Black Professionals Part 1: How to thrive in a work environment not made for you.

Richard Dodds  0:33  
This is still talking black, a show about giving perspective to issues that minorities face every day. I’m your host, Richard dye. Today’s show is all about the black professional. Later on, I talk to an HR professional, almost a decade of experience on how to survive in the workplace that wasn’t necessarily built for minorities. There are so many different things that we have to think about on a daily basis as minorities, and whenever you go to work, I feel like it is always highlighted. Because many times we have to go in. And we have to hide parts of our true selves just because we can’t give everybody everything. It’s all fair. But a lot of times, we have to make sure that we aren’t playing into stereotypes. Whenever someone sees us, especially in the workplace. Most times people already have their assumptions of what kind of work you are, what kind of things you do based on outside qualifications. Thinking about a conversation from Episode Two is so much room for bias, even from filling out our application and put our names and even sometimes employers can look at your name and just by looking at your name, assume what kind of person you are, because of the way your name is spelled. It’s so much that we have to overcome before we even step into the workplace. A lot of work has been done, but it’s still much more work to be done in this area. One of the things that I’ve talked about before, and I’ll probably talk about a lot more is my hair. For me, it is a big source of pride, I love my hair, I love the texture of my hair, I love my locs. And I really wouldn’t want to wear it any other way. But at the same time, I have to think about it when I’m going to the workplace. Or if I apply for a different job or go to a business meeting, I have to worry about if I’m going to be judged because of the way my hair looks. A lot of times in there too, when it comes to natural hair is that natural hair is unprofessional. So much bias comes from that. So much so that some states have created laws to protect, to protect employees from being discriminated on, based on their hair, and hairstyles. Your personal hairstyle choice should not be a determining factor of whether or not you’re qualified to do a job that you are applying for. Too many times, it seems like some places are putting the emphasis on things that shouldn’t matter. The main things that should matter when it comes to work is professionalism and the ability to be able to do your job, I shouldn’t have to look a certain way. I shouldn’t have to be a certain complexion. As long as I’m able to do my job, I should be accepted in the workplace and I should be able to thrive just like any other non minority employee. I’m very thankful for the strides that have been made in the workplace to in terms of equality. We’ve made some good steps in the right direction. But I feel like we still have a long way to go. I’m hoping that society continues to change and adapt and become more accepting of all people. And that corporations start to reflect that. If you like what we’re doing here, I’m still talking black, the best way to show your support is by liking writing and sharing our content. Another way to help is by making a donation using the link in the episode description. We’d like to thank everybody for listening to the show. Your support is greatly appreciated.

HR Professional  4:13  
I’m a human resources professional, been a human resources about eight years now and actually went to grad school for I mean, prior to that I held a variety of different jobs all people related that that led me to HR. I spent about 10 years after undergrad going from job to job, customer service, claims adjuster, you know those kinds of positions. And the common the common thread was people dealing with people dealing with people issues. And that’s how I chose to film HR one day.

Richard Dodds  4:51  
So what made you want to stick with HR?

HR Professional  4:55  
Well, honestly as a African American man in the workplace There’s a common thread that I was finding. For me personally in these jobs. Number one, I didn’t like any of them. Right. And number two, I noticed how the people elements of the job of any job dominated the work, the social cultural aspects, it dominated how work was done, I saw how it affected who, who got promoted, who got raises, you know, all those things, or, you know, in some instances who disappeared. One day I was at a conference, and I happen to be sitting around a group of HR people, most of whom happened to be black women. And I worked with them in my day to day job at various points for for various reasons. And that’s how I got to know I was involved in this employee resource group at the employer I had, and I knew some of them through there, I got an opportunity to ask them like, so how did y’all do this? How did y’all get to HR? And they were like, oh, yeah, we went to the University down the street. And I said, okay, because I was really, really unhappy. In my job, I had been passed over for promotion by a co worker that got promoted, and then ultimately got performance managed out, I said, it’s time for change. And I knew I had to promote myself. So I left the conference, drove down to the university, I found the business school, I walked in there, found the head of the program, and our office, knocked on the door, walked in, introduced myself and said, I hate my job. You have to help me. I mean, but I, that was 10 years ago. And the rest is history with that.

Richard Dodds  6:36  
How important do you feel that corporate culture is when you join a company, how important of a thing is that

