Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together podcast, chats with DEI data subject matter expert Brittany Hart. Tune in as they discuss how DEI data is key to creating a more equitable workplace, tips on analyzing DEI data, and best practices to mature your DEI data program.
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together Podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with the diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them, and all of us, unstoppable.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Unstoppable Together Podcast. I'm Jennie Brooks. And today I'm joined by Booz Allen's DE&I data subject matter expert, Brittany Hart. Brittany, welcome to the podcast.
Brittany Hart:
Thank you. Thank you for having me today.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks for being here. All right, to get us started, can you share with us, what do you mean by diversity data?
Brittany Hart:
So in terms of our conversation today, you say diversity data, I think we're referring to an individual's personal demographic characteristics, which could mean how an individual identifies ethnically and racially, or by gender, or sexual orientation, or whether or not they identify some type of a disability, be it physical or non. So for the context of this conversation, we're talking about how someone identifies, and how that information can be leveraged, to ensure equity in the workplace.
Jennie Brooks:
Okay. Let's talk about that. How do you apply diversity data to lead to a more equitable workplace?
Brittany Hart:
I see sharing your personal demographic information with your employer or in your workplace is a benefit to you as an individual. On a broader macro scale, we collect this information more broadly in the US census, providing that information in the census ensures that people have adequate political representation or infrastructure support, or hospitals, roads, public transportation, that kind of thing. So the same goes for the workplace, ensuring that you have adequate demographic information for your employees in an organization, is foundational to ensuring equity in the workplace.
Jennie Brooks:
Right, okay. So we all know the forms that say, "What age group are you in? What gender are you? What's your racial background, and so forth?" All right, so let's look a little bit beyond that sheet. How do you look past that data? And not just the statistics and the numbers, but what we're really driving towards when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion.
Brittany Hart:
A number one data point alone without context is meaningless. You need that proper context, to draw any conclusions and to assess equity or really anything about it. Extremely important to ensure that you have the full scope, and relevant information around a particular data point, or around a number, as you draw conclusions about it. With that said, you always ask questions, even when you have some set of context, you can interpret a number alone a number of different ways. And so I think it's really important to have that additional context and to understand what's relevant, and how that number or a particular metric relates to something else. I think that's key.
Jennie Brooks:
Yeah, that makes sense. What about people who don't want to answer the form, or hesitant to? How is my data being used? What you offer to people who are like, "I decline"?
Brittany Hart:
And I can understand that,. Especially in the age we live in, where data security in general, information security is paramount and is such a risk. I think it's important to understand the value of sharing that information. And many organizations, and large organizations, when they ask for this information, it is held very tightly. And they want to make sure it's used in the proper manner. To go back to the beginning, I think the reward or the outcomes that could be drawn from leveraging that data is so much more important, ensuring that your workplace has the resources that are relevant to you. And without that, there's no way of knowing that. The same level of security and scrutiny that we use to make sure you get paid is the same level of scrutiny and security that we use to protect your personal demographic information.
Jennie Brooks:
All right, you're a specialist in this area. Tell us about the value that you do derive from people who will participate in this data collection. What's in the value back to me as an employee?
Brittany Hart:
There's no accountability and there's no way to measure equity if we don't have the data to do so. So you can't identify a problem or you can't identify a concern if we don't have that information to inform that. So for example, let's say that you work at an organization where employees allege that women aren't being promoted at the same rate as men. Well, how do you know how many women you have if you're not collecting that information? And so we have to use that data to A, to be able to identify a problem or to ensure that there isn't one, not saying that there is a concern. But if there is, you need that same data to be able to track progress in a particular area. And so I think when it comes to equity in the workplace, obviously it's paramount. We can't ensure equity if we don't know those particular areas that we want to track. And you can't track progress against it or hold leaders accountable for ensuring equity in an organization or inclusion, without having that data available.
Jennie Brooks:
And then, as I'm thinking about the form, I recall there's the typical form that we see. There's four or five boxes. But those four or five boxes today, at least the ones that I've participated in, don't address all of the realms of how people identify today. So what about those with intersectional identities? Where do you see this going? How do you ensure that you are collecting data, but really data that provides a context to who people are right in the workforce?
Brittany Hart:
Yeah. In the short answer, diversity is so much more than gender and or race. My demographic makeup includes my personal experiences, to the extent that they influence how I show up in the world. So it could be socioeconomic factors, it could be my sexual orientation, or how I identify, gender identity. Right now, even, especially as we're during this pandemic, it's, "Am I a caretaker?" That's a more fluid construct.
Jennie Brooks:
Yes.
Brittany Hart:
But that influences how my workplace shows up for me and supports me during this time. And so I think it is essential that organizations are being really inclusive about tracking and measuring these factors that have an impact on their employees.
