S2, Ep 7: The 3 Key Considerations to Make Before Conducting a Racial Equity Audit

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SEASON 2, EPISODE 7

The 3 Key Considerations to Make Before Conducting a Racial Equity Audit

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00] JSS: Hi, it's Joanna Shoffner Scott here. I am so excited to be with you today. Thank you for allowing me to join you in your day, no matter when you're listening. This season of the podcast is about leadership. I've invited guests to join me to talk about their leadership experiences, either in leading change themselves or moving organizational leaders toward change. In this episode, I want to talk about racial equity assessments or also called equity audits. I'll explore when to use them, when not to, and what to do with the information they produce. All right, let's get into it.

[EPISODE]

[0:00:40] JSS: Hey, everybody. This is Joanna Shoffner Scott. You are listening to the Race in the Workplace podcast, a show for DEI organizational leaders that explores race, racism, and racial equity in the workplace. I am a Racial Equity Consultant and Founder of the Stamey Street Consulting Group, a consulting firm that specializes in partnering with organizations to help them meet their racial equity aspirations. My goal for you is to move your organization from being colorblind to equity-centered through sustainable, step-by-step changes.

Hi, it's Joanna Shoffner Scott here, and I am the host of The Race in the Workplace Podcast. I'd like to talk about equity assessments or audits in this week's episode. I have referred to the process using either term, and for clarity, I am referring to the measurement tools used to assess different aspects of organizations or companies, and from the data collected from these processes, one can draw specific conclusions about the experiences or the practices of organizations.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the demand for racial equity audits has grown in the past couple of years with an expectation of continued growth. In my own practice, I've also seen an uptick in requests for assessments, so that tracks with my experience, as well. When we're trying to position assessments in our thinking, think about it as holding up a mirror to your organization, okay?

All right, so let's dig into it. Also, I have a little bit of a cold that I'm hoping won't impact the sound too badly. Stay with me, you all, stay with me. Okay, so digging into assessments, my firm uses a pretty standard process when we do this type of work for a client. It includes surveys, focus groups, and one-to-one interviews, all as ways to collect data and to center the staff and employee voice. That's a critical part of this whole process for me is to be sure that if we are asking staff and employees to spend their time filling out a survey or participating in a focus group or an interview, there is a payoff for that in the sense that their voices will be heard. That's important to me.

In my opinion, assessments can offer a tremendous amount of information about the real goings on inside organizations because organizations tend to be one way on paper, but in real-time, in real life, they actually function in a very different way. Using these kinds of tools can help bridge the disconnect between those two.

Okay, so I want to talk about when to use assessments, when not to, and what to do with the data, okay? All right, so first of all, I think assessments can be a strong addition to any part of an organization's racial equity journey. I don't think there's a particular time that is better than other times to do this type of analysis. What matters is that there is a plan for what to do with the results, such that if there is a curiosity about differences in staff experience, then an assessment or audit can't answer those questions.

In my experience, there is a gap between how leaders view an organization or company and how staff views their experiences within that organization or company. There's often a disconnect. Now many things feed into it, into the disconnect, for example, differences in power, privilege, role, and longevity, all of those play a factor in the disconnect, in the existence of a disconnect. Assessments can help unpack some of those dynamics and really pinpoint where the difference and experience is happening.

Truthfully, organizational experiences are rarely the same. Even when there is a shared appreciation for the mission and values of an organization or a company, there can be differences and experience both by identity and of course by individuals. Doing these kinds of audits can help you tease that out. If you are leading, an organization can help you tease that out a little bit so you can understand, as I said, the exact point where differences are happening.

I would say if you're curious about differences in the staff experience, that's the moment to do an assessment, but only if, hear me good you all, only if there is a willingness and a commitment to take action on the results. I cannot emphasize that enough. I'll say it again, if you're curious about differences in staff experience, that's the moment to do an assessment only if there is a willingness and a commitment to take action on the results. Critically important. I'll unpack that further as we go along. That's key.

All right, here's an example. You're an HR executive for a mid-sized company with a dedicated chief DEI officer. You've heard complaints from Black staff about being treated differently by startup managers when they request time off. Maybe there's pushback or a really specific request to adhere to the written policies, for example, that may not exist for other groups of people. I've seen this happen.