HR Professional  6:43  
it’s important? It is, I think, though, ultimately, there’s a layer before that, for us as, as minorities as any marginalized person, you have to have a strong sense of self, who you are as an individual, you know, what kind of work ethic you have, like, you have to have that because it’s going to get tested, just by default, there will be some default cultural conflicts. So before walking into the workplace, it’s really, really important in your life, to have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of value for yourself, because you have to retain that. Because at the end of the day, and I tell people this all the time, it’s a job, it’s something you can lose, and you can get another one, you can lose a career. And you can get another one, don’t put yourself in a position where you feel like you can’t do anything else. So I mean, that’s walking in the door. With that said, once you get in the door, it’s very important to be aware of your surroundings, it’s very important, especially as a new employee, you’re meeting a lot of people, you’re getting fed a lot of information. And this is everybody. But it’s very important for us to slow down and observe the environment, see how people interact with each other, pay attention to the jargon that’s used, pay attention to the casual conversation that’s being had in the workplace. Of course, now we’re a lot of us have worked from home. So that’s not as easier said than done. But pay attention to how others interact with each other. Pay attention to what people talk about, not just professionally, but socially, get a gauge, because that will tell you how much of you to let out versus the employee, and everyone has a work mask, I don’t care who you are. But it’s even more critical for us. Because of the default structural barriers that we have, quite frankly, we have to really, really be high in terms of emotional intelligence, we have to be able to look at an environment, figure out how everybody works, and also figure out a pathway to connect with everyone on your work team or in your workspace. That’s our burden. It sucks. It’s a lot of mental work. It is it’s a lot of mental work. And if you come from an environment where you really haven’t had to do that, like in your own neighborhood and your family and you know, if you’ve been insulated kids a huge, huge transition. I mean, I remember my first college class, I was the only person of color forget Black is only person of color and they’re unable speech. And and the whole class was for speeches, we didn’t have any other work. So I had to stand up in front of all these white students and give speeches and I’ve never done that before. That was a sweating. So it’s imperative that we slow down, assess the environment, no different and we have those skills here. Here’s the thing. Our skills are very transferable. Okay, it’s just you just have to consciously know that, number one, they are transferable and number two, how to transfer them, right. So if you live in upper middle class, black neighborhood, right, we got our cousins that died. and you go over to a neighborhood, and then you’re with your cousin or a family member, whatever, and you go hang out with their friends. What’s the first thing you do, you’re scanning, and you’re slowing down, you’re looking at how they talk. And especially if you’re from upper middle class neighborhood, you’re assessing like your your vernacular, like, Okay, so that’s how like I’m in the burbs to talk like, I’m in the city, and you call switch, you even call switch within your own culture, we are not monolithic. So all that does transfer over into the workplace. Number two, I think, is really important. Once you figure out how the environment works, you have to figure out your place in it and you have to go basically go where the river flows, if you and your immediate supervisor are totally different personalities, you really got to take the personal out of it. It’s not about being liked. It’s about being valued for the work you do. Being like does not hurt with it doesn’t. But in terms of figuring out that environment, you need to figure out what can cause conflict, what the policies are, how the department does things, figure out what doesn’t work first, and just don’t do it.

Richard Dodds  11:08  
Overall, how would you say the companies you worked for seen and been around and involved with have been with providing a culture of inclusion for minorities?

HR Professional  11:18  
I’ve seen legitimate attempts to create a culture of inclusion. Well, I’ll start with whether minorities there. Yeah. Were there minorities and key decision making positions a little bit? Mostly not. And so in terms of a culture of inclusion, I have seen attempts, I’ve worked in organizations with ERG s employee resource groups. But I think there’s been a lot of, you know, unintended consequences I have seen, right. So say, for example, that there’s a, you know, in an organization with an employee resource group, and then you have meetings, and this is, you know, pre COVID, everybody’s in person all day. And so you get a, you know, a meeting space to have your meetings, but then there’s a, there’s an HR person sitting in the meetings, like listening to everywhere and taking notes in a corner. So it’s like, okay, yeah, you can have the you can have an erg.

Richard Dodds  12:20  
If you’re worried about retaliation from an HR person.

HR Professional  12:23  
And retaliation is a that’s a, you know, that’s a strong word. Because about consequence, you were in about a possible consequence, a possible consequence, right. So because here’s the thing, as an HR person, we hear these words thrown around very loosely. I don’t know why that HR person was there. I wasn’t in the profession, yet. I was working in a different department in a different company. Right. And I’m sure there was some sort of business reason there, right. Whether whether you know whether I would agree with it or not, I didn’t agree with it personally.

Richard Dodds  12:52  
Was the HR person a minority themselves? No, I feel that that’s when it starts to get a little bit trouble.

HR Professional  12:58  
That’s where it gets, right. Those are under though. And those are some of the unintended consequences. And that is why going back to my earlier point of, you have to have a strong sense of self walking into these environments. If you are wishy washy, within, don’t go corporate, because corporate America, a lot of gray space, you will be subjected to microaggressions because you’re wishy washy about yourself. And as you’re trying to figure yourself out, so many things will be coming at you. Say for example, a company announces a commitment to diversity inclusion and says as minority employees, those are words we love to hear, right? The endorphins kick in, and man, oh, yeah, let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s go. We totally forget, we work for a for profit business, whose number one goal is to make money and above everything, and anything that anything that’s done in that corporation is ultimately there to meet that marker, right? Just speaking as African American like we are deeply emotional people. Our scars are unique and structural, that does translate it transfers in the workplace, but you can’t totally drop who you are. So you know, we hear a lot of big words, and then our expectations go from zero to 60.

