Diversity Bring Purpose, Purpose Attracts Quality Employees

Audio Transcription

Audio transcript may not be 100% accurate:

Hello everyone hope from wherever you're watching, you're having a great day today. I'd like to talk a little bit about #diversity. It was not that long ago when diversity didn't really mean that much to me. Even being a woman of color, I never really thought about it. I felt it, kind of knew. You know that you're a little bit different. You don't always feel like you fit in. You feel like you have different viewpoints, sometimes different opinions from other people. I didn't really know it meant something or it had a word. And when we started Balanced Diversity, diversity has been our biggest focus and we have an opportunity to really think about it and think about what it means to us. But as I think about what it means to the world as a whole, especially these days, I think about Martin Luther King. We just recently celebrated Martin Luther King Day ,and I love quotes, and I read a quote that he said that I don't think I've ever heard before. And the quote was, “ We need leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice, not in love with publicity but in love with humanity. " And that really struck a chord with me as we think about us as leaders. What do we owe not just our employees our teams, but what do we owe the communities and those that we serve? Is to really think about this and think about what these words mean to us as leaders. Being in the staffing industry diversity is a big topic these days, and it's a big word in terms of your diverse workforce. Staffing industry analysts recently put out a study. They had a blog that was very interesting and what they said in this blog was not only, you know as we think about what covid has done. For us this year, has changed the staffing landscape, but it wasn't changing something that was wasn't already moving. So especially with millennials now being in the workforce, Gen Z is just getting started. One of the biggest trends that we're seeing is bringing purpose to the forefront. What that means is for the younger knowledge workers. It's not just about a paycheck, it's about a purpose. So talent was already migrating to employers who did well by doing good. What was their social mission? What were they doing out in the community? Who do they want to be known for as an employer? After this pandemic, and how difficult of an experience it's been for so many people and the human toll that it has taken, companies need to demonstrate that they generally care not just for the bottom line, but they have to care for the people. So especially these days, companies, what they have to focus on and make sure is after this pandemic and the wrenching experience in the human toll that it took on all of us. Companies should demonstrate that they generally care not just for the single bottom line but the triple bottom line of (1) profit, (2) people and the (3) planet. And this is a direct quote from somebody. But I loved it. You need to think more, Greta Thunberg and Less Gordon Gekko. Thank you to all the folks out there that know what I mean by Gordon Gekko. It actually was one of my favorite movies, but it was a pretty interesting movie. There are so many studies that show that the diverse teams simply perform better, and as a result, they bring in better profits. A recent McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top tier for ethnic and racial diversity in management, where 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry means, in addition, those in the top quartile for gender diversity, where 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean. Being a woman and now, being a woman organization, I truly see the opportunity for woman leadership. They've also found that u. S public companies with diverse executive boards have a 95% higher return on equity than those with homogeneous boards. And then increasing the diversity of leadership teams leads to improved financial performance, which means that clearly, diversity pays off. So as we're thinking about those words by Martin Luther King, and how incredible was it that he spoke those words so long ago before the times that were living in now and truly before the times of everyone looking at the stock market and companies really measuring themselves only on their bottom line in the profits that they could return to their investors. How (much) foresight was it of him to speak those words. That as leaders we have to be in love with humanity and not with the profit. So I leave you with those words for today, and I know that I'm thinking about it and thinking as a leader myself, how am I gonna actually put that in practice? Hopefully, you think that about that as well. And see how you can put it in practice until next time. Take care.