Diversity Initiatives are the Solution with Cristina Duke of PowerToFly and James Schneider of PepsiCo

What extra steps are you making to promote diversity in your workplace? Learn how recruiters can level up their game with Cristina Duke Account Manager at PowerToFly and James Schneider of PepsiCo. They discuss the importance of diversity initiatives, with sparks flying as they share tales of triumph and challenges of these programs. Also, keep an eye out for PowerToFly's knowledge-packed services on diversity education. We always can do better to promote equality in the workplace, so this is an episode you won't want to miss.

This is a special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl.

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Episode Transcript

Shally Steckerl (00:07):
And we are back live at the HR Tech Expo on the
conference room floor in theOleeo booth, as Ryan says,
powered by Oleeo.

Ryan Leary (00:18):
Powered by Oleeo.
Yeah, we're here at the contentlounge, been here for two days.
We are, we're winding down.
We've got two hours left andwe've got two people on the show
that we've been trying to geton.
For probably the last, well, oneof them for the last day and a
half.
Every time she comes back we gotsomeone else on and then and

(00:40):
then Jim for the last couplehours at least so Why don't we
kick off with some intros?
Introduce yourself.

Cristina Duke (00:45):
Hi, I'm Christina Duke.
I'm an account manager at Powerto Fly.

James Schneider (00:50):
What is Power to Fly?

Cristina Duke (00:51):
We are a diversity recruiting and
retention platform.

Ryan Leary (00:55):
And we've got Jim Schneider.

James Schneider (00:57):
We go way back.
Oh yeah.
Way back.
2009?
It's gotta be.
2007?
Something like that?

Ryan Leary (01:03):
Yeah.
But you've changed.
You've changed roles over thelast couple of years.

James Schneider (01:05):
Yeah.
Yeah.
After 17 years at PepsiCo,sourcing, talent acquisition,
actually started my own company.
So now I have 10 consultants andwe specialize in Optimization
and implementations of CRMs andATS systems.
So, yeah, having a lot of fun.
Got it.

Ryan Leary (01:25):
Alright, so, lots to talk about here.
Shally, I know, have you gottento walk around yet?

Shally Steckerl (01:30):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I've been walking around alot.

Ryan Leary (01:32):
I don't know what's going on out on the floor.
Have you all seen anythinginteresting?
What's, what's the buzz abouthere?

Cristina Duke (01:39):
I've seen some great swag.

Ryan Leary (01:41):
Um, what swag?
Let's talk swag.
Because I, the plan is around 2o'clock to walk around and just
Swag.

Shally Steckerl (01:49):
Pick up whatever's left.
Yeah, exactly.

Cristina Duke (01:51):
I need the good stuff.
Where's the good stuff?
Cause you need another, like,bag full of pens and stuffed
animals, right?
Um, what?
Mints.
Chapstick.

James Schneider (01:59):
Yeah, exactly.

Shally Steckerl (02:00):
Yeah.
Anybody have headphones?

Ryan Leary (02:03):
You know, Bounty, Bounty Jobs had headphones.
Yeah?
Years ago, and I still havethem.
Nice.
And they're very good.
They're Bluetooth, like, rightwhen Bluetooth started.
And I still have them.
I have three pairs of them.

Shally Steckerl (02:15):
Nice.
Wow.
Fantastic.
But, you know what I want to saythough, I've been walking
around, I don't see a lot ofdiversity.
Uh, I don't mean like diversityof people in the event, I mean,
I don't see a lot of diversitybeing talked about in these
booths.
Last year it was all over theplace, and this year not so
much, what happened?

Cristina Duke (02:34):
Yeah, it's, it's interesting, it's kind of sad, I
feel like, you know, diversitywas a, a major trend there,
especially in 2021, andEspecially now when the market
has turned, like, what we'refinding is, it's actually those
roles, um, and those programsthat are the first to be cut,
and get budget cuts too, whichis really sad, because if you

(02:56):
think about it, like, you know,aside from just the, Being the
right thing, like, diverse teamsperform better, and you would
think that, you know, a companywould want to invest in a
workforce that is alsorepresentative of, like, their
consumer base.

Ryan Leary (03:13):
You would think so.
And, and this is, that's whatthey said last year.
Yeah.
Well, and I, I, I agree.
I I don't see much of it here.
I think they're sticking to thebuzzwords of 23.
Yeah.
Which is playing buzzword bingo.
Don't say it.
ai.
Oh God.

James Schneider (03:27):
Yeah.

Ryan Leary (03:28):
There you go.
But question on diversity.
We were talking about thisyesterday.
The, I'm not sure if you were onthis, on this show, Shalley, but
is, so recruiters are, areresponsible to submit diverse
slates to Canada.