Richard Dodds  14:16  
Sometimes it takes a long time to build up.

HR Professional  14:19  
Yeah, and it’s and it’s and it’s, sometimes we can unrealistically raise the bar in our hearts and minds? Yeah. Because we haven’t slowed down, looked at the environment for what it is. If it takes two years to get an extra water cooler.

HR Professional  14:42  
What the company is announcing is a commitment to talking about it exactly is a commitment to exploring it.

Richard Dodds  14:49  
So over the last five years in the industry as a whole from what you’ve seen, do you feel like it’s gotten better or worse?

HR Professional  14:55  
I think it’s gotten somewhat better. I think the line of business you’re in is important. I mean, that matters for a company where the main type of professional that say if it’s a an engineering firm or a technical farm of some sort, or male dominated field, that may be a little more difficult. That’s something to think about. That’s something to think about. Exactly. So like, here’s where it’s where a lot of us really get into a jam, based on my experience, right? The burden of an African American or any marginalized person who’s who has a high technical aptitude, they’re engineer, they’re scientists, they’re an architect, the graphic designer, right? Any of those kinds of fields versus a teacher. Okay. And like an English teacher at that, okay, that technical person may encounter a lot of problems at work, versus the teacher, even. And the technical person may, you know, based on my experience may encounter more uncomfortable situations that are very, they’re working in an environment, male dominated boys will be boys. And not just boys will be boys, a lot of boys or men with for social skills or technical people, their career ascension is based literally on their work, right? It’s the what not the how, and when I say the how I mean, your delivery, how you communicate your work, how you perform your work, do you infuriate people while performing your work? Do you? You know, do you offend people? Why if you’re performing your work, I interned at a company at a startup. And the best coder was literally allowed to fall asleep at his desk because he was the best coder. It was fascinating. Did they have issues with diversity? Absolutely. You know, you got to think about number one, okay, my talents are these and you know, your talents, okay? What can I tolerate? Cook, because we do have choice, we’re disproportionately dependent on employment versus universal. Exactly, exactly. So know your talents, and then know what you can tolerate. Don’t waste your time in an environment that you can’t tolerate. Unless you have a specific plan for yourself with an exit date, quite frankly,

Richard Dodds  17:10  
you can really start to tell when you talk to leadership, by the way that they answer you can tell where their minds are. When it comes to thinking about minorities, a lot of times people in power, they’re not necessarily thinking of themselves as somebody that’s racist, or doesn’t consider other races. Sometimes they’re just ignorant and they just don’t know any better. But if you go, and you have a conversation with the leader, and you say, hey, it’s not enough minorities, and that’s kind of position, and they come to you and they say, you know, I can’t make anybody work here. But what are some ideas that you have, versus going to somebody and say, like, hey, like, we don’t have enough minorities in this position, right? And they’d be like, well, so that’s what we can do about it. It’s not like I’m just hiring people, you know what I mean? It’s a different kind of approach. When you you can tell when people’s minds are really on, like, let’s make sure that we have diversity, and let’s make sure that we have diversity in the places that matter.

HR Professional  18:00  
Of course, I mean, and leadership that, you know, when you’re talking about leadership leaders in the company, they got to look at a lot of things at a high level that most of those people are white. And so it has to be really, really conscious, it has to be brought to their attention in a lot of instances, just because they’re in the spots there. And we’re in the spots where are. But if you’re in a position where you can talk to a leader about the lack of minority representation in the workplace, especially management, a more effective approach is to talk about Well, where can we expand our opportunities to recruit, you know, more minorities, and in a way that reflects in like, a structural change? Not like, you know, a couple sprinkled in here? Yeah, exactly. Like, like, you got to talk about structural change. Where are we recruiting? Now? You know, what I see our job postings were where we were replacing these eggs. Exactly. It’s say, if you only go to Ivy League are very hot, top tier universities and not widen your scope. Well, yeah. I mean, or if you only recruit in certain states, you’re gonna recruit in Utah. Yeah. And I say, yeah, it’s not gonna happen, right? Not a big population. Right. And public companies, you know, avoid adverse, what’s called adverse impact, I have to do certain things. But that can become a box checking advertise to so you know, even even legally, it’s dangerous. It is dangerous, new laws can be passed all day long. What laws have been passed that, that does not change perspective, that does not change objective, right? It’s only action and a lot of this stuff, quite frankly, in my experience, true structural change, or to true change in terms of more minorities being promoted, more minorities being hired. The change comes from outside events versus inside events. I say that because I mean, I mean, you think of tours for it, right? That really sparked some sea change.

Richard Dodds  19:50  
I mean, you know, that’s like a big reason why I’m doing this right now.

HR Professional  19:53  
Absolutely. outside events do affect the workplace. Now and I’m bringing this up because whoever’s listening to this, if you’re if you’re a minority if you’re, you know, African American, whatever, not a white male,

Richard Dodds  20:06  
because even like females have their own burdens.

