Jennie Child

Jennie Child Founder of Balance.

Transcript

SH:Hello, Jennie. Welcome to Talk With Sally. I am thrilled to have you as my guest. It's just wonderful to see how your career has developed because you and I go back more years and probably you want to add up when we used to work together. But we'd like to introduce yourself to people watching or reading and just share a bit about what you do.

JC: Yes. Well, thank you for having me, Sally, and it is really lovely to see you, too. To anyone listening, Sally and I go back 20 years to the very start of my career. I've worked in talent acquisition or talent and have led a number of UK or large global talent acquisition talent acquisition teams or large global talent acquisition talent acquisition teams for companies like Ogilvy, AKQA, GroupM. 

Three years ago, I decided I was going to set up my own business because I saw an opportunity within the world of diversity and inclusion, but really to bring together my passion for that and my experience in recruitment to help companies who want to become intentionally inclusive and bias free in terms of how they hire.

My company balance. We'll go in and train all the recruiters and hiring managers. We will redesign or reimagine how they recruit from both a philosophical point of view, but also a process point of view from both a philosophical point of view, but also a process point of view to achieve that inclusive, and intentionally bias free approach.

SH:How would you define it, though, currently? What is diversity? How did you get that right on behalf of your own business?

JC:My favourite description of diversity is: Diversity is being asked to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance. And I think that's a really nice kind of description of it and I think that's a really nice kind of description of it because it doesn't talk about labels or optics. It's simply the principle of, if you're looking for a D&I from an organizational point of view, it's about representation.

Inclusion is about how people are treated and the opportunities that they're given and how they're enabled to bring their full selves to work. And how they're enabled to bring their full selves to work. I think if we then look at that phrase, because that phrase, by the way, is a bit divisive. It's not everyone's favorite description. How we look at diversity, and inclusion today and how it's evolved, we would also be looking at how the person gets the to the party in the first place, because if they don’t have the money for the bus fare, then someone needs to make sure that they can get there. There we're talking about the whole concept of equity and that actually the playing field isn't level. And if we treat everyone the same, disadvantaged individuals will stay disadvantaged, privileged individuals will stay privileged.

There’s a whole community of leaders and diversity and inclusion professionals out there and experts who are sharing their learnings and so we're all growing and evolving together. If inclusion is being asked to dance, then belonging is kind of like, why would you want to stay at the party? What's going to make you remain? And belonging is the ultimate goal for most organizations. And belonging is the ultimate goal for most organizations.

So the big evolution that I'm seeing is that companies are no longer just talking about diversity inclusion. They're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging as the full package.

SH: Why do you think it's important for companies to do this? Because it's not easy getting it right. A lot of companies get it wrong, and actually a lot of companies don't even want the party in the first place. They just put their head in the sand and think, no, thank you, we'll just will stay where we are. They just put their head in the sand and think, no,

thank you, we'll just will stay where we are. So from your perspective and from the impact of the work you do that you've seen in organizations, why should we bother? Why is it important?

JC: I think it's important for various different reasons and different organizations will have different motivations and incentives to do diversity and inclusion well. There's a moral imperative around D&I. We don't yet live in a particularly fair society, and that is reflected in a lot of industries as well. There is really poor representation. When individuals are coming in from underrepresented backgrounds, they're not seeing role models they're not part of the dominant groups. So they may not feel that inclusion, that belonging that we talked about. 

But there was also an endless list of cultural and commercial benefits to D&I, which have been well evidenced for many, many years now. The big consultancies, Deloitte, McKinsey, there's been a lot of studies out there, that have really clearly evidenced how organisations with better representation, organizations with better inclusive cultures are doing better in terms of the numbers.

So boards with more female representation, boards with better racial representation are performing better than the ones that are not. That's not to say that all the organizations out there with a purely white and male board are not performing well at all.

But I suspect they all know that the writing's on the wall and at some point they're going to start to struggle competitively. They'll be not retaining their talent. The culture will be suffering from an external brand reputation point of view. People will look at that brand and go, why would I work there? I don't see anyone like me. There's no representation at the senior level of someone who looks like me. So their brand reputation will start to suffer as a result.

On the flip side, get it right and you reap all of the benefits. Talent attraction, talent retention, productivity, creativity, innovation. 

SH: So are you seeing a shift in appetite for companies investing in this work?

