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From the Experts: Making DEI Personal for Everyone
In this week’s episode of America Back to Work, S2Verify co-founder and chief strategy officer, Arnette Heintze, sat down with Valeria Edmonds (MBA, Ph/D.), an internal HR consultant with 30 years of experience working on strategic people initiatives as a global business partner in a Fortune 500 corporation, to get her take on DEI in the modern workplace.
Her specialties include executive and leadership coaching, people strategy development, succession planning, change management, training design and delivery, organizational development, and DEI.
According to Edmonds, the first step in setting up any successful DEI program is designing an effective recruiting strategy based on DEI best practices. Part of that work involves looking into who is doing the hiring and interviewing–and ensuring that there is diverse representation the second a candidate comes into contact with the organization.
But, getting diverse talent through the door is only half the battle. From there, it’s about paving the way and opening doors for underrepresented talent at every stage of their tenure.
For Edmonds, that means leadership teams should make certain that minority talent is represented at every leadership meeting.
It means hiring diverse talent at the senior level and ensuring that junior-level employees have the coaching, mentorship, and sponsorship they need to grow within the organization. It means setting goals and defining metrics that drive towards those goals–and sharing them openly to create a sense of transparency. It means challenging employees’ biased and discriminatory behavior through training, education, and policies that hold them accountable.
To do this work—and to get buy-in and engagement from all levels of the company—she recommends leaning on proven frameworks like the SEEDS model and finding ways to tap into employee empathy, to make it “personal” for them.
Get more valuable insights from Edmonds for creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. Click here to listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts.