The Power of Diversity w/ Paige Elliott – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 20

[Music] thanks for hanging out with us today uh let’s start with who are you and why are you here my name is paig Elliot I am the global employer brand manager at beam software and I’m here today to talk about the power of diversity stories within organizations why it’s important um so that is my session for tomorrow and just really help the talent acquisition and HR know the importance of diverse perspectives and you know just how important it is today yeah yeah so with that in mind looking forward right what advice would you give to your peers in Talent acquisition recruiting uh what nugget would you give them moving forward I would say employer branding is not just the websites anymore and just the the nice slogans and nice to have it’s really about also the employee experience as well you know you want your employer brand to match what’s actually happening internally with inside your organization because the last thing you want is to talk about your your company and all the amazing things about your company your values and then they get into the organization and their experience does not match that and so just the importance of making sure that your culture and your values internally match your employer brand and is carried the whole way through that process um and that includes activating your diverse employees stories like letting their voices be heard and really incorporating that into your employer branding your messaging so let’s dig into you talk about storytelling a lot what does that look like is it video is it the written word is it audio is it all of the above and and how do you deliver that to your audience it’s all of it I mean when it comes to recruiting whether they’re on your career’s website your social media whether it’s your employees posting on their own it’s all content so um I think when it comes to uh getting any feedback from employees you can leverage it and repurpose it on every platform um and it comes in the sense of using it to recruit using it for um like I said your your careers’s website or your blogs or anything but being able to just capture their voices um in all avenues internally so that they feel that sense of belonging um and yeah so it’s it’s all all types of um content Avenues so it’s hard because you have so many employees and you want to capture all these stories how do you capture them what’s the easiest way how do you capture those stories because manually it’s hard for you to scale as a as a as a person or a team right how do you do it I think it’s really about partnership and being able to collaborate internally so I always use employee resource groups as the starting point because those groups are for minorities and underrepresented groups right so starting with them uh networking with your hrbps they know their organizations best uh talk talking to recruiters they know who they’re looking for to hire uh Dei and talent management you know they’re they know the different employees that are coming through the pipeline in the internal Mobility talk to them leverage them um so I think it’s really just not working in silos but finding out the people in your organization who have a story because we all have a story right and that’s what makes your company unique it’s your people and their experiences and so if we can really amplify those messages and those stories people connect with that you know like real people like real people with real stories at the end of the day so it’s just finding those things and diversifying it yep so dni’s been on quite a wild ride the last few years something that went from this is a good idea everyone should embrace to this is political this is weaponized um to companies taking sides wondering from your perspective on the candidate side what kind of conversations and questions are you getting from the candidate Ates in regards to inclusivity and diversity no that’s a good question um candidates that are currently within a company or candidates that are like external looking to work for you all the cand all the candidates people just want to know if it’s real or not at the end of the day are you just trying to check a box or are you authentically like moving forward and committed to diversity and inclusion and so I think that’s what I’m saying with the messaging like people can feel that are you are you just putting it out there and then I come work at your company and there’s no processes in place there’s no systems in place uh to support what you’re saying so that’s the conversation you know how serious is this company um candidates are are doing their research now you know once they’re they’re going through the interview process they’re going to look you up right they’re going to look on LinkedIn social media see what people are saying and they want to be able to see what’s on your career website you know what I mean um so I think it goes beyond the corporate message but it goes to what are the people saying about the organization and people inside are talking about it and people externally that you’re looking to hire they’re talking about it as well so so were you surprised earlier this year when companies like tsse and Harley and and some of those organizations literally said you know we’re just pulling out of Dei entirely were you did that surprise you I would say it didn’t surprise me it’s it’s sad a little bit because it became the good thing to do you know what I mean um but it’s it shouldn’t even be a conversation like it’s a necessity so the fact that we’re still having to make it important or you know talk about it like is it good is it not good you know it should be embedded in your principles and so I was surprised by it taking place but people have been um it just hasn’t felt as authentic is where I’m you know what I mean people have used it and weaponized it in different ways um so I’m not surprised that they’ve held back but at the same time there’s a lot of companies that are still pressing forward with it um so there’s still value when it comes to spending money and really being able to uh push the Dei agenda forward um it’s it’s important but unfortunately some people have companies have misused it what are you doing from a a marketing perspective or job distribution perspective or just Marketing in general to make sure that you’re getting in front of as many people and diverse uh candidates as possible yeah that’s a good question um you really have to well one diversify the the content that you are getting right um a lot of it comes to recruitment campaigns so uh we work with like say say our sales team is looking to diversify their talent um so then I’m I have to get really intentional with my targeting what area are we looking at do we need to Target um certain universities if it’s early careers um minority groups the Partnerships are important um we’ve recently partnered with like out and equal Organization for the lgbtq plus Community or women and Tech to really leverage that Network so Partnerships are important um I just think it’s about being intentional really being intentional are Partnerships different than sponsorships so one they can do both okay um so like we are a partner of women in Tech but we also sponsor some events that they have so they both show your commitment to diversity and inclusion um but you can leverage Partnerships in different ways right you can spend money but still hire spend money but still hire because the the Partnerships come with a lot of benefits so they show that you are committed to the agenda of equality right but then they also provide resources for you to use internally to improve your processes they have um job boards that you can hire to their diverse you know uh the diverse boards and slates so there’s a lot of opportunity with Partnerships so yeah so in 20125 what is your main priority what’s your what’s Pages Focus going to be in 2025 Pages Focus well I wear many hats so I feel like my focus is in a lot of places but um I would say really amplifying that employee experience experi that I was talking about in the beginning our company has been working on our career website our EVP and our culture and values all at the same time so really being able to make sure that’s embedded in the employer brand but again that it’s felt consistently throughout the employee experience and then really bringing that to life bringing that to life so that the employees come on that Journey with us um we want to show them where we’re going but without not being authentic right so we want to just bring them along with the journey and um again that that employee experience is really what my focus would be are there any uh groups that you feel like you need to be in front of more or or be more aggressive in getting your opportunities in front of I know we focus a lot on a few but are there some that we’re falling down on um I think I just sat in a session about you know diversity and Tech roles um so definitely want to be able to diversify women in Tech roles and you know software engineer roles and different things like that I think it’s different for every company uh what they’re focused on I know for us it’s really um really looking at the the different markets like what diversity looks different in every Market every country right so you have to look at what is the need there when it comes to diversity and then now you know how to be intentional with your targeting and everything so I don’t have a one- siiz fits all answer for that um but I would say women in technology would be one area F where do you where do you start at as an organization on pay transparency we so we don’t post our the pay and everything externally currently like on our website or glass store we currently don’t have that exposed um once they go through the process we you know we will answer those questions um I’m not truly involved in that process I’m not with NTA um but I know the recruiters they they will have that candid conversation excellent Paige thank you so much for coming and and having conversation if somebody wants to connect with you where where would they do that you can connect with me on LinkedIn um page Elliot I’m happy to connect and yes um I’m seeing people around here actually coming up to me saying they follow me on LinkedIn nice let’s come connect hey jelly and everybody thanks for joining us thank you for having me thank you [Music]