Jennie Brooks:
I think that's spot on. I totally get it. Do you have any other specific examples of how this diversity data has been applied towards making an impact in an organization, or as you said, increasing accountability towards [inaudible 00:06:53] goals?
Brittany Hart:
So many examples, like I said. There is no accountability without the data to hold someone accountable too. Going back to that fictional example, if particular demographic segment, let's say women, people that identify as women say that they're not being promoted at the same rate as people that identify as male, we have no way to track that without the data, we have no way to continue to monitor that. And a tangible example that I think organizations that I've worked with have done well, they are constantly monitoring pay by gender, by race ethnicity, to ensure that their data scientists that identify as a woman are being consistently paid with data scientists that identify as a man. And that is a very tangible example of how that personal demographic information is leveraged to ensure equity. A direct manager has control over the pay decisions for their employees. Bias can creep up. Nobody is perfect and everybody has bias in some form or fashion. But at an organizational level, we can leverage that data to ensure that those biases aren't creeping up, and aren't creating a systemic concern within an organization.
Jennie Brooks:
If you could, just like a primer for us, how do you start to something like bias through the data?
Brittany Hart:
But just looking at trends. So I'm speaking with that same compensation example. So if an organization has never analyzed this, has never taken a look at this, we can take two similar groups of employees, same level, similar tenure, maybe one that identifies as male, one that identifies as female or a control. And seeing over time is the pay consistent with those groups over time. And so if we see consistently that one group is being paid less, that's how we help to begin to identify a pattern of inequity. So I think that's a very basic example of how we would identify. Now, identifying bias in a program is much more an expensive analysis involved. Are we asking the right questions? Are the questions itself biased in a particular way? There's a different lens that we would need to take, but there are a lot of factors that could impact bias in a specific program.
Jennie Brooks:
When you see such dynamic periods of time, of change, like during a pandemic, does it change your approach to data collection frequency of how much you're looking at data?
Brittany Hart:
Yes, I think you have to. Because even for me, we do modeling. My team does modeling and we do predictive looks at trends in the workplace. And our observation period that we would use right now is not the same as what we would've used a year ago or two years ago. And so we have to constantly collect additional data points so that we can adjust for what's happening in society, and adjust for what's happening in the workplace. So the short answer is, yes, we do have to ask some different questions, and change the frequency of how we're pulsing our employees.
Jennie Brooks:
And for those who listening, who might be working in a small business or a non-profit, or an organization that doesn't have a dedicated DE&I team, or a data science team, what are some of the things you might offer to them to just think about, if they recognize, "This could be valuable to my organization, and I know I've got goals, or I'm just starting to think about where to go with some of this work," what are some of the things that are out there, resources perhaps, or things that you would point them to help them in terms of looking at the data, and what to consider data or how to use the data?
Brittany Hart:
I would say, and I have worked with some smaller organizations that have very ground level grassroots collection mechanisms, so I would say the very first thing I would invest in, for a small business, or a small organization, is ensuring that you have an adequate HRIS system, an adequate system for collecting that data in a meaningful and in an inclusive way. So we don't want an individual, one person going in and asking all of their staff how you identify. Or worse, making an assumption. And I have worked with companies that they have one lonely person that's going around and peeking over, and saying, "I think this person might identify as X or Y or Z." And that's not the approach that you want to do. That does not create a culture of inclusion. And so having a true human resource information system that you can use to track, that an employee can self-identify, and do so in a secure way, without having anyone or group of individuals making any assumptions, or then having to report that to human when some of that information could be sensitive, I think that is foundational.
And I think that is, before you do anything else, make sure you have data and that you are inclusive in your practices for collecting it, I think, would be, that's my one key, I think, to the foundation to an inclusive environment, or measuring data in an inclusive way.
Jennie Brooks:
Awesome. Brittany, I'm just so fascinated by this field, and this really important work you're doing to help support an organization's goals and objectives, as they work towards fulfilling their DE&I agenda. At the end of every podcast, we leave some free space for our guests to share final thoughts with our audience. What would you share with our audience today?
Brittany Hart:
Assuming that your audiences are employees like me, I think one thing, and we touched on it earlier, but I think I'm going to leave you with the same thoughts that I started with, is that if you, as an employee, want to take a step to ensure that your workplace is more equitable and more inclusive, I think that one of the things that you have to do is to feel comfortable and empower yourself to self-identify, in any way that your employer is tracking. And so meet them where they are. That's the only way that you, as an employee, can hold your organization, hold your leaders accountable for ensuring equity. Again, that's foundational. So if you do your part there, then we can work on the other things, tactically. What can we do? What efforts can you get involved with? So self-identify, I think that is what you, as an average employee, can do, baseline, to ensure that there is equity, and that you can hold your leaders and hold your employer accountable for ensuring that within your organization.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks Brittany.
Brittany Hart:
Sure, thank you for having me.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future, work with us, the world can't wait.