A lack of representation in talent recruitment teams hinders progress toward goals in workplace fairness. Homogeneity in recruitment teams leads to biases and limited perspectives, which can result in unconscious bias in the hiring process.  

Representation is also essential in interview panels. An interview panel built on a foundation of workplace fairness includes various groups, including people of color, women, women of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans, people with disabilities and different ages. 

According to Fair360’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity survey, 100% of companies that rank in the Top 10 have women and people of color in their interview panels. However, out of all participating companies, only 18% reported a requirement to include LGBTQ+ people in interview panels and 20% for people with disabilities.  

READ: 5 Best Practices for Establishing Diverse Hiring Panels 

Benefits of Representation in Talent Recruitment Teams 

Representation in talent recruitment teams brings numerous benefits to organizations: 

• Attracting a divergent pool of candidates: When candidates see representation within the recruitment team, they feel included and are more likely to apply for positions within the organization. 
• Reducing unconscious bias in hiring decisions: By having team members with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, biases can be identified and mitigated, leading to fairer hiring practices. 
• Enhancing cultural competence: Recruiters from various backgrounds are better equipped to understand and appreciate candidates’ unique experiences and needs from different communities. 

Despite the benefits, achieving representation in talent recruitment is a challenge. Bias within recruitment practices is one such obstacle. Unconscious biases can influence recruiters’ decision-making, resulting in continued homogeneity. 

WATCH: The Impact of Implicit Bias During the Hiring Process 

Fostering Inclusive Recruitment Practices  

Actively seeking out and developing talent for recruitment roles can have a domino effect, increasing the representation of incoming employees. 

According to Fair360’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity survey, 100% of companies ranking in the Top 10 reported that their recruitment teams seek out people of color, women, women of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, veterans and people with disabilities during the recruitment process.  

The Hershey Company (No. 3 on the Fair360 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) makes it a priority to assemble candidate slates that are 50% diverse for every externally sourced role. 

Fair360 data also showed that 100% of companies in the Top 10 use diverse interview panels for Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 management. Level 1 management are CEOs and their direct reports. Level 2 includes all individuals in management positions. Level 3 are managers in positions in two levels below level 1. 

All manager-level and higher roles at Medtronic (No. 2 on the Fair360 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) must have a diverse slate of candidates and a panel of people from various backgrounds to interview each candidate.  

Strategies for Increasing Representation in Recruitment Teams 

Organizations can implement several strategies to increase representation in their talent recruitment teams:  

• Set goals: Establish clear representation goals for your recruitment team, specifying the desired inclusion of underrepresented groups. Make these goals measurable and track progress regularly. 
• Bias awareness and training: Provide comprehensive training to your recruitment team members on unconscious biases, stereotypes and the importance of representation. Raise awareness about potential biases in the recruitment process and equip your team with strategies to mitigate them.
• Expand candidate sources: Broaden your sources beyond traditional channels to reach more candidates. Engage with various communities, organizations and networks to attract a wide range of candidates. Leverage social media platforms and job boards that specifically target underrepresented groups. 
• Revise job descriptions: Review your job descriptions to ensure they are inclusive and do not contain any biased language or requirements that may discourage underrepresented candidates. Highlight the organization’s commitment to equity and inclusion. 
• Blind resume screening: Implement blind resume screening, where personal identifying information such as name, gender or ethnicity is redacted during the initial screening process. This helps mitigate unconscious bias and focuses on qualifications and skills. 
• Partner with organizations: Collaborate with organizations focused on fairness, universities or professional associations to tap into their networks and gain access to different applicants. Participate in career fairs and events for underrepresented groups.

Fifty-two percent of workers are worried about the impact of economic uncertainty on their job security, according to Randstad’s Workmonitor Report. But even as the macroeconomic conditions change, talent maintains the advantage in the worker-employer relationship.  

“The truth is we’re still living in a world of talent scarcity,” says Traci Fiatte, CEO of Randstad North America (No. 19 on Fair360’s 2023 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list). “While the economy has slowed, the most recent BLS report still shows a record-low unemployment rate of 3.4%. There is still demand for workers in the market but a shortage of talent available. Companies are competing for workers and must adapt to find and attract the best talent for their workforce.”  

Workers want more than just competitive pay and benefits. They want a workplace that offers stability, flexibility and inclusivity. Economic worries or not, employers still have their work cut out for them regarding the war on talent.  

Worker Priorities  

By 2025, Gen Z employees, those born in the late ‘90s to early 2010s, are expected to make up 27% of the global workforce.  

“We have Baby Boomers and Gen Xers – I have to admit I’m a Gen Xer – but we’re folks who are retiring,” says Ken Bouyer, Americas Director of Inclusiveness Recruiting at EY (a Fair360 Hall of Fame company). “We got that Gen Z talent coming into the workforce, but with that comes new priorities and demands. They’re looking for stability and benefits that support them personally and professionally and values that align with the work.” 

There’s a new term trending in the workplace called “resenteeism,” which is closely related to quiet quitting. Resenteeism is when workers are visibly unsatisfied with a job but stay in it because of a lack of options. According to a Pew Research Center survey, only 51% of U.S. workers say they are extremely or very satisfied with their job. How are the other half of employees feeling in the workplace? Day-to-day tasks, the amount of feedback they receive and benefits are among the aspects workers are most unhappy about.   

“There are opportunities in the market,” says Bouyer. “My advice would be to assess what you are unhappy about. What is it about your current role you are unhappy about? Is it the work or the person or persons you are working with? 

Whether or not workers find their job enjoyable, most consider work an essential element of their life. 

“The pandemic caused significant shifts for everyone, with companies and workers adjusting to their new dynamics,” says Fiatte. “Many employees learned that work-life balance was not just a nice to have but a requirement as they were forced to blur the lines between work and home.”   

READ: Workplace Fairness Trends to Watch in 2023 

Emphasis on Upskilling   

The World Economic Forum predicts by 2030, more than 1 billion people will need to be reskilled. Having the right skills within an organization is critical for companies as they look to reinvent their business model, reduce costs and manage external economic pressures.   

PwC (a Fair360 Hall of Fame company) says a skills-first approach can create more robust talent pipelines and may help to address skills shortages.  

“Nearly every industry has seen employee shortages and we expect the labor market to remain competitive as people continue to focus on finding a career that provides them with long-term growth opportunities,” says Rod Adams, Talent Acquisition Leader for the U.S. and Mexico and co-lead of the Digital Accelerator program at PwC. “Upskilling gives your people the opportunity to apply their foundational knowledge in new ways by developing important skills that allow them to move across disciplines.” 

To drive even greater value for employees, companies should consider offering upskilling opportunities that are customizable and personalized to each employee’s unique career path. 

“To realistically close the skills gap and help people build the skills they want and need, employers cannot just offer a one-size-fits-all solution,” says Adams. “Investing in upskilling is not only valuable for employees, but also reinforces your organization’s commitment to development and lifelong learning, which is key to attracting talent.” 

If your company provides upskilling opportunities, take advantage of those to develop and gain new skills.  

“Apply your foundational knowledge in a way that energizes you and opens up opportunities that align with your next big career goal,” says Adams. “If you are looking beyond your current employer, being able to showcase tangible leadership experience that accurately reflects the skill set you’ve outlined for yourself is a great way to set yourself apart.”  

READ: Winning the War on Talent in 2023 

Benefit Offerings 

The most valuable benefits companies can provide are those that meet the individual needs of people, both today and in the future, says Adams. 

“This means offering more personalized and customized benefits that provide people with flexibility and support at every stage of their lives. At PwC, we’ve created simplified and tech-enabled solutions, such as our personalized learning platform that provides access to more transparent skill development and various career opportunities. This also includes digital vacation tools that help our people plan and enjoy uninterrupted time off. We also shut down our firm twice a year for a full week to give our people dedicated time to recharge and prioritize their well-being.” 

Workers facing a rapidly rising cost of living are turning to employers for help. Randstad’s data found that workers’ most desired forms of assistance are a monthly cost of living stipend, followed by an increase in pay outside an annual review. Some workers also want help with expenses like energy costs or ways to cut spending with hybrid or flexible schedules. 

“With many companies cutting back on expenses, providing additional compensation may be challenging,” says Fiatte. “Alternatively, organizations can rely on other benefits like flexibility in hours or location, providing learning opportunities or supporting their workers with other programs.” 

Bouyer says workers looking for opportunities outside their companies must be thoughtful when looking at benefits. 

“Before you step foot in an organization, do your research,” says Bouyer. “Because many organizations through social media now really do a good job of informing the public who they are.”   

Focus on Flexibility 

A flexible workplace is beneficial for both employers and employees. It can boost productivity and help companies attract and retain talent by promoting a trust-based workplace culture. Flexibility has become an essential requirement in the post-pandemic workplace. 

“Companies responded to the pandemic by creating new policies that allowed for more flexibility for workers, whether that meant working remotely when possible or offering flexible schedules,” says Fiatte. “While that’s changing daily, it’s important to remember that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution here. Instead, organizations must adapt to allow for flexibility in their strategies because it’s become an expectation of their workforce.” 

But it’s not just employers that need to be flexible.  

“As we continue to see the world change at such an unprecedented pace, it’s important to look for candidates who have proven they’re capable of building relationships and driving impact across different hybrid working environments,” says Adams. “To continuously adapt to new ways of working, we need to be able to connect and collaborate effectively, whether our teams are in-person, virtual or some hybrid combination.”    

Workers that are flexible with the changing workplace and have the needed skills will end up ahead of the game. 

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional,” says Bouyer. “Having a growth mindset is critical for everyone. If you focus on that and build your resume every day, you’ll be just fine.”  

When the United States first began tracking workers’ hours in 1890, it was common for manufacturing employees to work up to 100 hours a week. When Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, the U.S. limited the workweek to 44 hours. Two years later, the workweek was amended to 40 hours and became the workplace norm for almost a century.    

Andrew Barnes says a change is long overdue. 

“Humans are no different from machines. You don’t run a machine full stop and don’t give it maintenance and downtime. But we do that with our people, which makes no sense to me,” says the co-founder of 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit organization advocating for a four-day workweek with no reduction in pay and benefits.  

“Recognizing that how we work in the 21st century is not how we worked in the 20th century. Cognitive ability and creativity are far more important now. To make our minds work optimally, you need to do things in a different way,” he adds. 

READ: 5 Ways the Employee Experience Will Evolve in 2023 

Transforming the Workplace  

The push for the four-day workweek is underway. 

Over the past few years, many states have considered four-day workweek legislation. Most recently, California introduced a bill to reduce the standard workweek from five to four days, with no reduction in worker pay. Massachusetts lawmakers filed legislation for a program to create a tax credit for businesses that transitions their workers to a shorter week for the same pay.  

In addition, pilot programs launched in the U.S., U.K., Ireland and other countries have yielded positive results. Barnes stresses that the movement is not about squeezing a 40-hour workweek into four days.   

“What it actually is, is reducing the working week from 39, 40 hours to 80% of that,” he says. “That’s our goal. But we are perfectly happy if somebody can’t get that and they can only get to 35 hours. Brilliant. Equally, we’ve got companies with people working 50, 60 hours a week. You can’t get down from 50, 60 to 30 in one go. So, 50 to 60 drops to 40 something. It’s a win.” 

Barnes says extra time is one of the most valuable things employers can offer in the war on talent.  

“You’re worried about 80%, 90% of people who say they want more time,” he says. “Give them that and chances are you’re going to attract and retain better people.” 

Implementing a four-day workweek may be easier said than done in today’s jobs market, says Peter F. Orazem, Professor of Economics at Iowa State University. 

“On an average month, we have 4 million unfilled vacancies per month in the United States,” he says. “It’s probably easier to go from a five-day workweek to a four-day workweek when you’ve got a lot of workers available. It’s a little harder to do when you don’t have enough – when firms are begging for the number of workers they have.” 

READ: Winning the War on Talent in 2023 

Examining Pilot Results  

Studies show workers prefer a four-day workweek because it makes them more productive, happier and healthier. The findings from the global trials confirm the same.  

In 2022, 4 Day Week Global coordinated four-day workweek trials in the U.S., Ireland, the U.K. and other countries. While companies reported improved productivity and revenue gains, workers said there were significant drops in stress and improvements in their work-life balance.   

“If you have less stress, then you have less sick days,” says Barnes. “If you have less sick days, your productivity goes up. If you have people who are healthier and happier, they’re more likely to stay. That means you have less open positions. You find it easier to recruit. You get talent. If you get better talent, you get better output, and so on. We all know about this as business leaders. It’s just we don’t do it.” 

Sean Kosofsky researched the four-day workweek for nine months before implementing a pilot at the climate change nonprofit he worked for.   

“By May 2022, we decided to do a 90-day pilot and rolled it out. It was nearly flawless and we never went back,” he says.   

Kosofsky says four-day workweeks should not be viewed as a workplace benefit. 

“You’re offering them a method of getting the same job done, but faster,” he says. “What you’re saying is, ‘I’m going to let you choose if you want to have Fridays off to get all of your work done by Thursday, end of day. I’m going to authorize you to slash meetings. I’m going to give you the tools you need to do this.’” 

A potential byproduct of shorter workweeks is reduced carbon emissions. Fewer people going to the office means less commuting time, lower air pollution and electricity consumption. Barnes says for four-day workweeks to succeed, employees and businesses must benefit.  

“You can’t have the employees getting something and the business not getting something,” he says. “Everybody wins on this. The Irish campaign has a tagline that says #betterforeveryone. I think that’s actually true.” 

Barnes says the pilots follow the 100-80-100 concept, a model PwC (a DiversityInc Powered by Fair360 Hall of Fame company) adopted in a four-day workweek trial in the U.K. last summer.  

“It’s better from a work-life balance perspective. But that’s not at the heart of our model, which is this 180, 100 concept,” he says. “100% pay. 80% time. 100% productivity and by definition, 100% customer service.” 

READ: Tips for Working Through Workplace Trauma 

Implementing Flexible Schedules  

Ten percent of companies offer their workers a four-day workweek, a slight increase from 2022, according to Payscale’s 2023 Compensation Best Practices report. Orazem stresses that a four-day workweek isn’t the right solution for every company or industry.  