JC: I am, but not always in the way that I would hope to see it. So I have seen a lot of reactive investment as a result of world events. When you get reactive efforts around diversity and inclusion, sometimes not always, but sometimes it just becomes very performative because the organization is reacting to external pressures. We must be seen to be doing something and that's not an intrinsic Why. We must be seen to be doing something is never going to lead to an authentic approach to diversity inclusion. It's going to lead to a performative approach to a tick box exercise.

JC: For someone who spends obviously most of my time talking about recruitment, I know that there are a lot of organisations out there that have very aggressive agendas around representation when it comes to recruitment. They are recruiting for diversity. But if they haven't addressed all of the other reasons as to why they're not diverse in the first place and looked at whether or not their culture is inclusive to retain people from different types of backgrounds, they may struggle to recruit talent from underrepresented groups in the first place. But if they do manage to hire them once they join, they'll know why they're there, and retention will become an issue. 

SH: So what common challenges, Jennie, do you see that you're invited in if we had listed the top three or five challenges you get companies telling you about, which is why they want to improve around D&I, what would they be?

JC:So there's several themes that I see. I see lots and lots of positives in terms of what's happening in the space I see lots of progress and I see real improvement around representation in lots of industries. The greatest challenge is often not assigning a budget. Bringing somebody in to oversee diversity, inclusion in to oversee diversity, inclusion but not giving them the investment that they need to make a difference. But not giving them the investment that they need to actually make a difference. Additionally, those individuals are very often from marginalised groups anyway. 

There is a theme that there are a lot of really talented diversity, inclusion experts tend to have lived experience because it's what allows them to become an expert. But then you get this rather challenging scenario where you've got large organizations. But then you get this rather challenging scenario where you've got large organisations hiring these experts and asking them to drive the change, but not giving them the power, the influence and the investment, the budget to actually make a difference. 

And I am starting to hear quite a lot of sentiment across platforms like LinkedIn that that's becoming a real frustration. The companies that are getting it right are starting with the Why, the companies that are getting it wrong, starting with the What. 

My belief is that you have to start with your intrinsic motivation and there will always be one. It can't just be well, we know we need to do this, so let's do it. I go into a lot of smaller companies, usually recruitment businesses I go into a lot of smaller companies, usually recruitment businesses and do workshops where we spend a lot of time talking about the Why. And sometimes they don't really understand why we're talking about the Why. And then we get to it and then we craft an entire strategy around that Why. And then that leads to the what and the how. The measurement and the buy in from day one is so much greater as a result, because the idea, the Why has come from the people who are going to be executing it.

And it's really all about trying to avoid it. Feeling performative, being performative, and turning into a tick box exercise. Where they start is absolutely critical to how well they do. I also see that the organizations that are thriving with D&I versus the ones that are struggling there's also another key point, which is something that I absolutely love.

But not everybody jumps out of bed for this, but it's data. Data for me, it's the single source of truth. Data allows you to have really, really difficult conversations with your C-suite about where you are and where you need to be. But it can very helpfully remove all the emotion from that conversation because it's just facts. And it can be delivered without judgment and just as a set of clear information. And there is all types of data that can be collected compliantly, obviously, and used to underpin a D&I strategy.

SH: Like what, Jenny, what should people be wanting to measure?

JC: So I would say start with your recruitment data. When people are becoming candidates for roles, whether they are applying through your career site, whether they're coming to you through external partners, we should always be collecting or attempting to collect their voluntary demographic information. And that data will tell you, what does your talent pool look like? Are our efforts to attract talent from underrepresented groups working? You can use that data to identify bias in your recruitment lifecycle.

So very simply, if you have more female applicants than male and you're hiring more men than women, you have bias in your recruitment pipeline. It means that your bias is towards hiring male candidates. Now, obviously, that data is nuanced and you need to work with people who understand how to analyze it and extract those themes. But it is incredibly powerful in being able to understand and track bias in your recruitment pipeline, but also design solutions to that bias as well, and help people to understand where it is, how it manifest and what you can do about it.

So that's just recruitment data, but obviously we see the same thing for employee data. What does your employee base represent? Where are you lacking representation? And as you implement strategies and initiatives, how is that representation changing? What you often see as well is that organization's will achieve when it comes to bringing a diverse range of backgrounds into the organization, improving representation at that early careers level. But then retention is the massive issue. So as they progress through that, as they don't stay, they go and work somewhere else. So data will allow you to track why that is happening. 

