Martine Kalaw – Leveraging Data to Plan Scalable DEI Programs

Connect with Martine:

• 

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Martine Kalaw Enterprises
• The ABC's of Diversity
• Illegal Among Us
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 25
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 23

• “You can tell a story about who you are as a company to a consumer and say, ‘we are you,’ . . . but if you can’t say that because you’re not diverse, then you’re missing the point!”
• “Defining what diversity means [is critical]. What does it mean to the organization, because ‘diversity’ could mean on or multiple things, and having one of a person isn’t enough.”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology.Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly.And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent,that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host David Turetsky. Alongside me, Dwight Brown, co-host. Hey, Dwight!

 

Dwight Brown: 0:52

Hey David, how's it going?

 

David Turetsky: 0:54

It's going great. How are you?

 

Dwight Brown: 0:55

I am great.

 

David Turetsky: 0:57

That's great.And today we have a very special guest, Martine Kalaw, from Martine Kalaw Enterprises, CEO and founder. Hello, Martine. How are you?

 

Martine Kalaw: 1:06

Hi, David. How are you? Hi, Dwight!

 

Dwight Brown: 1:09

Hi Martine!

 

David Turetsky: 1:10

Very good. We are so excited to talk to you today, Martine. But Martine, can you give us a little bit of background as to who you are and how you got to this moment?

 

Martine Kalaw: 1:19

Yeah, absolutely.Like you said, I'm CEO and founder of Martine Kalaw enterprises, which is a boutique firm that supports human resources professionals in making DEI accessible in their workplaces. Because we know that oftentimes, with this push for dei in workspaces, usually the person that gets targeted with that responsibility is the HR professional. And sometimes they don't feel like they have the experience, the expertise, and they feel like it's burdensome.So what I want to do, what we like to do at Martine Kalaw Enterprises is support them so that they can position DEI as a business case, and secure a seat at the table when pushing DEI forward.

 

David Turetsky: 2:02

Outstanding.

 

Martine Kalaw: 2:03

And as far as how I got into this, you know, for personal and professional reasons and my journey. I've always been, I've considered myself a bridge builder, someone who has been has had access to different communities and spaces and has sort of integrated myself in different communities and spaces. And what I've realized is that there is an unspoken understanding across many communities and spaces, and those that have more access,sometimes see those that don't,as charity. And that's not the case. I think there's value in building those bridges so that everyone sees each other as an investment, right? People, human capital investment, and that can impact and grow communities. And so that's what I like to do,whether it's philanthropic work,whether it's, you know, for profit work, it's building those bridges so that people see the value that each other can bring to the table.

 

David Turetsky: 2:59

I wish people saw DEI, as a bridge building business issue rather than being people of color versus white, or age or gender. I wish they saw it as a way of coming together and making the company stronger.

 

Martine Kalaw: 3:18

Yeah. And that mean, that's really what it is.And when people ask me, Well,you know, what is DEI? What's the, what's the purpose of it? I say, in the workspace, I really think the DEI, in the workspace is a microcosm of the world and the nation, right? Everyone in the nation, everyone in the world goes to work. And we can't get it right socially. But when we come to work, we can really,you know, kind of navigate through this. And it's an inside out approach, as opposed to an outside in approach and really affecting DEI. And at the end of the day, you know, it becomes an opportunity for us to really drive business. So ultimately,what I say is, you know, DEI is about widening our pool,identifying the best, smartest,top talent bringing them into our organization, right? And when we widen the pool, as far as we can we mitigate bias, we automatically increase diversity, we bring those people in, we retain them and make sure that they feel included, and we drive the business. Our numbers go up. That's what DEI is meant to be.

 

David Turetsky: 4:21

And we're gonna get into that in much more detail.

 

Martine Kalaw: 4:23

Yeah, good.

 

David Turetsky: 4:24

But first,Martine, we need to know one thing that no one knows about you.

 

Martine Kalaw: 4:30

Oh, man. Okay,look, I'll say this. I'll start with this one. I am an open book, literally, literally and figuratively. So my first book was a memoir. So in that case, I am an open book. There's very little that people don't know about me. But right now, I think very few people, if anyone,knows that I'm five months pregnant, and in August, end of August, I will be having my first baby,

 

David Turetsky: 4:54

Congratulations!