“If you have workers working shifts, like in hospitals, or police or fire, it’s much more common to have a four-day workweek with a longer stint because it works well for those types of jobs,” says Orazem. “It’s not common in education. If you want your kids in school, you’re not as keen that they are only in school four days a week.” 

Northwell Health (a DiversityInc Powered by Fair360 Hall of Fame company) has tested four-day workweeks with its nurse practitioners and physician assistants in cancer services. In its employee engagement surveys, many workers said they would like a flexible work schedule. The healthcare provider has already implemented three-day workweeks with nurses in inpatient settings.  

“We’re starting to look at and explore the possibility in our non-clinical areas and our clinical areas in the outpatient setting,” says Jonathan Sobel, VP of Strategic Workforce Planning at Northwell Health. “How can we potentially improve that flexibility for folks to give them more work-life integration?”  

Kosofsky says organizations must anticipate how a four-day workweek will impact their business. Nonprofits should evaluate how stakeholders and donors may respond to the changes. Companies with generous paid time off may also need to revamp their policies.  

“By the end of the year, people had not used their paid time off and that’s not something we want to encourage,” he says. “There was a lot of end-loading of the paid time off at the end of the year. People were really off in December. We hadn’t anticipated with all the additional time to pull back on the PTO.” 

While most companies participating in the 4 Day Week Global trials said they wanted to continue, some abandoned the experiment. Orazem says only time will tell if the trials will become permanent fixtures in the workplace.  

“One of the things you worry about is that most of the experiments are relatively short-lived,” he says. “It may be that it’s great for six months but not so great over six years.” 

It’s especially something to focus on during National Volunteer Month in April. It’s typically a time when employers celebrate those who volunteer and encourage others to donate their time to volunteer work.

The Impact on Community

The collective impact of what volunteers do is nothing short of incredible. The latest “Volunteering and Civic Life in America” report from AmeriCorps that in 2021, an estimated 23.2% of Americans – more than 60.7 million people – formally volunteered with organizations. They served an estimated 4.1 billion hours, providing an economic value of $122.9 billion.

That 23.2% number represented a drop from 30% of the population due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a way, that makes the number even more impressive. Even during the pandemic, almost a quarter of American adults worked on a variety of projects, including wellness checks on isolated seniors, supporting food banks and tutoring and mentoring students to stay on track in school.

And that’s just formal volunteering. More than 124 million Americans engage in some type of informal volunteering, according to the report, including house sitting, watching children for friends and neighbors, lending tools and running errands for others.

The Impact on the Volunteers

Volunteering also provides benefits to the volunteers themselves. LinkedIn recently listed many of the benefits, including giving the volunteer a sense of purpose, bolstering a sense of community, improving social skills, boosting self-esteem, learning new skills and getting people out of their comfort zone.

Put simply, volunteering tends to make people happier. Helping people overcome their challenges puts your own issues into perspective. Spending time with like-minded volunteers can improve a person’s outlook on life, build bonds with community members and keep people healthy and active.

How Top Companies Leverage Volunteerism in Their Organizations

Employers can play a key role in providing volunteering opportunities. DiversityInc’s annual list of the Top Companies for Philanthropy includes volunteerism and corporate support of it in its criteria, and each of them incorporates volunteerism in their operations, providing support for their communities and allowing employees to reap the benefits of volunteering.

Among companies that ranked on the 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list, volunteer metrics are tracked in a variety of ways, but some common methods include:

• 86% track participation in volunteer opportunities among their overall U.S. workforce
• 56% track participation in volunteer opportunities among their U.S. management
• 48% track participation in volunteer opportunities among Level 1 management (CEO & direct reports)

The average number of total hours spent volunteering for companies’ overall U.S. workforce was 84,647, while U.S. management was 10,175 hours and 206 hours for Level 1 management.

Additionally, 70% of companies provide paid time off for volunteering, while 64% provide awards or recognition for volunteerism.

Overall, around 7.6% of the overall U.S. workforce at Top 50 companies volunteer. That number increased to 15.61% among those on the Top Companies for Philanthropy list.

Examples of Volunteer Programs from Top 50 Companies

The following companies provide some specific examples of how they accomplish goals around volunteering.

Ecolab

Ecolab (No. 31 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list and on the Top Companies for Philanthropy list) supports vital ecosystems through employee volunteerism, as well as grants and corporate giving done through the Ecolab Foundation. The impact is significant: the Ecolab Foundation has given $145 million to nonprofit organizations since its inception in 1980. Programs supported include those that focus on youth and education, civic and community development, arts and culture, and environment and conservation.

Ecolab also offers a strong employee engagement program that encourages both donations and volunteering. For example, the Global Community Giving Program makes donations made by employees through the Ecolab Giving Site eligible for a 100% match from the Ecolab Foundation. Ecolab employees in the United States and Canada also can request individual grants from the foundation for qualifying nonprofit organizations where they volunteer.

TD Bank

TD Bank (No. 13 on the 2022 Top 50 list and a Top Company for Philanthropy) established the TD Volunteer Network (TDVN) to connect the company’s 85,000 North American employees with charitable organizations that need their help. The TDVN interactive database allows charitable organizations to post their volunteering opportunities. Employees can search the database and sign up for the opportunities that best align with their skills and the causes they support.

TDVN streamlines the process for both organizations and employees. Charities can post all types of volunteering work, from one-time projects to recurring opportunities, as well as board, committee and virtual opportunities. TD Bank also makes employees who volunteer more than 40 hours a year at an organization eligible to earn a $500 donation for the organization.

Abbott

Abbott (No.3 on the 2022 Top 50 list and a Top Company for Philanthropy) connects employees with volunteer work in a wide variety of areas, including disaster relief and preparation, STEM education, providing food for families in need and helping remove barriers that prevent people from having access to healthcare.

Disaster preparation is an area of focus for Abbott volunteers. It came in response to what company employees saw in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Abbott partners with Feeding America and Direct Relief, storing “disaster relief packs” in clinics and food banks in areas at high risk for damage from hurricanes.

Employees also volunteer to share their scientific expertise with children in their local communities. Abbott volunteers have taught at 700 schools, reaching more than 280,000 schoolchildren.

Humana

Humana (No. 9 on the 2022 Top 50 list and a Top Company for Philanthropy) has launched a variety of initiatives that support the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. An example of this came in 2021 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Humana launched a program to provide for its members’ basic needs. In that year alone, volunteer work led to providing 1.6 million meals to 94,000 Humana members.

The company also created the Humana Foundation, the charitable arm of the organization that also helps employees connect with volunteer opportunities. Since 2007, Humana employees have contributed more than 1 million volunteer hours to nonprofit organizations. The Humana Together online portal helps employees connect to volunteer efforts.

Humana encourages volunteerism in a variety of ways. They include giving a $10,000 Human Foundation grant to the organization where the company’s Volunteer of the Year does volunteer work (eligibility requires working at least 150 volunteer hours from January to November). The department that wins the Spirit of Philanthropy Award can choose a charitable organization to receive a $25,000 Humana Foundation grant.

Two Black candidates were being evaluated for a position. One was dark-skinned and had more experience, while the other was light-skinned. Goodridge, an intern at the time, recalls overhearing explicit conversations. The company didn’t want a darker-skinned person to be the “face” of the institution. 

“Because my antennas were raised, I wondered, how might this play out when the conversation isn’t explicit? When there are coded conversations? Later, people use words like ‘polished’ and ‘well put together.’ They would often be applied to a candidate who was Black or another person of color with very light skin,” she says. 

When reflecting on the experience 20 years ago, Goodridge believes that colorism thrives in the workplace because it’s not addressed. 

“It’s often suppressed as a topic,” she says. “And when it is brought up, there is a lot of gaslighting. Some Black people are treated as less than others, specifically because of their complexion and have fewer privileges. We need to address that.”

What Is Colorism?

Colorism is a subtle and often unspoken bias. It’s a form of discrimination that occurs when people are treated differently because of their skin color or complexion. It’s rooted in racism and dates back to slavery. 

“Colorism for African Americans has origins with miscegenation, sexual relations between white slave masters and African slaves, resulting in light-skinned children,” says Cynthia Sims, an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern Illinois University. “Sometimes these children were treated more favorably, not only due to their fair skin but also because they were related to the slave master. In some instances, these offspring, although still slaves, were allowed to work inside the master’s home, become educated, and were oftentimes granted freedom from slavery.” 

The disparity continued long after slavery was abolished. 

In the 20th century, the “brown paper bag test” compared an individual’s skin tone to a brown paper bag. If their skin color was darker than a brown paper bag, they were denied admission to fraternities and sororities or not hired for a job. In today’s workplace, the intersection of skin and natural hair discrimination is a common reality for Black and Latina women. One study points to emotional and psychological trauma and the potential for shame within their own communities.

Sixty-two percent of Hispanic adults say having darker skin hurts their ability to get ahead in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. Of the most common discriminatory experience, being treated as if they weren’t smart was the most reported.

READ: Beauty Over Brains: The Damaging Effects of Appearance Discrimination 

Colorism in the Workplace 

Studies show that people with darker skin tones are often overlooked or passed over for jobs or promotions in favor of those with lighter skin tones.  

“Employees who experience workplace colorism feel excluded and devalued when their opportunities are limited and coworkers treat them as less competent,” says Sims. “Some workers expect colorism in certain fields, so they do not apply for jobs that they feel will exclude them, particularly female-dominated jobs that require, unofficially, light skin and other Western standards of beauty.”

Someone’s skin tone may also impact the compensation they receive. A study published in the Journal of Human Resources, titled “From Dark to Light: Skin Color and Wages Among African-Americans,” points out that not only does a Black-white wage gap exist, but the gap widens as the skin shade of the Black worker darkens. A colorism wage gap also exists for legal immigrants in the U.S. A separate study shows that immigrants with darker skin color experienced a substantial pay penalty of 16% to 25% not explained by individual and job characteristics. 

Colorism is not only experienced by Black Americans in the U.S.

“Colorism is a global phenomenon and exists on every continent,” says Sims. “Wherever there are people of various shades, colorism is a social issue. In some Asian cultures, dark skin was a reflection of poverty due to skin being tanned from outdoor labor. Fair skin was a symbol of high status, privilege and wealth.”

Skin tone bias is often more pronounced in countries with a history of colonization or racial segregation, such as Brazil and India. 

A study in Brazil showed that having dark skin resulted in poor hiring outcomes for female candidates. Historically in India, lighter-skinned Indians have typically been associated with higher social statuses, while darker-skinned individuals are connected with laborers and the working class. 

READ: Implicit Bias in the Hiring Process

Colorism Solutions

Colorism often needs more conversation within diversity, equity and inclusion discussions. Implementing an effective diversity and inclusion strategy, which ensures that employees of all ethnicities and skin tones have equal access to a fair salary, high-value professional development opportunities and promotions, will also contribute to mitigating skin-tone bias in the workplace. 

“How do you dispel these myths, any stereotypes about certain populations? We also need to have people in those hiring roles, especially managers who promote, to have this type of training,” says Sims. “They need to be aware that their biases could and may have already impacted their decisions.”

Diverse hiring panels are interviewers of various backgrounds and perspectives who can help mitigate bias during the hiring process. Using structured skills-based interview questions can ensure hiring decisions are less susceptible to prejudice. Nearly all of DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity have diverse hiring panels for management positions, while 66% have hiring groups for non-management full-time positions. 

Employee resource groups (ERGs) can also play a role in combating colorism. 

“They can create spaces where people can speak to others about their experiences that aren’t in a formal setting or a setting that’s directly related to their job performance,” says Esther Uduehi, Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business at the University of Washington-Seattle and member of The PhD Project. “Colorism is unpacking the experiences and the feelings and the emotions that are occurring based on your experience.”

Individuals can tackle colorism in the workplace by speaking out against it.

“We have to deal with who gets to deem something as professional, and we should be having the same conversations on colorism/beauty bias and call it out and stand as allies for each other when we see it taking place,” says Minda Harts, Founder and CEO of the Memo. 

Companies can identify and address colorism by increasing education and awareness. Unconscious bias training and workshops should apply to all employees, especially those responsible for recruitment, salary and promotion-related decisions. All of DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity have systemic efforts to combat unconscious bias.

“Companies have to make equity mandatory, not optional,” says Harts. “We can no longer allow managers and colleagues not to be held accountable for bad behavior. Silence or using phrases like, ‘assume good intent’ doesn’t move the needle on diversity. Accountability does.”

While workforce planning has always been a critical area of focus for companies, the changing nature of work and the emergence of new technologies have brought forth new challenges that organizations must overcome to succeed in today’s world. Here are the six biggest challenges for workforce planning.

Rapid Technological Advancement Changes Skill Needs

The rapid pace of technological advancements has led to significant changes in the workplace. Automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning are revolutionizing the way work is done, making some jobs redundant and creating new roles that require different skills.

Workforce planning must keep up with these changes and ensure that the organization has the skills required to keep up with the latest technology.

“Assessing and developing skill needs for the future starts with understanding the overall business strategy,” Aashish Sharma, Vice President of Workforce Intelligence at Raytheon Technologies (No. 41 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list), said. “It’s a process that requires input from various stakeholders across the organization, but ultimately leads to a much richer understanding of the types of talent and skills we would need to support that.”

To maximize the technology and ensure the effectiveness of their workforce, organizations will have to invest in training opportunities as well as reskilling or upskilling strategies for existing employees where needed. That may take some creativity and making the most of experts and resources the company already has.

“The idea is to make training more contextual and impactful to our business and to our employees,” Sharma said. “For example, in a recent exercise we learned about a few areas where there were gaps around a specific set of skills, and rather than just pulling in the HR team to build a plan to address the deficiencies or use generic learning, we tapped into the expertise of our subject matter experts who have hands-on experience with those specific area. We’re working with them to develop opportunities to bridge the gap faster and in a more meaningful way.”

Making Sense of Data to Make the Most of It

Collecting and interpreting workforce data is a vital component of a strategic workforce planning exercise.