HR Professional  20:09  
Exactly. You know, that’s its own journey. Don’t get hell bent on changing one company don’t make that life, your life’s mission, if your life’s mission is really inspire real change, structural change in the workplace, it’s not going to be done from within that company. Now, as you see the world change, you can

Richard Dodds  20:28  
make sure that that change is reflected inside of

HR Professional  20:31  
exactly. You can keep your company abreast of what’s going on, and and tie it to how it affects the company.

Richard Dodds  20:38  
And are you going to be a leader and a change? Are you going to be behind the change? Are you going to write flow?

HR Professional  20:43  
Exactly?

Richard Dodds  20:43  
It all depends exactly.

HR Professional  20:44  
I mean, you really have to, you got to be really strategic in how you communicate what you see. Because when you’re working for that company, you got to show how the change is going to positively affect the company. Because at the end of the day, it’s a for profit company, to your office above everything. Yeah. Again, going back to the strong sense of self, you cannot let whatever you’re seeing rock you to the point where you’re ineffective in your role, if you want to stay there, you know, like, if and in any company, any place you work, if this message was your moral compass, you need to go like proactively, because if, because you will put yourself in a position very easily to get, you know, to get to get asked to leave. And I’ve seen that in my career, as an HR person time and time again, where an individual, especially black employee, may go to work thinking that there some emotional need is gonna get met. No, no, that’s not working. That’s not what work is for. That’s not what work is for. And yes, are there inequities in the workplace? Absolutely. But you just don’t know how many, how many times I’ve just got off the phone from a difficult work situation where an Italian minority loses their job because of a decision they made that violated policy. But it all stemmed back to either an internal conflict with another employee, you know, some emotional reason, that just got out of control. And they personalize it to a degree that they start to try to redeem themselves personally. Yeah, like, it’s, it’s not worth it. It’s it’s not don’t give any company that much emotional control over your loyalty is to yourself and to who cares about you outside of work, you do so so you got to have that someone in place before you’re going into these passive aggressive corporate environments, because yet you’re going to experience microaggressions. Why? Because there is the burden on us is to understand that culture, greater mainstream culture, white culture, corporate culture, they do not have the burden, fundamentally, vice versa of having to write having to understand our climate.

Richard Dodds  22:50  
And really, if you think about it, it makes sense, right? yourself like a corporation, a corporation might love you. But at the end of the day, if something happens to where they can’t survive with you there, they’re gonna have to let you go because they can’t sink the whole ship. So exactly. Think of yourself as a corporation. Exactly. With the advent of social media being gaining so much ground, it is almost just as bad to say nothing about a situation than it is to say the wrong thing. Correct. Because especially minorities are watching what is being said, but they’re also being very attentive to what is not being said. With the advent of social media. What do you think has been the impact if any, on corporate culture, with the social media being such a big presence? And what do you think is maybe like a big difference? A little differentiate, you think policies have been changed because of social media? Because now you can’t be quiet. It’s too easy to say something?

HR Professional  23:47  
Yeah, it has. I mean, you can I mean, I think a great example of that as the as the NBA. If you look at the business structure of the NBA, right? It’s it’s the league with a bunch of franchises, right? McDonald’s has much franchise too, right. Prior to social media, whatever went on in the office, or whatever went on behind closed doors were actually behind closed doors, people said what they wanted owners had little to no accountability right now to owners are being investigated for the workplace practices. Well, how they’re behaving at work, which is incredible. People start talking, everyone has their own can create their own platform that’s accessible to anyone in the world. With that said, you have literally billionaires that get forced out of something forced to sell something they own. One step is with social media, like you can’t talk to me in a certain kind of way.

Richard Dodds  24:39  
Now I can put you in a foreign Front Street I can I can videotape the injustice of workers, I can say look at my unfair work conditions, and blast you

HR Professional  24:48  
exactly. So it’s very important and as an HR professional, I talk to managers all the time about how you deliver information is becoming more important than the actual information because Because, what regardless of what the information is, congratulations, you got a raise happy now? Yeah. How’s that employee gonna feel more great, hey, the company recognizes your, you know, your talents in the company recognizes blah, blah, blah. You know, with that said, we’re gonna get a raise of X expert percent I know it’s not what you would expect him but here’s what we’re going to do to put you on the path to ultimately make more I was two different

Richard Dodds  25:28  
two different approaches

HR Professional  25:32  
got a raise, but one with respect and one without respect. Yeah, and one thing employees, especially minority employees need to feel is respected, acknowledged for their humanity and considered, I’d rather be considered them liked, you know, like like, like my humanity considered. But what’s valuable to be considered versus you actually liking me like people get fired every day like people don’t get the don’t get the promotion every day I mean, but valued considered all of that matters. And we walk into these positions sometimes with misaligned priorities because we fought so hard as a people to be able to even get these jobs to be able to even be candidates for these positions, right. And then we get it like we have a party for everything in our party for job interview. We have party for the second interview, right? We have a you know, we have big bash for you getting hired, then we got to live in it. Be careful what you wish for. Exactly. And for us. I’m gonna be frank here, stability is seen as well.