 

Martine Kalaw: 4:54

Thank you!

 

David Turetsky: 4:56

Wow, that's so wonderful!

 

Dwight Brown: 4:58

Excellent. That is a first here on the show.

 

Martine Kalaw: 5:05

I like to be original.

 

Dwight Brown: 5:07

We are better than CNN or Fox or anything. We've got

 

David Turetsky: 5:11

Breaking news!

 

Dwight Brown: 5:12

We got the breaking news, breaking news.

 

Martine Kalaw: 5:14

Eat your heart out Rihanna, like Rihanna's got nothing on me!

 

David Turetsky: 5:20

It'll be out on news wire after we record. Wow,that's wonderful.Congratulations, as we are both parents, so we know the experience you're gonna go through, not from your side of it, obviously from the other side. But enjoy. Enjoy your sleep now while you can first and second. Enjoy your partner while you can. Because it is going to be

 

Martine Kalaw: 5:44

I'll never see him again, right?

 

David Turetsky: 5:46

Wow, well, if that's what your hope is, then.

 

Dwight Brown: 5:49

Exactly. Maybe that's a good thing for you.

 

Martine Kalaw: 5:51

No, that's not the hope. But yeah, no. And the thing about sleep is people say enjoy your sleep. But it's like,well, you can't like save sleep.Like even if I sleep now, I will still be tired later, right?

 

David Turetsky: 6:05

Yes, you will.But it changes. But from now on.And this is where I'm going with this. From now on. You will never sleep the same. I mean,I'm not talking about like the early years when you have to nurse and things like that. I'm talking about, you know, the kid running into your bedroom at five o'clock in the morning going mommy, mommy, mommy.

 

Martine Kalaw: 6:23

Yeah, I won't and I love to sleep. So

 

David Turetsky: 6:26

Well forget about that. Maybe maybe you shouldn't sleep now, maybe that's the point. Maybe you should get used to it.

 

Dwight Brown: 6:33

Right, acclimate your body to it.

 

David Turetsky: 6:37

That's so wonderful. Well,congratulations. That is a absolute blessing.

 

Martine Kalaw: 6:43

Thank you.

 

David Turetsky: 6:52

So our topic for today is DEI is inevitable. And one of the notes you have in here is that by 2032 people of color will be the majority in the US labor force. And organizations have to get ahead of that curve. And I totally agree with you on that. So this should be a fascinating conversation. Because we talk a lot about DEI, we talk a lot about demographics and data.

 

Martine Kalaw: 7:14

Yep.

 

David Turetsky: 7:15

So we're we're fascinated, riveted.

 

Martine Kalaw: 7:18

I am too.

 

David Turetsky: 7:18

So the first question is, what type of data do you need to actually drive DEI in the workplace?

 

Martine Kalaw: 7:26

my opinion. Lots of organizations are caught up with the idea and the concept of quotas. And then I think that's where they get stuck, right? We need that data, we need the quota so that we can work against it, or work towards it.And there's a level of force, it feels very punitive. And it really does stifle the organization, it actually does more harm than good. I think quotas work in different environments in the academic institution, it was designed for that for specific reasons. In the workplace, I say targets.Targets look a lot different than quotas, right? So that's the first piece of data. The second is the demographic data,the demographics of your employee base, your employee population. It's really important to start looking at like those fundamental demographics, whether it's race,ethnicity, gender, etc, like looking at it across the board.And some of this information,like they don't always have it,or it's not consistent,especially when they're a global organization. So you want to find metrics that are that are consistent across the board,right? So if you have race in the United States, and then let's say you have an office in Germany, or in Bulgaria, and you have ethnicity, you want to make sure that you're able to like set it up so that you're able to create like that common denominator. The third piece of data that I would say is important is the intersectionality of the data,right? So it's one thing to just look at gender, it's another thing to look at race and look at all of that across the board.And by the way, when you do that, you use the national averages, or global averages as a framework, a basis of comparison, right. But in addition to that, you really want to be able to tell a story and see what the story is and how you want to where there's opportunity to grow, you want to be able to look at the intersection of data. So for example, you might be looking at the gender distribution within our organization. But what's more important is to look at it across departments. And then when you look at it across department, that might be the first layer, but that doesn't really tell you much. So then you want to look at gender, and maybe ethnicity, that's the second layer. And then the third layer might be gender, across ethnicity, across like tenure,right? Because then you're able to see and deduce a story that will help to drive diversity initiatives.