There are a variety of factors that can impact the accuracy and reliability of organizational data, including a lack of standardization, availability, privacy and security concerns, the overall complexity of the data and therefore, the organization’s ability to interpret it.

Ensuring data integrity and defining key metrics helps businesses gain a clearer picture of where gaps might exist.

“We have a very consistent way of defining, measuring and forecasting attrition that feeds all our workforce planning work and is adding more precision to our outputs,” Sharma said. “In addition to using internal resources, we also use external data like macroeconomic reports to validate our findings. For example, if we are seeing high demand for certain roles, it’s an indicator that we might want to spend more energy on preparing and upskilling talent in that area.”

Collecting and consistently refining and validating the data the company is capturing gives leader’s confidence they have an accurate pulse on what’s happening within the workforce, which Sharma says allows them to pivot and adjust to real time needs.

“In some cases, we do not have the granular data to fully analyze or identify the gaps, and we have been working on creating more pathways to collect skills data about our workforce by transparently communicating and engaging with them,” Sharma said.

Demographic Shifts

Demographic shifts have significant implications for workforce planning. The aging workforce, for example, means organizations will face an increasing number of retirements, which will require new strategies for attracting and retaining younger workers.

At the same time, the average life expectancy has increased significantly since the age of retirement was set at 65 by the Social Security Act of 1935. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that in 1950, the average lifespan was 68 years. In 2021, it was 76 years. As people live longer, many have to work longer, creating different needs among employees in the workplace.

Meanwhile, the younger generation has different expectations around things like a company’s carbon footprint, their stance on social issues and whether leadership is seen as ethical. While ESG has become a point of focus for investors, the initiatives that fall under the ESG umbrella are of great interest to younger generations of workers more so than they were to their predecessors.

This younger generation also has different work styles and communication preferences than previous generations. They’re more likely to embrace technology and companies must adapt to these changes to remain competitive.

Talent Shortages

Many industries are facing talent shortages, making it difficult to find the right people to fill critical roles. Companies must develop new strategies to attract and retain top talent, such as offering competitive compensation packages, training and development programs and flexible work arrangements.

Some ways talent shortages disrupt a company’s workforce planning efforts include:

• Difficulty in attracting and retaining top talent – Leads to increased competition among organizations, making it harder to find and hire skilled workers.
• Increased costs – Organizations may need to offer higher salaries, bonuses and other incentives to attract and retain top talent.
• Reduced productivity – A shortage of skilled workers can impact overall business performance and profitability as well as the workloads of the talent the company does have.
• Delayed projects – The need to find and hire the necessary talent to complete projects can impact the organization’s ability to meet deadlines and deliver on commitments.

To overcome this challenge, there really is no better solution than investing in your people.

“We rely on our people for innovation and solving problems for our customers, which means having the right talent and skills is an absolute imperative for us,” Sharma said. “Investing in our workforce is a must do for us just like we would in any other critical aspect of our business. Our Employee Scholar Program is a great example of our commitment to our employees. We’ve invested more than $1.6 billion into this program which allows our employees to study at more 4,000 universities and schools around the world.”

As part of the program, Raytheon covers the cost of tuition, books and some additional fees to enable its employees to seek college degrees or professional certifications in any field related to business operations.

“This program supports our belief in lifelong learning and is helping our employees rapidly build their skills and expertise. We also have learning partnerships, apprenticeship programs and other digital learning infrastructure to offer a variety of avenues to develop and maintain world class talent,” Sharma said.

Establishing Organizational Trust

Like any business-critical strategy, strategic workforce planning is most effective when there is buy in from leaders at all levels of the organization. With the right tools and the right data, creating a compelling strategy is possible, but without a collective belief in that strategy, the people tasked with executing it can falter or rely on past practices that don’t fit the new direction a business wants to go in.

“At its core, strategic work planning is a cross-functional exercise and it requires input from various stakeholders such as business leaders, finance teams, human resources and others,” Sharma said. “To create trust, we involve the right key players that understand our business drivers and are transparent about the data we’re collecting and using across various points of the organization.”

To illustrate his point, Sharma gave the example of how leaders at Raytheon were involved in creating a skills taxonomy and assessment.

“During the exercise we communicated with our employees and managers on why the data was needed, which cultivated more trust and buy in,” Sharma said. “Strategic workforce planning allows us to take a longer-term view of our business, envision different possibilities, and then determine the actions we need to take to drive the organization forward in context of those various scenarios. So it’s about augmenting the discussions and driving more cross functional collaboration that creates trust.”

Changing Nature of Work

The nature of work is changing rapidly, with more people working remotely on a flexible schedule or in the gig economy. Workforce planning must adapt to these changes, ensuring that the organization has the skills and resources required to support remote workers and manage flexible schedules effectively.

Employee expectations regarding remote work opportunities and flex scheduling shifted significantly during the pandemic, so much so that the workforce will likely never go back to the traditional model we saw before. Data from Robert Half shows that 87% of workers considering a new job in 2023 are actively seeking hybrid or fully remote opportunities. The data also shows that there are opportunities for them to find it, as 28% of all new job openings posted in January of this year were fully remote.

In addition, the gig economy has grown significantly in recent years, with more workers opting for freelance and contract work instead of traditional full-time jobs. It’s not a trend that is expected slow, with MarketWatch reporting a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 14% for gig work over the next five years.

This trend creates a challenge for workforce planning as organizations must consider what their personnel mix looks like and whether they’re applying the same hiring and employee experience practices to part time and contract workers as they are to full time equivalents.

“We are making sure we’re identifying the right opportunities for our people to engage,” says Elena Richards,  Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at KPMG (No. 11 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list). “We want to have a space to feel you can reach your highest potential. The work is real. Know that it’s evolving. We have to be open to whatever that’s going to be in the next however many years knowing that talent is so important.”

Acknowledging the Dimensions of Identity

Historically, most organizations would only ask workers questions about race, ethnicity and gender. But in today’s workplace, Richards says looking beyond those classifications is essential if employers want to determine how employees show up.

“We know that with your identity, sometimes it’s not just one aspect,” she says. “There’s a lot of ways that they intersect and there are different aspects that represent who we are and our experiences.”

KPMG added questions about religion and shifted its focus to more in-depth questions about military service, individuals with disabilities and its LGBTQ+ population.

“I have to hear you and you have to feel that you can click one of those boxes,” says Richards. “For us to do that, you have to have a more expanded list. That was trying to listen to our people to understand. I’m going to give you an example, bisexual or pansexual. There’s a lot of overlap. But not everybody understands the fluidity of that.”

Toyota North America (No. 4 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) launched a voluntary self-identification campaign in the U.S. and Canada to better understand who its team members are.

“We had good metrics around race and gender, but to get a true picture of our diversity we needed to look both deeper and broader,” says Stephen Lewis, General Manager of Diversity & Inclusion, Toyota North America. “For example, if a team member identifies as more than one race, they now can record that in self-ID. Previously, we had to assign them to a single category, which might have involved guesswork.”

Expanding Benefits

Data from KPMG’s self-ID campaigns have allowed the firm to offer tax consulting benefits for military service members and their spouses, backup care for caregivers and gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.

“How do we broaden the breadth of benefits we’re providing to our people without knowing certain things?” Richards asks. “Your identity is fluid. It expands over time. We wanted to make sure we’re meeting our people at the different stages they are experiencing in their lives.”

In 2021, Toyota North America added telemental health counseling and backup family caregiving benefits to meet the needs of its diverse workforce.

“We need to develop a deep understanding of our team member population to develop the most appropriate programming and facilities for them,” says Lewis.

Self-ID data has also helped PPG determine the benefits to offer employees.

“Understanding that representation allows us to consider different initiatives like our recruiting efforts or community outreach programs, benefit health and wellness programs and a variety of other things,” says Courtney Logsdon,  DEI Partner at PPG. “But it also helps us evaluate and assess if there is parity across any of those representations.”

Tapping Employee Resource Groups

Employee resource groups (ERGs) and self-ID campaigns help KPMG execute its Accelerate 2025 DEI commitment to attract, retain and advance underrepresented talent. KPMG’s goals include a 50% increase in its Black and Hispanic/Latinx workforce  and 50% partner and managing director representation from underrepresented groups.

“When we think about getting here, what are we doing to help bring more talent?” asks Richards. “What would that look like for the broad range of members? That’s how we’re working with them. What would they need to be drawn to an organization like KPMG? That community helps us do that, from early identification to onboarding.”

PPG’s eight global employee resource groups, known as employee resource networks (ERNs) are a cornerstone of its DEI strategy. Not only do ERNs drive business value at PPG, but they also provide employees of diverse backgrounds with a greater voice.

“They allow us to understand what representation means to them, what matters to them and how to do appropriate outreach and communication behind what is being asked of employees,” says Logsdon. “We’re very cognizant of how to reach out to employees, but also remind them that it is voluntary. There’s no obligation for them to do it, but also explain why we are asking for that information and how it can potentially benefit them.”

Improving Communication Channels

Logsdon notes that PPG has a large population of frontline employees that don’t have general access to computers or laptops. In addition to its usual methods of communication, the company has plasma screens to help with campaign distribution.

“We do offer our managers talking points in promoting that information, as well as why it’s important to self-ID and what they can do to support those efforts,” says Logsdon. “I recognize in some of my conversations with colleagues in other industries that there can be a gap in making certain that communication is well received by those types of populations.”

Lewis says employee response to Toyota’s self-ID campaign has been positive and the company will continue to improve the processes over time.

“The response has been good, especially among communities like people with disabilities and LGBTQ people who were not accounted for previously,” he says. “Self-ID says to them that they are included and that they matter. Recently, our HR information system developed a link to simplify the path to the self-ID page. This year, we are gearing up for a new communications campaign to highlight how easy it is for team members to update their information with this new direct link.”

Creating a Safe Place for Employees

When PPG was building its strategy for self-ID campaigns, one of the risks it considered was that employees might have fears about sharing sensitive data.

“In our campaign efforts, we have different communication channels,” says Logsdon. “Each of them recognizes and calls out that the information is stored in our workplace system because it is sensitive and it is accessible to all the individuals that are authorized to appropriately use that information.”

Richards says it’s important for companies to share with employees the benefits of self-identification and emphasize that the information will be used confidentially.

“Trust us that the information is going to be treated in a way that it’s intended to be treated,” she says. “You’re trying to demystify — well they know more about me, Big Brother and all those other things. It’s trying to get away from that. Trust that by knowing more about you, we can help you have a better experience with the firm.”

Women, Black and Hispanic/Latino employees are already underrepresented in the tech industry, so when layoffs occur, they are more likely to be affected. According to data from Zippia, women make up 28% of the workforce in the tech industry while men make up 73.3% of it. White Americans hold 62% of jobs in the tech sector while Asian Americans hold 20% and Black Americans and Latinx Americans hold just 7% and 8%, respectively. 

These numbers show that there is a significant underrepresentation of women, Black and Latinx talent in the tech industry while white and Asian men are overrepresented. It’s worth noting that Asian Americans are still underrepresented at the leadership level in tech, especially when considering their overall footprint in the tech workforce. This lack of diversity has led to concerns about the lack of inclusivity and the perpetuation of bias and discrimination in the industry. 

Another reason why women and people of color have been laid off in larger numbers at tech companies is bias in the layoff process itself, where women and Black and brown people are more likely to be selected for layoffs due to unconscious bias or discrimination.

What Are the Benefits of a Culturally Inclusive Tech Workforce?

During a U.S. House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion hearing DiversityInc President and CEO Carolynn Johnson testified at last year, she said, “there’s a close relationship between workplace fairness and business success.” This statement rings true for all employers, and technology companies are no exception.

According to a 2019 study titled “Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters” by McKinsey & Company, gender-diverse companies are 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than their competitors. The study also found that companies with more representation are more likely to outperform their competitors. 

“Companies with more than 30% women on their executive teams are significantly more likely to outperform those with between 10% and 30% women, and these companies in turn are more likely to outperform those with fewer or no women executives. As a result, there is a substantial performance differential – 48% – between the most and least gender-diverse companies,” McKinsey wrote. 

Other benefits of having a diverse workforce include: 

Increased innovation: Diverse teams bring different perspectives and experiences to the table, which can lead to more creative and innovative solutions to problems.

Broader range of skills and expertise: A diverse workforce can bring a wider range of skills, experiences, and expertise, enabling tech companies to tap into a broader talent pool and better meet the needs of diverse customers and users.

Improved decision-making: Diverse teams can make more informed and better decisions because they consider a wider range of perspectives and viewpoints.

Better problem-solving: Diverse teams can approach problems from different angles and come up with more effective solutions by drawing on their diverse experiences and perspectives.

Enhanced employee morale and retention: When employees feel valued and included, they are more likely to be satisfied with their work and stay with the company longer.

Increased profitability: Research has shown that companies with more diverse workforces are more profitable than those with less diverse workforces.

Overall, a diverse workforce can help tech companies to build better products, services, and workplace cultures, while also contributing to the overall success of the company.

Tips for Minimizing Layoffs

Tech layoffs are currently having a large impact on women and minorities in the workforce, but it’s happening across other sectors also. Here are some basic steps all companies should follow when conducting a workforce deduction.

Plan ahead: Layoffs should be carefully planned to ensure that they are conducted in a fair and ethical manner. This includes identifying the employees who will be affected, determining the reasons for the layoffs, and preparing a communication plan.

Use objective criteria: Layoff decisions should be based on objective criteria, such as job performance, skills and seniority. Steps should be taken and training provided where necessary to ensure decisions are not based on personal characteristics, such as race, gender or age.

Provide notice and support: Employees should be given advance notice of the layoffs, along with information about severance pay, continuation of benefits and job search assistance. Consider offering outplacement services to help employees find new jobs.

Communicate clearly and compassionately: Communication is key to a fair layoff process. Be transparent about the reasons for the layoffs and provide clear information about the process. Be compassionate and respectful when communicating with affected employees.

Consider alternatives: Before resorting to layoffs, consider alternatives such as reducing work hours, offering unpaid leave or implementing a hiring freeze. These alternatives can help reduce the number of employees affected by layoffs.

