Hiring for Diversity: It Takes a Village
Hiring for Diversity: It Takes a Village
The following is a reflection by Angela and the Realized Worth team on hiring for diversity. We invite you, our readers, to reflect with us – and we invite you to analyze, criticize, and offer feedback. As we work together to dismantle systems of oppression in corporate America and beyond, we are becoming increasingly aware of our need for “the village” to guide and teach us. Would you be willing to share your experiences and insights? Please send a note to contact@realizedworth.com.
Realized Worth exists to create a more inclusive society by breaking down barriers between people and engendering empathy and compassion in and outside of the workplace. We do this by implementing the Transformative Approach to corporate volunteering that we’ve spent the last 13 years developing with hundreds of companies around the world. But what about our own house? Is it inclusive? Are we breaking down barriers inside the doors of Realized Worth? Like many other companies in 2020, we have increased our internal scrutiny regarding the diversity of our staff and the equity of our hiring processes. As we invite new people to join our team at all levels this year, we are asking, “What practices need to be in place now in order to be the company we want to be 5 years from now?”
In our experience, hiring BIPOC is a matter of structurally changing the identity of our company. There is a fundamental business asset in having diverse origins, education, experience, personalities, physical abilities, lifestyles, and skills. As a company that is deeply defined by the people who run it and that values a culture of diversity and inclusion, our focus right now is in increasing representation on our team and in our leadership. Our future as a business relies on the representation of varied perspectives on our team and it relies on the authentic alignment of our practices with the values we espouse.
