The Shifting Sands of DEI w/ Torin Ellis – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 21

[Music] thanks for sitting down with us today you’re welcome who are you and why are you here uh I actually don’t know why I’m here but I’m toring say more about that Toral diversity strategist risk mitigator analyst uh I do all things diversity and conclusion and I think the reason why I’m here is because you all have some interesting questions to ask of me you came just for us is that what you’re saying for the stars of breakfest bref Nashville 202 no pressure chad4 okay so right out of the gate that seemed like that was really thoughtful it what it’s because it is it just it just po script all uh what advice would you have to your peers moving into Q4 and then 2025 uh to do better about this industry so I mean who are the peers are we talking peers oh my peers oh absolutely so for anyone who’s in the dni space to remain committed in the face of adversity you know that we don’t allow the smaller voices these individuals with um podcasts and opinions that are suggesting um you know that dni and that’s not taking anything away from podcas and opinions but you know individuals that are suggesting that diversity and inclusion is anything other than humanity is anything other than Focus or being focused on building High performing teams I want you to remain Vigilant to remain fervent in your showing up to chase down diversity and inclusion we capitulating this it’s just too much retreat but yeah but what happens when the leaders are actually forcing I mean got you got you got guys who are leading organizations telling people to stand out not to mention taking Equity out of the de and I I mean there’s I mean it’s like it’s like there’s this this vacuum and everything’s getting sucked out so listen I mean this it’s six in one hand half a dozen in other truth of the matter is most people need employment they need their income they got to be able to take care of themselves their families I absolutely get it I’m not suggesting that every person gets to be a bull in the china shop they get to run in Scream it as loud as they possibly can that we must be more committed what I am suggesting is that you have to challenge the leaders of your organization to be focused on first your stakeholders and then your shareholders you don’t get dividends or returns or profits or any of those things if we don’t have an organization focus on my people there should be no CEO allowing people outside of the organization to sit up here and suggest that dni is not important and then say I’m going to retreat I’m not going to live out my human rights campaign initiatives I’m going to come back on all of the social imperatives that I said were important there should be no CEO that is submitted to that and as an individual you should have some degree of authority and voice and data to support why you are challenging them on that decision uh dumb white guy question incoming ready it won’t be the first one that I fed it today because you you’ve interviewed with us before uh you’re calling it D and I I’m still calling it Dei it’s been Dei B why change is that official now no is that a change it just preference by you it no it’s just brevity for the sake of the conversation yeah that’s all but we took Equity out why because Sher did we didn’t we definitely didn’t do it because of Sher so you messing around now you start you trying to start something no I’m just doing it brevity for the sake of conversation it’s always going to be the but they’re all correct they’re all correct and honestly I’m not I’m not I don’t lose sleep on even Sher in their ill advised decision while I didn’t agree with it while I wouldn’t have um encouraged them to do it while I wrote a post talking about why they shouldn’t have done it yeah the bottom line is as long as a person is committed I don’t care what the letters are listen like I said in the post lgbtq I A++ they’re adding letters to their acronym while we have organizations that are extrapolating letters from ours we’re all moving in the same direction we’re trying to do better about protecting audiences communities geographies how we’re developing products Services all of the things that matter in building a high performing business so what surprised you most thus far in 2024 the number of organizations that said dni or deib is not important yeah that surprised me yeah yeah simple as that like I so much so of a surprise that I’m not reposting them I don’t comment on them because I don’t want to amplify what I know is now listen it surprised me by the number that have retreated yeah but when you look at the facts and you understand who’s doing the work in the business there’s still a lot of people and a lot of activity that’s happening in dni and that’s what I’m focused on not the people that are retreating how much of the uh abandonment I guess in your opinion is our customers are politically aligned here they’re telling us not to do this so we are going to abandon it because our buyers are saying it and what percentage are saying we’re going to leave it because we don’t want to be political at all we want to make money for our shareholders and give our employees some level of Financial Security your opinion is it mostly political or is it mostly like we just don’t want to get involved or is it equal parts I think right now you’d have to attribute it to the political climate yeah yeah the the whole position of being apolitical that was probably a position maybe a year and a half two years ago or maybe more like two three years ago organizations I won’t call their names but some of them made statements in public we’re going to be an apolitical uh uh organization I get it that’s what they were doing then I think now anyone deciding to do it is in indirectly aligned to a a political decision yeah so going forward now