Curious to learn about our hiring method but looking for an example of how it works in reality? We wrote up a case study that details the work we did with our client Storyroot to establish their equitable hiring process.

After starting Storyroot in 2019, the founder, Katie James, was ready to hire in 2020. She wanted to make sure the company’s hiring processes reflected Storyrooty’s values from the very start, to make sure they help drive the company’s DNA as it scales.

What hiring tactics have you used to build a strong organizational culture? Before working with us, a lot of our clients tried to do this by screening candidates for “culture fit.” This usually means they were looking to get a good gut feeling when talking to a candidate. But it turns out our gut feelings are largely impacted by our unconscious biases. (This is a big part of why we wind up with homogeneous teams.)

To be blunt: “We screen for culture it” is usually code for, “We let our gut instincts/in-group biases make hiring decisions for us.” This isn’t an equitable way to evaluate candidates, and is a huge roadblock to hiring strong talent and building diverse teams.

Referring to individual people as “diverse” is harming your DEI efforts – especially in hiring.

Here’s why (and what language you should use instead).

I said this in passing to a client last week. Later, they said it (and the follow-up discussion we had about it) fundamentally changed the way they thought about how to recruit stronger and more diverse talent. So I thought I'd tell you about it here.

For most of my life, the vast majority of my closest friends have been, like me: white, Jewish women. I’m grateful for these relationships, especially since these are two parts of my identity that are marginalized in our society, and building community helps me feel solidarity and the joy of these identities. But as I got older, I started to come to terms with how white my friend group was. For a while, I sat with it, feeling shame I wasn’t sure how to process.

With the dismantling of abortion rights in the US, several of my clients have reached out to ask for guidance on how to support their staff in the aftermath. I’ve written some (imperfect, because I, too, am gutted by this news) guidance that I hope will be useful to leaders in other organizations as well.

With each white supremacist attack on our democracy and the values that guide us, I, like many of you, feel overcome with sadness, fear, and anger. When my exhaustion gets the best of me, I begin to feel numb. I know my go-to coping strategy is to dive into work. I have told myself that I can (or should!) “focus on work as a distraction.” But I’d like to offer you a different, more values-aligned practice we can try together: focus on work as a way to do your part in dismantling white supremacy. Here’s what I’m practicing:

Like many of you, I've felt crippled by grief this past weekend. I'm grieving George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, James Scurlock, Tony McDade, and many others whose names I'll never know. As I watch police increase violence targeting black people protesting across the country amidst a global pandemic and economic recession, it feels like too much to bear or even comprehend-- especially as I continue to grieve the comforts and routines I've altered for the sake of public health.

COVID-19 has put a lot of pressure on both personal and professional values. Companies are navigating new problems and tough decisions every day, and many are worried about compromising the diversity, equity, and inclusion values that they’ve worked to shape. Workers are facing challenges they’ve never had before, and looking to employers for support through difficult transitions.

Managers who are modeling their company’s values to build strength and resilience during this challenging time start by acknowledging two things…