Diversity series: Conversation with Joanna Clark of Wells Fargo: From diversity to inclusiveness

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

First and foremost, congratulations to Joanna Clark of Wells Fargo for joining the prestigious gay and lesbian Center Board! The Center is a shortcut for the San Diego LGBT Community Center, an organization started in 1971 in a closet (literally) when Jess Jessop opened a help line to assist the LGBT community. The "Center" was officially incorporated as a 501c3 in 1973, the year when the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.  Today, the Center is the nation’s second oldest (LA being the first) and third largest LGBT Community Center. The Center has made a huge difference in the lives of tens of thousands of people. Its 800 volunteers, its staff (40 full-time employees) and its 20 board members provide more than 50,000 service hours each year to a very diverse community.

Joanna embodies diversity four-fold

The daughter of a Mexican mother, she is a proud woman, a proud Latina, a proud self-identified lesbian, and the proud second mother of her partner's daughter. To top it all, she is a very successful professional. After a 15-year career at AT&T in various roles within its Talent Acquisition organization, she joined Wells Fargo in 2011 where she is currently VP, Recruiting Leader for Community Bank's Western Mountain Region and Shared Services. 

Attending a Diverse Leaders Program

Some companies only pay lip service to diversity. It's clearly not the case of Wells Fargo who nominated Joanna to attend the Diverse Leaders Program very shortly after she joined.  At the time, she wrote a beautiful post on my blog on the reasons why she was selected: "I was not selected as a woman who has been climbing the proverbial ladder in a heavily female recruiting profession led predominantly by men, nor because my mother, who was born in Mexico, immigrated here as a child in search for the American Dream for her family.  I was selected for neither of these reasons although they would both be true.  I was selected instead as a self-identified lesbian and a high potential leader to be given additional training to improve my skills as a manager and leader for the betterment of myself, my team members, my customers and our local communities.  I admit, upon learning about my selection, I could not imagine what my 'gayness' could possibly have to do with my leadership skills, but I intended to find out."

From diversity to inclusion

Joanna found out that the purpose of companies with serious diversity programs is to not to simply be diverse or add diversity as a legal or marketing check box.  It's more specifically to foster a feeling of real inclusiveness in the hearts and minds of the "diverse" people whom you hire. Joanna's experience in this Diverse Leaders Program held in a room full of accomplished bankers, activists, community leaders was a real eye opener for her.  "We had openly talked about how we all felt driven to succeed so no one could say that if we failed it was because of our 'gayness'… Yet in preparing my last word was when I finally found the answer to my question, 'what does my gayness have to do with my leadership style?'  The answer was ultimately 'nothing'…  My 'gayness' was not the point when dealing with who I am as a leader, manager or team member at Wells Fargo.  Instead, what I found was that this program was something entirely different.  Instead it was about inclusion, real inclusion." 

Bottom line

Joanna admits that until then she thought that the word "inclusion" was part of the corporate jargon.  "I had never really never understood it," she says.  "I have always understood why having a mix of different people in a workforce would be good to mirror the communities we worked in but to be truly included, I mean every part of me being included by a company, for the first time, was something I did not expect nor could I anticipate the impact."

Joanna, what advice would you give to recruiters?

"As recruiters we are the foundation builders of diversity for our companies.  We have the ability to impact diversity by building relationships and looking for the best talent with the knowledge that diversity of thought and background builds the strongest team.”

Diversity series: Would you hire the Jean Valjean of Les Miz?

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Diversity has become a common word. Yet, we are sometimes far from embracing diversity and accepting individual differences. It can be challenging to look at people as human beings, beyond their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, beyond their socio-economic situation, their age, their physical appearance, their abilities or disabilities, their political viewpoints or religious beliefs. It can be even more challenging if several characteristics that we do not especially care for happen to be combined in the same person.

Respect or tolerance for people who are completely different from us is an art that we all have to master. This may even require courage when we have to go as far as getting along with people who don't tolerate diversity themselves. Should we roll over? I don't think so... Can we politely ignore them? Certainly. What about the idea of uncovering a deeper sense of humanity in us and others? It's not always as problematic as we believe. That's something we often experience in the arts almost unbeknownst to us. We like Jean Valjean in Les Miz even though he has quite a few traits and a history that we could easily disapprove of.

