant (and yes, unprecedented) proportion of the white-collar workforce is seeking to make a change when the pandemic ends.
That is going to be incredibly costly for employers to train and invest in new talent coming in to fill expected gaps. Leading employers, Sheila notes, are not waiting for a massive employee churn to address this issue. 2021 seems to be the year of employee engagement, according to Sheila. This includes more scheduled check-ins with team members by leaders plus showing extreme compassion and empathy. Sheila sees leading organizations focusing on finding even more ways for team members to feel comfortable, productive, engaged and connected to their brand.
2020 As A Watershed Year: Diversity
The second major shift of last year was the elevation of equity, diversity and inclusion efforts globally. Sheila expects that these crucial efforts will accelerate thanks to finally achieving mainstream cultural and organizational leadership buy-in. For this year, there’s an accepted notion of visible and invisible traits of a human which influence what that person brings to the workplace. That’s starting to shape new strategies for leading organizations. Last year it felt like every company was making public pledges and some even with millions of dollars attached.
The big question that Sheila has for many firms is “okay so you made a statement on diversity and inclusion. What are you doing with it now? Show me that you’re walking your talk so that there’s accountability.” What Sheila sees is that an organization’s talent – its employees – notice such statements and plans. In many cases, the customer notices it, too. And that’s where she sees that HR matters, such as hiring and promotion efforts for more diverse individuals, that it goes back to branding.
In 2021, HR needs to think like an accountable marketer. So what that you wrote a beautiful 20 words and it went in a bubble next to the CEO’s picture on LinkedIn?
Often, Sheila advises, organizations have to deeply consider: What’s the plan for making real change now?
Moving the HR Plan into Action
For many organizations, they don’t know where to start… so they don’t. Sheila advises that “starting” often means gathering new voices together. Following her years of experience in this space, a useful construct has emerged:
- Diversity is the math of the organization – who’s in the room, how many people you have in certain lines of business?
- Equity is the path of the organization – how do I make you feel like your voice is being heard?
- Inclusion is an oath of the organization – where your voice is really being heard to impact decisions.
That’s the journey Sheila likes to take people on from an HR point of view. Often this means to let people understand what it means to treat someone inclusively, consciously inclusively.
In 2021, being conscious in the workplace means paying attention to micro behaviours and micro aggressions.
You know, it’s that passing comment someone made to you. Most people would admit it and say “oops, I didn’t realize that I was offending you. I didn’t even notice that. And now I have awareness, so I won’t do that again.” That’s where Sheila sees a lot of HR leadership coming into play with helping people recognize those things. That’s a big focus this year, along with the active hiring and promotion of diverse talent into key roles. When mapped with KPIs for senior leaders, that’s where real results can start to be seen, suggests Sheila.
Looking Forward to the New HR World
Pushing away the notions of some firms that only hire from their alma mater is important, notes Sheila. When a single perspective from a single school becomes entrenched in an organization, it stymies the opportunity for diverse thought. And diverse thought (via diverse team members) is more well understood to be, of course, the right thing to do. But it makes business sense, also.
Leading organizations working with Sheila are now focused on the idea of hiring for attitude and training for skill.
And that’s where understanding your current place on the inclusion and diversity journey is so important. Sheila’s team is launching an internal benchmarking assessment on five dimensions called the IDEAL framework. IDEAL stands for inclusion, diversity, equity, access and leadership which are the hallmarks of any successful “people-first” HR program today. By quantifiably assessing those five dimensions of an organization’s current state it allows them to benchmark versus peers in the industry. But Sheila is adamant that knowing is not enough. She celebrates that these factors can become powerful employer brand differentiators and should be marketed appropriately both in and outside of the firm.
HR Tips for Success in 2021
To move us all forward in improving the employee experience and the company brand, Sheila suggests the following tips for ensuring a better, more productive working environment through diversity and inclusion efforts:
- Adjust project deadlines. Your team members may be juggling multiple priorities, especially while working remotely during the pandemic. Be flexible with deadlines, where possible, to focus on outcomes rather than time in the workplace and to show your trust in them.
- Create a “guys / gals” payment jar (to promote more inclusive language in meetings)
- Challenge hiring practices. If there is an open entry-level role on your team, consider whether or not your really need a university graduate to perform the job. (You may be able to offer the candidate on-the-job learning instead and achieve the same results.) You can help to transform the workplace by removing barriers and opening doors.
- Ensure your company has diverse hiring guidelines (for example, establish blended, diverse interview and panels and set goals for diverse candidate slates)
- Source your hiring from other schools (to get a variety of experiences and perspectives)
- Rewrite job descriptions using gender-neutral language (big task but amazing results)
- Pick a few occasions to celebrate (Women’s Month, Pride, disAbility awareness, Black History) based on whatever suits your employee base but don’t necessarily celebrate everything on a grand scale.
Looking forward, hopefully we can all imagine a world that has better equity, diversity and inclusion. Taking the right, incremental steps today can make all the difference to better employee experience, customer service and business results.
In Partnership With
Sheila Avari is the Founder and CEO, Senior Communications Advisor and Chief ProvocateuHR at Fusion Consulting Group, a boutique HR strategy and HR communications consultancy. Sheila and her team specialize in change, talent, inclusion and diversity. She’s proud to have worked with small shops all the way up to leaders, including CBS, Prudential, Schering-Plough, Estee Lauder, Arconic and Allergan. Specific projects include developing transparent communications approaches and launching inclusion and diversity programs to impact an organization’s culture and reputation. Plus, Sheila focuses on strengthening a company’s learning culture to help employees adapt and succeed in times of change. Most of all, it’s about establishing key executives as thought leaders and change catalysts to own the new approaches organizations need to apply to succeed.
Tim Bishop, CM is a multi-disciplined executive with a proven record of optimizing strategic efforts to expand the influence of leading organizations, such as the Canadian Marketing Association, Cineplex Entertainment, Lavalife.com, IMI International and Northstar Research Partners. In Partnership With is his latest focus to curate Canadian marketing experts to celebrate the power of strategic partnerships in a perspective-based content series.