 

David Turetsky: 9:55

I think the sensitivity about the word quota came from the affirmative action programs which enforced for government contractors, a specific mix of people. And there was a new knee jerk reaction to that. So I think a lot of us who are older,remember that time when we used to have that, and what I consider overreactions, by the way, to what were termed quotas,but you're, you're spot on with the word target, because target sets a goal for enabling an organization to shoot for. The other thing I wanted to talk about, because I totally agree on your data point, you won't get any arguments here. But the last piece that you mentioned in the intersectionality, is that we also can look at the populations that you have been recruiting from, and the populations you have not been recruiting from. So if you haven't been targeting where you could find people of color, or people of different gender,those particular areas that are strong with great talent, then maybe you're not actually doing the best thing for your recruiting program.And then being able to find not just the

 

Martine Kalaw: 11:03

That's correct.diverse talent, but diverse thought. the last thing I want to ask is that do you also find it difficult because the recruiting into positions that instead of recruiting for all positions, they're just focusing on things like graduates? And so they're not thinking about the entire stack of positions? So I had three reactions there,sorry, to kind of put it all out.And let me know if I missed any of your your questions or comments.Absolutely. The goal is for organizations to widen their networks, and that has a lot to do with the talent acquisition team itself has to have a level of diversity and representation to be able to tap into different networks to even know what they don't know. You know, their wider networks. And then when they do that, I think a lot of misconceptions that organizations have is diversifying our pool of candidates means that the quality of the candidates go down. And that is not the truth,right? We're not saying I'm not suggesting that you stop recruiting from the pool that you already have, what I'm suggesting is you widen the pool. So you look at other networks that you haven't, you know, naturally navigated and accessed before, right. And when you do that, you're gonna find the top talent in all these different networks. And that's not just that HBCUs, because by the way, I like to look at historically black colleges and universities that are not at the top, like, you know, they're there. They're like a select Ivy HBCUs. But then there are other HBCUs that never get, you know,any notoriety, there are institutions that have African American, black students that are not HBCUs, right. And then there are Hispanic serving institutions, there are all these other institutions. So the key is to tap into as wide of a network. And when we do that,and we bring in qualified candidates, and we add them to our existing pool, and we mitigate the bias.

 

David Turetsky: 13:02

Totally agree.

 

Martine Kalaw: 13:03

What was your second, I think you had a second question or comment?

 

David Turetsky: 13:07

Well, it was also about the fact that targets are better, because it enables companies to have a goal to shoot for, rather than quotas,which had always had that negative connotation for the wrong reasons.

 

Martine Kalaw: 13:18

And there's a reason for quotas in some institutions, in academic and government institutions. But that it's completely different industry different space than the for profit or even not for profit space. Right. And so I think that like, again, quotas feel punitive, it feels like,you know, it forces or enforces this idea of tokenism, of bringing a person in sets them up for failure, right. But when we have targets very consistent with business practices, we have targets for our sales, you know,we have targets for whatever other initiatives, our products,so it's very consistent with the language that organizations have. And so we that's what we want, we want DEI to be positioned as a business practice and system.

 

David Turetsky: 14:05

To go back to your original point about the data driving the DEI, in the workplace, there is a lack of understanding about what is the appropriate data, and I think you carefully talked about making sure that you not only have a handle on what you have,but if you're especially if you're a global company, making sure there's consistency, or at least an affirmation or understanding of what we have differently than what you all have. And that's okay. Because it doesn't need to be the same on a global basis.

 

Martine Kalaw: 14:34

There's a lot of I mean, there's a lot of apprehension around data. One is, you know, when we look at data, especially around this,you know, DEI conversations,it's pretty intimidating. And what I like to reassure organizations is we all have to start from somewhere, we're all starting from somewhere, right?I mean, otherwise, we wouldn't need to do this work. So it's okay, this is not meant to you know, it's not meant to be a test to just highlight what we're doing wrong. It's really about where our potential lies.And you know, it's good to have a framework, a baseline, and something to compare to. So it's good to have a national average,if you're looking at distribution of race. Well, what are the national averages in the United States, right? And so that becomes like a framework that you can use. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention about it, about data is that just like you have systems that are designed for compliance for learning, a learning management system for learning and development, there are tools that are specific to this kind of data like people analytics,so it's really important to not try to repurpose other tools and systems for this work you want to do. You know, you want to use the appropriate systems that are going to support us in, you know, actually being able to look at and assess the data in the right way. The last thing I was going to say about that also around data is that when we talk targets, the one thing I caution organizations to not do is post their targets on their website,right around DEI, because we don't do that with any other aspect of our business.

 

Dwight Brown: 16:08

Yeah, why would we do it with this?

 

Martine Kalaw: 16:10

What that also does is that can set us up for failure as well. And I think I saw a lot of that. And I would actually consider that to be overreach as well, especially last year, and the years prior,like you would go on many organizations' websites, they're like, we're gonna have this much growth in diversity by bla bla,bla, bla, bla, and they don't hit those targets. Right? So that's another thing I like to caution organizations not to do.

 

Dwight Brown: 16:37

The other thing,you know, I was we were just talking about this on a with another guest the other day, and going with your business process analogy, when you look at the data, I feel it's important to not only focus on the outcomes data, it seems like everything is based on the outcomes data,we're talking quotas, we're talking targets, but how do you get there? What's the what are the process metrics? And I think, I think there is you're looking at the data that you track, you also have to figure out those components of things.Because like any business process, the if you don't know how you got to the outcome, then how do you know how to improve the outcome? And so I think that has to be a component with with everything else.

 

Martine Kalaw: 17:24

And that, you know, absolutely, Dwight, I couldn't agree more. And that's what I was alluding to by referring to the intersectional data, because that tells the story of how where we are,what's the issue? If the issue is that people are attriting the organization, right, or certain gender or ethnicity or race or age, you know, generation is attriting the organization and we can't figure out why. Right,we might see that as the outcome. But then when we start to look at the intersection of those that data, we go, Wait a minute, perhaps, you know, we're looking at the data, we're seeing that in terms of promotion, this age group or this age range in this department isn't really getting promoted as fast as this other group. And perhaps there's something, you know, we can start to dissect and start looking at things like performance reviews, right?Because that would that ultimately influences promotions, and we can look at salary, and then start to figure out what the baseline salary is for these for these different demographics. That's what allows us to really start to tell the story, and to start making changes, like slowly through strategy and implementation. So I couldn't agree more.

 

David Turetsky: 18:42

But that also provides a roadmap for being able to hold leaders accountable, right?

 

Martine Kalaw: 18:46

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 18:46

So if you give them a roadmap, if you give them at least some understanding about what they have to do,whether it's engagement of those resources that you say are leaving, or they're not getting promoted, or there are there are people that we're not hiring,right, you can give feedback to those leaders and say, Hey,listen, your incentive, your increase, whatever it is, is being held to the fire on being able to be a better leader when it comes to DEI. And that's not just us trying to be HR about it. This is a business problem.And you have to solve that business problem. And if you need help, we're here to help you. But you know that that has to happen, because yeah, and this gets to our next topic. If DEI can drive the business. It has to drive the business.

 

Martine Kalaw: 19:34

That's right.

 

Announcer: 19:35

Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe. This podcast is made possible by Salary.com. Now back to the show.

 

David Turetsky: 19:45

So Martine, how does DEI drive the business?