Richard Dodds  26:37  
It’s a different expectation.

HR Professional  26:38  
It’s a different expectation for

Richard Dodds  26:40  
us. A lot of times I’ve seen a lot of minorities celebrate graduating from high school. Yeah, way harder than any anybody else just Yes. For most people, for most other races that might be like, That’s a guarantee that’s minimal. For black people. A lot of times, especially in the past, that has not always been

HR Professional  26:59  
exactly our frequency and our pace of development. It’s just different. I don’t want to say faster or slower, because that’s too simple. Like our journey is very unique, just like every culture journey is very unique. But it’s a natural conflict with corporate life and walking into it without considering that when you have misaligned, unknowingly, misaligned expectations can set you a fall out of emotional trauma, quite frankly, I think how that can improve is those of us that are in it, come out of it, to talk about it, to prepare those of us that are that are studying to get in it. You know what I mean? Like, that’s, that’s the outside change, that that that starts, the change that will ultimately will happen in corporate America, the more we prepare our youth, our careers, not just our youth, our career changers, right? That can be at any age, the more we talk about it in our in our just general, everyday vernacular, we talk about a lot of stuff in our everyday vernacular. But one part of the life we don’t talk about, is we talk about struggling at work, but we never talk about how to survive and thrive at work. That never, but we don’t talk about it enough and how to and how to deal with microaggressions because that’s what starts at all. It’s the microaggressions right? It’s the it’s the it’s the calm, it’s

Richard Dodds  28:23  
like even the microaggressions are always they’re not intentional.

HR Professional  28:27  
No, they’re not. I mean, I mean, just that you know, there are a lot of it is true ignorance. A lot of it is some of it isn’t we let those microaggressions get us off our path really knock us off our path we do I see it all the time. And some of that with us is I honestly I feel like it’s some of it is our structural trauma, right? Like we have a hard time in the workplace because it’s a lot more superficial is we have to hide a lot of ourselves, which I think is starting to change a bit at a slow pace. But it is, you know, we’re always on defense thinking that we’re being disrespected. And some of that comes from, I think, fundamentally not understanding that the different levels of the of that workplace, a combination of that and tunnel vision. If I’m a manager, I want to be the best manager I can be as you know, I try to develop my staff, I asked them, my staff to do extra if I’m short staffed and all that. But then if my boss comes to me needing extra because of the same for the same reasons at a higher level. So when you look at it, I feel attacked, or I feel taken advantage of I’m like, You’re no different than that lower level employee that you manage. Like it’s it’s all the same at different levels. And that’s why that strong sense of self is important and separating your professional emotions from your personal emotions. I’m not saying don’t bury your emotions, but you got to really know how to manage them. You know, you really got to really take the time to separate You’re worth values from your values. I mean, and sometimes you know what? People don’t agree with me. And that’s okay. They’re so emotionally tied to whatever’s happening to them at work, that they can’t see their role in it. We have such a soulful, emotional, spiritual people in the work world that is just not that. Yeah. And we have to figure out how to accept that and affect what we can’t, what we can affect is, is how we prepare each other before we go into it. And, you know, that’s basically it, because the things that happen outside of, of the of the workplace effect inside the workplace, when you see if our graduation rates go up, if so many things outside of work go up Data Wise, which again, goes back to us internally working on healing us, you best believe everything goes to go to it. It’s a ripple effect, not at the same pace. But I think it’s the duality that we got to keep, we got to keep striving and try like within the workplace, we got to keep asking the tough questions, posing the scenarios, making the business cases, but the majority of the work is on the outside. Martin Luther King was not working in corporate America. Okay. I mean, to even have the argument for like MLK day at work. That argument was not created in a boardroom, not at all, it was created on the street, walking, marching, and protesting. So that’s where the real change happens. Well, we can do on the inside of the workplace, point, rationalize, reconcile, Devil play devil’s advocate,

Richard Dodds  31:39  
how important would you say it is for a company to cultivate a culture of inclusion? How do you think that would benefit minorities, and also the company as a whole?

HR Professional  31:49  
I mean, I think it’s important for companies because ultimately, the world is getting browner. As, as a whole, it’s important for companies because that’s who their customers are. And for non minorities, it enriches their ability to connect with anyone to understand that the world is much more than theirs, understand, accept, and value traditions that are outside of theirs, that there’s really no other is humanity. You know, their tradition is not the tradition. It’s just there’s just that accepting the world for what it is. I mean, we all have our, you know, our insulated bubbles, you know, our backgrounds where we come from, but that mutual acknowledgement of the, you know, this world is full of bubbles is a whole lot of them. I mean, think about when George Floyd, George Floyd calls the sea effect of wonderful statements, carefully crafted statements, some of which may have generated more intentional strategy towards having a more inclusive workforce. It’s been a year now, I do see change. I do see I do see it moving. Is it at the pace? I would like it to move? Of course not. Of course not. Right. Like, it’ll never, it’ll never be. And I have to reconcile that within myself. I can’t expect a corporation outside of me to move at my pace, my pace is mine, right? My cultural space, or what my culture wants is, is there’s and two companies do have to think of, of multiple factors, the right thing to do,

