So we’re in a recession - will DEI survive?
No one has been brave enough to confidently tell us if we’ll be going into a big ‘R’ recession, or if we should be getting cozy in this small ‘r’ recession.
We’re all personally feeling this in our pockets, our grocery bills and our gas bills. Professionally, we’re also seeing it in tech hiring freezes and industry wide slow downs.
Unfortunately, if your DEI approach has been focused on diversification (recruitment), economic instability and hiring freezes means you’re left with a DEI plan that's all bark no bite.
But not all is lost, here’s what DEI in a recruitment-light world looks like!
Light in-house research
We talk a lot about the value of data planning, collection and analysis, we’ve even got a great article on every question you've ever had about equity data. But we also know that data focused calls to action can feel really theoretical, especially when all you can think about is aesthetic diversity (a demographic snapshot of what you look like). So while you’re in a period of looking inward for equity and justice, this is a really good time to explore the information you may already have, and cross analyze that with the demographic makeup of your team as it is. This can look like exploring the following questions:
What metrics are you using to measure performance? Is it clear and is it arbitrary? (a good starting point for this might be our article on performance measurement as an equity challenge)
Are you seeing patterns on who is upwardly mobile in your organization, are there levels on your team where certain people stop moving (eg. do women who have had children hit a glass ceiling at some point)?
Are your benefits going unused? Is it a straightforward process to learn what benefits are available? Do your disabled team members think your benefits plans are sufficient?
What does it look like to navigate your physical and digital spaces as someone who is visibly or invisibly disabled?
These questions are just starting points, but they’ll start to prompt you to explore this work in a more robust way that doesn’t hinge on hiring.
Let’s get digital, digital, I wanna get digital, digital
A low resource - high value exercise that often gets overlooked is digital accessibility audits. You don’t know what you don’t know, so make no mistake, this may not cost you thousands of dollars, but it will require time and effort to build your capacity and action for the next steps. Here you’ll want to systematically go through all digital platforms, assets and materials for accessibility. This can include social media pages, websites, documents, and meeting platforms. Once again, this will require time and research, so this is not an exhaustive list, but as a starting point, you’ll want to ask yourself questions like:
Is this screen reader accessible?
Do we have standard, documented, practices and procedures to make social media material accessible?
What does this look like for folks who have different kinds of colour blindness?
Do all our videos have captions and transcriptions?
Once again, this is not an exhaustive list, and you’ll want to completely avoid using legal baseline requirements as the start and end of your assessment.
Give your products and services the energy they deserve
A lot of us falsely believe that equity in product design is only for tech organizations, but if you are a company of any kind, you are likely providing some kind product or service - even if you’re a non-profit organization! At a time when you are looking for low cost, but impactful equity work, exploring your services and products for inequity is a fantastic place to land. This is an in depth but rewarding process for your entire organization where you can investigate:
What is the problem your tool/service is trying to solve and who is it a problem for (who was included and excluded when this problem was being identified)?
Why is it a problem? This is an opportunity to tap into community impact in asking yourself how this problem is described and discussed in the communities you target (and don’t), it also forces you to learn if some communities (especially those you’ve missed), have been solving this a different way.
Where and when is this problem a problem? This is an excellent opportunity to explore who the most affected within sub-audiences or sub-communities eg. Black Muslim Women rather than just women.
This feels like a fantastic time to run a deep dive refresh of your recruitment
Fine, let’s talk about recruitment for a second! Ok, so you’re doing all the things, but you still want to ensure that when you’re ready to recruit, your process for recruitment, onboarding and retention is in good shape! We’ve got an exhaustive Inclusive Recruitment Guide on Learning Lab to help with that!
So, in the midst of uncertain economic times, we know it’s hard to figure out where DEI sits as a financial priority. Rather than cutting off all work, we hope these options maintain the important work we know you’ve already started. For what it's worth, we also think this is an excellent moment to reflect and ask yourself some hard questions like: why is it so easy for DEI to be deprioritized in moments of famine? At QuakeLab, we have always believed that we have an opportunity to position equity and justice work as an integrated business function much like HR, Communications and Finance. Doing this insulates important equity and justice work from the riptides of feast and famine, while also ensuring equity is integrated and embedded into every aspect of what you do and how you do it.
Lastly, start building a culture of DEI that doesn’t revolve around DEI as a ‘personal journey’. When we talk about a journey, we may be talking about getting from point A to point B. But we might also be talking about it in a more emotive way, describing a process of growth, discovery, and exploration. This is well and good however, how often do you hear a CEO or President of a company say we're on a 'marketing journey' or 'Our company is currently on an accounting journey'? You don't!
These disciplines; marketing and accounting, are thought of as practical, essential aspects of business. Whereas, framing DEI as a 'journey' positions it as an individual, behavioural and emotive exercise that isn't essential, but some version of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
This informs the work that will be done and how it will be done. If your company is on a 'DEI journey', you're more likely to focus on one time training, 'tough conversations' and book clubs. If you're designing, testing and implementing a DEI strategy and processes you're more likely to be focused on structural transformation and impact.
If you’re looking to do this work well in a way that has long term impact, get in touch - we’ve got a few ideas!