Shally Steckerl (03:42):
Right.
You're supposed to diverse,you're supposed to submit the
best possible talent.

Ryan Leary (03:48):
The best possible, we're supposed to, right.
But, in reality, the, the, thedirective down from the manager
is you submit five people, threediverse, two not, whatever,
right?
Yep.
Is that the role of therecruiter?

Shally Steckerl (04:03):
I don't think so.
Is

James Schneider (04:04):
that the responsibility of the recruiter?
I...
You guys know my backgroundbeing with PepsiCo, it was in
the DNA of the organization andthe company, so it's something I
just always did naturally, butyou know, I mean over the years,
you guys all saw that it becamemore of how can you pull in more
sourcing, how can you pull inmore talent at the top of the

(04:25):
pipeline, pull that down intoyour funnel.
I think Christina, you guys withPower to Fly, Definitely you're
doing some great stuff on thatfront.
Um, you know, if there's othertools that are redacted and
reducing bias in the processthat, you know, you're seeing
some of those tools that havebeen, uh, merging or purchased
or, or within other, othergroups now, but yeah, man, I

(04:47):
would, to answer your question,I would definitely say that
it's, it's all in the strengthof your pipeline that you're
building, right?

Ryan Leary (04:53):
Right.
Well, and, and you, you, I thinkyou said it perfectly.
It's in the DNA.
Yeah.
And, and that's what I'm gettingat.
I feel like it's gotta be, Topdown, coming from the company,
the recruiters, like Shaly said,get the best possible

Shally Steckerl (05:06):
talent.
It shouldn't be our job to just

Ryan Leary (05:08):
get the best.
The pool of talent shouldalready

James Schneider (05:10):
be represented.
Correct.
Agree.

Cristina Duke (05:13):
The recruiter wants to fill the role, like,
and to Shaly's point, they wantthe best talent.
But here's the thing, like, whatif the best talent, what if you
don't know about the besttalent?
That's the problem.
And, or, the best talent...
Isn't even considering a job atyour company because, guess
what, if they're good at whatthey do, they're probably
gainfully employed.

(05:34):
And so, there's this great quotethat talks about how, you know,
talent is distributed equally,but opportunity is not.
They liked what

Ryan Leary (05:43):
you said.

Cristina Duke (05:45):
You know, a lot of companies, like, yes, there
are some that are putting in,like, the Rooney Rule or, you
know, they're trying to, okay,by the hiring manager interview,
there has to be at least onequote unquote, like,
underrepresented candidate, butat the end of the day, I wonder,
like, what is the incentive?
Because we all say, yeah, youknow, diverse companies perform
better, but you have companies,too, that are also putting in,

(06:08):
like, bonus plans or performancemetrics around, like, actually
hiring from underrepresentedgroups.
Yeah.
Um, to that point, even if arecruiter, let's say, brings a
diverse candidate slate, we haveto think about the hiring
managers, you know, they're theexecutive decision makers in
many ways, and not in a bad way,but, you know, everyone has

(06:31):
bias, and a lot of hiringmanagers are turning to their
own networks and, you know,their own alumni associations
and the people that are likethem, um.
And, you know, that's where youfind teams that really start to
be lacking in things like genderparity, racial and ethnic
parity, but, you know, diversitygoes beyond just that, too.
It's sexual orientation, it'sgender identity, it's veteran

(06:54):
status, it's ability status.

Ryan Leary (06:57):
Yeah.
So how, how's Power to Fly, so,okay, let me back up a minute.
Today, multiple shows havetalked about retention being the
new recruiting.
And that's kind of been thetheme for today for whatever
reason and I'm looking over atyour booth and I see you've
retained.
What are you all doing forretention?

Cristina Duke (07:16):
Yeah, so we do, um, part of our software is an
LMS that is a DEIV, diversity,equity, inclusion, belonging,
database, knowledge base, if youwill, and there's a lot of
training in there that isactually for people leaders and
The, the ones that are in thathiring manager position and

(07:38):
talking about, like, what arethey doing to elevate a culture
of inclusion?
Like, what are they doing tomake sure that they're promoting
allyship and advocacy amongsttheir teams?
Uh, what are they doing todevelop their, their middle
management, for example?
So,

Shally Steckerl (07:54):
it's education.
Absolutely.
Yeah, educating, buildingawareness, right?
Yeah.

James Schneider (08:01):
Yes.
Also, the other thing is ERG.
Right?
ERG.
ERG.
ERG.
Uh, assistance also internally,right?