In our industry, ensuring diversity should not be a subject for discussion: after all, aren't we supposed to primarily look at people for their ability to perform the job? Yet, can we always be so abstract? Don't we say that we hire people — and not simply functional cogs for our corporate machine?

The legislative framework prevents us from overlooking diversity mandates and the fact that we all operate in an open social world may help us think twice. Yet, do we build great teams if we only look at diversity as something we must comply with or as a matter of law and quotas for paperwork? Diversity is a must. Yet, let's make it more than that: something we want to do. Let's think of it as the opportunity for us to get out of our comfort zone, open up and draw a new energy from different people. Diversity is the engine of personal discovery and mutual learning.

Researchers are all unanimous about the benefits organizations obtain from a systematic and continuous commitment to fostering diversity.  First in line to make this happen are recruiters and hiring managers, and they can do it well only if they internalize this organizational value and make it part of their own personal values system. Reinventing diversity may first be about feeling it.

The question you may now ask yourself is this: How many people who are different from you did you end up hiring in your career? If the response is that you do not exactly know, ask yourself why you don't know and if you have the right tools to manage diversity at the talent acquisition level.

Pushing Diversity. 5 Ways to Win By Recruiting & Hiring a Diverse Workforce

 

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Diversity is more than just the color of our skin. It’s diversity of thought and even diversity of life experiences. We’ll go beyond your Affirmative Action Plan Initiatives to talk about how to push diversity and win by recruiting and retaining talent that drives results and change at your workplace. As our nation and workforce are both becoming more diverse it’s important to match this trend in the recruiting world.

It’s undeniable that the war on talent is a tough fight and no company is able to afford restricting its ability to attract and retain the very best employees available at any given time. A diverse workforce combines workers from all experiences and backgrounds that foster an environment of creativeness, innovation, and productivity. Boosting our bottom line will strengthen more naturally when we learn to draw upon our nation’s diversity. A key ingredient to growing a strong and inclusive economy is our ability to hire in a diverse nature.

We’ve come up with five ways your company can benefit from recruiting and hiring a diverse workforce.

Diversity helps foster a more innovative workplace. When companies use diversity to find and recruit workers from all different qualifications, backgrounds, and experience effective problem solving will come more natural. When a company is able to solve problems more effectively, their productivity will rise and they will be able to focus on more innovative ideas. A recent survey conducted by Forbes states that 85% of surveyed companies agreed or strongly agreed that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation in the workplace is done through being able to solve problems more effectively.

Diversity expands workplace knowledge of other cultures. This might sound quite simple, I work in a diverse workplace therefore I learn about other cultures. One benefit to hiring a diverse workplace creates an environment of openness and ongoing learning on how to deal with other cultures. As business moves in a more global direction it’s important to learn about how other cultures interact and handle business. This can easily be picked up from working with someone more diverse then yourself.

More qualified workforce. When companies recruit from a very diverse set of potential applicants, they are more likely to hire the best and the brightest. No longer is competition defined by one pool of applicants, but it’s spread over a diverse population of people. In order to succeed in the market, you must be willing and able to recruit from a very diverse set of applicants. Hiring the right talent is crucial.

Hiring diverse reduces turnover, increases bottom line. According to a recent study by American Progress, the economic cost of discrimination is over $1 trillion in cumulative spending power. A diverse workplace as stated earlier is more then just the color of our skin, but it’s also our sexual orientation. The cost of an hourly worker leaving a company can cost up to 5-10 thousand dollars to replace and an executive can cost upwards to $211,000. Hiring a more diverse workforce helps foster a warming and inviting atmosphere that provides companies not only good PR, but also lower turnover rates.

Escape legal woes. The last benefit to hiring a diverse workforce is escaping the cost of legal actions against your company. Workplace discrimination exposes business to potentially costly lawsuits that could cost upwards of 100K for every case brought against you. Especially in states that have outlawed gay and transgender discrimination.

There are numerous benefits to hiring a diverse workforce and all of these directly benefit the company you’re working for. There should be no reasons that a recruiter wouldn’t want to hire the best talent even if that talent comes from a diverse background. Recruiting looks good when it comes to turnover rates, a company’s bottom line, the talent within a company, and the company’s ability to be innovative.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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