Diversity, equity and inclusion - asking the difficult questions - Monica Beckles

Why Diversity Equity and Inclusion matters in the workplace - Monica Beckles| E3 transcript

Kieran McNeill

Hi, everybody, welcome to the Scaramanga podcast Talk Too Much, the podcast where we talk to industry experts about their sector. Today's podcast will be based on diversity, equity and inclusion and today we have Monica Beckles, an HR and employment expert. So, good morning, Monica.

Monica Beckles

Good morning Kieran.

Kieran McNeill

Thank you. So I want to jump into it and ask you, why does diversity, equity and inclusion matter to you, personally? And a bit of background as to what you do?

Monica Beckles

Okay, thank you. So to give you the background first, I worked in business leadership for many years, too many that I'd like to mention and one of the areas that I've had particular focus is in the remit of people management, HR, performance, all of that. I run my own employment law consultancy, and work with businesses, helping them in an HR and employment law capacity. So naturally, diversity, fairness, inclusion, and equity, all of that has been an area that I've been focused on for many years.

For me, personally, I am a woman, I'm a black woman and I have personally experienced some issues with diversity and inclusion in my lifetime, and have worked with organizations to help them improve the diversity of, their environment, for the benefit of the individuals that they employ, and for themselves, because there are numerous benefits to a diverse workforce. So I think it really comes down on the side of fairness and equity and that's why it's really important to me and something that I focus on.

Kieran McNeill

When you work with all these different businesses, do you find that when it comes to diversity, inclusion, and equity, it's something which is more of like an afterthought at the moment in today's society? or is it a big focus?

Monica Beckles

I'd say there's a percentage that are focused on it, but it's a smaller percentage. The majority see it as a bit of a tick box exercise, it's something that they know they need to do.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah.

Monica Beckles

So they'll talk about it from that aspect, but there are very few organizations that are truly committed to building a diverse workforce and gleaning the benefits of an inclusive workforce, very few at the moment, unfortunately.

Kieran McNeill

Logically, there's no reason necessarily why it should be an issue in theory, because, the more you're open to inclusion and diversity, the more you're allowing, for example, if you're recruiting, you open your candidate options, way more, if you're gonna accept from more different kinds of cultural colour, etc. Instead of reducing it down to a set portion of people, because you may have an issue against, well not necessarily an issue, but you may prefer someone of a certain personality or colour or ethnic background.

For me, sitting here, it sounds a bit, I don't say stupid, but a bit stupid that some people would be very closed off and not be recruiting people just based on their colour or ethnicity, or even just treat them differently inside the workplace, because, I'm assuming it also does affect company morale, inside the workplace.

Monica Beckles

Absolutely. There's a lot of statistics out there that show that particularly the younger generation, now they look, about two-thirds of them would say, looking for an organization, and the diversity of the organization is important to them when they're considering who to work for and I think it is a very short sighted approach, but it's one that's going to take time and effort and commitment to change, because, we are a factor of our experience, our upbringing, our environment and that is something that we all need to recognize and have a true commitment to do something about.

There are people there who are recruiting who probably genuinely don't appreciate that they are being biased in the way that they're approaching their recruitment and therefore, they naturally are building a workforce that isn't particularly diverse. So it's really about recognising and having that self-awareness of where our biases may be and the commitment to do something about it.

Kieran McNeill

So that's something that you've noticed where the younger generation is really looking for a diverse workplace now?

Monica Beckles

Yes, yeah, definitely. 100%. Their social commitment is far stronger than people of a more older generation and they see the unfairness. I mean, you can see that in some of the, you know, protests and marches about, you know, sort of inequality and discrimination that have happened over the years and the percentage of, you know, it's not just people who are experiencing that this elimination. It's all you know, genders ages, races that are there.

There is a particularly high percentage of young people who are now standing up and saying "I'm not prepared to accept this, this has got to change." So when they're looking for an employer, they're definitely looking for somebody who shares their values in the diversity space.

Kieran McNeill

So, the previous week you came on and gave the Scaramanga team a workshop on diversity, equity and inclusion, a really good one as well and going away after that session and knowing that we're gonna have this opportunity to talk to you again, on the podcast, I looked into a lot of statistics about diversity, equity and inclusion. Because, logically, it makes sense why you would want to follow diversity, equity and inclusion, but I saw a lot of stats such as corporate companies believing that if they had a competitor that was diverse, and inclusive, that competitor would probably outperform them in terms of a work ethic, just that competitor has a safer environment for their employees and company moral, as I mentioned, as well.

Monica Beckles

Yeah. I think the statistics are there, and they've been there for a number of years. Unfortunately, they're not moving in the right direction, or quickly enough in that direction. But I think most organisations know the benefits of a diverse workforce from a performance statistic aspect, sorry, from an innovative aspect, there are so many benefits of recruiting a diverse workforce, I think a lot of business leaders know it, but you still need to recognize why you're not.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah.