 

Martine Kalaw: 19:51

Yeah, it depends on what type of business it is right? So you know, whether it's a B2B, B2C, you know, government or not for profit. What we do know is that all organizations need revenue to thrive, how they get their revenue is what differentiates one organization for another? So the question becomes, what are those key performance indicators? What is the ROI? And how does DEI affect or impact any of those different elements? So at the end of the day, if it's a B2C business,what we know is that there's always opportunity to tap into new markets, always, right? Any,any organization that has to that needs consumers to sell a product to, there are opportunities for new markets. I mean, all they need to do is literally compare themselves to other other companies within that industry worldwide. And they will see that. So in order for us to drive the business in a b2c organization is really thinking about the representation that we have internally, for our sales people. Because the salespeople have to have the awareness have to, you know, you want the representation within the sales team or the product team so that you can access these different markets, retain the markets,attract the markets, but then you also want to be able to tap into those markets, with marketing, with branding with all of those things. So that's how we can actually drive the business in a B2C type of organization, you look like you're gonna say something?

 

David Turetsky: 21:27

Well, yeah,because I love what you're talking about. But I think it goes also one step further,which is, you can tell a story about who you are as a company to a consumer.

 

Martine Kalaw: 21:36

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 21:36

And say, Look,we're everybody, you know, we serve all markets, but we're everybody the people who make this product, are you. We are you were, you know, we have kids that go to your schools, we have people in your communities, and our representation of the people who make the product, who ship the product, who stuck it on store shelves, we are you. If you can't say that, because you are not diverse, and you are not looking at your consumers as being us, then you are missing the point. And it's your point,no, I'm sorry, they are missing the point, you are accurate, but they're missing the point. This is about, about you being human in the company, being as representative of the people that you're serving as you can,otherwise you're missing it.

 

Martine Kalaw: 22:23

I couldn't agree more. And what I'm suggesting is that reason some organizations don't tap into even bigger markets, and they don't know how to appeal to all the the customer bases because they don't have awareness. We don't know, we don't know, right? If I am a company with just black women, right? I don't, I may not have the acknowledgement that I should target, or that there is another group or community that might like my product, it just won't occur to me, right. So that's why I'm saying the first step is also having representation within my team,because that's the way I'm going to learn that there are all these other markets available to me. That's what I'm suggesting as a first step, because sometimes, you know, the pushback I get from organizations as well, we are trying, we are tapping into markets, we don't know, we don't know, that's true. Same thing with recruiting, it's like, Hey,we've, you know, we just can't get diverse talent, we've tried.It's like, well, you also have to think about who's actually doing the trying, if it's not,it's not reflective of what we're trying to target or who we're trying to target then it won't change. Right. So that's the, you know, business to consumer space. But when we think about business to business, you know, we really rely on partnerships, right? A lot of it is the partners that we have. And so what we get to think about is who are our partners, right? There's opportunity for diversity within the group that servicing and providing, corresponding with the partner so we can retain them as well, attract them, we still want to tap into new partnerships, there's always opportunity for that as well,right? And then we also want to think about our partners could actually be business to consumers, right? Like they have customers. So how do we support them in navigating and interacting with their customers, so there's benefit for us to have that representation and diversity within our organization, and to perpetuate that even outside.And then lastly, we think about like, the government organizations or nonprofits,they rely on endowments,charity, all have that, it's all about communities, right? The communities that these you know,these funders, you know, are having access to are representing. So again, the same time at the end of the day, we want to be, the employee base has to be representative of those communities, right, to attract those endowments, to attract those, you know, the contributions that we get from those communities. And so at the end of the day, all of that, you know, the common denominator is its revenue, it's money that helps the business run. So I believe and that's the approach I take, I think, long gone are the days where we can say, you know, DEI is the right thing to do, because we want to just, we want to retain our employees. We all know that, like, of course,we want to keep our employees,but how does it tie back to the bottom line? And that's what we need to be able to communicate to the powers that be so that DEI is not just seen as like, a nice to have, fluffy thing. But it really is a business imperative.

 

David Turetsky: 25:35

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well,you're in luck, we have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast, or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today.So Martine, I think the next logical step for people is how can they start getting prepared to get their data ready, as well as get their organization ready to start seeing DEI as a business strategy and prepare their leadership to start seeing it as a way in which they can grow their revenue?

