2020 has been quite the year! We are living through a global pandemic and one of the biggest social justice movements of our lifetimes.

As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to make headlines across the nation pushing for social justice and equity, there is an even greater call for employers in all industries to be more diverse and inclusive.

Case in Point

As the Human Resources (HR) Director at FXCollaborative, an award-winning architectural design firm in New York City, my role over the past few years has increasingly focused on our efforts to make a variety of recruiting and equity-focused improvements both within our firm and in the design/construction industry.

How can we change if we don’t dig down a bit more? While our leadership is supportive and we are committed to real and positive change, implementing that change goes beyond crafting new HR policies; it is a holistic, firmwide process.

First, staff concerns need to be listened to. At FXCollaborative, this took the form of open-forum discussions facilitated by our employee resource groups (ERGs)—voluntary, employee-led, and firm-recognized affinity groups—that led to frank discussions about discrimination and pay equity, which were, at times, brutally honest and uncomfortable.

However, this direct feedback was necessary for leadership to recognize that firmwide training from external professionals was a critical element that would be worth the investment. Our focus then shifted beyond the baseline of tolerance to deliberate, conscious actions toward diversity, equity, and inclusion and set us on a path to be more proactive.

Looking Inward

Last year, we mandated an unconscious/implicit bias training session for all employees, which has proven highly successful. In these sessions, employees were able to realize that biases have an impact, and everyone walked away with greater empathy for each other.

By having all staff undergo this training and face these uncomfortable issues together, we as a firm have been able to progress with greater awareness and sensitivity, which has further strengthened our firm culture. The training also put a HUGE spotlight on biases that play a major role in how we operate as a firm. One of the major takeaways was that we needed to recruit differently. But the question was how.

Like many professions, architecture has historically been a white, male-dominated field. Yes, we’re based in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world, so on its face, it may be difficult to understand the low diversity in our office. However, of all the registered architects in the United States, only 2% are black. So how do we attract some of those architects, as well as other minority and underrepresented architects? And how do we become more diverse if there is a lack of diverse candidates?

For us, that meant making significant, proactive strides to improve our recruiting and improve the pipeline. In the last few years, we have orchestrated specific and targeted outreach initiatives, including efforts to 1) create relationships with a broader range of colleges, 2) offer increased internship opportunities, 3) lead résumé and portfolio workshops, and 4) reorganize our internal hiring selection process.

Rethinking Recruiting

For entry-level employees, we took a more critical look at which colleges and universities our candidates were coming from. Then we made a conscious effort to expand our connections and form relationships with colleges and universities that have a large percentage of minority students, such as historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and local New York City and New Jersey schools.

By participating in career fairs, sending our architects to serve as studio critics, and supporting employees who teach design courses at these schools, we have been afforded a larger and more diverse pool of potential candidates.

We also realize that gaining hands-on experience in our profession is often hampered by financial constraints. To help relieve this burden, and to work with the best talent regardless of their financial circumstances, we provide paid internships throughout the year for high school and college students.

In addition to offering housing stipends for all students who live outside the New York City area, we offer “shadowing” experiences for students to visit our office and spend a week with a firm partner. These opportunities have allowed students to get their foot in the door and our firm name on their résumés!

One of my favorite initiatives is our résumé and portfolio workshops. In addition to the standard résumé submission, architectural and design candidates are expected to send in portfolios—typically, a visual selection of their best design work.

In workshops, we share tips on how to prepare effective and compelling materials and offer one-on-one mock interview sessions to provide feedback on how to make a great first impression. The workshops are open to all and are especially targeted to those who may suffer from a lack of exposure to the profession or who have little to no resources available at their respective colleges to assist them.

Hiring the Best

However, finding candidates and preparing students to become candidates are only half the battle. The second half of the challenge is the internal selection process to turn those candidates into employees. For that, you must consider who is making the hiring decisions, and a lack of diversity in this group is problematic.

One of the ways FXCollaborative is addressing unconscious bias is by changing the application process. First implemented for our summer 2019 internship program, instead of having firm leadership select the interns (as in previous years), we opened the review process to a full range of team members at different levels and with more diverse backgrounds—people who would be working directly with the interns if hired.

Another critical aspect of our revamped hiring process included the HR department’s manual deletion of all information that might identify a candidate’s ethnic background—including names, photos, school, and organizational affiliations—from cover letters, résumés, and portfolios.

The goal was to ensure that applicants are judged solely on the quality of their work and to acknowledge that we all have preconceived notions that may unintentionally sway us toward certain universities or to candidates with similar backgrounds to our own. Only after these redactions were made were the materials reviewed by the selection committee.

This new process has been a huge success. The very first year it was implemented, we had the most diverse group of interns ever—eight out of the nine chosen were members of minority groups. We are now in the process of researching digital methods to more easily facilitate the removal of select information, and my ultimate goal is to use this blind résumé review process for all of our hiring!

Be the Change

FXCollaborative is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and while I am proud of what we have accomplished, we must continue to diversify our firm and the industry. The three components of diversity, equity, and inclusion overlap and must constantly be assessed, adjusted, and redefined.

In my role as HR Director, it is my responsibility to ensure that staff concerns are heard, that our policies facilitate an equitable and inclusive environment, and that we recruit the best people to push our firm forward. To be truly successful, a business must put effort into all three and recognize that achieving diversity is more than just checking a few boxes.

Thanks to technology, more employees can work remotely from the comfort of their homes. And businesses are willing to make the change. About 69 percent of U.S. businesses now offer a flexible workplace policy, according to the 2019 IWG Workplace Survey.

 

However, working from home can also be tied to another trend in the workplace: diversity initiatives. Many businesses are making inclusivity pledges to attract, recruit and retain diverse teams. And it's a welcome change in white, male-dominated industries. Businesses and their customers benefit from the unique perspectives historically marginalized individuals can bring to the table.

 

But how does remote work factor into diversity initiatives? Primarily, remote work can benefit employees with disabilities in substantial ways.

The truth About Employees With Disabilities

Disabilities come in many different forms, both visible and invisible. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the federal standard for defining disabilities. Enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the ADA also sets accessibility and anti-discrimination standards for private businesses in the United States.

 

According to the ADA, an individual with a disability "has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment."

 

The definition is broad. But examples can include a visible physical disability that limits a person's motor skills. It can also include diagnosed, invisible mental health conditions such as anxiety or major depression. Pregnancy and medical conditions that occur due to pregnancy can also be considered disabilities. Surprisingly, very few people who self-identify as having a disability are actively seeking employment.

 

Just over 19 percent of people with self-identified disabilities are employed, according to a 2018 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report. Overall, about 8 in 10 respondents in the BLS report are not in the labor force. They're neither employed nor unemployed nor seeking work. The data doesn't account for undiagnosed workers or workers who choose not to disclose their status.

 

The truth is Americans with disabilities face a harder time finding employment and succeeding in the workforce. Many also experience workplace discrimination, fear of which could prevent them from disclosing their disability status to their employers. Stigmas around mental disorders also makes some people less likely to seek a diagnosis. However, there are workplace accommodation measures that employers can take to help existing and future employees with disabilities feel valued and welcome.

 

How Remote Work Benefits Those With Disabilities

Luckily, this is where remote work can come in handy for any employee with a disability. Working from home can provide many benefits, but below are three of the biggest.

1. Improved Productivity

Offices are full of distractions. Working from home provides an easy solution. In a 2019 TSheets report, 54 percent of remote employees rated their work performance as "above average," compared to those who work in an office. Additionally, 59 percent of employers rated remote workers' performance as "above average." Fewer distractions at home means employees can focus on their work and improve productivity.

 

Plus, for people with disabilities such as ADD or ADHD, working from home can be a serious productivity game-changer. They can cater their environments to their needs. People with other disabilities can benefit too. They may feel more comfortable working at home and less likely to experience microaggressions from their co-workers.

2. Shorter Commutes

For many workers with disabilities, traveling to work is difficult. This is especially the case for those who rely on mobility assistance like vanpools and wheelchair-accessible public transportation, which can add time to an already lengthy commute.

 

Working from home could help these employees tremendously. They can spend less time worrying about how to get to work and more time actually focusing on work. They can also have more freedom to decide where they live and work, as distance to the office won't be a concern - which can be a major competitive recruiting advantage.

3. Greater Flexibility

For employees with disabilities, the home environment  may provide them with access to much-needed medications, assistance apparatuses, emotional support animals and much more. Their home environment already caters to their needs, so it can also serve as a comfortable and accessible office environment.

 

Furthermore, working from home gives people the opportunity to have a more flexible schedule. In the TSheets survey, 64 percent of employees surveyed said they "sometimes take care of personal tasks during the workday." Employers were certainly aware of this. But they still thought their remote employees were more productive and provided "above average" work.

 

Working from home also allows people with disabilities to take care of personal tasks, as well as themselves. Working from home is no vacation, but it makes self-care much easier. Plus, for those who work from home and have a flexible schedule, they have increased accessibility to doctor visits and other medical appointments. Even if an appointment is in the middle of the afternoon, they can go home and make up their work long after the office has been locked up for the night.

Although the words “diversity” and “inclusion” have become nearly inseparable in our collective jargon, when it comes to measuring impact or creating initiatives, the vast majority of our attention falls upon diversity.

 

The main reason for this, as I have argued in an earlier blog, is that diversity is very easy to measure and quantify, whereas inclusion is difficult to define, let alone measure. My colleagues and I have developed a way of defining inclusion that makes it measurable, and we have argued that focusing on inclusion overcomes some of the negative aspects of focusing on diversity.

 

What I want to emphasize in this blog is that, although diversity is clearly linked to company performance, inclusion in some ways is more fundamental, as it can increase both the level diversity and the performance of a company.

 

Intuitively, it makes sense that inclusion would influence diversity. We can make a stronger statement, namely, that inclusion is a requirement to establish or grow diversity: if a company fails to be inclusive toward employees, especially those whose characteristics differ from the characteristics of majority employees, the company will find it hard both to recruit and to retain a diverse workforce. On the other hand, if a company has a strong reputation of being inclusive, it’s more likely that someone from a different background will be willing to start working there, even if the company is fairly homogeneous.

 

Of course, regardless of how inclusive a company may be, increasing its level of diversity is unlikely to happen if the company is completely homogeneous and if it does not actively recruit candidates from outside of its own network. Also, if a company is completely homogeneous, it is less likely that its leaders and employees will be truly inclusive to everyone.

The situation with diversity is different. As the previous sentence would suggest, having some diversity seems like an important ingredient to foster an inclusive culture. However, simply increasing diversity by recruiting candidates from a range of backgrounds will not, by itself, guarantee an increase in the level of inclusion. This is especially true when organizations “hire for diversity” primarily at entry level, because in almost every organization, the overall attitude toward inclusion is set from the top. In fact, what many companies have found out is that trying to increase diversity by hiring for diversity at the entry level often backfires, leading to internal strife and high churn rates, as the new employees face incidents that cause them to leave.

 

Hiring for diversity is much more likely to have impact if it is done at senior levels, and if it’s done systematically and on a broad scale: it needs to be done at senior levels because leaders who themselves understand what it’s like to feel excluded in a company will be able to guide their peers toward creating a more inclusive culture that will benefit all employees; and it needs to be done on a broad scale, because hiring only one or two non-majority individuals into a predominantly white and male leadership will unavoidably place enormous stress on these people, and is less likely to generate the level of consensus that will drive real change. It is for this reason, for example, that the D&I company Diversity Lab established the Mansfield Rule, which suggests that law firms consider at least 30 percent women, attorneys of color, LGBTQ+ and lawyers with disabilities for senior positions.

 

Hence we see the asymmetry between diversity and inclusion: hiring for diversity without first creating an inclusive environment is much less likely to succeed than fostering a culture of inclusion before hiring for diversity.

 

There is also an asymmetry in the way that diversity and inclusion impact the performance of a company. Before explaining this, I need to make a clarification. There is ample data that, on a statistical level, companies with greater diversity outperform companies with less diversity. For instance, Lorenzo and Reeves found that companies with above-average diversity also have higher innovation revenues, while McKinsey found that executive gender and ethnic diversity correlate with profitability. However, a statistical correlation does not imply causality. Put in plain language, the fact that two variables – in this case, the level of diversity and the financial performance of the company – are correlated, does not mean that one caused the other. The correlation could go in the other direction (i.e., it could be argued that having greater revenues or greater profitability encourages companies to hire more diverse teams), or there could be a third variable that is causing an increase in both variables. In this case, I believe that inclusion is that third variable.