Cristina Duke (08:06):
Yeah, so a lot of content too around DEIB
programming and building outemployee resource groups, you
know, those are great for peopleto find community and connection
within an organization and youthink about how are we um, you
know, fostering collaborationlike cross functionally and the
ERGs are a great way to do that.

James Schneider (08:28):
Yeah, but what I would say is that from a, from
a standpoint of You know, anumber of years ago when you saw
everybody, you know, moving intomore of a focus around DEI and,
and everything that, they did a,they did a okay job of finding
and sourcing and bringing in thetalent.
We won't say they did a greatjob, but the thing is, is about

(08:49):
the retention because whenpeople would join the
organization, they would findthat, okay, it wasn't, it
wasn't, it wasn't supported.
There's not a lot of folks thatare like, or look like me.
And then, a lot of the ERGs,that's why I think what you guys
do with helping to, how tofoster and stand up those
programs that are so strong andhelp with, you know, the

(09:10):
retention, I think is soimportant.
So, I wanted to call that out.
I, I was, I love that conceptthat you guys do.
Thank you,

Shally Steckerl (09:16):
Jim.
Yeah, because it's a whole, it'sa whole, it's a whole ecosystem,
right?
You can, you can make therecruiter responsible for, hey,
you gotta increase the, the topof the funnel.
But then...
What if your hiring managersaren't responding to that?
And well, okay, so now you makethe hiring managers responsible.
You've got to hire diversity.
Okay.
So now you have the diversityand what if the organization

(09:37):
doesn't support it?
Now they don't stay.
So you've got to work on thatretention.
And then the last piece, I thinkthat's, that's missing there.
Developing the talent.
Yeah.
So now you're developed.
Now you, you know, your gap isdeveloping that talent so that
they're available for the next.

James Schneider (09:57):
Yeah.
Browne, you know?
So...
One thing that I woulddefinitely say is from, uh, kind
of a, my time at PepsiCo, thatone of the, the parts of the
secret sauce I think that reallyhelped was...
The strength of the ERGs that wehad, and let me just say for
anybody that doesn't know ERG,Employee Resource Group, right?
And so we had so many of thosethat the leadership was

(10:19):
incredible.
It was well funded from ourorganization, and it was every
senior leader within theorganization had an organization
that they were the sponsor of.
And it was, and it was, but itwas not Being an organization
that you would be a part of aswell, so.
But the thing is, is why thathelped from a recruiting

(10:40):
standpoint is that I could, if Iwanted anybody who was a
candidate to be able to learnmore about the organization, I
could just set up an informalcall or any type of thing with
any of the, any of the folksthat were with any of the ERGs.
Or even, we had some situationwhere we did interview days, we
would actually have the ERG.
So, if it was like from one ofour conferences and we're

(11:03):
bringing in a number of folks,we would have an ERG event at
the hotel the night before theywould do, you know, do the
interview day.

Cristina Duke (11:10):
And that's a brilliant way to engage the
employee resource groups in away that can also, you know,
give back to the business.
Um, I saw this stat recently, itwas, it was from Glassdoor, but
it talked about that the vastmajority of job seekers trust.
Just another employee when itcomes to diversity and
inclusion, much significantlyhigher than they trust a

(11:32):
recruiter, a senior leader atthe company even, or even like
the company's website.
Um, but going back to somethingthat you were saying about just,
um, the recruiting and retentionspace, it's, it's highly
fragmented.
And so really what Power to Flyis here to be is that end to end
solution.

(11:52):
All the way through the talentengagement journey, because when
you think about something froma, you know, with diversity and
inclusion, it has to be aholistic strategy.
To the point you were making,you can't just do part of it, or
it won't work.
And so we're really here to helphave that, like, seamless
process.

Shally Steckerl (12:10):
What do you, what are you finding has been
the downside of the, theincreased interest in Diversity
as a result of some of thetragic events that happened in
the last few years.
In other words, um, there's theupside with, you know, the
things that happened shouldn'thave happened, they're horrible,

(12:32):
but there's been a benefit inthat it gave more attention to
the fact that we needed to dosomething about it, right?
But what has been the negativeimpact?
Has there been any class or anyprotected group that has
suffered as a result of the...
Extra attention?
Has it had a negative impact aswell?

Cristina Duke (12:55):
You mean all the, the cis white men that are
suddenly?
No, no,

Shally Steckerl (12:59):
no.
No, I'm talking about, you know,so we're, we're, we're paying
attention to, we're, we'regiving more attention to
something that deservedattention anyway, but now this
has been brought, like it's beenhighlighted.
And that's the, that's the goodside.
Has there been any negativeimpact in other areas?

