What's the fuss about names

Creating strong naming principles, policies and frameworks that are embedded in equity are an important step to reducing the likelihood of future renaming. Places reflect the lives of the ever changing communities around them, and the changing nature of the world and celebrate everyone, not just a few. 

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Sharon Nyangweso
Equity as a technical skill: The future of work

We are rapidly moving towards a future where the ability to assess the outputs and process of your work, understand who it is serving, who it is disenfranchising, and how to course correct - will no longer be a nice to have niche, but a necessity. At QuakeLab, we call this equity as a technical skill.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Counting Change and Making Change - Finance, Accounting and Equity

Much like science, technology, math, and STEM in general, finance and accounting has often been positioned as an industry and discipline that exists in a vacuum untouched, unobstructed and unaffected by power, oppression and inequity. The going argument is that this field sits on a mathematical foundation that cannot be biased or inequitable. But if you’ve been with us a while, you know that inequity doesn’t respect our organizational boundaries and more importantly, our workplaces often (if not always), reflect the inequity of the world.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Discomfort ≠ Inequity: Not everything is inequity, but everything can be done inequitably

In an effort to inject workplaces with the kind of equitable systems that we at QuakeLab champion, those who are doing the work have become scared and dismissive of the hard things that are normal and ok in the workplace. This does not mean that we rid ourselves of the critical analysis of our workplaces that ensures that even when we are doing the hard things, they are done equitably. Rather it means that we must be solid enough in our efforts for justice and equity to understand that there is a difference.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Let’s talk about training…again

At work, we have many competing priorities, and it can seem like putting a small section of our limited budget towards an annual unconscious bias training can be a small action moving us in the right direction. But we promise, it’s not. The truth is that substantial changes to behavior and biases do not occur because of a mandatory learning session once a year. Change in behavior often requires a lot more commitment to sustained learning than most workplaces can commit to or are equipped to deliver.

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Sharon Nyangweso
5 ways to use your professional development budget for DEI

Very often, we find that professional development budget lines are used as a tool to access funding for DEI training because it is admittedly simpler to explain a three-hour training as professional development than a 9 month equity audit! Obviously, QuakeLab would love you to hop into our email and collaborate with us to do some exciting and innovative equity work, however if you’re at the stage where you’re working on a strong case for broader equity work and looking for movement within your current parameters, this is for you!

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Sharon Nyangweso
I don’t want to say the wrong thing…

There is immense privilege in the ability to close your eyes, put your hands over your ears, and claim: I can’t because I’m scared. While we cower in fear of mis-stepping, the world does not become any better. In fact, one can argue that inaction out of fear is just as dangerous as oppressive action. So lean into the fear, step into this work with humility, prepare to do some research and real work (not just reflecting, listening and learning). You’ll be ok, promise!

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Sharon Nyangweso
All your equity data questions answered

At QuakeLab, we believe strongly in the importance of collecting and analyzing disaggregated DEI data when identifying and addressing inequity. But make no mistake, this is a loaded statement that should not be taken lightly. The QuakeLab team has dedicated years to learning, researching, iterating and building our approach to collecting data. This is a never ending process based in data ethics, justice and taking guidance from marginalized communities.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Your performance management is an equity issue - here’s how to do it right

When you don’t have really clear ways to evaluate employees, they are left to advocate for themselves without guidelines. This leaves a lot of room for unconscious bias to creep into the performance appraisal and review process. Without clear structures around mobility (upward or lateral), you are leaving attrition to incidences of inequity. This unintentionally drives out talent who may have had the desire to stay, but don’t have access to the proper support.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Harm and the mechanics of reporting

Part two of our Harm series that focuses on building the mechanisms to respond to harm. This part of the series deals with the mechanisms of reporting, which is one of the most important stage when dealing with harm. This blog post covers the key areas on how to build these mechanics.

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Sharon Nyangweso
5 things tech is getting wrong about equity work

Despite the abundance of innovation, capital, and creativity in tech, the industry still has a not-so-secret “diversity problem”. After speaking and working with companies in the tech space, we realized that while all of them have the intention of making an impact, many don’t know where to start. We’ve identified 5 of the common misconceptions that are holding the tech industry back from advancing their equity work.

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The thing with many names: Harm in the workplace

You might be familiar with the term ‘harm’ and perhaps even ‘microaggressions’, but how well do you know these terms in the context of the workplace and the ways that employers need to be held accountable in creating the right definitions of harm and the reporting systems. This is the first in a series on harm to help you better define harm, building the mechanisms for reporting and more.


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Equity and returning to the office

We want to help you folks make this process as data driven, human focused, and equitable as possible. With that in mind, we’ve created a free toolkit that includes a survey to share with your team, a guide to analyze the results of the survey, and a guide to creating a safe virtual and physical workplace for BIPOC employees. This toolkit is designed to support informed and open conversations with your workforce to identify wants and needs of employees, as well as concerns and opportunities. Asking these questions can help understand the existing gaps in order to move forward with an equitable framework.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Looking discomfort in the eye: Equity assessments and accountability

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity work is often discussed in a way that uses blanket statements to describe the problem. DEI is positioned as if it is the problem we’re trying to solve. Non-committal, passive language like “we need to do better” or “we know we aren’t perfect” or “harm is being caused” is often used. But there is often very little in the way of specifics. It’s never articulate what we can do better, where we aren’t perfect, who is being harmed and by what/who.

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Sharon Nyangweso
Redesigning how we work: A case study on hiring

When you are recruiting, interviewing and making offers you must understand that you are not the only one making a decision. The power dynamics in a recruitment process are skewed in your favour as the recruiter, which means you need to be actively working to ensure every candidate has as much information as possible to make an informed decision.

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Sharon Nyangweso