How Managers Can Practice Daily DEI and Create Equitable Work Cultures

Episode 478 | Host: Emilie Aries | Guest: Alida Miranda-Wolff

How can managers navigate the ever-changing landscape of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging?

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging or DEIB has been a focus in workforce development for a number of years. While most people grasp the overall intention of these organizational frameworks—fair and equitable treatment for all workers—the specifics are nuanced and easily misunderstood, and they can be difficult to implement, especially in the face of recent pushback from vocal opponents. 

Alida Miranda-Wolff started her DEIB practitioner journey in venture capital. In 2019, the influx of clients requesting her help in developing their own programs prompted her to start Ethos Talent, a full-service DEIB and employee advocacy firm that serves companies all around the world. She is the author of two Amazon bestsellers: Cultures of Belonging: Building Inclusive Organizations That Last, and this year’s The First-Time Manager: DEI, and the host of the podcast Care Work with Alida Miranda-Wolff

In this episode, Alida shares her passion for and intricate knowledge of this field as we look at how support has fluctuated over the years and what leaders—and first-time managers in particular—can do to facilitate the day-to-day integration of practices deeply intertwined with basic human rights.

The difference between equity, equality, and inclusion

A clear understanding of each DEIB component is essential for true integration into the workplace. Alida simplifies the difference between equity and inclusion in this way: equity is a process, and inclusion is an outcome.

Managers striving to incorporate DEIB initiatives into their teams are responsible for establishing both equity and equality. Equality is achieved when everyone has the same access to the information. However, to achieve equity, the manager is also responsible for ensuring that the people with access have all the available resources to use or understand that information. For example, making the company financials available to all employees is equality. But it’s only equitable if you then make sure all the employees have the training and tools necessary to parse dense, perplexing graphs and charts intended for accountants.

Inclusivity, then, is achieved when those practices result in all employees feeling like they are meaningfully included in the group. This is more subjective than equity, since each employee will have different comfort levels and backgrounds affecting their participation.

Four years of a changing DEIB landscape

Alida launched Ethos Talent before 2020, prior to the murder of George Floyd and the surge of Black Lives Matter movements that spurred an unprecedented amount of DEIB action in their wake. Her team was well-positioned to play a part in the rise of the discipline—across the country, employees demanded that their companies establish DEIB programs, and 55% of new jobs and roles fell under this umbrella.

In 2021, the pandemic-related layoffs of the previous year pivoted to a job boom and employee shortage. Suddenly workers had the upper hand, and their continuing demands saw a lot of best practices for DEIB develop, as even companies with deeply ingrained anti-DEIB structures struggled to step up.

Unfortunately, by 2022, 33% of those early DEIB jobs had been eliminated. Since then, DEIB has continued to fall off in terms of corporate interest—most of the 7.5 billion dollars earmarked for initiatives back in 2020 has been clawed back, and many politicians in conservative states are passing legislation to make it harder for organizations to develop diversity-oriented programs. While the percentage of American workers who believe in the importance of DEIB (56%) hasn’t changed since 2020, perspectives among those who hold the decision-making power lean heavily toward the employer’s, not the worker’s, rights.

DEIB and performance reviews

In her most recent book, Alida discusses a very practical application of her field: how to approach performance reviews from a DEIB lens. I asked her how a manager might navigate a situation where an underperformer happens to also be minoritized in some way. It’s common for the manager to feel hesitation to give critical feedback for fear it will be misconstrued, but Alida stresses that this hesitation is anti-DEIB in practice.

What Alida calls “sloppy sentimentalism”—and Radical Candor author Kim Scott calls “ruinous empathy”—is a big reason people with these identities are more likely to “middle out” in their jobs. Managers, fearful of their actions being boiled down to bias, are less willing to give the employee the feedback that would enable them to advance their skills. Ironically, this results in minority workers’ growth still being limited because of their identity, in just a more subtle, passive-aggressive way.

One thing Alida stresses managers should keep in mind is that performance reviews are about more than just how they are received by that one employee. The review tells every direct report how that manager is likely to manage them. If you’re collaborative and set clear expectations for what success and failure look like for every employee, regardless of identity, you are fostering equity and belonging across the board.

Listen in for even more

In our conversation, Alida goes even deeper into the difficulties faced by practitioners in today’s fraught DEIB landscape. She shares her educated opinion on decentralized versus segmented DEIB and offers an insightful take on my question: is DEIB anything more than just good management?

Where are you seeing the benefits of DEIB in your workplace? If you’re a manager, how are you integrating these concepts? Share your thoughts about today’s episode on our Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn.

Related links from today’s episode:

The First-Time Manager: DEI by Alida Miranda-Wolff

“Care Work with Alida Miranda-Wolff” podcast

Connect with Alida on LinkedIn

Learn more about Alida and her work

Work with Ethos

Bias in Feedback Decision Tree

Episode 388, How To Leverage Your Power and Push For More Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Episode 423, Being White and Latina

Ezra Klein affordability crisis article, “The Economic Theory That Explains Why Americans Are So Mad”

Intercept diversity and social justice article, “the Evolution of Union Busting”

Alida’s interview with Truthout “Here’s How Workers Can Build Power Amid Corporate Co-optation of DEI Programs”

Philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon’s work “Black Skin, White Masks”

Frantz Fanon’s other work “the Wretched of the Earth”

Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

LEVEL UP: A Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise

Bossed Up Courage Community

Bossed Up LinkedIn Group

Level up your leadership and management skills:

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