Conduct layoffs in a dignified manner: Layoffs should be conducted in a dignified manner that respects the affected employees. Employers should obviously avoid using language that could be perceived as threatening, intimidating or humiliating during the process.

Evaluate and learn: After the layoffs have been completed, evaluate the process to identify areas for improvement. Use this opportunity to learn from the experience and make changes to improve future layoffs if necessary.

Having ample opportunity to grow professionally is a key factor in employee satisfaction at the best of times, but when the economy has people feeling insecure and mass layoffs ratchet up the collective anxiety level, it’s even more vital. Likewise, as prospective employees consider their options, many will move toward those offers where opportunities for growth and acquiring new skills are on the table.

When the University of Phoenix conducted its Annual Career Optimism Index for 2022, surveying 5,000 employees at 500 companies over the course of a year, it revealed that automation is a primary concern for many workers. According to the study, 52% of respondents feel they are easily replaceable and 41% fear losing their jobs.

In addition, 40% fear their skills will become outdated due to advancements in technology. In terms of age, Gen Z and Millennials felt the greatest sense of concern while, demographically, Black Americans, Latino Americans and Asian Americans all expressed the greatest sense of concern around skills impacting their futures.

PwC, a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company, has recognized this. In the creation of its My+ strategy, a reimagined people experience providing the power to build personalized careers, the company has sought to create a talent development strategy that could impact its entire talent pipeline including its recruitment strategy.

“Development is one big pillar of My+ and we’ve been talking about how that message is getting delivered on campus and what the impacts are if we aren’t delivering it,” Leah Houde,  Chief Learning Officer at PwC, said. “Number one, they said yes, we are talking about this a ton on campus and it is having a differential impact on both applications and acceptances when we when we make offers. Autonomy is not the right word. We’re giving people more agency over their careers.”

In Houde’s opinion, the current economic climate contributes to the already growing appetite for L&D offerings among current employees and is playing a vital role in retention.

“L&D has always been critically important for both career movement and progression, but I would say even more now to employee satisfaction because of the economic environment that we’re in,” Houde said. “That contributes even more so than ever to retention. Based on conversations that we’ve been having with our staff as we have been developing this My+ strategy, they’ve been telling us that they’re thinking not just about what they need right now, but also about what they need one to three years from now. Those opportunities to learn, grow, practice new skills are the things that our people are telling us encourage them to pursue those opportunities for growth and development within the organization, rather than feeling like they need to go someplace else.”

Keeping Up with the Times

In recent years, the long-held focus on employee engagement shifted to a focus on employee experience as employers realized that the experience people have at work played a more central role in their commitment to the work and the company than anything else. Without a doubt, benefits and PTO policies are an important part of that experience, but as PwC has discovered, the L&D piece has to be there as well for the company to remain competitive.

“Common benefits are always going to be important, but one of the things that we’ve also realized through the research that we’ve done is that only gets you so far,” Houde said. “It really is people’s experience that determines whether they’re going to stay with the firm or leave. And again, one of the things that they told us is that the opportunities that they get through learning and how personalized those things are really matters to them.”

READ: Tips for Upskilling Employees

But the world is moving fast. Automation technology is improving by leaps and bounds seemingly overnight. New tools are developed on a regular basis that change not only the work that can be done but how it gets done and by whom. Adopting new technologies requires new skills across all levels of the organization, but one demographic that is particularly going to feel this is recent graduates.

“I would say, none of us are going to have the skills that we’ll need three, five years into a career coming out of college, because things are moving too fast,” Houde said. “We are constantly developing new platforms and new business areas that we need to upskill people. We’re always asking ourselves, what are those skills that people want to be ready for the future? And what skills do we need them to have? L&D is the linchpin that helps make that connection.”

Building Learning and Development Credentials

Technology has also changed the expectations that people have of nearly any experience. L&D is not immune to this as a variety of vendors, accrediting or certification bodies and online education tools have surfaced, oftentimes offering their own badges and certificates.

These credentials have long been popular in gaming, but when applied to L&D, they help people focus on specific areas of opportunity when it comes to education and leave them with something they can take away from the training or coursework that they can show as part of their career progression.

These forms of career education were already gaining popularity when the pandemic struck. As it did and people lost their jobs, many felt they needed more education, leading to a boom in interest for microcredentials that people could acquire in a shorter period than something like a degree and at a fraction of the cost. EdX, a massive open online course (MOOC) provider, alone estimated that it enrolled 30 million new users in the month of April in 2020, equal to the amount of users it had in all of 2019.

By 2021, Strada Education Network’s Strada Gallup Education Survey showed that 40% of working age American adults had completed a non-degree credential of some kind. Research from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that 70% of 25- to 65-year-olds who participated in non-degree education or training around job related topics and did so with the motivation of improving their job performance or career prospects.

With this growing openness toward badges and credentials, it begs the question of how an organization might be able to use them to drive culture and employee habits in addition to traditional interests such as skills.

PwC launched its “Inclusive Mindset” badge in the fall of 2022, aimed at helping PwC professionals build and practice the inclusive mindsets and behaviors. It is designed to be a holistic, self-paced, interactive learning experience. Participants learn how to value and embrace what makes each person unique, be more intentional about the diversity of their networks and build authentic relationships through greater curiosity and empathy.

The content is delivered on a tech-enabled platform, including avatar-based interactive scenarios supplemented by personal reflection and team/group dialogue. Thus far, the number of employees who have engaged with the Inclusive Mindset badge is in the thousands.

READ: HR Strategies and the Future of Work in 2023

“One of the things that we know is that we can’t deliver on this people strategy unless we have leaders at all levels behaving differently,” Houde said. “People have to think about how they inspire, empower, and engage each other and, frankly, expand their thinking differently than they ever did before.”

The badge itself was a commitment for PwC to driving inclusivity and a culture of belonging. Some L&D departments will create badges around a wide variety of topics, but at PwC, there are fewer than 10 badges on offer in total as the company has focused on key areas of opportunity with greater intentionality.

“That was something that was important to us, but our people were also telling us was important to them,” Houde said. “We invested not just in creating a curriculum, but actually creating a badge, which for us is a big deal. We decided to really focus it on the things we believe are differentiating internally and externally. We wanted to create a badge around first, inclusive mindset and then second, inclusive behaviors. We have a skill badge that we’re getting ready to roll out where we want people to demonstrate skill around being inclusive, not just the mindset, and how we hope that they’re thinking and showing up.”

The Right Platform

In keeping with people’s expectations, companies must consider not just what they deliver from an L&D perspective, but how they deliver it. With instructional designers getting more creative in how they design learning to make them more accessible and dynamic to cover a variety of learning styles, the right platform is needed to bring the various content types together.

In developing a solution, Houde’s team created the company’s My Learning platform, a one-stop shop for all required, recommended and elective learning at PwC. Through it, PwC employees can build their personalized learning plan in minutes, identifying the learning opportunities required for their role today and the in-demand skills for roles they want to pursue. Over 21,000 employees have built learning plans to date.

“We want to make learning accessible to people when they need it, how they need it, wherever they need it in bite-sized chunks or longer chunks,” Houde said. “We want to make it very flexible for people. What they told us was that was fantastic, but sometimes overwhelming because there were so many choices. It became hard for people at various points in time to navigate because a traditional LMS is like a giant course catalog.”

With no guidance in the catalog about who the learner is and what they want to do, which of those courses they should take is a mystery the user has to uncover. To solve the issue and help My Learning support the business needs, it would require L&D to engage the business to develop the path forward.

“We’ve worked with the business to populate some portions of those learning plans with courses that the business feels are most important for people at those stages of their career to take, given the skills that the business needs folks to have,” Houde said. “But there’s also flexibility. We create a list of recommended learning, given both where people are in their careers and answers to some questions that we asked them about who they want to be in the next few years.”

The system also connects to an employee’s virtual digital assistant that looks at their calendars. If they have a course that is required or they signed up to do because it was recommended and it has a due date of March 30, the virtual digital assistant will notify them of openings on their calendar where they could fit that coursework in and help them block it off.

“It’ll help you manage your account, because one thing we hear is that once they figure out what courses they want to do, now they have to figure out when they can fit them in their schedule,” Houde said. “Our approach was for the tool that we built to help people do that too. It also helps them track in the back end what they have done, because with the regulated business that we’re in, people need to do a certain number of learning hours to maintain their licenses, CPE credits and things like that. The tool helps them track it and manage all of those.”

The act of employees leaving employers happened during a time when labor demand was strong and unemployment was low. And now, some employers have laid off employees in an effort to cut costs. 

Whether there are jobs to fill or areas where jobs are being cut, these situations have created a need to help existing employees grow their career with your company by honing in on their skills and learning new ones. This is often referred to as the need for upskilling and reskilling. 

What is Upskilling?

Upskilling is the process of helping employees learn new skills through training courses and learning modules, which are often completed online through a company portal or other digital platform. This process often focuses on teaching employees how to navigate new technologies that help them with their current job. 

In an article from Forbes, the publication wrote that “technology has created new possibilities that can be fully realized only by a modernized workforce. That means the workforce must learn new skills and competencies that are required for new and/or changing jobs.” 

Walmart (No. 26 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list) is one example of a company that’s invested in upskilling. The company launched a global Walmart Academy that allows its 2.3 million associates to participate in both digital and in-person learning. Some of the courses offered through the academy include retail training that is job-specific, well-being courses and leadership courses. 

The academy focus on three key areas: developing on-the-job skills, growth skills for associates and leadership skills for managers. When talking about its on-the-job skills training, Walmart said it offers this training to help employees “grow and be successful in the job they’re in today,” whereas the other two areas are focused on helping employees prepare for opportunities that could arise in the future.

Marriott International (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company) has invested in upskilling for recent college graduates through its Global Voyage Leadership Development program. The 12- to 18-month program provides future leaders within the company with in-person and online training across disciplines like finance, culinary, engineering, event management, revenue management, rooms operations and more. 

Reskilling Employees

Upskilling is one way to meet the talent challenges employers face. Another path forward is reskilling.

When an employee is reskilled, they are learning new skills to do a completely different job rather than learning new skills that apply to their current job. Through the academy, Walmart also focuses on “helping associates for new roles in retail.”

“For example, just a few years ago, we didn’t have InHome Delivery specialists,” according to a Walmart press release. “As customer shopping habits evolve, this role is becoming increasingly important to our customers. Walmart Academy will train associates to build new skills and prepare them for new career opportunities.”

Tips for Designing Learning Management Systems

When it comes to upskilling and reskilling employees, it’s important to have a strategy centered around employee goals and aspirations. PwC has a learning management philosophy it calls infinite learning where the company finds ways to make learning accessible and flexible for its staff, whether they want to learn in “bite-sized chunks or longer chunks” so people can learn “when they need it, how they need it, wherever they need it,” said Leah Houde, Chief Learning Officer at PwC (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame company). 

It took some time to meet the needs of employees to deliver learning in the best way. Learning management systems (LMS) don’t necessarily make it easy for employees to navigate their choices. These systems don’t take in who the person is, what their job is and which course of the thousands of choices there they should take. 

“We recognized that we needed to create something that was going to be more personalized and simpler for people to engage in. We created our own tool called My Learning that helps our staff create their own personalized learning plans. We’ve worked with the business to populate some portions of those learning plans with courses that the business feels are most important for people at those stages of their career to take, given the skills that the business needs folks to have,” she said. 

“But there’s also flexibility. We create a list of recommended learning, given both where people are in their careers and also answers to some questions that we asked them about who they want to be in the next few years. And we create a set of recommended courses for them to take to help them build the skills that they may not have yet or may not need yet on the projects that they’re currently working on, but will help them grow for the future. Those are two ways that we’re thinking in the broader scale about upskilling and reskilling and also at this individual personalized scale.”

Setting Goals for Upskilling

Launching your own learning and development courses for targeted upskilling starts with setting goals. Here are a few things to ask employees, leaders and stakeholders within your organization:

1. What skills are needed to support a particular business function?
2. How can we increase retention through upskilling?
3. What types of learning opportunities are needed to support the growth plans of the organization?
4. How can we utilize reskilling? Where are there opportunities to teach employees the skills needed to move to other roles within the company?

Once you’ve asked these questions, think about what your learning management system will look like, just as PwC did. How long should each session be? Where will in-person training be held? Should employees be able to attend upskilling and reskilling training on a full-time and part-time basis? How is progress being tracked and accounted for in the employee’s work day?

Answering these questions and seeing the results will take time, but as companies like Walmart, Marriott and PwC have shown, upskilling is worth the investment.

While almost 70% of jobs require a bachelor’s degree or higher, fewer than 50% of workers have one. 

“If you exclude people who are retired or people who are not of working age and are still in university, you end up with half of the workforce that doesn’t have a college degree,” says Will Villota, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Opportunity@Work. 

What does this mean for the employment outlook for the 70 million workers who don’t have a four-year degree? 

Enter the Tear the Paper Ceiling campaign, launched in 2022 with Opportunity@Work, alongside nearly 50 national organizations and companies. The multi-year campaign calls on businesses and decision-makers to tear the “paper ceiling” – the invisible barrier that prevents workers without a bachelor’s degree from advancing in the workplace. 

“The stereotype people have about that workforce is that no degree means no skill,” says Villota. “One of our primary goals is to shatter those myths.”

Skilled Workers Without Degrees

At the center of the Tear the Paper Ceiling Campaign are STARs. STARs are defined as workers who don’t have a degree but are Skilled Through Alternative Routes like community college, workplace training, military service or on-the-job learning. 

“This is language that we hope will become synonymous with workers who don’t have a bachelor’s degree. By using the more positive labeling, it will trigger the awareness that they don’t have a degree, but they do have skills,” says Villota. 

STARs include workers in every sector of the workforce at all stages of their careers. The Tear the Paper Ceiling Campaign shares the stories of Angel Pla and LaShana Lewis. Both were forced to drop out of college because of financial issues. 

Pla amassed years of skills with the U.S. Coast Guard, while Lewis was just a few credits shy of a computer programming degree. For years, they were overlooked for jobs because they lacked college degrees. After Walmart (No. 26 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) and Mastercard (No. 2 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) focused on their skills instead of their degrees, they were able to break through the paper ceiling. Both individuals exemplify the racial and cultural diversity of STARs in the U.S.