SH: What practical advice could you give any leader or business watching or reading this who are, they're genuinely motivated to improve on their D&I journey?

JC: Practical advice on recruitment is that I would start by understanding where you are on your maturity scale. I would encourage all companies to do an audit every year and see where they are, see what the benchmark is and see how they're progressing. Whether they're pushing the needle. Measurements are a real issue in D&I. We can't just say that we feel like we've done a good job. You've got to be able to measure it and demonstrate that the needle has actually been moved. There is a wealth of information out there.

So, self-education is my advice to any leader who wants to do more and understand more around the area of diversity, inclusion. I've got a couple of books I would strongly recommend. They're both very, very new into the market. So one is The Anti-Racist Organization written by Shereen Daniel's, a managing director of a company called HR Rewired, and the other is a book written by a gentleman and the other is a book written by a gentleman called Suki Sandhu who runs an organization called Audeliss and it's called A Judgment Free Guide to Diversity Inclusion for Straight White Men. Anybody reading that book will find it valuable.

Those are my two top tips for reading. Read those and follow Suki, follow Shereen, follow lots of evangelists and inclusion warriors on LinkedIn and learn through osmosis. And then you have your own point of view rather than relying on someone else needing to tell you what you should be doing.

SH: And what have you picked up Jennie, obviously you're passionate about this area, you're dedicating your career, your whole business focuses on it, what have you personally learned as you've become more educated, more invested, more practically aware of how to successfully develop a really great D&I approach?

JC: The thing that I've learned personally, is to not try and overcomplicate it too much and do what I kind of call an attempt to boil the ocean. Diversity Inclusion is a huge expansive topic. And there are so many different things that a company could do to achieve progress. So what I've learned is that sometimes the simplest tweaks and the simplest ideas can make a big difference, and it's starting there and then layering as opposed to creating a 50 point strategy with pillars and lots of different KPIs from day one.

SH:You've got the benefit of that real practical understanding of the talent market, the recruitment process, the retention process. And I think that's invaluable when you're advising other companies to just have that front of house knowledge. 

JC: If you try and apply a broad D&I strategy across everything, it might not necessarily translate to every part of the employee experience. So that's why I go in and I just talk about recruitment. I do realise that there is a whole retention piece that needs to be addressed, but I can go in and know that I've done my piece and I can walk away knowing that I made an impact on recruitment that will make a difference.

SH:Where do people look, Jennie? Because I have clients very often saying to me, we really want to get our hands around D&I. We really want to get diverse talent in. But we just don't know where to look, where to start. I guess it's so dependent on the industry in the company, et cetera. Brixton Finishing School, which is making great inroads. But any other kind of establishments or places or advice on looking?

JC: There's some really, really great headhunting firms that do it really, really well. Really respectfully, really authentically. And I can't say enough positive things about Audeliss, which is the company that is owned by the gentleman that wrote the book that I mentioned. I think working with a very credible specialist exec search firm that really, really understands how to hire for diversity without it being performative, without it being a tick box exercise is one really, really good way to hire from a diverse background.

I would also say that yeah, organisations that help you at a early careers level are also a very good idea. So Brixton Finishing School is one that we all know and I think a lot of creative businesses are working with good success. 

Creative Access is also a really great organization that is all about attracting black talent into the creative industry. It works predominantly around mentoring programs. There’s a job board and you can advertise as well. 

The Dots is a brilliant alternative to LinkedIn, very relevant to the creative industry, and it has a very diverse membership base and it is all geared around being able to advertise jobs and search for candidates. But my biggest advice would be that it's not about where you look, it's starting by understanding what your bias and barriers are systemically and at an individual level, because there's no point going out and really overhauling your attraction strategy, if you haven't addressed the barriers and biases that employ talent.

SH: Any advice you have on the interviewing process? Because I think a bug bear of mine is that people complain a lot about recruitment and talent, but they don't invest in training people how to interview well, giving people the right skills and frameworks to use to really recruit talent well.

JC: Perfect question, because it allows me to reference one of the key things that we do when we go in and look at how a company can be intentionally inclusive and part of that is looking at their assessment framework. So how do they interview what types of interviews do they do? How many stages is it consistent or did everybody come in and have a different experience? In fact, will they even meet the same people? Will they be individual interviews or will they be panels? Will there be a test? All of those different things, and there's some fundamentals to being inclusive.

