If I wanted to be serious about my business, it required some clarity.
My past self as an urban planner collided with my present as future self as a organizational development consulting. I debated on a name change again. Urban planning and finance professionals still attempt to reach out via social media because of the name, but I attributed this to utter laziness on their part. So the name is here to stay.
Most importantly was the logo change. What precipitated it? I wanted it to be resemble continuity and flow. The Black and Gold was old, tired and resembled anger in my mind. It needed a refresh.
The teal colour has meaning. Ever since the San Jose Sharks were announced as a National Hockey League franchise in the early 90s, I fell in love with the colour. (I still root for the Toronto Maple Leafs, for better or worse.)
Digging deeper, “Teal combines the calming properties of blue with the renewal qualities of green. It is a revitalizing and rejuvenating color that also represents open communication and clarity of thought. For Tibetan monks, teal is symbolic of the infinity of the sea and sky, while it is the color of truth and faith for Egyptians.”, according to creative design Canva’s website.
Finally, there are teal organizations. Named by Frederic Laloux in his 2014 book Reinventing Organizations, these organizations are characterized by features such as self-managed teams, intuitive reasoning, decentralized decision making, wholeness and a deeper sense of purpose. It is with this purpose of a human-centred approach I want use to bring equity and belonging to organizations.
Look! I’ve never watched any Star Wars movies and never will. SciFi isn’t a genre of film I like. Sue me!!!
So when I hear continuously hear practitioners float around JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion), or some jumbled up letters to mean the same thing, I take issue with it. I already have an issue with the bastardization and cheapening of the industry through the forever use of acronyms.
There are four criteria for measuring equity: procedural fairness, access, quality, and outcomes. Justice is also the larger organizational value within which equity resides. They are equivalent in nature where equity is focused on the concern of the provision of services and justice is more values-oriented. So then why do we need to separate the two areas in the work we are trying to achieve?
I will concur with Lily in that justice informs the work we do with the eventual outcome of equity through policies, process and access to services. Just like I never understand why were are still chasing diversity like its a fad, I believe adding justice to the title means we are not going to take away the power of organizations to operate. Justice is the role of the public sector, an area I have been in for much of my career. If you want justice, run for public office and be part of that change. As Lily said in their post, there is no price tag for justice.
We are all activists in some way, shape or form. But to achieve equity and proper organizational change, there must be some form of level-headedness and maturity. Not shouting to the rooftops, or getting likes on Linked In. By no stretch of the imagination am I a gatekeeper to White privilege. My experience working in the public sector, it has been about making effective policy change through equitable facilitation and consultation. As Susan Gooden states in her book, Race and Social Equity: The Nervous Area of Government, “the implementation of justice is context-based which is dependent upon understanding a complex array of historical, political and social factors” and equity means that public administrators are attentive to differences in fairness and justice based on social characteristics (p.25).
To create equitable organizations, it is about engaging leadership , defining equitable outcomes and redesigning the system with employees and public at the forefront of that change – regardless of the sector. Have a read of Minal Bopaiah’s book Equity: How to Design Organizations where Everyone Thrives where she goes through her steps for organizational change.
I am never going to call myself a JEDI practitioner, as much as I won’t call myself a DEI/EDI practitioner. Justice and fairness definitely inform my work. My mantra though is to advance equity in organizations through strategic policy change using a systems thinking approach. My call to action is for practitioners to do away with this acronym in order to make effective change with the work we do.
Why should you undertake an equity, inclusion and belonging strategic plan? I give you 5 reasons why you should hire me to do it. #equity #inclusion #belonging #adaptiveleadership #organizationalchange #strategicplanning #urbanequityconsulting
Whatever you would like to call it: EDI, DEI, D&I, DI&B does not belong under human resources. While I am not currently involved in this work, through my own research, I have come to find that too many times that this work reports into human resources departments or other areas of an organization for the life of me can’t figure out why this is still the case, especially in Canadian organizations.
