DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

IDENTIFY SKILL GAPS

• Determine the different skills and abilities you need for your team to be most effective. • Get to know the individual and collective strengths on your team by reviewing the teams work or by taking assessments and comparing the skills and abilities you have on the team vs. what you need. • Focus on recruiting for gaps in skills or abilities on the team.

SCOUT YOUR TALENT

• Create a running list of diverse talent you wish to recruit for in the future by: o Keeping track of candidates that applied for a position but were not the best fit at the time o Researching the background of candidates on LinkedIn o Attending professional conferences and taking note of key talent o Conversing with colleagues and peers regarding talent they would refer. • Keep in touch with any identified talent via e-mail or a periodic phone call.

BE CONSISTENT

• When leaders make inconsistent decisions it is confusing to their team. • Think through decisions that impact your team and determine if you are being consistent with past practice or if you are creating new precedent. • If you are creating new precedent, then be prepared to tell your team the reason why the situation deserves a different approach. This will help your team think through decisions in the future.

CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS

• Keep in mind that we tend to gravitate toward others that remind us of ourselves. This is also true when it comes to recruiting talent. • Become familiar with what implicit bias is and how it might impact decisions. • Take one of the free Harvard Implicit Bias Tests and think critically about the results. • Read books on discrimination and social justice issues to gain perspective of other groups.

CELEBRATE DIVERSITY

• Seek to understand the background of the individuals that make up your team. • Be knowledgeable about the important holidays your team members celebrate and reach out to them on those days. • Be open and sensitive to different cultural elements that you are unfamiliar with. It is okay to ask for clarification.