“When you look at that half of the workforce, they are disproportionately people of color,” says Villota. “Sixty-one percent of STARs are Black and 55% are Hispanic or Latino. A majority of veterans are STARs. A majority of rural workers are STARs. If we’re talking about diversity in the workforce and you’re a decision maker in that space, you need to build your diversity strategy to include STARs or you’re not going to be successful.”

READ: The Rising Tide: The OneTen Project

Companies & Organizations Leading the Tear

There isn’t a company in the U.S. that can claim to have completely torn through the paper ceiling. 

“They’re all at different stages in their journey,” says Villota. “Some are farther along than others. The champions are the ones who have the most explicit stories around ways that they’re tearing the paper ceiling.” 

Champions

Accenture (No. 1 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) has been cited as one of the champions of the Tear the Paper Ceiling Campaign. 

Since 2016, Accenture has helped bridge the gap between talent and opportunity with its apprenticeship program. Typically after a 12-month apprenticeship, the program provides a pathway to a full-time role with the company. To date, Accenture has hired more than 2,000 apprentices.

“Through our Apprenticeship Program, we continue to take steps to look at new and diverse talent pools to find people for our organization and create greater access to digital economy jobs for skilled workers facing degree barriers,” says Wendy Cambor, managing director and talent strategy lead at Accenture North America. “Our Apprenticeship Program is a success because it is inclusive by design, and we do that by minimizing barriers to entry and widening the aperture of how we find talent.”

Allies 

Comcast NBC Universal (No 7. on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) is among the half-dozen allies of the Tear the Paper Ceiling Campaign. 

“While not everyone has the same access to a quality education, we believe that all Americans should have equal opportunity to fully participate and excel in our dynamic economy,” says Loren Hudson, SVP and Chief Diversity Officer, Comcast Cable. “By supporting STARs, we are working to ensure that more skilled workers are given access to competitive wage-earning jobs through alternative pathways.

Comcast has made strides and created a pipeline of entry-level engineering talent by upskilling frontline workers for careers in technology through Comcast Grows to Code.  

“In addition, where possible, we remove the four-year degree requirements from our Technology, Product and Experience team’s open job requisitions to create opportunities to broaden our talent pool,” says Hudson.

Supporters

The SkillUp Coalition worked with Opportunity@Work before the campaign was launched and is now one of its supporters. SkillUp helps workers leverage their skills and connects them with the resources to help grow their careers. 

“We are very worker focused, as you can imagine,” says Steven Lee, Executive Director of the SkillUp Coalition. “We need to reach workers and workers need to come to our side to take advantage. That’s what Tear the Paper Ceiling does, at least in my mind, it breaks open both the supply and the demand side.”

READ: ​​Low Risk, High Reward: Closing the Skills Gap Through Apprenticeships

What Causes the Paper Ceiling? 

Degree inflation is the rising demand for a four-year college degree for jobs that previously did not require one. Degree inflation is driven by two factors: the evolution of middle-skill jobs (jobs that require employees to have more than a high school diploma but less than a college degree) and employers’ misperceptions of the economics of investing in quality talent at the non-graduate level. Too many employers believe that a bachelor’s degree is the only way to build job-relevant skills. 

“Let us stop talking about this population in terms of what they don’t have and start talking about this population in terms of the skills they do have,” says Villota. 

Biased algorithms can also contribute to the paper ceiling.

Most large companies use automated applicant tracking systems to screen resumes, which filter out about half of all applications. As AI takes over the resume screening process, employers risk rejecting applicants with relevant work experience or credentials other than college degrees.  

“Algorithms are biased in part because they’re based on historical data and that historical data excluded STARs or they have other correlations that result in implicit bias,” says Villota. 

He says implicit bias is also present in professional networks, where networking gaps lead people to look for talent within their networks. 

“We all know that referrals are a common way to find a job,” says Villota. “If you’re inside a network because you have a bachelor’s degree, you’re on the other side of the paper ceiling and advantaged with those professional networks. If you’re on the outside, you’re disadvantaged.”

READ: Workplace Fairness Trends to Watch in 2023

Consequences of the Paper Ceiling 

The paper ceiling has severely impacted STARs’ economic mobility. 

“It now takes STARs, on average, 30 years to catch up to the starting wage of a college graduate,” says Villota. “There’s something not right in that math, that four years of college education equates to 30 years of work experience. That can’t possibly be right.”

Millions of STARs have developed the skills to earn more income. But when analyzing nearly 900 U.S. occupations, Opportunity@Work found that the skills required for low-wage jobs often overlap with those needed for higher-wage jobs. 

“The idea of economic exclusion, because if you don’t have a bachelor’s degree, it relates to poverty,” says Villota. “It relates to issues of education and equity in education. It relates to gender rights because women are disproportionately affected. If we can solve this issue and tear the paper ceiling, we can hopefully not only advance economic mobility, but we can improve all these other circumstances.”

The result of the paper ceiling is a cycle of rejection for STARs.

“They didn’t get the job they wanted or got a suboptimal job,” says Lee. “There may even have been some discrimination along the way, you can argue. STARs have lots of doubt and we want to help them work through their self-doubt.”

READ: Pay Transparency Laws Are Crucial for Women of Color – Here’s Why

Bringing Awareness to the Paper Ceiling 

Villota says when companies employ STARs, it should not be viewed as just a diversity issue. 

“Companies need to look at this not just as a DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging) solution, but as a talent strategy solution,” he says. By doing that, you will advance your DEIB efforts, but you also advance your broader talent goals.”

Lee says his dream would be for every Fortune 1000 company to pledge to tear down the paper ceiling. 

“Not a stupid pledge, but a real pledge that we are going to hire 100 STARs in the next year or something like that,” he says. “100 times 1000 is a big number, just to start with.”

Joining the companies would be state governments and the top 100 cities across America vowing to get rid of college degree requirements. Lee says he also dreams of the Tear the Paper Ceiling Campaign capturing the American Zeitgeist. 

“I don’t know how to define that,” he says. “It’s just a feeling. Part of it is social media. Part of it is influencers. If Kim Kardashian posted something about Tear the Paper Ceiling, this thing would blow up. That’s the way the world works.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, companies were forced to shift to remote work, which opened up a new world of flexible work for many workers. 

“We’re seeing people put that better work-life balance as something that was important for them and then on top of everything else, they were looking for benefits that suited them and their needs in achieving that better work-life balance much more readily,” says Alex Alonso, Chief Knowledge Officer at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Businesses faced the impact of quiet quitting, the talent shortage and the skills gap. Companies responded to the changing workplace by expanding Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), upskilling, mental health benefits and other initiatives. The employee experience will be one of the critical factors business leaders will focus on as they shape the office of the future. 

Flexible Work 2.0

While remote work was the order of the day at the beginning of the pandemic, more companies have instituted a hybrid model. This allowed businesses to balance workers between telecommuting and in-person office time.

“For those that had the opportunity to work remotely, almost all did because offices were shuttered. People got used to it, enjoyed it and expressed a preference for it, if not on a full-time basis, at least to have the flexibility,” says Richard Wahlquist, President and CEO of the American Staffing Association. 

“Remote and hybrid work had an exponential increase over the last 18 months. In a deeper recession, moderate recession or even a shallow and very narrow recession, those things are not going to change.”

More than 70% of employees are working from home at least two to three days a week, according to EY (a 2022 DiversityInc Hall of Fame Company). Four-day workweeks have also become more prevalent, with 40% of companies surveyed saying they have either started using a four-day workweek or are in the process of implementing one.

“Companies committed to attracting diverse and top talent need to be more creative about the opportunities and how they frame up a job,” says Julia Lamm, Workforce Transformation Partner at PwC (a 2022 DiversityInc Hall of Fame Company).

Instead of relying only on full-time workers, companies are expanding their contingent or freelance workforce to meet demand and keep costs lower. The rise in remote work has also led to a rise in cross-border hiring, a trend that is expected to continue in the new year. 

READ: How the COVID Pandemic Has Changed Talent Management Strategies 

Retention Redux

Think the talent shortage may disappear because of a recession? Think again. 2023 is expected to continue being a candidate-driven market. 

“Employers are very, very cognizant of just how difficult it was to attract and retain talent and I don’t believe that that focus is going to go away,” says Wahlquist.  

2023 could see a rise in internal mobility as workers approach the new year with caution. 

“ADP has 30% of their global positions filled internally, which is strong,” says Jason Delserro, Chief Talent Acquisition Officer at ADP (No. 14 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). “When companies struggle to hire, it’s harder to move people internally, so that should come back a bit.”

Company culture will continue to be a defining factor in retaining talent and help companies distinguish themselves from each other. 

“Moving around the organization benefits the company because they can figure out who the good employees are rather than relying on an interview process which is very challenging to be successful,” says Lamm. “They get someone who’s a culture carrier, someone who  feels like they have a personal commitment to their employer.”

READ: HR Strategies: The Future of Work in 2023

Expanded Benefits 

As companies focus on strategic planning for 2023 and beyond, employers will continue to focus on employee wellness offerings like stress management, telemedicine and financial wellness programs.

“Employee well-being is going to be hard-baked into the DNA of successful organizations in the foreseeable future, probably forever,” says Wahlquist. “We’re all carrying degrees of stress and issues in our lives that sometimes never manifest themselves in the workplace, but that can significantly impact our ability to do our job.”

Seventy percent of large employers are planning benefit improvements in 2023 including enhanced employee assistance programs, perks like tuition reimbursement and improved healthcare affordability.

“One of the things we’ve done is reduce healthcare by 10% this past year,” says Derek Thomas, National Partner-in-Charge, University Talent Acquisition at KPMG US (No. 11 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). “From our perspective, you have to continue to figure out what’s going to entice people and look at the market.”

Benefits improvements aren’t just restricted to staff employees. Out of all worker groups, one-fifth of large companies say they are focusing on benefit enhancements for hourly and low-wage workers, who aren’t typically offered traditional benefits. 

The Evolution of Upskilling 

Recession or not, companies are expected to ramp up investing in upskilling their employees in 2023. Companies recognize that it is more cost-effective to invest in retaining existing employees than it is to recruit and train new ones. 

“We also are deeply committed to being creators of talent.  This involves investing in the skills of our people – nearly $1 billion annually – to ensure they have marketable skills that enable them to pursue vibrant careers,” says Kate Clifford, Chief Human Resources Officer of Accenture North America (No. 1 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list).

Not only can upskilling help workers explore opportunities for career development and growth, but it can also help boost morale, improve retention and attract new talent. The World Economic Forum predicts that, by 2025, half of all employees around the world will need reskilling.

“The exponential adaptation of technology and the exponential increase in what technology can bring to the workplace in terms of efficiencies and enhanced productivity – bringing in all that new technology is something that isn’t intuitive for existing workers. So workers are going to need to be upskilled,” says Wahlquist.

READ: How Upskilling and Company Culture are Intertwined 

Manager/Employee Relationships Redefined 

Hybrid work allows employees to work in ways never imaginable. Still, it presents a unique set of challenges for employers and employees, including decreased collaboration and impaired working relationships with coworkers. Companies are looking for new ways to establish connections between workers and team leaders.

“We have a tool called StandOut, which automates your weekly check-in process with anyone that reports to you on your team,” says Delserro. “You don’t want to have forced engagement, but it does create an environment where every single week you get to see what someone on your team loved and what they didn’t love so much. Then comes the question of, how can I help you? That’s the most powerful question. Engagement is huge.”

Wahlquist says team leaders need to focus on being constantly engaged with employees.  

“It’s not just seven, eight or nine hours a day, but saying we’re a team. That means it’s 365,” he says. “If team members are hurting, the team is not going to function effectively. It will have a disastrous ripple effect.”

Clifford says the investments companies make in their workforce can help sustain them during difficult times.

“It’s important for leaders to recognize the stressors their companies face, whether it be inflation, shifting customer demands or social challenges – also place greater pressure on their workforce,” she says. “Supporting and prioritizing people’s needs should be a key business priority for companies even during times of change.”

“When you ask employers whether or not they’re finding the right kind of talent — whether it’s in a recessive period, or a period of high growth, like what we experienced over the last ten years — one of the things that you’ll see is that sourcing talent is still very difficult. It’s the number one challenge that exists on most CHROs (Chief Human Resources Officers) plates,” says Alex Alonso, Chief Knowledge Officer at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). 

“It is even difficult when you have all the economic forces in your favor. It’s hard to find talent that meets all your needs and wants to be part of your organization for an extended period,” he adds. 

Some experts are saying employers are facing what has been called a talent-constrained recession. As the talent shortage continues in 2023, companies will need adjustments to win the war. 

Develop Workforce Management Strategies 

As recession looms on the horizon, the headlines are filled with numerous companies announcing layoffs. Some executives are looking beyond firing workers and are exploring voluntary retirements, not replacing people who leave or hiring freezes, according to PwC’s Pulse Survey. Other companies are engaging in a tactic called “labor hoarding” – where employers hold onto employees during uncertain times rather than letting them go.   

“It might be better to carry the cost of a worker than go through exiting,” says Julia Lamm, Workforce Transformation Partner at PwC (a 2022 DiversityInc Hall of Fame Company).  

“In six months, the cost of recruiting is not just for the actual recruiter, but also the people doing the hiring process, then the cost of onboarding. It’s expensive to get someone in the door. So the labor hoarding strategy might make sense for some.”

Companies are being strategic in how they manage contingent or freelance work, where a worker is hired to complete a specific job for a set period. Contract work surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and typically picks up pace during a recession. Enlisting contingent workers can help companies bridge skills gaps and avoid the financial and administrative costs of hiring new employees.

“We’ve got a solid core, our everyday duties, our core capabilities, but companies are leveraging more of the external talent market to help with the ebb and flow of project work,” says Lamm.

Promote Workplace Flexibility 

Once the pandemic hit, the world of work changed forever. Before COVID, 17% of workers worked from home at least five days a week. Now, that percentage has risen to almost 50%.  