Let's say HR executive, you're hearing these things. You're hearing these complaints or staff are coming to you directly with these kinds of complaints. This is a place where an assessment can help clarify the problem. For one, it might be more widespread than you initially thought and this is an instance where I would recommend adding a policy practice review to the assessment. In this case, the company may have written policies that are not being implemented equitably. This happens all the time. Remember what I said at the top of the pod that there's a way that organizations and companies function the way they're supposed to function that's written on paper. Then there's a way that they actually function, which is everyday life. That happens all the time, because often what's written is not what's practiced.

In this example, my wonder would be, where do you have established, written, clearly-defined policies within your company with supportive systems? Think about that for a second. I'll say it again, where do you have established, written, clearly-defined policies in your company with supportive systems? By “supportive systems”, I mean the processes and tools that enable a policy to be implemented.

For example, if you have a policy that requires staff to request leave at least two weeks before the leave date, what's the system that enables them to do that? Is it a Google spreadsheet? Is it an online benefits manager? Is it the company payroll system? How are people able to meet the requirements of that policy and get their leave approved in a timely way if we're staying with this example? Those connected processes and tools make up supportive systems and does that information live in a public place that's easily accessible?

All right, I asked this question about documented processes because anywhere you don't have documented processes are areas in your company where bias will thrive. If you don't have written processes, or written policy, bias will thrive. That could be why, if we're going all the way back to the example, that could be why Black staff were experiencing a difference in requesting leave. This is where an assessment could be really helpful in terms of shedding light on what's really happening. Remember, holding up that mirror. In this example, a review of what's actually happening versus what's supposed to happen may uncover the source of the difference in experience. It could also be that a different data collection strategy may be necessary.

Surveys, in this case, may not be enough. Focus groups may be helpful here. People may feel more comfortable talking to another person about their experiences. Some people absolutely are more comfortable talking to a person. Other people are more comfortable filling out a survey and leaving comments. I think the best blend is both, but that's part of when we join this type of analysis, understanding that people will engage the instrument itself very differently. Again, only do this assessment if there is a commitment to taking action on the results.

Moving on to when not to do a racial equity assessment or racial equity audit. If the executive leadership is ambivalent about the process and certainly addressing the findings, then I would not recommend doing it. I would say take a hard pass and here's why. There's no coming back from an assessment that falls flat where nothing happens afterwards. It feels like a waste of time and it's very demoralizing. I would say this outcome should be avoided at all costs if possible. At this point, the staff knows, the leaders know, the consultants know, and the data confirms where the problems actually are, and taking no action will create a difficult to near possible recovery. There is no coming back from it.

Let me give a concrete example. It's like spending money and time to do a compensation study to determine if there are pay inequities within your organization or company. The executive leadership finds after some analysis and data collection by a consultant that there are wage gaps by role, but does not adjust salaries or pay in any way. Basically, does nothing. It's hard to come back from that because in that example, everybody's salaries are the same and now there's a well-known gap in earnings, nothing happens. That's something I would encourage people to avoid if possible.

Recently, I had a prospective client approach to firm about doing a rather large assessment of their equity practices. This particular situation involved a large department in a very big organization. I pressed the commitment of the executive team. As we proceeded through the discovery process, the prospective client discovers that the buy-in isn't there. The resources were there, the buy-in was not. I suggested not moving forward. I made that suggestion, not because I didn't want them as a client, of course they did, but I knew that if the executive leadership team wasn't fully bought into the process, then I could imagine also a lack of buy-in on the back end when the recommendations and the findings were ready that would devastate staff who were working so hard to make this happen.

That's the other thing, people lots of times will put a lot of hope into an assessment that the changes that they're looking for will happen. As an executive, you have to know that going into these kinds of processes and handle that with great care. This is an example of when not moving forward, is the best decision in my opinion. This is not advice, but in my opinion, because doing so can damage staff morale and can it damage existing relationships.

