December 9, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode of the HR Mixtape, host Shari Simpson sits down with Celeste Warren, Vice President of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence at Merck. They delve into the critical topic of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, emphasizing that inclusion is a shared responsibility across all levels of an organization. This conversation is particularly timely as companies navigate the complexities of employee experience and strive for inclusive leadership in a rapidly changing environment.
Listener Takeaways:
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Learn how to foster a culture of inclusion by engaging all employees in DEI initiatives.
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Discover why aligning employee resource groups with business goals can drive organizational change.
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Explore strategies for measuring the impact of DEI efforts beyond traditional metrics.
Hit “Play” to gain valuable insights on integrating DEI into your organization’s fabric!
Guest(s): Celeste Warren, Vice President, Global Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence, Merck
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
You're listening to the HR Mixtape. Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel, well,
Joining me today is Celeste Warren, Vice President of the Global
(00:22):
Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence at Merck. With
a background in both operations and HR, Celeste brings
So Celeste, thank you for sitting down and having a chat with me today. Well,
thank you for the invitation, Shari. I'm looking forward to it. So
(00:43):
we are talking about DEI, inclusion, whatever
the term is that you are deciding to use today in
society. And I think that one of the things
I love about your perspective is you talk about
inclusion from this perspective that it's everybody's responsibility.
So what does that mean from that shared accountability in
(01:11):
Yeah. So the reason why I say it's everyone's responsibility in
most organizations, in all organizations, you know, you think about the pyramid
structure that exists. About between 20 to
30, maybe 35% of the employee population are leaders, people
managers, et cetera. Their job is to manage
and lead people. The other 70%, they're
(01:35):
individual contributors. So they aren't people managers.
And if an organization is going to move forward with any type of
change, with any type of purpose, you
can't leave it to those 30% of the people to do that. You
have to make sure that everybody is involved and everyone is doing
the role that they need to do. So some things that they can do is
(01:58):
and people say, well, Celeste, you know, you're trying to boil the ocean. No,
I'm not trying to boil the ocean. I'd like for each person. to
just try to boil two or three people around them.
And how you can do that is simple things like if
you are in a meeting and if you're the
manager of a team, one of the things you can do when you're
(02:20):
in a meeting is basically start the meeting out and say, you
know, this is sort of the agenda. Is everyone okay with the agenda? Start
the meeting out with expecting people
expecting for you to ask for their opinions and
ask for their input. If someone's quiet during the
meeting in the first, you know, whatever, 15, 20, 30 minutes, reach
(02:42):
out to them and say, oh, you know, Shari, we haven't heard from you.
Any, you have any ideas on this
particular situation or anything that you want to share, just
in case, you know, they didn't have a chance to sort of formulate their thoughts yet,
or, or they didn't have a chance to get their thoughts in.
So that's one way to do it. Another thing, if you're, if
(03:03):
you're not a people manager, Everyone has
a span of influence. You have people around you that
respect you, that look up to you, that
listen to what you have to say, and you can use that span
of influence that you have to What
I like to say is, you know, send an article out around diversity, equity
(03:24):
and inclusion to your sphere of influence
and say, hey, you know what? On such and such day, we're going to meet in
this conference room, bring your lunch, and we're going to talk
about this article and, you know, just have a conversation. no
obligation or anything, but it gives you an opportunity to not just
educate people, but then get their viewpoints and
(03:46):
have a dialogue around different perspectives. And so those
I really love your example of bringing
that down to that individual contributor level and having those Um,
those moments where you can advocate and educate, you
know, one of the things that I've, I've done through my own kind of DEI journey
(04:06):
is I've, as I have learned the background of
phrases, right? Like there are so many terms
of phrase, so many words that we use that actually have really
bad or derogatory history. And
so, you know, as I learned them, I've shared them with my peers
and been like, hey, you know what? I learned that this background on this, this
(04:27):
phrase that I've heard us say, here's the background on
it. Wanted to let you know so that you could be educated as well. I've never had
anybody respond badly to that. Obviously how you approach it is one thing. You
don't want to. You don't want to shame somebody, right? Because
you're learning like you're learning. But I love that idea of bringing
it down and kind of talking about it from the perspective of how everybody
(04:48):
can be involved in what it means to be an inclusive organization. You
know, I'm curious in the work that you've done, How
have you worked with executives to help them understand that
this concept around DEI, it's not a moral
imperative. It really is a business one. And
(05:10):
Yeah, absolutely. And the way that I approach it is
You know, we have to make sure that our leaders understand
if they don't get it from the heart, you got to appeal to the head. And
everyone, if they're a leader and they want to be a good leader, they want