Richard Dodds  33:27  
it’s not always the right thing to do is not

HR Professional  33:30  
to do what’s right, isn’t necessarily to do what’s appropriate for that company in that situation. And that’s, and that goes for black owned companies, too. I mean, that’s his, that’s his, that’s his business. So you know, like, there’s a lot of decisions that have to be made. And there’s a lot of things that have to align, where we have opportunity is like more of our voices are starting to be heard in those rooms that make the those decisions were they’re getting factored in, they’re starting to get factored in more than they ever have, which is good, but it’s it’s gonna take time.

Richard Dodds  34:03  
I mean, just speaking about what you were saying, you know, how important do you think it is to have people on leadership that look like you

HR Professional  34:11  
is critical. I mean, it’s critical, and I’m starting to see it, it’s becoming more than a sprinkle. It’s organically changing. I honestly, I think if anything positive could come out of this pandemic. From my perspective, as a HR person working from home, I’ve seen more minorities get promoted. Okay, you take away the day to day face to face interactions of politics of the workplace becomes a lot more about

Richard Dodds  34:35  
the work that’s a very interesting observation,

HR Professional  34:38  
you know, replace that water cooler with Zoom calls and see the little bit different, it’s a little bit different it becomes more about the work that is looked at more objectively who’s achieving what is just looked at more objective objectively, because you just got more work, you got less people to look at and more work to look at. And so I think, you know, our talents can be highlighted a lot more without the unconscious bias, quite frankly. And unconscious bias is that because you can talk to the same individual outside of work and be friends with them, you flip the work switch on, and they’re looking at leaving, they’re looking at things a certain way. And in combination of if we have a misaligned purpose for work,

Richard Dodds  35:20  
you’re getting a raise. And now you are the chief diversity officer at a company. Okay. Alright, so as your role and chief diversity officer, what policies and programs are you going to create and implement in order to make the work environment environment of inclusion for everybody?

HR Professional  35:39  
Well, the first thing I would do is, I will, I will want to take a real assessment of who works there. Who, how many? who works here? Does anybody know? And that’s a very, very simple question. That has a very, very complicated answer. Right? Yeah. So that, that could take a few months onto itself to figure it out who, and then from there figuring out where do I see glaring like, wow, there’s no diversity care. And from there, I will probably move on to our we getting our candidates, you know, who sees our postings, and even taking the assessment of who’s applying for jobs to those that disclose their background. So there’s a lot there, it had to be a lot, there’d be a whole probably a whole year data mining. So you start with the data, you have to start with a data you got to figure out because it could literally be that very few minorities are applying. And they may be they may be not applying, because they don’t know, you know, it’s not in their purview, the company. And so then I asked the company, well, why isn’t in our purview? Have we ever thought about why isn’t it in our purview? Have we ever thought about everybody’s here’s why have we ever thought about that? Well, I want to get back on probably, oh, no, we haven’t thought about it. Well, okay.

Richard Dodds  36:56  
Well, we we have minorities come in, and they only stay for a year, and then they leave. Right, right? Why?

HR Professional  37:02  
Exactly like those kinds of questions, and then tie it to a long term goal. Like if it’s a private company that wants to go public, well, you want to go public public companies measure that stuff. So we have to start measuring it and then get good at measuring it and then get good at solutions to why we have the issues we have at developing them and executing them and be able to prove it with that that’s all data. I mean, that’s all that’s all based in reality on what’s what, that’s probably the first couple years before you can even start to put in a little bit of progress. Exactly. You got to know what you’re working with. You got to know who you’re working with

Richard Dodds  37:39  
three years? And what are three things you could quickly do to make the environment more diverse for say you have a decent mix? How do you make the minorities feel comfortable and accepted,

HR Professional  37:50  
more included? Yeah, how to influence the culture with more concepts of feeling included our inclusion, as a chief diversity officer, I probably would start with that we’ll start with taking an assessment of folks how folks are feeling I will start with a survey, take those results? And do what the results tell me. If it’s if it’s not, if it’s not enough holiday celebration, in terms of or acknowledgement, I’d start fighting for money for that, you know, in terms of getting certain holidays off? finding out why finding out how much it will cost to do it, seeing if it was feasible. And if it’s not financially feasible, well, how do we make it an option? Because people have vacation time and things like that? And how do we make it publicly known? If we can’t officially do it? How can we make it publicly publicly known around that time of that upset holiday, that we are fully acknowledging the holiday and fully acknowledging those who want to celebrate to take it off, because there are financial reasons, and big ones that any particular holiday anytime like the company can’t make it a company holiday? I mean, there’s a lot of a lot of factors with that. But we can work with maximum, but we can work with what we have and acknowledge it, the key is acknowledge, be want to be acknowledged more than you want to be paid.

