Wherever you are in the organization, you can help foster inclusivity, but your opportunities for doing so increase exponentially with your level.
Your responsibility to work toward this change also increases dramatically with your privilege. I’ll talk through some concrete ways to magnify the change you effect in your work while doing things you already do anyway:
- Individual change: onboarding new interviewers, being a good example of inclusive meeting facilitation
- Team change: formalizing equitable access to mentorship and opportunities
- Org change: not just joining or creating Diversity/Equity/Inclusivity groups, but also bringing software solutions to recruiting & people teams, start cross-team initiatives i.e. accessibility, bringing equity considerations to data analysis conversations, advocating for pay equity analysis
This talk will give real-world examples of action to take, and the outcomes they’ve had at organizations.
Change doesn’t have to be a top-down initiative; and in fact, inclusive and equitable change seldom starts that way, considering those at the top are seldom from disempowered groups. As managers and individual contributors in positions of relatively large scope and authority, we’re in a great position to bring change to our organizations. As a bonus, the work we do toward these goals often benefits our own careers, and often doesn’t require a ton of time or financial investment.