 

Martine Kalaw: 26:18

Yeah, that's great question, I would say as far as the data, the first thing is to collect the information,the demographic data you have already, that's the very first thing and start to look for consistencies across the board.Because sometimes, like I said,there's missing information.And, you know, one of the things that can be done is through surveying, and you know, it's going to be on a voluntary basis, especially for, you know,new employees. So, not all this data is, we can't, you know,mandate employees to, you know,fill out and complete all the demographic data, especially when you're looking at organizations that are global,there's sometimes skepticism,curiosity, cynicism, so but being able to explain the why,and then, you know, open it up to a survey of some some sort,that's the first thing that we can do. The second is to then look at our cost, like, at least layout what you think the cost of di is going to look like? How much do you anticipate in terms of resources? Because we really do want to present this, like any other business strategy, and with any other business strategy, talk about the benefits, the cost, you know,KPIs, and so forth. So you look at that data, you look at the data in terms of the costs, and then you start to look at line by line your KPIs, or you know,the ROI and start to think about and consider how diversity or representation can impact any of these pieces. And we just gave you some examples, a few minutes ago, around B2B or B2C organizations. So that's what we want to do. And now those are the first steps. And then I would say, the fourth is being able to identify a platform that really is a people analytics tool, right? I've heard Tableau I've heard there, there are a lot out there that you can try to sort of manipulate. But then there are, you know, people analytics platforms that actually exist for this work.And it's worth looking into and adding that as part of your cost. So that those are the steps in terms of data. And as far as strategy, the very first thing I'll suggest is go back and assess all of the DEI programs you have. Because most organizations within the last three years, started throwing out a bunch of programs. So review, lay them all out and then start to really bucket them and figure out what's scalable,right? How are we not fully leveraging this initiative? For example, if we have, if we give funding to HBCUs or their philanthropic organization? How are we leveraging that like that the HBCUs when we're doing Black History Month? Like could we leverage these HBCUs and some students to come in or what have you. If we're giving we're giving funding to an organization that is where we support women in STEM. Well,during Women's History Month,are we leveraging are we repurposing the you know, the relationship? So that's what we get to do. Secondly, and then we start thinking about pipeline development and pipeline management that looks at recruiting and so forth.

 

David Turetsky: 29:27

I would also say that leveraging not just internships because everybody talks about internships for which colleges. Yeah, okay,that's, that's obvious. But I want to also talk about starting to focus your graduate programs,you know, where are you getting people who are just starting out in the in the workplace? Where are you getting those people from? And then start seeing also from their alumni networks too.There are a lot of people who,who go back to their colleges to say, Hey, I'm out of work, you know, do you know of anything and then being able to get great talent from these awesome institutions that have brilliant people who, you know, there there are people looking for roles that are there going to the university. So why not tap the universities and say, Hey,I'm looking for someone, here's the job description, and being able to find rare talent by going back to the sources?

 

Martine Kalaw: 30:17

Absolutely.There's so many ways, there's so many ideas that we can use to source candidates, including conferences, what conferences are we going through? Like, what organizations? Right? And then this actually brings me back to I remember your first question that we couldn't remember before, which was, you know, you know, sometimes the positions,the, the open positions are at a higher level, could we, you know, create more entry level positions, that's part of pipeline development, and pipeline management is looking at, I mean, I had a client on commercial real estate company,and they were like, we only can,you know, we only bring people in at this level, they have to have a graduate education, they have to have a, an MBA. And my pushback was, let's revisit this again. You mean to tell me we cannot like we couldn't create a position where we can convert interns who graduate your your previous interns who graduate college to come into a role?You're telling me there are no positions. And after a lot of evaluation, there were. Like we were able to create, establish that. So that's part of like that pipeline development. And like you said, when you're starting to tap into and leveraging, you know, employees who have access to different networks, you know, we also want to be able to convert them, and we want to be able to open up and create more entry level positions. But it's just as important to also make sure that the pipeline management, right,because we, we can have a whole lot of concentrated diversity at the entry level. But if you look at the senior level, and it's not, it's homogeneous, that it's not going to work, right? So we really want to think about the promotion, like what that process is, and are we mitigating bias in that process of promoting people, looking at salary bands, etc. So those are those are critical components of the process as well.