to make sure that their business is growing. Otherwise,
they may not have a job for very long. And so I use
(05:33):
it from the standpoint of we have to understand our customer base
and we have to understand what is
getting in the way of those customers across a variety of
different identities, different perspectives, different identities,
different experiences and life experiences. We
(05:54):
have to understand what's getting in the way from our product or our service that we
provide of them being able to receive it and get those outcomes
that we want them to have. And so you have to study each
of those customer groups And
one of the things that I like to say is, instead of us interpreting
what we think those customer groups might want or need, it's
(06:17):
good to have someone on the team who is a reflective part
of that customer group. That's one thing. And then the second thing
is not just to have them on the team, but you
want to make sure, so for example, on the marketing team, we're
talking about a particular marketing strategy. And I'm
there because I have strong skills and capabilities from a functional
(06:38):
standpoint. But also, I'm bringing my
perspective as a black woman into the discussion
as well around how do we bridge the gap between
our marketing strategy and our customers who
are in that same black women. So
that's one of the ways that it's a pure business focus that
(07:02):
allows you to connect to different markets, allows
you to connect with different parts of the customer
base that you may not have been able to reach. And
you're leaving dollars on the table. And that's
Yeah, and it's such a great example of thinking about
the term intersectionality a little bit differently, right? I love that
(07:25):
you leaned into that business need and
said, hey, listen, you know, when you have somebody like me in the room, now
you have direct access to a demographic and information firsthand,
right? And so you can kind of test stuff. I love that. You know, often
we get stuck in the space in HR of having to justify our
DEI efforts from a metrics perspective. What
(07:48):
are the metrics that we actually should be tracking that are impactful?
And I think metrics have been a little bit under fire recently because
I do think there was probably a time where we're tracking the
wrong things. And so that's led to some of the discussions around
Yeah, so for me, one of the things that you
(08:09):
want to do is not just counting people,
but making people count. And what I mean by that is
you're making sure that their ideas, their
perspectives, they feel valued and it's contributing to your
organization. So one of the things is looking at
Everyone takes part in engagement surveys, culture surveys, et
(08:33):
cetera. But looking at the data and cutting the data across
different demographics, cutting it across various
different identities, so you can find out,
is there one group of employees that
is experiencing your culture differently than
another group of employees? And that's an
(08:56):
extremely strong way of understanding and
saying, we need to close the gap here because this
group is seeing the culture and has these experiences. This
group has these experiences and they're completely different.
and we're all in the same organization. So there are certain
strategies that we need to put together that are going to help us to
(09:17):
close that gap. That helps you from an engagement standpoint. Again,
it helps you from the standpoint of people feeling valued as
employees and being able to really contribute to the
company's mission and vision. So those are
very powerful. That's very powerful information that
can be used. And then what I like to say is the same metrics
(09:42):
that you would use to say how successful is
your business are some of the same metrics that you would
use to say how well you have really
integrated diversity and inclusion into your organization. Because
again, using that previous example in the marketing strategy,
when you're looking at how successful your product or your service is,
(10:05):
cut the data across different markets and different demographics of
customers to see where there's opportunity. So
I think there's a lot of different ways, instead of us trying to
create or think of different ways to make it.
Stop looking at diversity, equity and inclusion as something that's on
the outside of the business banging to get in and
(10:27):
make sure you have an inside out approach. And
you're integrating it into the practices, the policies, the
procedures and the strategies. So
it's already there. And it's already going to, when it comes
out to be executed, it's going to be considering a more
I love all of those ideas and the concept of,
(10:50):
instead of outside in, inside out. You know, for those
that are listening that have been in this space a while, there
can be some fatigue around these types of
initiatives. So how can we re-energize some
There's going to have to be strong partnerships. Partnerships
(11:11):
across our HR colleagues, partnership across
our business colleagues as well. Where the fatigue or
the feeling tired comes from is when
you constantly are feeling like you're fighting everybody
within your organization. and you're rolling this
ball uphill all by yourself. And
(11:33):
what you need to do is make sure that you are getting other
people to help you roll the ball uphill. And then also simultaneously, you
know, trying to cut that heel down so you don't have to roll the ball
uphill at all. But you have to have strong partnerships with
your talent acquisition teams, your talent management teams,
your compensation teams, your benefits teams, to make sure
(11:56):
that, you know, as far as comp, it's pay equity and
equitable pay across different groups. From
a benefit standpoint, making sure that you're providing benefits
that are inclusive and are really going to have an impact on
all employees and not just some. You want to make sure that
you're integrating it into your business strategies, as I talked about, your marketing and
(12:18):
your sales strategies, your development, your product development strategies.