Richard Dodds  39:08  
Sometimes acknowledgement.

HR Professional  39:11  
And acknowledging the fact that we know you know, we know it is not possibly ideal, especially in the beginning. But this is what we’re trying to do now as we’re trying to as we are working towards a more evolved state, we appreciate you and express appreciation, acknowledge that it’s not where it should be, and offer what you can unapologetically and boldly and overtly offer it with all of that.

Richard Dodds  39:37  
That’s a good plan.

HR Professional  39:39  
I mean, that that that’s a good start. I mean, that’s a good start and then timestamp it, date it. And then the work begins to with with the leadership team to bring it more to a reality and figuring out in future business plans and how to incorporate that into the company’s strategy overall, you know, business strategy, so That’s a job. And so what companies that don’t have that a commitment to that, yes, a lot harder and a lot more difficult. And for those of us that really, really are looking for that in their employer, you can change faster than your employer, you know what I’m saying? Like, like, don’t don’t discount your own personal power, you have the heart, we all have the power of choice. And if and if you’re not getting your needs met, then you have decisions to make. I mean, you should feel like you have decisions to make you feel like you can’t make those decisions. Exactly. If people just sat on their laurels. We would not be talking right now, which is very

Richard Dodds  40:37  
true. I think about, it’s important for me to be able to take Martin Luther King day off. Mm hmm. You know, and as in no matter what, no matter if I have the PTO or not, I just try to make sure that I’m able to get that day off. But now, as I’ve grown, it’s more important for the company to recognize that holiday and whether you’re a minority or not, whether you’re black or not, right, it’s a federal holiday, right. So now is the process of how when you go somewhere, you make sure that this holiday is taken off. And it’s recognized, because it’s an important holiday to recognize. And just like in school, like in school, depending on if you want in a suburban school, at least in Michigan, like the ones that I know about. suburban schools didn’t even necessarily talk about Black History Month, Black History Month in the inner cities was talked about a lot. But when you got to the other schools, like you didn’t always hear about it. And I just think it’s important for us to make sure that we are fighting for the things that are really important to us, because it’s not just like about a day off. It’s about a recognition of somebody who did something for a whole culture, right.

HR Professional  41:43  
And that like for us in terms of successful fights and successful efforts to get them more recognized. Advocates say it’s just using this as example K 12 level, we have to I think draw from folks like Charles Hamilton, Houston, Thurgood Marshall, understanding the law understanding what government offices affect what so say in the case of Martin Luther King being taught in K 12 schools, right school curriculum, that’s usually that stuff is decided at the state level at the at the county level, marching on Washington is not gonna do it. It’s 50 states. You got to know Right, exactly. You got to know where to go to inflict the blow us understanding that. And that’s if you work for a school district, walking into the superintendent’s office of speaker Michigan by say, necessarily walking into superintendent’s office and doing a sit in at the superintendent’s office isn’t going to do it. You got school boards, and you both run for school board won’t run for school, why not? Well, I had to run for school. Well, I’ll live here on school choice, we’ll get someone rent an efficiency apartment, and move it to the community and run for school. But you know what I mean, like, like, we have to be conscious and deliberate. If we want something specific to change, and we have to be, unfortunately, this our burden ethically resilient.

Richard Dodds  43:01  
I think the thing that you said as a big underscore, and that’s kind of what I take away from whether it’s corporate, our corporate America, corporate politics, or just regular politics, yeah, study, look at the data, know what to attack and where to attack, and know where you want to work on, that’ll have the biggest impact on what you’re trying to do if you’re trying to change something on the state level. If you’re trying to change something on the schoolboy level of the school board know and being educated about where stuff change, whether it’s your job or not knowing who controls what, who you need to talk to, you can be talking to somebody that you think is in control, and may not actually control the thing that you’re trying to change. So you need to make sure that you, you recognize who has the power to do what right, talk to the people that you need to talk to and put your efforts in the place where will make the biggest impact

HR Professional  43:52  
takes us back to a work level, who has the biggest influence on your day to day job, your supervisor, right. So if you have something that you want to talk through with your supervisor, and you haven’t talked to them at all, you haven’t, you know, set up a meeting, you’ve done nothing but feel bad about whatever is you’re going through at work. And because you’re feeling bad, however you’re feeling negatively, the first thing you do is go over your supervisors head and not talk to them. And to talk to maybe a manager, a notch or two above who has nothing to do with your day to day job. It has nothing to do with the day to day situation. That’s not necessarily the most effective way to go. Now you have a supervisor where say you’re completely different personality wise, and I get that but that’s where fundamentally understanding your job is very, very important. That’s that’s the baseline because even if you’re trying to prove something is not right, being a being a poor performer and not just that great at your job makes it more difficult. It just it just does. And I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. I’m just I’m just telling you The reality of it, you’ve got to be able to strategically work with the people that can actually help you make the change, you need to make it, the changes that need to be made, so to speak.

