During the 2019 NCWIT Summit, we sat down with several plenary speakers, workshop presenters, and other change leaders from the NCWIT community to discuss their perspectives on valuing diversity, changing systems (as opposed to “fixing” underrepresented individuals), recognizing bias, and more. The end result was a series of short videos that not only captures what drives these change leaders in their inclusion efforts, but also highlights research-based recommendations from the vast collection of NCWIT resources.
In this video, Organizational Transformation Manager Mary Fairchild explains that when it comes to eliminating bias in the workplace, data is key. However, while organizations may be gathering information as part of their diversity and inclusion programs, there are some important measurements that often get overlooked. For a deeper dive into the most effective ways to use data to drive your change leading efforts, check out the NCWIT workbook, Recruiting, Retaining, and Advancing a Diverse Technical Workforce: Data Collection and Strategic Planning Guidelines.
Transcript:
MARY FAIRCHILD: I think it’s important to measure diversity and inclusion efforts because for far too long, it’s been something where people want to feel good rather than do good. The measurements come in three parts. It’s about foundational measurements. And that one seems to come very easily for people, whether or not someone liked a class or felt that it was helpful for them. And that just, kind of, what does it take to activate that effort? And then people usually jump all the way to the other side, and they look at the impact of the accumulation of efforts. And that’s usually representation, attrition, things of that sort, promotions. But they miss the middle one, which is the outcome measurement. And that was, “What was the individual impact that that effort had?” And that, to me, has been the most successful and the most valid way of measuring diversity and inclusion efforts.