Organizations whose employees reflect the diverse world we live in perform better. It's been proven time and time again.

McKinsey says a "report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean."

We don't have all the answers, but that's not going to stop us from asking the questions. Our goal is to inform you and provide some tips, tools, or tricks to help support you in making your organization more diverse (for the long haul). Simply because we want to support you in making your organization more diverse.

Our panelists for this event were the amazing Andrae Washington, Angela Cruz, and Kate Smalkin.

KEY TAKEAWAYS -
Remember that diversity is more than race and culture, there are four classes of protected people - disabilities, veteran status, race, and gender. All of these things need to be prioritized in the employee experience from hiring to retention and promotion.

Hire talent that doesn't come from traditional candidate pools - think junior colleges, Craigslist, Indeed, etc. Most of the Modern Sales Pros community is startups and, solution-oriented and innovative are important qualities for your team members to have. You can teach them the tools, but not these qualities. If you're a bigger organization, you have the training in place to get these people up to speed, look for promising talent and transferable skills.

Transparency. Transparency. Transparency. You need it in every phase of the employee lifecycle from application and candidate sourcing to interviewing and onboarding. And, it doesn't stop there. You also need it in your performance review and employee growth and promotion processes as well! If it's something you'd be embarrassed to publish publicly it needs to be fixed. If it feels shady and spooky to be who aren't a part of it, it probably is.

When it comes to salaries, again, how would you feel if your entire team of AEs, or even sales managers, had their salaries published for the world to see. Would you be proud or would you feel embarrassed that you're not paying your female, BIPOC, or LatinX AEs what you're paying everyone else?

The theme of this event was Hiring for Diversity, but it goes so much deeper than that. You can't just interview diverse candidates. You need to onboard, retain, and promote that talent. If you work at an organization that's proud of your diverse interviewing and hiring numbers, great. Now, how does their retention look? Are they retaining at the same rates? Are they being promoted at the same rates? These are vital questions to ask yourself. Diversity is a program NOT a project.

Everyone at your organization can care about diversity. It doesn't need to be an HR or people function. In fact, DE&I should be an everyone function.

We talked about a lot of great sources on this panel. We're going to work on pulling a list together and will add it here soon. To get started, check out Textio (job description tool) and Valence (an incredible community for black professionals).

We also have a DE&I Resource Hub for Revenue Leaders!