So before you even create the products, are you
going and testing it to see how it would be used
or not used or utilized in different
communities and groups of people? So you have to make
sure that it's integrated into the just, you know, I hate this phrase,
(12:40):
but the very fabric of the organization. But it's true. You
It's a lot to do. But I think that that that phrase
right into the fabric of the organization, I think it's an important concept to think
about how how it that it just becomes second
nature. That collaboration, though, you know, in some organizations,
they have employee resource groups. And I've seen some
(13:03):
work really well. I've seen some not
have the impact that they thought they were going to have. For
organizations where they're doing ERGs well, how
does that influence the efforts around DEI? It's
And from the perspective of it, so it's a couple
(13:25):
things. One is you have to make sure that your employee
resource groups are focused, are disciplined, have
a clear agenda that's aligned to the company mission
and vision as well, and contributing to the overall culture
of the organization, but also the development of
employees and the business as well. So
(13:48):
if your employee resource groups are aligned from
that perspective, they're contributing to people strategies and culture, they're
contributing to the business as well, then it's
extremely powerful. You have to
also make sure that they have a voice, their leaders have
a voice and can elevate their voices to senior
(14:10):
leaders of the organization. So there is a clear
understanding and you're treating them like senior leaders because
they can help you with organizational change, not just
in the diversity, equity and inclusion space, but overall organizational
change that your company needs
to go through. And so they can help with that. They can get feedback,
(14:33):
valuable feedback across a myriad of different populations
of employees within your company and provide that feedback back
to you. So you can help to implement better practices, better
policies and procedures. Also too, you know,
you can't look at them as, well, they're doing this
(14:53):
outside of their jobs. If there's anything that
is so annoying for employee resource group
leaders and members who are working diligently. on
behalf of not just their members within their
constituency groups, but they're working on behalf of the betterment of
the company. And so their jobs are,
(15:15):
as employee resource group leaders, are integrated and
just as important as their functional skills and
capabilities and roles that they have as well, because they're
helping to grow and drive organizational change.
And it's so important that they are given
that recognition. At the end of the year, when they
(15:36):
have performance reviews and they're evaluating their objectives through the
year, part of that needs to include what they were able
to accomplish as an employee resource group leader. And
then secondly, it's not free labor, folks. You
need to make sure that you are some way providing
them with some type of compensation. Maybe it's not money.
(15:58):
Maybe if you have a point system within your organization, whatever
it is that you have that you can provide to them, give
them something that motivates them and inspires them.
to want to continue in these leadership roles because
they're extremely, extremely crucial to the
success of the organization if they're leveraged in the right
(16:20):
You had one nugget in there that I really want to
highlight for our audience because I have
not seen this consistently and what it was is
that your ERG leaders should be
having audience with your executive team,
not an intermediary, not a liaison, not,
(16:41):
you know, hey, the, you know, chief diversity officer
is giving the only point of contact. I love
that. That is such a good practical way to
start having the really strategic conversations that
need to happen and allowing that ERG leader to
show up and represent the group because they are passionate
(17:04):
about not only their constituents, but helping the organization
through a change management process. That was such a good nuggets
list. I think that I just really wanted to double click into that because I
think that's so important for audience to hear. You
know, as I think about all the things we've talked about, there
is resistance that can happen both internally and externally.