(13:20):
So what, you know, if a companyonly has a certain amount of
money, only has a certain amountof employees, what have they
traded for?

Cristina Duke (13:28):
Yeah, that, that's so funny, because it's
usually like the cis white menthat, that say, like, I'm, you
know, we're losing opportunitybecause somebody else is getting
opportunity.
I think, like...
I'm not saying

Shally Steckerl (13:38):
that, I'm wondering what is, what was
traded.
Something had to, right, yourcompany has a certain amount of
funds, a certain amount ofpeople.
Something, what was it that gaveway to create that opportunity?
Not, not specifically whatgender or what, but like, what,
where did the funding come from?

Cristina Duke (14:00):
That's a great question.
And that's what we're actuallyfinding, you know, with like the
economic downturn that likethese diversity rolls are being
cut, talent acquisition, likebudgets are being cut.
But I think like where the real.
Funding, and this goes back toeducation and where power lies
in organizations, is with likethe functional hiring leaders.
You know, you look at like a VPof sales or a sales team or an

(14:24):
engineering team or a technologyorganization, you know, those
are the ones that are actuallylike having to find the talent
to fill the roles and I thinkthat's truly like where the
budget should come from.
Um, another way to answer yourquestion around, like, what is
some of, like, the negativeimpact, I think, you know,
suddenly there was all thisscrutiny on diversity and

(14:46):
inclusion, and I, I think, like,the pendulum sort of swung in
the other way, it actuallybecame quite divisive in some
circumstances.
So

Shally Steckerl (14:56):
you had to almost, like, spend on the
proving that you were doing it.
Right.

Cristina Duke (15:01):
Rather than spend on the doing it.
But then you have all thesegroups, right, and you think
about it, like, You know, it'snot, um, it's not the onus of
the person from theunderrepresented group to come
and educate the rest of us.
It should not be.
And so I think a lot of thesecompanies, you know, and you
know, I think everybody we workwith has their heart in the

(15:22):
right place.
But it became like, okay, now wesuddenly care about diversity
and inclusion.
We're standing up our employeeresource groups, Hey, you know.
Black employee resource groupslike please come do a
presentation for our company andtalk about what your experience
is well in reality It's nottheir responsibility to do that
and that's where you knowCompanies like power to fly

(15:44):
really come in because it's partof the services that we do
around education as we do thesefireside chats We bring in
external subject matter experts.
We bring in people that aretotally outside of the company
level the playing field everyonecomes in and is as an observer
and You know, through thatparticular offering, it's really
facilitating education throughsharing lived experience.

(16:05):
And it's, like, removes a bit ofthe personal aspect because it's
not necessarily your co workerthere.
Right, you're not puttingsomebody on the onus,

Shally Steckerl (16:13):
yeah.
Yeah.
Like, hey, you're not an expertin this, but can you please,
yeah.
Well, wait, can I, let me backup a little and explain.
So, I'm responsible for the P&L.
And I have the spend, and we hada decision to make at budget
time where to spend the money toinclude diversity programs
intentionally.

(16:33):
So, the company's always beendiverse, and we, we did not
have, uh, we did not have apunitive or, um, reactive reason
to do it.
We just wanted to increase ourefforts.
Not that we had a problem, wewanted to increase them.
And so, it comes down to whatRyan was saying, is it really up

(16:54):
to the recruiter?
I'm saying, no, it shouldn't beup to just the recruiter, but
I'm also saying, as the personin charge of the P& L for
recruiting, I also have to comeup with the money.
And I can't go back to my CFOand say, you know how I had that
3 million last year?
This year I need, uh, 4 million,because I'm adding this other
thing.
My CFO's gonna say, no, you got3 million, you gotta do whatever
you can do with those 3 million,so I'm gonna have to rob Peter

(17:16):
to pay Paul.
This is a really tired oldcliche, which means I've gotta
reduce my spend somewhere else.
In order to, you know, hire acompany like Power to Fly.
See what I mean?
And so, I know what I did, Iknow where I made the cut.
I'm wondering what you're seeingis where are the other cuts
coming from.
Jim, you can take that.
Yeah,

James Schneider (17:35):
I know, I know that one of the things that's,
you know, I speak a lot aboutPepsiCo days because, you know,
hey, hell, we're known a lotfor, uh, you know, all of our
DEI efforts and all the otherstuff, but one of the things
that we did that we, that Iactually had a lot of, I had the
opportunity to name the program,had a lot of blood, sweat,
tears, everything in this one,which was, uh, the Ready to

(17:58):
Return Program.
So what we did is instead ofputting it at a, at AOP, Annual
Operating Plan, for budgetingtime, instead of putting it at a
functional level, we actuallyhad leadership that was like,
from the top down, that wastalking about, okay, we're going
to have a new program and thisis something that we're going to
do.
We're going to have a big bet onwomen in leadership.