Monica Beckles

And then have that commitment to do something about it.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah. So, when you say that, I'm now thinking about it. So the stats have probably been the same for, as you say, quite a long time now, but it feels, for me as someone from the younger generation, we see a lot more protests about it, a lot more publicity is being more pushed around this agenda. So it feels like the stats would have moved quite a bit forward, quite fast. I guess it's just more in the limelight now.

Monica Beckles

I really, really wish I could say that that is the case Kieran but unfortunately, it is not. If you look at the statistics for disabled people in the workforce, they're going the wrong way. There are more unemployed disabled people now than there were, a year or so ago. If you look at the percentage of black leaders in the workforce, since 2014, it's moved by 0.1% and it was incredibly low to begin with. So, in almost every area, there's just not the movement that, the discussions or the comments, and the talk that you hear in business suggests there would be.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting.

Monica Beckles

Yes, sorry, I just said, It therefore just demonstrates that it is taught because it's not being backed by action.

Kieran McNeill

It's really interesting, especially working in the social media world because it feels like whenever I do log on to a social media platform, there are a lot of posts, talking about female leaders and celebrating it or celebrating like a black-owned company, it feels like there's a lot of that. I'm guessing it feels like there's a lot of it because there was just none of that being shared beforehand.

Monica Beckles

Yeah, and I think a black-owned company, that's one thing where a black person decides they're going to start a company because they want to work in a particular field, and maybe they're not getting the opportunity to do so. But in terms of your typical organisation, recruiting a black person into a leadership position, or management position, whatever it may be, it's very, very few and far between. I think with females, there has been some growth, but not anywhere near as fast as it should be, considering the benefits that organizations get from women in leadership positions.

Kieran McNeill

That's really interesting, especially the statistic you mentioned about disability and how it's actually gone the completely other end of the spectrum, because it feels and looks like everything is moving, even if it's a bit slow in the right direction. But to hear that, is quite a big statistic, especially when it's disabilities involved, moving in the opposite direction. It's a bit concerning, but I guess there is not necessarily a magic formula that can just come in and fix everything and at the moment it's a very slow process, I would imagine.

Monica Beckles

Yeah, exactly and as I said, it's going to take recognition and acceptance and a commitment to actually do something about it. That requires some honest discussions and some very, as I mentioned in the training last week, some uncomfortable positions to be in, to actually get to that point and recognising what needs to change.

Kieran McNeill

because you've worked with so many businesses, was there a case where you started working with a business and they believed that they were diverse, they were inclusive and they were on the equality side of things? But then, in reality, you have to sit them down and tell them, you're not like you think you are, but you're not and here's why?

Monica Beckles

I can't think of a specific example in that respect but there is a company that I worked with a few years back, and I encouraged them to recruit a more diverse workforce and they took it on board, it took some discussion, but they took it on board, and we undertook some targeted recruitment so that we could go and recruit with predominantly younger individuals.

We went to some colleges and universities and with some targeted leaflets and campaigns to try and recruit workers from an ethnic background, let's say, but what was evident was that when we were very successful and we recruited a large percentage of people into the business, and it really added benefit in so many ways and made it much easier, actually, for us to recruit people moving forward. Because when you see people that look like you, you're more inclined to be comfortable in that space, and you're more inclined to want to go to that space.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah.

Monica Beckles

But what didn't happen, was, they didn't really move up into leadership position, so that moves on to the sort of inclusivity part. I think a lot of businesses do that, where they think they are diverse and inclusive because they can tick the box to say, oh, a percentage of our workforce are from this background, or this background, or have this characteristic. But when you really look at the organisation, and who's getting involved in the key parts of the organisation, making the decisions, that sort of thing. they're not really included in them in that aspect. So diversity, yes. Inclusivity, not so.

Kieran McNeill

No, and I can picture a few scenarios, maybe that you've worked with a company, you go through a process with them, you teach them everything they need to know, and then you leave, and then it just falls off. It doesn't get implemented as much, I can imagine that happens a bit.

Monica Beckles

Yeah, unless the true commitment is there, and they're doing it for the right reasons, and understand why they're doing it and can see the benefits of it, then they're not going to stick to it.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah, you said right at the beginning of the podcast, that it's something that companies feel like they have to do a session or at least nowadays, whether they take it serious or not, they just have to at least show that they are trying, and that can mean a one off session, nothing else.

Monica Beckles

Yeah, it can be you get some kind of training in and you think, "oh, you know, we've delivered diversity training to our workforce, or we've delivered unconscious bias training to our workforce", and they think that's the panacea and that's going to fix everything, and it just is not. They need to look at their whole systems, their processes, as I said, the inclusivity, whether they're on the management team, whether they're consulted, whether they have a say in how the business operates, how inclusive they actually are.