(17:25):
There's criticisms that we hear. You know, we watch this
on the news with organizations. How do we start to
respond to that from an HR perspective? Because we're always kind of wearing those
two hats, right? You have that. risk compliance mindset that
sometimes we flex too far to, and then we also have that employee empathy
mindset, right? And sometimes we flex too far there as well. How do we
(17:46):
find that balance when we're dealing with resistance or criticism in
I think the best thing that our human resources colleagues
can do is, first of all, you have to have the courage of your conviction. Because
when we're talking about this type of organizational change and resistance,
in any capacity, whether you're implementing a new performance
(18:07):
review process, a new succession planning process, you're going
to have resistance. And it's no different from
policies and practices and procedures that are trying to be more inclusive
of all the employees. Because that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to
make sure that the people strategies that you're
putting in place are inclusive of all your employees. And
(18:28):
so when you are faced with that type of
resistance that inevitably HR professionals
get all the time, because everyone's always saying, I
don't have time for this, I don't have time to do this, or I don't have time to do that. You're
using those influencing skills to make sure that you
are integrating diversity, equity, and
(18:50):
inclusive practices into those people's strategies, into
the talent management process, into the performance management
process, into the talent acquisition process. You can
do that by trying to weed out as much
bias as you can in the process Because
as humans, we're all biased. We're
(19:11):
people, and we're flawed, and we have biases. But
as HR professionals working very diligently to
try to take out the bias from our processes
and our systems and our structures, so as we're implementing talent
acquisition processes and talent management processes, it's
(19:32):
already baked in inclusive practices and
the inclusive aspects of it. Because when you're rolling out
the program or the process or whatever, it's already designed in
Celeste, this was such a great conversation. So many good
nuggets. One last question before we wrap up. As you look
(19:54):
ahead, what is, you know, one emerging trend
or a challenge potentially that you're seeing in DEI that
I think that especially in
those organizations where it's
been perceived by the employees, right, wrong, or indifferent, that
(20:16):
the company is rolling back their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Because if you lose the
credibility of your employees, it
is very, very hard to get that back. And
so we know that in times of social
(20:36):
activism and a rise in social unrest, inevitably
history has told us that the pendulum will swing
to a more conservative stance, but then it
swings back also. And so, the
best thing that HR colleagues can do is
make sure that they are steadfast, that
(20:57):
they're steady, that they're integrating these inclusive practices
in the processes that they're responsible for, and
that they're not swaying in the wind. Another thing, too, is
one of the things that's going to be extremely critical Today,
tomorrow, in the future is effective communication
and feedback loops with the employees. So you
(21:20):
know what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and
you can plan accordingly. That's going to be the best tool
that you're going to have because you're going to need to take all
of that information and then wrap that up to
say, OK, as you're coaching and counseling the leaders, What
is it that leaders need to do to have a bigger impact on
(21:43):
their organization through their people and their
business performance? So that's what I would say that
our HR colleagues need to really make sure that they're paying attention to.
So wonderful. Such good advice. Thanks for taking a few minutes of
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
(22:06):
and links at thehrmixtape.com. Come back
You're listening to the HR Mixtape. Your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel, well,
Joining me today is Celeste Warren, Vice President of the Global
(00:22):
Diversity and Inclusion Center of Excellence at Merck. With
a background in both operations and HR, Celeste brings
So Celeste, thank you for sitting down and having a chat with me today. Well,
thank you for the invitation, Shari. I'm looking forward to it. So
(00:43):
we are talking about DEI, inclusion, whatever
the term is that you are deciding to use today in
society. And I think that one of the things
I love about your perspective is you talk about
inclusion from this perspective that it's everybody's responsibility.
So what does that mean from that shared accountability in
(01:11):
Yeah. So the reason why I say it's everyone's responsibility in
most organizations, in all organizations, you know, you think about the pyramid
structure that exists. About between 20 to
30, maybe 35% of the employee population are leaders, people
managers, et cetera. Their job is to manage
and lead people. The other 70%, they're
(01:35):
individual contributors. So they aren't people managers.
And if an organization is going to move forward with any type of
change, with any type of purpose, you
can't leave it to those 30% of the people to do that. You
have to make sure that everybody is involved and everyone is doing
the role that they need to do. So some things that they can do is
(01:58):
and people say, well, Celeste, you know, you're trying to boil the ocean. No,
I'm not trying to boil the ocean. I'd like for each person. to
just try to boil two or three people around them.
And how you can do that is simple things like if
you are in a meeting and if you're the
manager of a team, one of the things you can do when you're
(02:20):
in a meeting is basically start the meeting out and say, you
know, this is sort of the agenda. Is everyone okay with the agenda? Start
the meeting out with expecting people
expecting for you to ask for their opinions and
ask for their input. If someone's quiet during the
meeting in the first, you know, whatever, 15, 20, 30 minutes, reach
(02:42):
out to them and say, oh, you know, Shari, we haven't heard from you.