“People got used to it, enjoyed it and expressed a preference for it – if not on a full-time basis, at least to have the flexibility sometimes,” says Richard Wahlquist, President and CEO of the American Staffing Association. “If an employer went to a one day in the office work week, they might go to two or three days. I’d be very surprised to see many companies go from allowing employees to work remotely, two days, three days a week, to requiring everybody to come back into the office. I think that’s hard-baked into the world of work today.”

While a portion of Accenture’s employee population has worked remotely for decades, the professional services company shifted almost all of its workers to remote during the pandemic. Accenture (No. 1 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list) is using learnings from the pandemic shift to shape the future of work.  

“In terms of workplace flexibility, our future of work model moves beyond spaces and places to create what we call omni-connected experiences that level the playing field so people can fully participate regardless of where they are physically working,” says Kate Clifford, Chief Human Resources Officer at Accenture North America.

Emphasize Workplace Culture 

As the COVID-19 pandemic showed us, employees want to work for companies that are invested in their personal and professional growth. Employees desire meaningful work and to work for companies with a purpose aligned with their values. 

“Those are two separate things – meaningful work can be if you feel like you’re doing a good job, you’re providing value and you see that your work has an impact on our organization,” says Lamm.

“Whereas purpose and values could be more altruistic. Maybe you are very passionate about climate change, so you work at a company helping companies manage carbon offsets, or whatever that might be.”

Alonso says employers that can move the talent needle speak to two things: a culture of empathy and leaders that have a span of care, as opposed to a span of control. 

“We’ve seen this notion of empathy, but it’s really about organizational listening,” he says. “How well can you listen to the needs of your workforce? The better you do that, the more likely you attract other people to your workforce.”

Companies with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) embedded in their culture will remain a top requirement for employees. 

“Companies have to be very mindful of remaining authentic to their values, because you can create a disconnect if you’re not creating the type of environment you’re sharing with candidates, especially when it comes to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture,” says Jason Delserro, Chief Talent Acquisition Officer at ADP, (No. 14 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). “If you’re not remaining authentic, talent will notice; you show up and nobody reflects your background or experiences.” 

Prioritize Employee Development 

Recession or not, employers are not holding back on employee professional development opportunities.   

“The biggest areas where we’re seeing professional development growth is around entrepreneurship training or intrapreneurship training, which are things that are not typically what you would have seen in an employer in a negotiation or discussion around what you can do for your talent,” says Alonso. 

Companies are starting to invest in adaptability – the ability of workers to be resilient in the face of change. 

“You could give someone a stretch role,” says Lamm. “You could give them a new assignment, you can have them take on different challenges, so they move around, have them work with different people. I see that as a real differentiator. A company with an adaptable workforce that can navigate change is interesting because change is the one constant.”

As companies make development opportunities available, they must define how workers can take advantage of them.

“Many people are still doing more with less, they have picked up a part of someone’s job and are trying to keep things moving,” says Lamm. “When you’re doing that, there’s no time for learning. I think we’re gonna see companies make very specific goals for employees or permit them to take time out to do learning.”

Clifford says people are one of an organization’s most important sources of competitive differentiation. It’s the investments made in employees that will help sustain companies during difficult times like a recession. 

“It’s important for leaders to recognize that stressors their companies face, whether it be inflation, shifting customer demands or social challenges – also place greater pressure on their workforce,” she says. “Supporting and prioritizing their people’s needs should be a key business priority for companies even during times of change.”

The worker shortage continued this year, putting employees in the driver’s seat and giving them the power to negotiate pay, benefits and workplace flexibility. Employers offered workers more perks to make themselves competitive. 

“If we were talking in January, February and March, we were offering inflated salaries,” says Tammy Adrian, Vice President, HR Strategy & Enablement at Cox Communications (No. 34 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). “We were offering sign-on bonuses. We were being lenient about where they could work – meaning geographies – in and out of our company footprint. And we were flexible on hybrid and even some remote work.”

What a difference a year makes.

High inflation has prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively this year at the fastest pace of tightening since the early 1980s. While the debate continues if the U.S. will escape a recession in 2023, business growth is slowing and more companies are laying off workers. What could a recession mean for the relationship between employers, employees and potential employees and some of the advancements workers have made in the workplace? 

Workplace Flexibility 

Remote work became the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of people primarily working from home tripled from roughly 9 million people to almost 28 million people, according to the Census Bureau. Ninety percent of employers say they will require employees to return to the office at least part of the week in 2023.

“I see that pendulum starting to swing back to the old ways of wanting them in the office a little bit more,” says Adrian. “The first quarter of the year, even into the second quarter, we would take someone who only wanted to be remote just to find the talent.”

What initially started as a mandated work-from-home policy for many companies has now evolved into a hybrid model. Heading into a recession, hybrid work can help companies lower costs by cutting down office footprints. 

“A majority of organizations are focused on a two-three model or a three-two model, which is you’re going to have people in the office three days, you’re going to have them in two days and then the rest of it is going to be at home or elsewhere,” says Alex Alonso, Chief Knowledge Officer at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). “What we’re seeing though, is that it is becoming very much the norm and it’s happening outside of the professional services sector. In the professional services sector.”

Employee Well-Being

Research has shown that promoting the health and well-being of employees not only boosts worker performance but it can also boost a company’s bottom line. The pandemic has led to an increased focus on how companies look at employees’ well-being and their mental, emotional, physical and financial health.  

“The pandemic is not far enough in the rearview mirror to say that we can’t think about our workforce’s well-being,” Alonso says. “Whether we like it or not, that is part of the employee experience equation. Employers will continue to take that into account.”

Employees are looking for purpose in their jobs. They want to work for mission-driven companies that demonstrate purpose beyond profit. If the U.S. economy enters a deep recession, experts say that dynamic is not expected to change. 

“Most employers are very mindful of just how painful refilling talent benches were during the depths of the recession and how important it is to continue to focus on making sure that employees feel as though there’s a good connection between their personal sense of mission, values and purpose and that of the company’s,” says Richard Wahlquist, President and CEO of the American Staffing Association. 

During the pandemic, the connection between diversity, equity and inclusion and employee wellness became more pronounced. Even in a recession, companies will continue to focus on the different dimensions of diversity, like generational diversity. 

“We have so many in the workforce right now,” says Adrian. “They all want different things. it’s trying to understand that. What are the programs we need to roll out or what’s the treatment that we need to give for different generations because we can’t just peanut butter spread it.”

Register for our Dec 7. Webinar: Measuring Matters: Diversity Tracking & Technology 

Employee Development 

Recession or not, the nature of work is changing. In addition to a talent shortage, employers have a skills gap they need to fill. Even before the pandemic, The McKinsey Global Institute estimated that as many as 375 million workers would have to switch occupations or acquire new skills by 2030 because of automation and artificial intelligence.  

Recruiting is costly and can be up to two times the employee’s annual salary. Upskilling is one strategy that can help employees gain skills to advance in the workplace while retaining them on the payroll and keeping costs low. 

“Now’s the time for employees and job seekers to make sure that they explore all of the options from no-cost or low-cost courses that are available to the general public,” says Wahlquist. “The kinds of continuing education professional development programs most companies are offering have been widely underutilized. Employers have got to do a better job of promoting those.”

He says workers who demonstrate their skills, competencies and connection to their company will find themselves in an elite group. 

“If you get identified in that engaged category, you’re going to have some stars next to your name – whether it’s with your current company or a future company,” says Wahlquist.

Read: 5 Ways to Recession-Proof Your DEI Strategy

Internships began in the 11th century to help apprentices learn a trade. Today, there are an estimated 300,000 interns in the United States each year. Most Fortune 500 companies and jobs in the private sector pay interns. Fewer internships are unpaid or allow students to work for college credit.

The Benefits of Internships

Not only are internships a critical talent recruitment tool for employers, but they are also a stepping stone for people looking to launch their careers and decide where they might want to land. 

“It’s essential to their career growth because it helps to build that foundational knowledge and get that experience in a particular area where their skills align or they feel as though they have transferable skills that they can help build upon,” says Jazmine Harrison, Associate Director, Diversity in Talent Acquisition at AT&T (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame Company). “It could be in finance, legal, communications or marketing. It also allows them to say, I thought I liked this particular area and maybe I don’t.”

As companies struggle with the current talent shortage, internships can help companies develop the next generation of workers. While approximately 70% of employers offer interns full-time jobs, up to 80% of students accept the offers.

“In four years, if you don’t hire these interns, two, three years down the line when we’re hiring, we can either have a pool of known quantities or we could do these 30-minute interviews to understand if we’ve got a 30-year employee on our hands,” says Ryan McClatchey, a Learning Manager in the Early Talent Management Group at Dow (No. 15 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list). “If you get them for a full summer, you get a lot more understanding on what that student is going to be capable of and how they behave in these settings.”

Paid internships can also play a role in improving diversity and the economic outlook for communities of color.

“If you put any student on an internship pathway, you improve the economic outcome of two things – the students themselves and the family – particularly those families that are despaired, such as minority families,” says Forest Harper, President and CEO of INROADS, a non-profit organization focused on training and developing underrepresented young talent. “We’ve tracked data that shows a student who gets a paid internship has a greater opportunity for a full-time job offer than students who don’t.”

How to Find an Internship 

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the internship landscape. While companies either canceled their internship programs or shifted their internships into virtual programs, Dow made the conscious decision not to eliminate its internship programs. And despite the looming recession, the chemical company is not taking its foot off the pedal when it comes to pursuing talent.

“We realize that these innovative, creative, passionate students are extremely valuable to our future as we talk about decarbonization, our pursuit to be carbon neutral and our emphasis around environmental, social and governance,” says Emmitt H. Wooten Jr., NA Operations Early Career Development Director at Dow. 

Find Internships on the DiversityInc Job Board

A multi-strategy approach can ensure the success of landing an internship. First, it starts with a solid resume. Job boards on sites like DiversityInc, Indeed, LinkedIn and Glassdoor are good starting points to search for openings. When writing a cover letter, tailor it to the internship and the company.

“What’s their mission? What are they selling? What do they do? Incorporate that into your cover letter along with your interests and become a more interesting candidate for the role,” says Kim Churches, President of The Washington Center, an organization that provides immersive internships and seminars to young professionals around the globe.

McClatchey says the key to applicants getting an internship is presenting themselves well. 

“I always think of these internships like the dating experience,” he says. “As impressive as you want them to be to you, you need to be equally impressive to them.”

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He interned at Cargill twice, then at 3M before landing a staff position with Dow in 2008 (No. 15 on DiversityInc’s 2022 Top 50 companies for Diversity list).

“Getting that experience and getting your foot in the door lets you know what you’re signing up for,” he says. “What you learn in the books versus what you see in the industry are drastically different.”

Almost 14 years after those internships, McClatchey is a Learning Manager in the Early Talent Management Group at Dow, ushering in the next wave of interns.

“In four years, if you don’t hire these interns, two, three years down the line when we’re hiring, we can either have a pool of known quantities or we could do these 30-minute interviews to understand if we’ve got a 30-year employee on our hands,” he says. “If you get them for a full summer, you get a lot more understanding on what that student will be capable of and how they behave in these settings.”

What is an Internship?

An internship is a short-term professional learning experience offered by a company or organization for a fixed period. Interns can be high school or college students or recent graduates. 

While most Fortune 500 companies and jobs in the private sector pay interns, some internships are unpaid and may allow students to work for college credit. Research shows more Black students participate in unpaid internships compared to their white peers.

“It shouldn’t just be people with full wallets that can partake in these meaningful internships,” says Kim Churches, President of The Washington Center, an organization that provides immersive internships and seminars to young professionals around the globe. “That starts limiting it (internships) to certain ivory tower schools and those where people have access to personal networks. When you move into paid internships, you bring more diversity of thought and different lived experiences.”

There are an estimated 300,000 interns in the United States each year and since 2013, 60% of students have undergone an internship or cooperative education, also known as co-ops. While co-ops vary by employer, the work agreements are typically full-time paid positions that are longer in duration. 

“It’s both ‘work and learn’ at the same time. You’re seeing a rise in this,” says Churches.  

AT&T (a DiversityInc Hall of Fame Company) is among the employers that offer internships and full-time development programs across industries like accounting, cybersecurity or marketing. For applicants unsure about their area of focus, AT&T provides a multi-disciplined experience. 

“Our Edge Internship Program, which is diversity driven in nature, is broader because the internship opportunities go across the enterprise,” says Jazmine Harrison, Associate Director, Diversity in Talent Acquisition at AT&T. “It could be in finance, legal, communications or marketing. It’s aligning diverse candidates to internships with a dedicated program and that mission behind it.”

What are the Benefits of an Internship?

Not only are internships a critical talent recruitment tool for employers, but they are also a stepping stone for people looking to launch their careers and decide where they might want to land. 

“It’s essential to their career growth because it helps to build that foundational knowledge and get that experience in a particular area where their skills align or they feel as though they have transferable skills that they can help build upon,” says Harrison. “It also allows them to say – I thought I liked this particular area and maybe I don’t.”

As companies struggle with the current talent shortage, internships can help companies develop the next generation of workers. While approximately 70% of employers offer interns full-time jobs, up to 80% of students accept the offers.

“The quality of interns we bring in are pretty high,” says Emmitt H. Wooten Jr, NA Operations Early Career Development Director at Dow. “They’re typically not the one-and-done type of students where they’ve only got one experience and only one with us. We extend a lot of resources and time and invest in a student to create an experience where they do choose us.”

Paid internships can also play a role in improving diversity and the economic outlook for communities of color.

“If you put any student on an internship pathway, you improve the economic outcome of two things – the students themselves and the family – particularly those families that are despaired, such as minority families,” says Forest Harper, President and CEO of INROADS, a non-profit organization focused on training and developing underrepresented young talent. “We’ve tracked data that shows a student who gets a paid internship has a greater opportunity for a full-time job offer than students who don’t.”

Evolution of Internships 

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the internship landscape. Companies either canceled their internship programs or shifted their internships into virtual programs. Dow made the conscious decision not to eliminate its internship programs. 