looking toward 2025 what’s your number one priority I don’t I don’t think that changes for me I think it’s just it’s how do I you know keep the intensity the same um how do I continue to remind people that dni is about chasing Humanity yeah um it’s about having better leaders in the organization that are willing to model what it looks like to be inclusive right uh it’s about challenging organizations to develop benefit schedules that really accommodate for the lack of pay and compensation that women have experienced I mean we passed legislation that says that we are supposed to compensate women fairly and we haven’t lived that out in 50 years so it’s about intensifying what we know to be right and divorcing ing ourselves from the hyperbolic statements or positions that categorize dni as being anything other than it really is like I absolutely read something a couple of days ago uh and again I’m not I’m not going to quote the organization but they they categorize dni as a um sexual ex uh ex what extortion initiative how do you categorize and as a sexual extortion initiative and people believe that so I don’t even know what the hell that means neither do I but the point is they put it out yeah it’ll get a whole bunch of press um press and activity on the social feeds and you got to be willing and capable of suppressing that when it’s presented to you as a practitioner so I want to leave on a positive note sure uh the headlines go to the companies that are saying we’re out we don’t we don’t uh practice dni but I know that every day you’re dealing with companies that are embracing it and I know that you have a lot of Hope for younger Generations where this is just how it is this isn’t something that is abnormal so I want you to take a few minutes to talk about the company’s doing it right maybe examples of what they’re doing and your take on the younger generations and how they view this initiative yeah I mean again I just support the young people that have the energy the desire um the Curiosity to chase down what Humanity looks like on a broader basis as far as organizations that are doing it right they’re doing it right because they’re either um recategorizing how dni operates inside of their organization uh they’re still making hires in classifying the individual as the chief diversity officer or over the diversity and inclusion programming uh organizations that are doing it right are still celebrating certain activities that are happening inside of their organization raising awareness around causes that impact people inside of their organization the organizations that are doing it right are not retreating from their Human Rights Campaign initiative uh they’re still putting their diversity numbers up on their uh website organizations that are doing it right are still exploring ways to expand their Supplier Diversity uh footprint so the bottom line is it’s happening in a lot of ways and and they don’t always have to have the categorization of dni over them to be celebrated that’s what I’m looking for I’m not looking for the highlight and the neon light and the celebration I’m looking for the substantive commitment I’m looking for the unwavering belief that when you do dni you are making not only your organization better but your people better your communities where you do business better that’s what I’m looking for what I celebrate time I got one more before you w if that’s what you’re doing so so we sat down at recfest 5 five or so years ago 2019 yeah and and two white guys asked you what can we do to move this movement forward and you said speak up I’m just wondering five years on is that still your advice to two white guys and do you think we have I think that’s the thing that I care about the most got it okay so let me answer the second one first yeah yes uh I think you all have added more programming to Chad and cheese um and not only programing content and voices you’ve covered stories you’ve found stories and had discussions I’ve listened to some of them but you’ve also had more voices on the um podcast that have talked about the subject of dni um what do do I believe still that absolutely you still need to lend your voice sometimes you need to lend Your Privilege there are rooms that you are going to walk in that I’ll never be able to walk into not because I’m not capable not because I’m not qualified I’m just not invited so I need you while you’re in that room when you hear things or you see signals or um uh or engage with signals that suggest that this organization may be a bit Wayward this organization may be curious this organization may need a resource a consultant I need you to be able to say yeah I know this person or I know that person or whatever the case may be so we all listen I’ll close it on this and empowerment strategic exploration and tactical execution the first thing is you have to have voice we cannot be silent in the face of Injustice so you got to speak up you got to speak up I got to speak up the people behind the camera they got to speak up you got to be empowered you got to have a voice you got to call a thing a thing we’re working on a a a bias report right now reducing bias in HR using Ai and during one of our discussions one person in the um think tank or the focus group said well I don’t really want reducing assumes that there’s already bias and the person said I don’t really want to assume that there’s already bias in the technology and somebody else in the focus group said nah we’re humans we all have bias so let’s stop tiptoeing and playing around like there’s no bias there is there what are we going to do to make it better so I need you to speak up yeah so for any company who wants to get you in that room in their room how do they get a hold of you Torin ellis.com Torin ellis.com Torin Ellis do my man thanks for coming man you got it thanks for hanging out Toren absolutely [Music]