So one is consistency. So every candidate experiences the same types of interviews and the same number of interviews, with the caveat, obviously, that you need to think about accessibility and you need to think about adjustments where needed. I.e. if someone were to have a visible or hidden disability, that's the one example of where consistency can be thrown out the window because it's about making sure that the interview is adjusted for whatever needs need to be accommodated. Consistency is the fundamental. Giving a interviewer a framework to work to. My favorite way of doing it is to create an actual assessment framework. So to create a set of attributes that an interviewer is probing into or assessing against that then becomes the framework for feedback as well. So how many times did you ever get a piece of feedback that was the words "They're just not right. I don't think they would be the right fit or they wouldn't fit in here”.

And we still get a lot of feedback like that. And that's because of an absence of an actual assessment framework. And that assessment framework doesn't have to be super systematic or corporate. So this is the fear that you also get within the creative industry is like, well, yeah, we're creative. We don't want to go down that formulaic route. You don't have to. Those attributes that you're scoring against or assessing against, they can be as creative and  nuanced as you need them to be. And they can also be all about the company values so that when you're thinking about culture fit, you're actually thinking about will this person thrive here? Do they align to our values, which is what makes us different and important, but will they also be additive in terms of their backgrounds and experiences? So we're not looking for we're not conducting an, are you like us, interview, which is what sometimes a culture fit interview can inadvertently turn into. 

So that assessment framework can be really tailored to any type of organisation. You can be assessing, again, something incredibly craft orientated and very nuanced to the employer but it still just gives the interviewer a benchmark. 

How did candidate A rate against candidate B? Across these five areas and that's what fairness looks like in my point of view.

SH: Totally. And just a couple of questions before we bring our conversation to a close. What excuses do you hear why people don't invest? So when I share that piece with you from my mentoring work, making sure there's a budget that you want to develop your best talent keep your leadership evolving, have you got a budget? And you'll hear excuses that, oh, well, we don't have a budget or we will get around to it. What common reasons do you hear why people give themselves a  get out of jail card thinking, well, we don't have to actually invest in getting our D&I right?

JC: So I think bandwidth is the biggest common excuse. And it's particularly hard, I think, in creative agency world where everybody is 100% prioritised around the clients and work as they should be. Because without that, you know, none of us have a job, right? So that has to be the case. But it also means that you're sort of always going to be committed to that. But above and beyond anything else.

So bandwidth is really difficult. And you and that leads me onto the second reason, which is assigning blame towards somebody else who was responsible for it. You can't work that way. D&I is everybody's job. Even if you have somebody who has the word D&I in the title, they are just there to enable everyone else to do really great work, but it's everyone's job.

The biggest one is always going to be bandwidth. That's not a problem that I can solve for any client unfortunately. Very simply, you need to give people permission to spend a percentage of their time on non billable or non client related or noncommercial activities to be able to make progress in this area. 

SH: Yeah, it really is investing ahead, isn't it? But the benefits I see and you see when people do invest in development. Then it's like a snowball effect in a good way, versus the bad ways you were mentioning at the beginning of our chat. Before my last question, is there anybody out there doing it really well that you would showcase and say. Wow, this company could teach people a lot about how to do it properly, how to get the results, how to be successful around D&I?

JC: There's no one company that I hold up as a complete, perfect example, if I'm honest. I see pockets of excellence all over the place.

SH: So last question, Jennie. If a leader, hopefully we're inspiring, you're inspiring people to actually address this important topic and get going with it. What would be that one nugget of practical advice you would give to a leader or a business that has yet to get behind the D&I movement so they can start to actually make progress?

JCI would say, self-educate on specifically on the topic of how bias works. On the topic of privilege and understanding structural privilege. How it impacts marginalised groups and really, really getting under the skin of that topic. 

Because I don't think that I even started out in D&I fully understanding my own privilege and the structural privilege that exists around us. And now I better understand some really difficult topics like systemic racism as a result. And it doesn't cost you anything to do that. All the information is available to you. It's all on the Internet.

SH: Fabulous. Jenny, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. And to start to understand more about this important subject, thank you so much for being a guest on Talk With Sally.

JC: Thank you for having me. And it's so lovely to see you.