“During the pandemic, we honored all of our offers,” says Wooten. “When other companies were pulling back from the table, canceling offers and giving students a bit of a runaround, we stayed the course. We said we’ll stay committed to the program, even if it means virtual. Let’s give them something that makes them feel like they still belong.”

To encourage engagement in a time of remote learning, Dow developed the concept of cohorts with the goal of “creating an experience where the students feel like the program is being done with them, as opposed to them.”

A group of as many as 150 students is divided into cohorts, a group of five or six students. A cohort leader is assigned based on their experience and interests. 

“The whole experience gives them a sense of accomplishment in leading their peers, being a first amongst equals, if you will, and their engagement with leadership,” says Wooten.

Project-based or micro internships, which can improve access for diverse candidates and non-traditional students with caregiving responsibilities or other family obligations, have become more prevalent. 

“A micro internship can be like a week or three to five weeks,” says Churches. “Sometimes you see them over the winter break between the Christmas holiday, through New Year’s. Or over the spring break, an internship sprint rather than a semester or a summer.”

How to Get an Internship

A multi-strategy approach can ensure the success of landing an internship. First, it starts with a solid resume. Line up a list of references, if needed. Review your social media presence to ensure there aren’t any red flags. When writing a cover letter, tailor it to the internship and the company.

“What’s their mission? What are they selling? What do they do?” Churches asks. “Incorporate that into your cover letter along with your interests and become a more interesting candidate for the role.”

Interview preparation is also essential. 

“If they don’t practice, as much as we may improve the opportunities with corporate America and everything else, they could fail in the interview,” says Harper.

Many colleges hold career fairs or have websites of employers interested in hiring their students. Job boards on sites like DiversityInc, Indeed, LinkedIn and Glassdoor are good starting points for finding openings. Sign up for alerts to have the internships delivered to your email. Have a particular company in mind? Go directly to their job site and search. 

McClatchey says the key to students getting an internship is presenting themselves well and it doesn’t mean applicants need a perfect GPA. 

“I always think of these internships like the dating experience,” he says. “As impressive as you want them to be to you, you need to be equally impressive to them.”

Find Internships on the DiversityInc Job Board

How to Make the Most of an Internship

Developing high-quality connections during an internship can help students find jobs and set them up for success after graduation. 

“It’s going to help to build their professional network of peers and mentors and sponsors,” says Churches. “That’s super important to mention. It’s not just the internship experience, women and women of color are woefully under-mentored and under-sponsored. These opportunities are other ways for them to build those networks.”

Harrison recommends that interns be a “sponge” and soak up as much information as possible.

“Create those stepping stones, build those foundational blocks if you don’t have them and utilize every opportunity.”

Harrison reflects on her first internship as an affiliate sales intern at Turner Broadcasting, once operated by AT&T. The experience helped her build the confidence to make her mark in corporate America. 

Every three weeks after the internship, Harrison spoke to her internship coordinator and manager to ask if she could come on full-time. Fast forward more than 14 years later, Harrison has held six different roles at AT&T and still leverages the things she learned in her first internship.

“Every single role has required a different and more mature version of myself. It’s been great to see how I’ve grown from when I interned to where I’m now.”

“People generally feel safer when they feel like they’re in the know or important information isn’t being withheld or concealed from them,” says Peter Phelan, founder and CEO of Values Culture, a talent management organization. “It can be a good motivator and source of alignment to communicate, so everyone’s on the same page.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, information was guarded and delivered to workers on a need-to-know basis. While employees have always desired transparency, workers now demand it from their employers.

“For any company in this current environment, an absence of answers can lead employees to look for greener pastures or more transparent pastures,” says Phelan. “That may be another company that’s also having its struggles, but at least the management is willing to talk about it and they’re in it together.” 

What is Workplace Transparency?

Workplace transparency is open communication between leaders and employees at work and can take many forms. It can include leadership speaking about the company’s diversity efforts, being honest about pay, communicating with employees about their career development or informing them about positive or negative business developments. 

“Silence can lead to people voting with their feet,” says Phelan. “It’s a retention issue, an employee motivation issue, and a problem-solving issue.” He says what usually gets in the way of leaders exercising workplace transparency is fear.

“Picture the startup CEO who’s afraid to tell the team that there are only six or nine months left of runway and if they don’t get another round of investment or some kind of credit facility, they’re done. There could be fear that if they know how close to the edge we are, the good ones will leave early and we’ll be even worse off.”  

What used to be discussed behind closed doors is now front and center for everyone to see. Phelan adds that most people will accept negative news if it’s shared openly and transparently. 

“If you share bad news early enough, sincerely and in the spirit of partnership to try and figure this thing out together in terms of next steps, even CEOs who fear transparency in many cases will be pleasantly surprised.” 

Building Employee Trust 

Being transparent with employees can help create trust and make them more satisfied at work. 

“If you want your team to trust that they are in good hands, erring on the side of overcommunication is probably the best thing,” says Phelan. “It can be a good motivator and source of alignment to communicate, so everyone’s on the same page and fighting the most important battle together, versus fragmented communication that could lead to fragmented efforts and people not focusing on the right things. There’s a self-interest factor with companies being transparent about what is going on.”  

As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.” A transparent work culture creates an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas and insights, leading to more innovation.

“If a company isn’t transparent about what it needs and what problems need to be solved and maybe the C suite doesn’t know the solution – that’s a way to delegate innovation to the broader employee group,” says Phelan. “That could lead to people stepping up who were previously not innovating because they were never asked. They were told to do this to make the clients happy, but they weren’t asked to contribute to the product roadmap.”   

Attracts and Retains Talent 

When employees believe that promotions are managed effectively, they’re two times more likely to make more of an effort at work and plan for a future at their company, according to a 2018 study by the Harvard Business Review.  

“A lot of times, companies want to say there’s potential to grow and develop, but they don’t put the infrastructure in place to match that,” says Nicole Ramadhin, Manager of Digital Strategies, Talent Management at GoodRx. “Being completely transparent about what is possible – whether there is potential to develop and grow, whether that’s vertically or laterally – that’s sometimes where there’s a bit of a gap.”  

Ramadhin gives the example of companies not communicating with workers about hiring freezes.

“Promotions are a part of that and although that is disappointing, employees know what to expect,” she says. “However, if the promise is still there, employees feel like it’s there. Then it’s not until the time comes to talk about promotions in their annual review and then they’re told we’re not doing promotions at this time. That’s where employees start to feel disgruntled.” 

The pandemic has changed how employees view compensation. Most job seekers and employees want some form of pay transparency, however, only 14% of companies are giving pay transparency more than a moderate level of attention. 

“Companies are in the best position to say this is what the data tells and the current market rate for this position is between these dollar amounts,” says Graham Riley, founder of CareerToolBoxUSA, a personal branding company that helps job seekers generate career and employment opportunities. “If they don’t share that, then they suffer attrition. There is no shortage of people and they are far more open to looking at what else is available.”

READ: Pay Transparency Laws are Crucial for Women of Color – Here’s Why 

Enhances Company Culture 

For workplace transparency to be successful, it has to be embedded in the company’s culture. 

“Employees need to feel able to know how to grow and develop and navigate through their careers,” says Ramadhin. “The only way to have that be a part of the culture is if employees feel like they trust the messages that leaders are putting out there. And that depends on how transparent leaders are.”

A culture of transparency is ineffective when companies don’t practice what they preach.

“You’re telling me you’re a transparent company in your marketing and then don’t live up to the values,” Riley says. “As much as a job description is being reviewed now, so is the mission statement and the values by which the company says it conducts itself and its business.”  

Employees are holding companies accountable for how transparency is reflected in their organizations by posting reviews on job sites like Glassdoor or by handing in their resignations. 

“The Great Resignation or the Great Reshuffle is still going on,” says Riley. “It’s not as dramatic as it was in 2021, but for the first half of this year, people are still making moves. When they are considering a move versus the actual work they’re going to be doing, they want to know that they’re stepping into a culture that is fair, honest and open.”

While 80% of employed workers say professional development and training opportunities are an essential factor when considering a new job, only 39% say their current employer is offering them those benefits.

“They want development opportunities and that’s not just training,” says Lisbeth Claus, Professor Emerita of Management and Global Human Resources at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management of Willamette University and visiting professor at Pforzheim University in Germany.

“Those are platforms within their companies that connect them to projects and tasks that they’re good at rather than being boxed into their role,” she adds. “It’s coaching or resources from their managers. Flexibility includes the ability to develop and learn. The ability to make mistakes and not be punished. We call this the new learning.”

In the post-COVID workplace, companies that don’t adapt to the new learning risk losing out on the war on talent.

Redefine Learning and Development 

Remote and hybrid work, coupled with pandemic protocols became the new order of the day. As companies redefined the workplace and reexamined their business strategies, workers required more from their employers. 

“We know they want more flexibility,” says Claus. “We know they want more purpose. We know they want fair rewards for the work being done. We know their engagement for the past 30 years has been relatively low – one out of four people is highly disengaged.”  

Leadership and upskilling are the primary focus areas of leadership and development (L&D) programs this year, according to the LinkedIn 2022 Workplace Learning Report. 

“Many companies have been experiencing an increased challenge to attract and retain talent with no end in sight,” says Christine Render, founder and CEO of ScaleUp Coaching and Consulting. “They need to upskill their workforce so that people can be successful in expanded roles and the company can accelerate employee readiness for promotion. They just can’t go to the streets and get the volume of candidates that perhaps they were able to in the past.”  

Effective L&D programs should include training related to the new normal in the workplace.

“That would include hosting effective virtual meetings, avoiding proximity bias and building relationships,” says Render. “You have company veterans who have been there for years and you have a lot more newbies than we used to have because of all the turnover that’s occurred.” 

Render says many companies have leveraged cohort learning, as transitioning from in-person to virtual learning environments has not been easy for all.

“It preserves that social learning aspect you lose when you’re not all together physically in a classroom,” she says. “Cohorts will foster collaboration, foster practice and learning from each other and sharing experiences. There’s a networking aspect that can be leveraged. You can build time in your agenda to carve out networking opportunities like posing a question and having people go into breakout rooms.”

Reinvent the Employee Value Proposition 

Not only do employees want more flexibility at work, but they also want deeper connections and purpose.

“They’re looking to integrate work and life,” says Claus. “The isolation (of the pandemic) made us reflect on what’s important in life.”

The employee value proposition (EVP) is the benefits an employee receives from a company in exchange for the skills and experience they bring to the table. As a reinvention of EVP, research firm Gartner highlights “the human deal” — a human-centric approach that targets an employee’s entire life and focuses on them as people, not workers.

“Companies are offering things like language lessons or career development that goes beyond an individual’s current role or beyond what the company can offer an employee for their career,” says Render. “They’re offering training and development opportunities that treat someone as a human instead of what you need to know to do your job.”

Claus says the key is finding the sweet spot between what’s good for the company and what’s good for the employee. 

“People being human-centric doesn’t mean the same for all because you have to look at the different personas within your organization,” she says. “Your employees don’t want the thing. An older employee wants different things than an employee who has small children. We have to be able to develop flexible strategies that are equitable, legal, fair and attractive to different kinds of people.”

Rethink Employee Evaluations

The new hybrid and remote workplaces have redefined how managers evaluate employees. 

“Some people managers are learning how to measure performance based on outcomes, not hours,” says Render. “That’s a huge change. Some leaders have been measuring results forever, but there are a lot of people who measure based on FaceTime or putting time in the office. That doesn’t work anymore.”

Conversations at the water cooler and in-person gatherings have been replaced by regular standing meetings between managers and workers.

“An expectation that leaders hold these kinds of meetings is what I see many companies resorting to,” says Render. “In a way, they’re manufacturing what used to happen organically, but in a very authentic way. If you don’t make that concerted effort, all of a sudden, months go by and you don’t have those kinds of conversations with your employees. That’s not a good feeling.”

In a trend that began before the pandemic, many companies have abandoned traditional, annual reviews for in-time coaching conversations.

“You don’t need an annual review because the employee already knows, they’ve been talking to their manager all year through,” says Render. “The manager doesn’t have to spend three hours thinking about everything to include for each of their employees.”

In this new environment, companies are also reevaluating the competencies and skills needed to be great managers. 

“Employees are burned out,” says Claus. “They need their well-being to be taken care of. And guess what? Most managers do not have those essential skills. They have been promoted because they’re good at something — usually process or project, but they’re not good at people.”

Map the Future of L&D

It’s been more than two years since the beginning of the pandemic and L&D professionals are still putting their money where their mouth is. The spending power of L&D professionals is at a six-year high, with nearly half of them saying they expect to increase their budgets in 2022. 

“The training and development function will remain a key driver for people strategies well into the future,” says Render. 

Mobile learning, artificial intelligence and microlearning are among the L&D trends that have emerged. Companies are also reprioritizing their training and development resources and future-proofing their organizations by focusing on closing the skills and knowledge gap. 

“That includes institutional knowledge about a company,” says Render. “It would also include training HR or people managers about onboarding team members virtually to create a sense of belonging. These things are getting more attention because they’re key to working in the new norm.”

In the evolving workplace, employees can map out the future of learning and development by sharing feedback with companies about what works and what doesn’t.

“Leaders generally want to hear from you if you have an idea that’s going to make the situation better, whatever that is,” says Render. “Whether it’s the inability to attract talent, retain talent or accommodate flexibility, tell them. Reach out to them. Be a part of the solution. If you have some constructive suggestions that are shared professionally and don’t get a resounding response, you’re probably not in the right place.”  

“We are drawn to people who are similar to us,” says Bethany Whitted, People & Learning Consultant at Titus Talent Strategies, an organization that provides recruiting and leadership training. “We’re drawn to the familiar. Whether we like to admit it or not, that’s at play. Diversifying your interview panel is a means of minimizing that familiarity bias.”

Almost 90% of candidates from underrepresented groups believe that diverse panels lead to better hiring experiences and outcomes.  

“Whether it’s a win or a loss for your company is going to depend on how you make sure that people value other people’s voices,” Whitted says. “That’s going to set the stage for a more collaborative, less competitive and less complex approach to diversity.”

