We are excited to bring you our next Question & Answer segment! You wrote in and we answered! Our question comes from an organization about onboarding new staff.
We do organizational learning as a staff on a variety of DEI topics. When we hire a new employee, we have an internal training that has to do with the history of our own organization and our learning journey. However, it is always a challenge to onboard a new staff person and get them “caught up” to the work that the rest of the employees have done in the past. How do we create a baseline learning series for new employees, what should it include (it’s hard to do this learning alone when the rest of the staff have already done it), and what is a reasonable timeline? Beyond questions during the interview, how do we determine where people are at on their learning journey and how to align them with our organizational learning?
Greetings,
Let’s jump to your interview and work forward from there. Many organizations that have
a commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) struggle with making
sure the people they hire share this commitment. You’ll want to discuss what baseline
experience, openness, and understanding you want candidates to have and then
determine how to measure this.
As you’re asking questions in the interview related to DEIB, create a rubric that includes
"look fors" and "red flags." Some of these may be nonverbal cues, like getting flustered
when people speak with a heavy accent and asking them to speak more clearly (a red
flag shared by one client recently). During the hiring process, many people may be able
to “talk the talk” of racial justice. Include ways to assess candidates beyond their
response to an interview panel.
Once you hire someone, beyond what you’re already doing around the history of your
organization, you’ll want to make sure that person understands your mission and vision
for DEIB and why it is important to you, the framework you use to understand this work,
and common language. What else you include in on-boarding will depend on what
people need to support your DEIB work and what experience they already bring. We
worked with one organization that regularly talked about White Supremacy Culture as if
that was a concept that was not only known but could applied, but people weren’t
provided training, and this resulted in a lot of confusion and a bit of an “us vs. them”
mentality rather than collaboration.
Cultures Connecting is currently developing independent on-line learning opportunities
that involve videos and written reflections to cover our foundational workshop content
because we get this question so often. Another great resource is the 21 Day Racial
Equity Habit Building Challenge. You can choose which readings and videos best align
with your goals, and you may decide you want to do the 21 Day Challenge as an
organization.
As you say, one person learning on their own doesn’t have the same impact as the
community built when you work through challenging conversations in workshops. If
possible, pair new hires to work through these sessions together. Have them share
reflections with an equity leader or mentor and give them the opportunity to talk through
questions and challenges that emerge. Anytime we talk about new learning, it further
solidifies our understanding.
Finally, don’t rush the process and leave people feeling overwhelmed. Give them the
release time needed from other responsibilities to fully engage with this work and see
how it is connected to their everyday job duties. The timeline will depend on the
baseline understanding you determine new employees must have, other onboarding
processes, and what you want them to learn. In other words, this will likely look very
different from one organization to the next.
Thank you for the question!
Ilsa and JP