(18:19):
And one of the things that, thatwe did was we put together an
internship program for womenthat were returning to the
workforce and really puttogether a whole program around
that with funding and witheverything else that was from
the leadership, not so much at afunctional level, but coming at
it as a strategy for thecorporation.
And so what that was, was thatwas a program to where what

(18:39):
you're trying to do is upskillworkers that, uh, women that had
left and that are wanting tocome back in and all they need
is that little bridge of, ofexpertise to get back.
Up to that, you know, that, youknow, they may have left at a
certain point in their careerand now they're coming back and
they can pop right into almost amanagement or senior management
position.
And so that's one of the thingsthat, uh, we did.

(18:59):
And the ready, ready to returnprogram with a two in the
middle, that's something

Shally Steckerl (19:03):
that's a huge investment, right?
'cause there are people thathad.
Lots of institutional knowledgeknew how things worked.
Yeah, man.
So bringing them back absolutelyis like they got a head start
Absolutely, you don't have tolearn everything

James Schneider (19:14):
about the company But and the thing that's
that's crazy is every singlerecruiter that would look at
their resume would be like noBecause they got no experience.
No big they've got that big gapand you're just like no you
don't realize this So we'remaking sure that we bridge that
gap and then bring them rightback in and no really cool
program So just figured I'd tellyou about that one and it was a
little bit different in the waythat was funded And it was

(19:34):
innovative from the fundingstandpoint, too.
Now,

Ryan Leary (19:38):
alright, so I know we're coming up on time.
So before we head out, we wentthrough what you're seeing on
the floor, what's innovative,what's new, what's missing.
What is missing this year fromthe floor in product that you
were hoping to see?
24?

James Schneider (20:00):
I mean, what, you know, on the other, on the
opposite side, you know, whatis, what's the flavor of the
month that everybody is seeingand what we're all talking
about?
Yeah.
And what everybody is seeing is,I know Shally, you don't wanna
hear it, but Yeah, ai, generalai, you know, how it's working,
how it Mm-Hmm.
How it's doing that.
Um, you know, the, the thingthat I'm not seeing as much, and
I don't know why.

(20:21):
Not, it's there, but you're notseeing a lot of, I don't know, I
don't know if I want to saythis, but the top of the funnel,
but the hardcore sourcing,everything is more about,
because AI is primarily moreabout once somebody hits the
funnel or something like that,um, I'm not seeing, I don't
know, maybe I'm just not walkingaround as much, but as much as,

(20:42):
Very, very, very top of thefunnel for building communities
and everything else.
Now, I know that's what some ofthe stuff that you guys are
doing, but, um, you know, that'sjust for me.
I haven't seen as much.
There should be

Shally Steckerl (20:53):
more of it, is what you're saying.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.

James Schneider (20:55):
Fair enough.
I mean, me being a sourcing guy,you know, I'm always looking
around for some of those things.
You're always gonna go back toyour roots.
Yeah.
Yeah, I

Cristina Duke (21:02):
would have to agree, I mean, I'm seeing a lot,
yes, AI, that's the buzzword,but also a lot of things around,
like, employee engagement,retention, wellness seems to be,
like, a really hot topic rightnow.
But you wish you

Shally Steckerl (21:16):
saw more?

Cristina Duke (21:19):
You know, something that I...
I'm wondering about or you knowhasn't really jumped out to me.
I've seen like trainingplatforms upskilling, right?
Like that's a major issue rightnow is like this aging workforce
and this skills gap But one ofthe things and this is like the
diversity spin on it Is that alot of these trainings are

(21:39):
really made for likeneurotypical people and so I am
you know Like what is theevolution in?
Keep the training so like peoplethat identify as neurodivergent
and that is a whole spectrumthat goes from everything to
like ADD to dyslexia to you knowbeing on the autism spectrum.
Learning styles.
Exactly and so I really wonderlike what are these products

(22:02):
doing in terms of being able toto reach people that you know
don't learn in a typical waywhich is a lot of

James Schneider (22:11):
people.
A lot of people

Ryan Leary (22:12):
yeah.
Well guys this has beenfantastic.
Appreciate the time.
Glad y'all came on.
Yeah, thanks for theopportunity.
Enjoy the rest of your show.
Thank you very much.
Good to meet

Shally Steckerl (22:20):
y'all.

Cristina Duke (22:21):
Thank you.