There's a lot of areas in business that, businesses say, "okay, we're going to do that, because it's what we need to do, we need to try and be more sustainable, we need to try and be more diverse, we need to have corporate social responsibility, whatever it may be." but is there a real commitment to do it? Do they understand why and do they have the strategy and the action plans in place to do it? Once they see the benefits, they will continue to do so but unless you've put the work in and are committed to it, to see those benefits, then as you say, you're gonna drop off.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah.

Monica Beckles

You're gonna drop off.

Kieran McNeill

So if there was a company that I wouldn't say believes in DEI, but they were struggling to start implementing it. Because you just mentioned the benefits and the positives there. what would be some of those benefits and positives, you tell a company, you know, if you do this training, and you do implement this properly, this is what might happen?

Monica Beckles

There are so many areas, number one, performance, you know, there's stats out there that show, McKinsey has done research over the years that show they're 35% more likely to get higher returns in business, a diverse and inclusive workforce. Harvard's done research that shows it impacts on market share, which is going to have financial returns as well, as I touched on, it's going to help them recruit because the younger generation looks for that particularly and I think the thing to really think about, what businesses need to stop and think about is, 48% if you just look at the race perspective, and there are so many areas of diversity that we can touch on, but if you just look at it from the race perspective, 48% of Generation Z are from black or ethnic minorities. So unless businesses start to look at their commitment to diversity, then the pool that they're going to be recruiting from is going to be rather challenging for them, because they're going to be excluding a large percentage of the available workforce.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah, well, pretty much half as you said so.

Monica Beckles

Exactly. So businesses really need to think about their commitment to diversity, from not just race, but gender, disability, sexuality, all those sorts of things, they need to give some consideration to that.

Kieran McNeill

So if there was a business and they wanted to start their journey, they wanted to start being diverse and inclusive, they want to start the journey of being in that direction. What would be the best kind of starting point that you would recommend a business to begin with?

Monica Beckles

I'd say number one, they need to assess where they are, right now and ask themselves some difficult questions and probably get somebody in to help them, to ask those questions and to examine where they are, and why they are where they are. Because if they hadn't done it so far, they probably need some help.

Kieran McNeill

Like an outside coaching or training session?

Monica Beckles

Yeah, exactly. So as you know, in the training that we did last week, we asked ourselves some pretty difficult questions, how we see ourselves, why our friendship groups are as they are, or how we felt in particular situations. Those are the sorts of things that businesses need to sort of examine, and business leaders need to look at themselves and say, okay, forget the workplace for now, who am I? what am I biases? who do I surround myself with? and who do I let into my inner circle? who do I trust and why?

So if business leaders can look at that, and then look at it, across their workforce, and get somebody in to help them do that, and then just have the really difficult conversations. One of the things that happened after the George Floyd murder, during the pandemic, was, businesses really started to examine themselves and that's when we thought there was going to be a real change, and some areas have changed, diversity on the face of it has changed in, look at the TV, the amount of people you see or different races in adverts and on TV, you can definitely notice there has been a change.

So those sort of conversations that were had and the acknowledgements of, maybe things weren't done very well in the past, and we need to do things better, needs to be had, but you need to understand why things weren't done as well in the past.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah.

Monica Beckles

Do things better moving forward, and then put the steps in place to do it, but you need the help of somebody who understands it, and who can help you implement those steps, and then embed those steps into the culture of the organisation.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah, you need someone from outside of your company to come in and be able to give you the proper, tough talk instead of someone from inside the company doing it.

Monica Beckles

Yeah, most of the time you do, unless the leader goes out and goes on a training course, with a firm commitment to embed what is learned, there's various ways of doing it. But if you haven't done it so far, there's a reason you haven't done it so far and that needs to be examined and that's sort of the first step. So that's why I said about the uncomfortable part, we need to be honest and sometimes being honest about our biases, and how we view things, can be an uncomfortable place to be. But if you don't have that pain, then you're not going to get the gains out of it, so that needs to happen.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah. You mentioned our training session, and there was one part in particular in the training session, where we talked about DEI and the "D" was diversity, the "I" was inclusion, but the "E" was interesting because you asked us what the "E" stood for. I remember some of us, some of us said "equality", and I said equality. But it turns out it wasn't, it was equity and could just touch upon, the difference between equality and equity in that sense.

Monica Beckles

So historically, the "E" has stood for equality, because people thought, okay, if you give everybody the same, if you give them the same opportunity, to give them the same tools, then they're all going to have the same opportunity to achieve something or they can all progress in the same way and over time, it has been appreciated that that is actually not the case. We need to meet people where they're at and give them the support and the tools they need from their own point of disadvantage.