In this case, the time, in my opinion, is better spent educating and building support for a future assessment. I think the timing was just not right there. Those resources would have been better spent just building the buy-in and the goodwill around that piece of work. With the understanding, yes, it's disappointing, but it's better to know and have clarity about the commitment at the beginning than it is to address the heartbreak at the end.

Okay, so my last point for executive leadership, you've got to know what you're going to do with the findings. A typical organizational assessment service from Stamey Street includes reviewing critical documents. It can include a policy and practice review, staff survey, and a report. Then depending on the needs of the client, we may add focus groups or one-to-one interviews. It depends on what the client chooses, but our team provides actionable data that guides the organization's equity path moving forward.

I like to do audits personally at the beginning of an engagement because the data from the process can help shape the rest of the engagement. It's incredibly powerful. One, if the timing's right. Two, if the willingness to commit to taking action is there. Think about it like this. For me, once I know the specific pain points in an organization, I can direct particular solutions to help. At this point, we're not guessing anymore. We know where the challenges are, but therein lies the caveat to these kinds of assessments. It's knowing what the challenges are and not doing anything, as I've noted earlier.

All of that said, I encourage executive leaders that if you're working with a consultant to perform an equity audit or an organizational assessment, only do so if you're prepared to implement the recommendations. Now, that doesn't mean you have to commit to implementing every single recommendation site unseen. What I'm saying here is, is that not necessarily to, I'm not asking leaders to commit fully to a set of recommendations before the report is ready or before the findings are ready, but rather commit to taking an action to address the needs that emerge from the data collection process. Okay, that's probably the best way I could say that.

All right, what does that mean? What does it mean to implement the findings? I want to walk you through three actions. One is to implement a plan. Two is sequence the action. Three is manage expectations. I'll unpack these one by one.

When I say implement a plan, what I mean is to take whatever the written product of your assessment is and do something with it. It's up to the executive leadership to make time to work on the plan. As I noted, an organizational assessment from Stamey Street will include a plan.

Now we're at this place where sequencing matters at this point too, because you'll want to start with the area most important to staff. I would bet that issue, whatever it is, the most important one is absolutely going to show up in the assessment. I don't even – I have no doubt about that. It's also important to acknowledge that in most organizations, people's plates are full. What will come off people's plates so that this work can go on? There's nothing organic here. There must be an intention and there must be time committed or it won't work. That's my first meaning. When I lift it up, what does it mean to implement the findings? The first step in implementing the findings is to implement a plan. I hope that's clear.

Number two is to sequence the action. Start with the most important issue, as I just said, what is it that the staff are most concerned with? Start there. Doing so will demonstrate that the executive leadership is serious about staff concerns. As I said earlier, it places a certain amount of honor and respect on the feedback of staff that they've taken their time to participate in this process and that that time is being respected and honored.

The third thing to do around implementing findings is to manage the expectations around the pace of change. Many times, staff want their concerns addressed right now. Today, right now, and understandably so, understandably so, but there are usually many considerations that influence the pace of change. There are staff time, resources, and existing commitments. Leaders need to manage the expectations around change and a way that helps people understand that change isn't going to happen overnight. The implementation of any recommended results from an audit is not going to be overnight, but there will be steady work done and progress made. That's important to keep in mind.

As I close out the episode, I want to share that I have seen these assessments go well, meaning racial equity was centered in the process from the beginning, with commitments to taking the recommendation seriously and dedicated staff time to work on post-assessment planning. This is one of the best possible outcomes.

As I wrap up this episode, I want to leave you with an encouragement. It is so important to honor staff voice in these types of processes that it is a risk to be honest, and it's time-consuming to participate in whatever the data collection tool is, and if you ask a question of staff, be prepared to handle the response. If you have the power to address someone's issue and resolve it, then do it, okay?

I wanted to share a little bit of my thoughts about racial equity assessments and equity audits. I hope if you are considering this type of assessment for your organization that, you will keep these thoughts in mind. Until next time, take care.

[OUTRO]

[0:21:05] JSS: That's this week's episode of Race in the Workplace. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast and share it with a friend who may be a DEI professional who can use these strategies in their work. My hope for the podcast is that it reaches every person who needs it. Until next time, take care.

[END]