Any, you have any ideas on this
particular situation or anything that you want to share, just
in case, you know, they didn't have a chance to sort of formulate their thoughts yet,
or, or they didn't have a chance to get their thoughts in.
So that's one way to do it. Another thing, if you're, if
(03:03):
you're not a people manager, Everyone has
a span of influence. You have people around you that
respect you, that look up to you, that
listen to what you have to say, and you can use that span
of influence that you have to What
I like to say is, you know, send an article out around diversity, equity
(03:24):
and inclusion to your sphere of influence
and say, hey, you know what? On such and such day, we're going to meet in
this conference room, bring your lunch, and we're going to talk
about this article and, you know, just have a conversation. no
obligation or anything, but it gives you an opportunity to not just
educate people, but then get their viewpoints and
(03:46):
have a dialogue around different perspectives. And so those
I really love your example of bringing
that down to that individual contributor level and having those Um,
those moments where you can advocate and educate, you
know, one of the things that I've, I've done through my own kind of DEI journey
(04:06):
is I've, as I have learned the background of
phrases, right? Like there are so many terms
of phrase, so many words that we use that actually have really
bad or derogatory history. And
so, you know, as I learned them, I've shared them with my peers
and been like, hey, you know what? I learned that this background on this, this
(04:27):
phrase that I've heard us say, here's the background on
it. Wanted to let you know so that you could be educated as well. I've never had
anybody respond badly to that. Obviously how you approach it is one thing. You
don't want to. You don't want to shame somebody, right? Because
you're learning like you're learning. But I love that idea of bringing
it down and kind of talking about it from the perspective of how everybody
(04:48):
can be involved in what it means to be an inclusive organization. You
know, I'm curious in the work that you've done, How
have you worked with executives to help them understand that
this concept around DEI, it's not a moral
imperative. It really is a business one. And
(05:10):
Yeah, absolutely. And the way that I approach it is
You know, we have to make sure that our leaders understand
if they don't get it from the heart, you got to appeal to the head. And
everyone, if they're a leader and they want to be a good leader, they want
to make sure that their business is growing. Otherwise,
they may not have a job for very long. And so I use
(05:33):
it from the standpoint of we have to understand our customer base
and we have to understand what is
getting in the way of those customers across a variety of
different identities, different perspectives, different identities,
different experiences and life experiences. We
(05:54):
have to understand what's getting in the way from our product or our service that we
provide of them being able to receive it and get those outcomes
that we want them to have. And so you have to study each
of those customer groups And
one of the things that I like to say is, instead of us interpreting
what we think those customer groups might want or need, it's
(06:17):
good to have someone on the team who is a reflective part
of that customer group. That's one thing. And then the second thing
is not just to have them on the team, but you
want to make sure, so for example, on the marketing team, we're
talking about a particular marketing strategy. And I'm
there because I have strong skills and capabilities from a functional
(06:38):
standpoint. But also, I'm bringing my
perspective as a black woman into the discussion
as well around how do we bridge the gap between
our marketing strategy and our customers who
are in that same black women. So
that's one of the ways that it's a pure business focus that
(07:02):
allows you to connect to different markets, allows
you to connect with different parts of the customer
base that you may not have been able to reach. And
you're leaving dollars on the table. And that's
Yeah, and it's such a great example of thinking about
the term intersectionality a little bit differently, right? I love that
(07:25):
you leaned into that business need and
said, hey, listen, you know, when you have somebody like me in the room, now
you have direct access to a demographic and information firsthand,
right? And so you can kind of test stuff. I love that. You know, often
we get stuck in the space in HR of having to justify our
DEI efforts from a metrics perspective. What
(07:48):
are the metrics that we actually should be tracking that are impactful?
And I think metrics have been a little bit under fire recently because
I do think there was probably a time where we're tracking the
wrong things. And so that's led to some of the discussions around
Yeah, so for me, one of the things that you
(08:09):
want to do is not just counting people,
but making people count. And what I mean by that is
you're making sure that their ideas, their
perspectives, they feel valued and it's contributing to your
organization. So one of the things is looking at
Everyone takes part in engagement surveys, culture surveys, et
(08:33):
cetera. But looking at the data and cutting the data across
different demographics, cutting it across various
different identities, so you can find out,
is there one group of employees that
is experiencing your culture differently than
another group of employees? And that's an
(08:56):
extremely strong way of understanding and
saying, we need to close the gap here because this
group is seeing the culture and has these experiences. This
group has these experiences and they're completely different.