So why is that to this day consultants hired by an organization still advise that equity and inclusion rest within HR fully cognizant that it is an organization wide issue? As well, why do we organizational leaders continue to hire one person, mainly on a one year contract to do all the work with no support? It is already bad enough many executives want to see the “business case” for equity and inclusion, yet when equity practitioners are hired, especially those who report to HR leaders, they become underutilized. These concepts where discussed in episode 2 of the Urban Equity Chats podcast “The Party of One” with Dr. Shana Almeida and Meeta Gandhi.
As we discussed, these one person teams are set up to fail. There is immense pressure to deliver which eventually leads to burnout. If HR includes personnel management, why would an organization want to see this occur?
I will explain why this should stop being the normal practice.
Let’s define what the profession of human resources is all about.
Human resources (HR) is the department responsible for maintaining a company’s personnel, employee relations and workplace culture. The many functions within HR include recruiting, hiring, terminating, training, professional development, policy implementation, benefits, payroll, government regulation, legal compliance and safety and often mediates conflicts and concerns between employees.
HR partners with management to address personnel concerns as well as provide support and resources where needed so that managers can focus on running their department operations.
But when there are discussions surrounding racism, homophobia, misogyny, ableism, neurodiversity, etc, should this not be a function of just more than people but something that is organization wide. These issues are systemic across departments, which include human resources.
There are several problems with equity and inclusion (E&I) practitioners reporting to human resources.
It signals to your non-HR people that E & I is not their job. It is the responsibility of everyone within the organization to promote equity, inclusion and belonging. Leaders must be aware of the differences of the lived experiences of racialized and marginalized populations. If equity and inclusion is placed under HR, it signals that employees cannot foster inclusion or they should not. I continue to see this time and again when internal departments do not address equity.
There are implications that there is nothing that other business functions can do to promote equity and inclusion. Equity and inclusion, and more so the hiring of a Principal Equity Officer (PEO), must be its own business and must be operationalized. So much of this work falls outside of equity and inclusion. The image below is a perfect example.
via Toby Egbuna https://www.chezie.co/bluepages/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-should-not-be-under-hr
PEOs must be
“nimble in supporting varying needs of workers and staff, while also strategizing about how to weave E&I into the organizational structure for long-term impact. They will develop plans to help organizations tend to the conditions of employees identity and values that differ with the changing times. A key element of a PEO’s role is working with the CEO or COO to develop initiatives to support equity, inclusion and belonging. This means that they support leadership in strategy and structural planning.”
Netta Jenkins Head of DEI Shouldn’t Report to HR https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/head-dei-shouldnt-report-hr-netta-jenkins-mba-as-seen-on-forbes-/
3. E&I practitioners who are reporting into HR signals that organizations do not give precedence to E & I related metrics, key performance indicators, goals and progress. While I will credit those organizations who prioritize metrics, many of these positions highlight only the metrics related to HR functions. E&I should not be a five minute update in a executive leadership of staff meeting.
There are so many key points from this PhD project podcast episode that highlight these issues. I started the video from the 22 minute mark.
Chief Diversity Officers have a seat at the table…but which table? Via PhD Project.
It requires every single member of an organization, regardless of level for true change to occur. Leaders must be adaptive to change in order to deal with the complex socioeconomic issues of the day that affect an organization.
PEOs should be at the same level as other executives and be equally as instrumental towards transformational and adaptive change. They should lead a team of people responsible for procurement, strategic policy development and implementation, data governance, infrastructure and project management. Other areas include the liaison with internal employee resource groups and external partnerships.
E&I is not the sole responsibility of HR . It must be implemented organization-wide and be a greater part of its culture. A fully-funded E&I department with a PEO at the helm signals the organization’s serious in being accountable and its willingness to be sustained. An organization will more than likely be successful if it brings credible strategies, metrics and KPIs to advance equity and inclusion.