 

David Turetsky: 32:15

So we mentioned this on a podcast the other day,Dwight, so you don't laugh when I say this, but it's really awful when you try and hire someone, and they look at your about us page, and they just see white faces? What kind of message are you sending that the leadership of the organization doesn't look like you?

 

Martine Kalaw: 32:31

Absolutely.

 

David Turetsky: 32:32

You know, are you going to get promotional opportunities to be able to get there? No. And so what I've been espousing is, is that if you're trying to start your path on diversity, and your about us page doesn't look like the group that you're gonna go after,you're gonna have a hard time convincing people that they're going to be able to get there.And maybe you should start thinking about who you are as an organization, and how you want to represent yourself differently. And it's not just about having a diverse picture on your career site, it's not going to help, it has to be starting from the top.

 

Martine Kalaw: 33:06

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 33:07

And so whether you have a diverse board, and you want to put pictures of the people on your board, hire people in leadership that are diverse, how about that? And start from that?

 

Martine Kalaw: 33:17

It's defining what diversity means, right?What does it mean to the organization? What does that mean, right? Because diversity could mean one, one or multiple things. And you know, having one of a person isn't enough, right?And so we want to look at that.And I do agree with you, like, I cringe when I go on websites,and I see lack of diversity. But I also cringe when I go on websites or organizations and I see a whole lot of diversity and then you actually interact with the organization. It's the exact opposite. So there's a difference between you being aspirational versus being performative, right. And so we just want to be careful, because people are really, really smart.And you know, especially in this economy, people scrutinize and scrub everything, our Gen Zers,and our millennials are looking at all of this, they're going to be at the forefront and driving organizations in just a few years. So they're looking at all this stuff. So we don't want to be performative when we have images as well, we want to make sure that we're working towards it. And we have a statement,that backs it up, and then we have plans of action. That's what people are looking for. And looking at having diversity concentrated at just one level,that entry level is not going to be sufficient. Right. So when I think people are looking at,well, what's the representation on your senior leadership?What's the representation at that board level, right? So those are just as important as you know, that entry level initiative of representation.

 

David Turetsky: 35:00

Martine. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

 

Martine Kalaw: 35:03

It's over?! That went so fast.

 

Dwight Brown: 35:07

It's over. It's only just begun.

 

David Turetsky: 35:10

We've been recording for almost 40 minutes now. But no, no, I wanted to ask you, is there anything else you wanted to bring up before we close?

 

Martine Kalaw: 35:17

No. I mean, I think that we covered the gamut.I'm really satisfied with this conversation, because I don't feel that people really explore and have, you know, discussion around this the data, they just don't understand it. And, you know, I think a lot of DEI thought leaders glance over it,and they focus on this is, you know, the right thing to do.It's about emotional intelligence, about social awareness, and it is all those things. But it has to also be about this.

 

David Turetsky: 35:50

Excellent. Well,we've been saying from the very beginning of this podcast, that if you can't measure it, and you can't keep track of it, and you can't focus on it, then you're not going to be able to successful to be to try and, and achieve anything. So that's why the HR Data Labs podcasts exist is to try and help raise awareness for people about the power that data has in being able to not just drive HR.

 

Martine Kalaw: 36:15

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 36:16

We're not talking about driving HR here.We're talking about driving the business. So your topic and your passionate about it is laudable,and we appreciate it. Thank you very much for joining. And I'm sure we could find at least one more topic to bring you back on if you don't mind.

 

Martine Kalaw: 36:31

I would love it.Absolutely. I think that there's even more around data that we could talk about later.

 

David Turetsky: 36:37

Absolutely.Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for being here.

 

Martine Kalaw: 36:41

Thank you for having me.

 

David Turetsky: 36:43

And thank you,Dwight.

 

Dwight Brown: 36:44

Thanks, David.Thanks, Martine. Appreciate you being here with us, this has been fascinating.

 

Martine Kalaw: 36:48

Yeah, this was fun!

 

David Turetsky: 36:49

Everybody, thank you very much. Take care and stay safe.

 

Announcer: 36:53

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