I woke up Tuesday to yet another trending news story about a white woman calling the police on an innocent black man. This time, Amy Cooper, a white professional New York resident was violating the dog leash rules for a popular birding spot in Central Park, when an avid bird watcher, approached. Christian Cooper (no relation) asked Amy to leash …
Layoffs are going to happen, and unfortunately for a lot of organizations, they need to happen in order to survive. Unfortunately, most will be done brutally, unthoughtfully, and impersonally. This is because we do not train people to end relationships. When it comes to layoffs, what we often prioritize most is efficiency. But why? Why at the end of the …
In a matter of weeks, the way most of us work has significantly shifted. Even if the Novel Coronavirus hasn’t sent your organization’s staff to work from their dining room tables, it may mean you are working long shifts in potentially high-risk situations, working in locations you did not expect, or in many cases, not working at all. There is …
I was recently reflecting on Ruchika Tulshyan’s fantastic Harvard Business Review’s piece “Women of Color Get Asked to Do More ‘Office Housework.’ Here’s How They Can Say No.” Her article highlights a problem many women of color experience daily in their workspace: the expectation that they, not their male or white female coworkers, will do the day-to-day office admin tasks …
It is not uncommon for clients to ask me, “where should I post my open position if I want a candidate of color to apply?” When I get asked this question, I can’t help but wonder: “Do companies think black candidates are not using LinkedIn?” “Do organizations think their lack of a racially diverse workforce is a symptom of not …
Learning How To Navigate White-Collar Workplaces, When You Suddenly Can Afford A Compass Reading the Harvard Business Review’s article on Why Companies Should Add Class To Their Diversity Discussion gave me new words to something I have been feeling for years. Classism is the elephant in the room that we refuse to address when we talk about equity and inclusion. The …
How HR Professionals Can Use Design Thinking To Transform Their Company and Career A few years ago I found the world’s cutest mug. It had a little pug on the front, was large and perfect for drinking tea on a cozy Sunday. It was about 10 minutes after using that mug, tea all down my shirt and my fingers squished …
I can’t be the only person that has sat in a “diversity meeting” and thought to myself, “who is this for?” As a woman of color, I rarely, if ever felt like the content was for me. But I often felt like the content was about me, namely, how to deal with me. The focus of many diversity presentations that …
About 15 years ago, I was sitting at an office dinner party, and the company president was giving an emotional speech about the importance of company culture. The speech was inspiring, revolutionary, and confusing. Confusing because I was unsure what he meant by culture. Did he mean the behaviors he would like to see in the organization? The camaraderie and …
Let me first start by saying I love being an HR professional. I love the insight that the profession gives you into a company and its employees. But as HR people know, this insight can often be a double-edged sword. Instead of being coaches, we often become referees, and instead of ambassadors of our organization, we become law enforcement to …