and we're all in the same organization. So there are certain
strategies that we need to put together that are going to help us to
(09:17):
close that gap. That helps you from an engagement standpoint. Again,
it helps you from the standpoint of people feeling valued as
employees and being able to really contribute to the
company's mission and vision. So those are
very powerful. That's very powerful information that
can be used. And then what I like to say is the same metrics
(09:42):
that you would use to say how successful is
your business are some of the same metrics that you would
use to say how well you have really
integrated diversity and inclusion into your organization. Because
again, using that previous example in the marketing strategy,
when you're looking at how successful your product or your service is,
(10:05):
cut the data across different markets and different demographics of
customers to see where there's opportunity. So
I think there's a lot of different ways, instead of us trying to
create or think of different ways to make it.
Stop looking at diversity, equity and inclusion as something that's on
the outside of the business banging to get in and
(10:27):
make sure you have an inside out approach. And
you're integrating it into the practices, the policies, the
procedures and the strategies. So
it's already there. And it's already going to, when it comes
out to be executed, it's going to be considering a more
I love all of those ideas and the concept of,
(10:50):
instead of outside in, inside out. You know, for those
that are listening that have been in this space a while, there
can be some fatigue around these types of
initiatives. So how can we re-energize some
There's going to have to be strong partnerships. Partnerships
(11:11):
across our HR colleagues, partnership across
our business colleagues as well. Where the fatigue or
the feeling tired comes from is when
you constantly are feeling like you're fighting everybody
within your organization. and you're rolling this
ball uphill all by yourself. And
(11:33):
what you need to do is make sure that you are getting other
people to help you roll the ball uphill. And then also simultaneously, you
know, trying to cut that heel down so you don't have to roll the ball
uphill at all. But you have to have strong partnerships with
your talent acquisition teams, your talent management teams,
your compensation teams, your benefits teams, to make sure
(11:56):
that, you know, as far as comp, it's pay equity and
equitable pay across different groups. From
a benefit standpoint, making sure that you're providing benefits
that are inclusive and are really going to have an impact on
all employees and not just some. You want to make sure that
you're integrating it into your business strategies, as I talked about, your marketing and
(12:18):
your sales strategies, your development, your product development strategies.
So before you even create the products, are you
going and testing it to see how it would be used
or not used or utilized in different
communities and groups of people? So you have to make
sure that it's integrated into the just, you know, I hate this phrase,
(12:40):
but the very fabric of the organization. But it's true. You
It's a lot to do. But I think that that that phrase
right into the fabric of the organization, I think it's an important concept to think
about how how it that it just becomes second
nature. That collaboration, though, you know, in some organizations,
they have employee resource groups. And I've seen some
(13:03):
work really well. I've seen some not
have the impact that they thought they were going to have. For
organizations where they're doing ERGs well, how
does that influence the efforts around DEI? It's
And from the perspective of it, so it's a couple
(13:25):
things. One is you have to make sure that your employee
resource groups are focused, are disciplined, have
a clear agenda that's aligned to the company mission
and vision as well, and contributing to the overall culture
of the organization, but also the development of
employees and the business as well. So
(13:48):
if your employee resource groups are aligned from
that perspective, they're contributing to people strategies and culture, they're
contributing to the business as well, then it's
extremely powerful. You have to
also make sure that they have a voice, their leaders have
a voice and can elevate their voices to senior
(14:10):
leaders of the organization. So there is a clear
understanding and you're treating them like senior leaders because
they can help you with organizational change, not just
in the diversity, equity and inclusion space, but overall organizational
change that your company needs
to go through. And so they can help with that. They can get feedback,
(14:33):
valuable feedback across a myriad of different populations
of employees within your company and provide that feedback back
to you. So you can help to implement better practices, better
policies and procedures. Also too, you know,
you can't look at them as, well, they're doing this
(14:53):
outside of their jobs. If there's anything that
is so annoying for employee resource group
leaders and members who are working diligently. on
behalf of not just their members within their
constituency groups, but they're working on behalf of the betterment of
the company. And so their jobs are,
(15:15):
as employee resource group leaders, are integrated and
just as important as their functional skills and
capabilities and roles that they have as well, because they're
helping to grow and drive organizational change.