So there are certain people who, in the workplace need very little support for whatever reason it may be, they're just in a position of more advantage than their colleague who sits next to them. So if you give them the same tools, then the gap in the advantage is going to stay, it's going to remain and you're not going to close that gap. So the way to close that gap, is to recognise and meet each person where they're at and if one needs twice as much as the person next to them because they're coming from a greater point of disadvantage, then that's what businesses need to do, and that's the equity part in it. So it's about giving what is equitable, and what is needed, from the point that person is actually at, and not, the same across the board because that doesn't close that gap at all.

You showed us this great image of three people looking into a stadium, and they were all of different heights, one tall, one medium, one small, and they each had one box, and that's equal, because they all have one box, but obviously the smaller people couldn't look into the stadium because the equity wasn't spread accordingly.

Yeah, yeah, exactly and that is an image from a businessman having a conversation and trying to explain a few years ago, why equality doesn't work, why it needs to be equity and he came up with this fantastic drawing, that clearly illustrated it and it's just gone viral and it's been used in so many areas, but it's the best example that I've seen that clearly demonstrates the difference between equality and equity, and why you have to meet somebody where they're at their own point of disadvantage.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah and just to end it off. there was one question I did want to ask about you, and how you personally feel about it. But when you see companies, for example, on social media, and they're promoting, Pride or Black History month, etc. and there's no one in that team that fits that agenda. I was kind of curious what your opinion on that was, overall.

Monica Beckles

Again, unfortunately, that comes back to the kind of the tick box, look at us, we believe we're committed to this, when clearly if you don't have anybody in your team, that looks like that group that you're trying to represent. That's where you really need to ask yourself that question and it's something that's gone on for years, you have this black history month in October and businesses jump on the bandwagon and they start to do all these initiatives because they're committed to it, and they want to level the playing field, and then the other 11 months of the year, why are you so committed in October, when it's that month, but you're not demonstrating it in the other months of the year.

So for me, I'd love it, if there wasn't a Black History Month, because there wasn't a need for it, there wasn't a Pride month, because everybody was treated equally and therefore, there wasn't a need to highlight those individuals during that time. That's where we need to get to, you know, still having a month dedicated for that, we need to ask ourselves why we're still doing that.

Kieran McNeill

I'm glad you mentioned that, because I've seen a few people come out, for example, I've seen quite a few black creators on social media come out and they mentioned that they don't particularly like Black History Month because it feels like it's forced into a month about the black culture, but it should be the whole year, not just restricted to that one month.

Monica Beckles

Absolutely, totally, totally agree and the same with pride and all the other initiatives that try and sort of highlight the focus on a particularly marginalized group. Actually, let's make them not a marginalised group and lets have the same across the year for everybody, and then it won't be necessary.

Kieran McNeill

Yeah, that's a good plan and the thing is we're seeing more trends in modern years, for example, I think in certain sports, they do, and they take the knee at the start of the game, for example, to represent black culture. But I think over time, it loses its meaning, once it's done for a few years but nothing's actually changing.

Monica Beckles

Yeah, and they've made a decision this year from my understanding of not to do it on a regular basis, every game because of exactly that reason, because they've been takeing a knee for this period of time but at the same time, they're reporting instances of, discrimination and abuse on the playing field and the governing bodies in the sport aren't really demonstrating that they're in any way committed to, anti-discrimination or levelling the playing field for want of a better description.

If you do something over and over and over, you don't notice it as much, but it needs to be a wider commitment through the sport so that the abuse that happens to players on the field is dealt with properly and there's a clear message given to individuals who think they can go there and do that, but it will not be tolerated and to teams who allow their fans in and allow them to behave in that way that it won't be tolerated.

Unfortunately, some of the ridiculous fines that they give out and some of the punishment they give, basically show we don't really care, but we need to do something about it. So we're just going to give you a slap on the wrist, and we're going to give you this fine, which is absolutely nothing, just to show that we have an issue with it, when really, truly deep down, it doesn't suggest that they do.

Kieran McNeill

And just some closing thoughts, but if anyone would like to get in contact with you or use your service, how can they find you?

Monica Beckles

The company is called Inside Advantage and the website is insideadvantage.co.uk. So they can look up the details on there. It's got a contact number and everything and they can contact us via the website or through the number. So yeah, that's us.

Kieran McNeill

Thank you for coming on the podcast, Monica. It was a really insightful chat and I'm going away from this learning more, and even more than what I learned from the previous training session we did the other week. I hope that it when we do next catch up that maybe the statistics or companies are a bit more in the right direction.

Monica Beckles

Yes, let's hope so. Let's definitely hope that is the case. But thank you, Kieran. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Really enjoyed my day with your colleagues last week, really enjoyed the training and thank you for inviting me on to discuss this subject today. Really appreciate it and I've enjoyed it.

Kieran McNeill

Thank you, Monica.

Monica Beckles

Thank you. Take care.