Smarter Workplace Awareness Month Week 5: Leadership for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: An I-O Panel

Erin:

“What does diversity, equity, and inclusion have to do with hiring & keeping the ‘best of the best’ employees…retaining that talent – unleashing their full potential?”

Kisha:

“Hiring and retaining top talent means recognizing that the talent pool and the potential for high-quality talent is broadened when you try to attract and select a diverse set of candidates, or use it as the applicant pool from which you’re drawing. I think that means going outside of the box in terms of who you’re attracting to apply to the job in the first place.
 

Given just the changing dynamics of some companies in being more lenient around remote work or policies around returning to work, that broadens the talent pool...It’s a great opportunity for companies to consider talent from all over the world.”
 

Erin:

“From an I-O perspective, what is missing in the DEI research?”

Tony:

“From a practitioner standpoint, it seems like a lot of the research is focused on gender, ethnicity, age perhaps – and maybe not considering other facets of diversity, like disability, for example. Or intersectionality of those demographics – how are the experiences different for say, BIPOC females versus White females, instead of just looking at the male/female difference.”
 

Kisha:

“Understanding the experiences from an intersectional perspective is important, and also understanding how organizations can incorporate intersectionality in terms of understanding – like Tony’s comments earlier on how benefits have a differential impact on groups but thinking of it from an intersectional perspective.
 

From a selection perspective, with companies having an increased interest in developing more inclusive environments, thinking of how those can be created, and one area is selection. A lot of companies could consider it a competency…if it’s a competency that the company wants to have present, is it something that companies can select on, how can we develop measures for that?”