And it's so important that they are given
that recognition. At the end of the year, when they
(15:36):
have performance reviews and they're evaluating their objectives through the
year, part of that needs to include what they were able
to accomplish as an employee resource group leader. And
then secondly, it's not free labor, folks. You
need to make sure that you are some way providing
them with some type of compensation. Maybe it's not money.
(15:58):
Maybe if you have a point system within your organization, whatever
it is that you have that you can provide to them, give
them something that motivates them and inspires them.
to want to continue in these leadership roles because
they're extremely, extremely crucial to the
success of the organization if they're leveraged in the right
(16:20):
You had one nugget in there that I really want to
highlight for our audience because I have
not seen this consistently and what it was is
that your ERG leaders should be
having audience with your executive team,
not an intermediary, not a liaison, not,
(16:41):
you know, hey, the, you know, chief diversity officer
is giving the only point of contact. I love
that. That is such a good practical way to
start having the really strategic conversations that
need to happen and allowing that ERG leader to
show up and represent the group because they are passionate
(17:04):
about not only their constituents, but helping the organization
through a change management process. That was such a good nuggets
list. I think that I just really wanted to double click into that because I
think that's so important for audience to hear. You
know, as I think about all the things we've talked about, there
is resistance that can happen both internally and externally.
(17:25):
There's criticisms that we hear. You know, we watch this
on the news with organizations. How do we start to
respond to that from an HR perspective? Because we're always kind of wearing those
two hats, right? You have that. risk compliance mindset that
sometimes we flex too far to, and then we also have that employee empathy
mindset, right? And sometimes we flex too far there as well. How do we
(17:46):
find that balance when we're dealing with resistance or criticism in
I think the best thing that our human resources colleagues
can do is, first of all, you have to have the courage of your conviction. Because
when we're talking about this type of organizational change and resistance,
in any capacity, whether you're implementing a new performance
(18:07):
review process, a new succession planning process, you're going
to have resistance. And it's no different from
policies and practices and procedures that are trying to be more inclusive
of all the employees. Because that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to
make sure that the people strategies that you're
putting in place are inclusive of all your employees. And
(18:28):
so when you are faced with that type of
resistance that inevitably HR professionals
get all the time, because everyone's always saying, I
don't have time for this, I don't have time to do this, or I don't have time to do that. You're
using those influencing skills to make sure that you
are integrating diversity, equity, and
(18:50):
inclusive practices into those people's strategies, into
the talent management process, into the performance management
process, into the talent acquisition process. You can
do that by trying to weed out as much
bias as you can in the process Because
as humans, we're all biased. We're
(19:11):
people, and we're flawed, and we have biases. But
as HR professionals working very diligently to
try to take out the bias from our processes
and our systems and our structures, so as we're implementing talent
acquisition processes and talent management processes, it's
(19:32):
already baked in inclusive practices and
the inclusive aspects of it. Because when you're rolling out
the program or the process or whatever, it's already designed in
Celeste, this was such a great conversation. So many good
nuggets. One last question before we wrap up. As you look
(19:54):
ahead, what is, you know, one emerging trend
or a challenge potentially that you're seeing in DEI that
I think that especially in
those organizations where it's
been perceived by the employees, right, wrong, or indifferent, that
(20:16):
the company is rolling back their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Because if you lose the
credibility of your employees, it
is very, very hard to get that back. And
so we know that in times of social
(20:36):
activism and a rise in social unrest, inevitably
history has told us that the pendulum will swing
to a more conservative stance, but then it
swings back also. And so, the
best thing that HR colleagues can do is
make sure that they are steadfast, that
(20:57):
they're steady, that they're integrating these inclusive practices
in the processes that they're responsible for, and
that they're not swaying in the wind. Another thing, too, is
one of the things that's going to be extremely critical Today,
tomorrow, in the future is effective communication
and feedback loops with the employees. So you
(21:20):
know what they're thinking, what they're feeling, and
you can plan accordingly. That's going to be the best tool
that you're going to have because you're going to need to take all
of that information and then wrap that up to
say, OK, as you're coaching and counseling the leaders, What
is it that leaders need to do to have a bigger impact on
(21:43):
their organization through their people and their
business performance? So that's what I would say that
our HR colleagues need to really make sure that they're paying attention to.
So wonderful. Such good advice. Thanks for taking a few minutes of
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. You can find show notes
(22:06):
and links at thehrmixtape.com. Come back
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