Richard Dodds  45:10  
So what in your opinion, is the most important thing that companies need to do in order to make sure that they are facilitating an environment of inclusion? Or at least working towards it?

HR Professional  45:21  
I think first is with acknowledgement. Okay, because number one, acknowledgement is powerful. Most people don’t leave the job. Most people leave the people they feel that that are impeding them, either emotionally, or professionally, I think more acknowledgement of what’s going on in the world and how it’s affecting us, us being the company, a very strategic assessment of our population, versus Do we look like the industry that we’re serving? Exactly. And then look at world population in terms of right, it’s a different holiday every day, or it’s a different, it’s a different store, go figure to celebrate every day, look at our population, and relative, you know, relatively to that and make plans every year, and they evolve, just like the people do, just like the population does, just like the workforce to to acknowledge those things, and be able to communicate why something can’t happen to be, you know, just saying no, like, just saying no, is not enough anymore. It’s it’s not or, or non responses isn’t enough, especially the larger, I think the organization, just that type of consideration can really have a positive effect on a workforce have a positive effect on people feeling more included, more considered, you know, when you have your humanity acknowledged on a regular basis, that’s better than being made to felt feel good. That’s, that’s better than a treat, so to speak, or party or something. I mean, that can be the gateway to all the other. Sometimes people call it fluff stuff that companies do. That that can be a path to that stuff feeling more authentic.

Richard Dodds  47:03  
Yeah, I frankly, but it starts with just general easy now that

HR Professional  47:06  
I mean, I mean, yeah, keep going back to George floor. It was it’s just a great example. I think it’ll stand the test of time.

Richard Dodds  47:12  
I think it was just that it was so impactful for a lot of different reasons. Yeah.

HR Professional  47:17  
I mean, I think the times were in in terms of the technology that was available, because even when say you had like the Rodney King, so that was caught on video, but it was taped, it wasn’t live, right. So you know, anything taped is up for debate, just like anything that’s in print. But George Floyd was on Facebook Live. There’s no editing when this lie,

Richard Dodds  47:37  
and not and not only that, I think the other reason why I was so impactful, just because it’s been so much of that. And even during that time, it was several different things that happened, but everybody was at home. Mm hmm. Everybody was paying attention to what was going on. And there was already things going on in the world that made everybody hypersensitive and hyper focused on what was going on in the

HR Professional  48:01  
world. Yeah, we have those moments in history that everyone happens to have is looking at the same time with their different lenses. But what came out of that incident was I mean, I had coworkers ask me questions about my experience, for the first time, like they’d never thought about, they have the luxury to not think about that all the time. If really ever in some cases, you know, we don’t have that option. That fundamentally creates a different dynamic. That’s a different dynamic between people like if I have to worry about being accused of something I didn’t do, just because I’m within 100 miles you know, like, I mean, I grew up in Detroit I’ve been I’ve been pulled over for no reason. I’ve been accused of stuff I didn’t do thrown on police cars and all that. I mean, I’ve been thrown on police cars might go home from school being accused of skipping what school was off. Is a half day sir. Shut up, you’re lying on the car, you know, even the microaggression or the you know, the petty stuff, like people going to the other side of the elevator just because you’re in it, and or being in a store and being treated like like, you work there and you don’t it’s a lot of different things. And the acknowledgement of our humanity is sounds very simple, but it goes a long way. I mean, it just even as an HR person, I mean, I’m telling you a raise even a promotion. Okay, I’ve seen and worked with minority folks that have not just black but just minority folks. They’ve gotten the promotion they got it party, they’ve relocated company paying for it, woohoo. And in about two weeks in Oh my God, I didn’t know I could you know what I mean? Because they’re so focused on getting it that honestly they’re exhausted by the time they get it

Richard Dodds  49:50  
does because you work so hard to get it then you got to work at that level to maintain Yeah, you got to work even harder to get to the next you know, we

HR Professional  49:57  
don’t talk about the whole journey me and that’s just that’s just us culturally, man, right? Like if you went to our inner city, high school, whatever, get to college, get to college, get to college, and you go to class II like what?

Richard Dodds  50:10  
Well, that’s all I have for you this week. Next episode we’ll continue the conversation with the HR professional. But before you go, I like to put a little bit of spotlight on melanin spotlight on melanin is the part of the show where I like to spotlight a creator influencer artists business owner activists of color. Today I would like to spotlight Jalisa Pope. To Lisa helps small businesses expand their reach with Digital Media Solutions. She offers media services from websites to social media management and coaching. Make sure you go check out the Lisa’s page on Instagram at to Lisa his magic and as J A LESAIS ma GIC you or someone you know like a chance to be featured on spotlight on melanin, send us an email at spotlight at still talking black calm. Please include links to their social media and why you think they should be spotlighted. So again, thank you everyone for listening. Still talking black culture media LLC production. It is produced by me Richard DODDS. Our theme music was created by the DJ blue. Please make sure to rate and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcasting app. You can follow the show on Instagram and still talking black. Until next time, keep talking

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