Define Your Company’s Goals

Forming a hiring panel should be purposeful and aligned with your company’s overall DEI goals and broader talent strategy. Is the objective to build a diverse team or reduce bias in the hiring process? Is it to develop an improved candidate experience?

“Doing it as a check-the-box measure or, ‘I saw this in an HR conference’ – is insufficient for what is needed to make the best use out of this hiring strategy,” says Sage Krombolz, Product Manager at Development Dimensions International (DDI), a global leadership consulting firm. 

“What are we specifically looking for when it comes to diversity of talent, competencies and behaviors?” she asks. “That’s important in terms of thinking through the starting point to how you are going to incorporate this.”

Diverse panels send the message that a company is inclusive and values diversity. The hiring groups can also help companies make better hiring decisions. 

“The long-term benefits of reducing bias in the interviewing process is that you will select people who are more qualified for the job and are able to help your organization or team meet their goals,” says Krombolz. “Reducing bias in the interview process is a key step for seeing some of those downstream impacts of creating an inclusive culture in an organization.”

Embrace a Broad Definition of Diversity

Gender and race aren’t the only differences to think about when forming diverse hiring panels.

“When it comes to hiring, it is relevant to consider the dimensions of class,” says Krombolz. “Educational history, age, tenure, nationality, sexuality – these dimensions and aspects of employees that work at your organization are relevant when you’re thinking about creating a panel representative of the organization. That’s more likely to reflect the innumerable possibilities of identity that candidates are bringing into these interviews.” 

Job interviews can be stressful, but Whitted notes that diverse hiring panels can make candidates feel more comfortable, especially if interviewees are in the minority.

“The levels of anxiety, the levels of emotional labor associated with being the only person of your identity in any room are more damaging if you are not in a room that contains people who look and experience the same things as yourself,” she says. “Situations where the interview panel may share aspects of identity or lived experience can increase that feeling of psychological safety.”

While a diverse interview panel can be aspirational, Krombolz warns companies against misleading candidates. 

“I’m not saying don’t use diverse interview panels if the company is not diverse, but you have to be mindful of reflecting a snapshot of the company that is representative of the experience the candidates are going to have,” she says. 

Select Your Interview Team

Establishing a diverse hiring panel is not as simple as randomly assembling people of different sexes, races, backgrounds and skills for the interviews and then claiming success. 

“Be thoughtful of the type of diversity that already exists in your corporation and you want to make sure it’s reflected in the interview panel,” says Krombolz. 

In addition to their identities, there are several qualities members of the diverse hiring panel should bring to the table. Krombolz says panelists should be skilled and have an interest in interviewing. 

“They should not only be part of the interview process themselves, but they need to be given equal weight and equal say in the decision-making process,” she says. 

While it’s not a requirement, Krombolz says it’s relevant to choose employees with a stake in the role. 

“If those criteria are met, you can be pretty sure that you’re not inviting somebody as a token and you’re inviting somebody as a meaningful, intentional member of an interviewing team.”

It’s essential that each person on the interview panel understands their role in the group and how to evaluate candidates across the same criteria. 

Beyond that, candidates should be made aware of why the interview panelists were chosen and how that fits into the role, says Stacie Volz, Director, Talent Optimization, Learning & Development at Titus Talent Strategies.

“Those on the receiving end of that panel need to understand the diversity of education and experience sitting in front of them and why these perspectives are important for the organization being successful,” she says. 

Create a Structured Interview Process

Diverse interview panels should be organized around the skills and experiences needed for the role, not for a cultural fit. 

“Trying to evaluate candidates based on cultural fit is equivalent to inviting bias into the decision-making,” Krombolz says. “It’s that ephemeral, subjective criteria that are susceptible to those inherent things going on in our brain. If you are looking for demonstrated ability to do the tasks and use the types of skills that are associated with the role, then you’re setting yourself up for being able to make a decision based on more concrete data points.”

She suggests structuring diverse interviews with a tactic called behavioral interviewing.

“That allows the interviewers to listen for specific things,” Krombolz says. “They’re listening for actions. They’re listening for impact. They’re listening for your ability to be specific and descriptive about behavior that you’re going to need on the job.”

When interviewing candidates, Volz says a structure is derived by working with a template that everyone on the panel sees.

“Then we can look at each candidate for that role in the same way,” she says. “It’s not that today we have these questions and tomorrow, we’re focused on this. It needs to be streamlined, it needs to be measurable and it needs to be transparent.”

Once deciding on the interview format, it’s important to view the process from the candidate’s perspective. Notify applicants ahead of time how the interview will be structured so they won’t be surprised. Be mindful of the panel’s size — one that’s too large can be overwhelming.

Train Your Interview Team 

To ensure success, all panel participants should be briefed on their role as part of the interview team, including all of the questions they will ask. 

“We train our teams to look at the whole person – so it’s the head, the heart, the briefcase,” says Volz. “There are some established, measurable performance objectives and questions in that briefcase portion of our interviews, where it’s about that role and what success looks like in that role and we focus on that for everyone who pursues that role.”

Don’t make the mistake of judging candidates because of their likeability. 

“We want to make sure that we’re looking at the right person in the right seat,” Volz says. “We don’t want to look for somebody I can have a great lunch with. So, utilizing the structured interview process is imperative to us.”

Some panelists may not understand why a structured interview is important in the process. Krombolz says that’s why training and focusing on unconscious bias is essential. 

“It’s important, especially if organizations are creating diverse interview panels with people outside of HR, to provide training for interview panelists so that they feel equipped to play that role,” she says. “And in moments when it matters, challenging a biased statement or speaking up on behalf of an unfair assumption around the candidate. That training is something that those panelists can fall back on.”

Establish Criteria For Success

Following the interview, make sure all panelists are part of the debrief session. A common mistake is discussing the candidate immediately after they leave the room. 

“There’s going to be a person in that interview panel called the HIPPO (The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion),” said Whitted. “When they talk, you’re gonna say, that must be the truth. I’m gonna skew whatever I originally thought because Stacie said she’s awesome and I’m gonna agree with whatever she says.” 

Whitted suggests interviewers engage in structured free recall. 

“Taking a moment and thinking of first the positive then the negative is going to help mitigate that halo/horn effect, where we see one good thing and we hang onto that and let it override all the negative we saw,” she says. “We’re forced with a structured free recall to name some negative things you saw and some growth opportunities. It’s going to create a little more balance in our thinking.”

How do you know if a diverse hiring panel has produced the desired results of reducing bias or enhancing the candidate’s experience? Krombolz says success can be measured by using leading and lagging indicators. 

“Some lead indicators would be around that candidate experience,” she says. “Right after the interview, let’s get quick feedback from the candidate to understand their perception of that process. What worked, what they didn’t like. Surveys can be a great way to get at that.”

With lagging indicators, Krombolz says retention percentages and demographic representations are important, but metrics that track employee retention, engagement and feelings of belonging can be much more telling. 

“You want to make sure that folks are having an impact,” she says. “That they’re not just affecting those diversity numbers and they are strategic hires. If you find out that you’re accomplishing your diversity goals, but you’re not accomplishing your performance goals, then there’s some sort of mismatch in terms of how you’re evaluating candidates.”

The report, which features findings from the largest study of the employee experience, shows that the majority of employees around the world are completely burnt out, disengaged from their work and experiencing a low quality of life.

Employee Stress at an All-Time High

According to Gallup’s report, 44% of employees feel stressed and 40% feel worried on a daily basis. Twenty-one percent of employees even feel anger during their workday, while 23% feel sadness. Feelings of stress, worry, anger and sadness have numerically declined since 2021, but they are still above pre-pandemic levels.

Women feel more work-induced negative emotions than men, as the report shows. Forty-three percent of female employees feel worried on a daily basis at work, compared to 38% of male employees. Women also feel more stress (47%) than men (42%), more anger (22%) than men (20%) and more sadness (24%) than men (22%) during their workday.

While statistics among age groups are relatively similar, employees under the age of 40 experience significantly more stress than their 40 and over counterparts: 47% of the under 40 group and 39% of the 40 and over.

The global rates vary for these negative emotions. Fifty-three percent of employees in Latin America and the Caribbean experience daily work-related worry, as opposed to 41% of employees in the United States and Canada. Fifty-five percent of employees in East Asia experience daily stress (50% in the United States and Canada), 34% experience daily anger in South Asia (18% in the United States and Canada) and 42% experience daily sadness in South Asia (22% in the United States and Canada).

Overall, employees all over the world aren’t happy in their work environments. In a time where the conversation on healthy lifestyles is so prominent, it’s crucial to focus efforts on the common denominator: work.

“Organizations need to be thinking, and acting, more on ‘the whole person,’” said Dan Holden at All Things IC. “With the shift towards more homeworking for many, employees are struggling to segment how they feel outside of work with how they turn up to the workplace. It’s not possible in my view that you can log on or arrive at work and leave everything else behind for the day.”

Employee Engagement and Wellbeing at a Steady Low

As Gallup’s report shows, most employees don’t find their work rewarding and aren’t happy with their lives. A whopping 79% of employees say they aren’t engaged at work, while only 33% claim they are thriving both inside and out of the workplace.

Though the engagement rate is low, women are statistically more engaged at work than men, with women at a 23% engagement rate and men at 20%. Employees in the United States and Canada are also more engaged than employees in other countries, with the United States and Canada 33% engaged and Europe just 14%.

Women also claim to be thriving more in their lives than men: Compared to the global 33% thriving rate, 36% of female employees are fulfilled in their life as opposed to 32% of male employees.

“A huge amount of this comes down to communication,” said James Blair at The Comms Guru. “To be fully engaged and feel a true sense of belonging, employees need to know and understand their employer’s purpose, vision and values. Most of us want to know how our work is of value and how we contribute to our employer’s success. This gives us a sense of purpose, meaning and relevance.”

On a global scale, employees who are 40 years old or older are more engaged (23%) than employees under the age of 40 (20%), but both age groups experience the same quality of life: 33% for each group.

These numbers have remained stable throughout the pandemic. Global engagement and wellbeing have increased one percentage point since 2021 but remain below their pre-pandemic numbers in 2019.

The report shows that 60% of surveyed employees have detached from their work while 19% are completely disengaged — both of which encompass the latest workplace trend, “quiet quitting.”

Possible Causes of High Stress and Low Wellbeing

Disliking your job, or at least not being happy with your work-life balance, is a common theme in the workforce. In popular culture, work is often portrayed as a burden and for many, that portrayal rings true. No matter how passionate you are about your career, work is still work. However, feeling miserable on a daily basis shouldn’t be the norm.

The pandemic has made an obvious contribution to the increase in employee burnout. But pandemic aside, workplace environment and employer-employee dynamics also play huge parts in employee wellbeing.

According to Gallup, the most common contributions to burnout were unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workload, unclear communication from managers, lack of support from managers and unreasonable time-related pressure.

“Those five causes have one thing in common: your boss,” said Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup. “Get a bad one and you are almost guaranteed to hate your job. A manager’s effect on a workplace is so significant that Gallup can predict 70% of the variance in team engagement just by getting to know the boss.”

Encouraging a Thriving Workplace

Creating a workplace environment that helps diminish an employee’s worry, stress and other negative emotions, thus helping them thrive, helps increase both employee wellbeing and workplace productivity.

“The fix is this simple: better leaders in the workplace,” said Clifton. “Managers need to be better listeners, coaches and collaborators. Great managers help colleagues learn and grow, recognize their colleagues for doing great work, and make them truly feel cared about. In environments like this, workers thrive.”

“Everyone is looking to some degree for that idealized, young, energetic person who will take the company to the next level, whatever that means,” says Toby Haberkorn, author and Senior Recruiter at Ayecer Group. “Maybe we can go beyond that stereotype or that idealized candidate. For older workers, it’s hard.”

How Job Postings Can Discriminate 

Employment ads are often the first introduction a job seeker will have to a potential employer. Companies that engage in age discrimination in job postings risk excluding workers. Ageist phrases like “digital native” are among those that are very common. 

Advertisements that indicate a company is looking for young and energetic workers or use the words “rockstars” or “ninjas” can also be problematic. Visual content in job postings like photos and videos can entice job seekers to want to learn more about the company, but it could have the opposite effect.  

“If the video isn’t inclusive or representative in terms of encompassing a number of generations and it’s just young people in the video, then that is going to show age bias that may run over into the hiring process,” says Dr. Simone Phipps, Professor of Management at Middle Georgia State University, Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School’s Centre for Social Innovation and member of the PhD Project.

A buzzword that has become common in the hiring process is “culture fit.” Often ageism goes much deeper than a job posting — it can be embedded in the company’s culture and in full view on its website.

“If that word culture fit is accompanied by a picture or video in which you only see young people then an older person may feel they are not going to be welcome,” says Phipps.

READ: The Damaging Effect of Age Discrimination in the Workplace 

Is Age Discrimination Illegal?

Job postings that provide a range and cap the amount of experience needed could potentially tilt the candidate pool away from older workers in favor of younger applicants. Some job ads specifically target current college students or recent college graduates. But is the practice illegal?

“It’s not a black and white issue, but it could imply ageism since a large number of people who graduate college recently are probably on the younger side,” says Florence Mao, associate attorney at Ogletree Deakins, a labor and employment law firm. She says bias in job postings, which are called failure to hire claims, are usually harder to prove. 

“The employer is going to have all of the documents,” Mao says. “The job postings will be public, but they’re going to have the interview notes, communications about the interviews and debriefing. Then you also have to find out who they ended up hiring. That can come out in the litigation, but it is much more kind of shooting in the dark unless you know who was hired for the position.” 

To ensure job ads are not discriminatory, companies should have a team of people crafting the job posting. Companies can also make sure they are reaching the greatest range of applicants by expanding the job boards and social media platforms where they advertise openings. 

“People are living longer,” says Haberkorn. “They’re taking better care of themselves. Today’s generation of older workers continues to have significant skills and purpose that make them a real asset to the workforce.”

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A global materials science manufacturer is searching for a digital content designer on ZipRecruiter. The company wants a “design superstar” and “digital native” who thrives in a rapidly changing environment and has 5 to 7 years of experience. 

Over 40 years after the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 made age discrimination in employment illegal, ageism in job postings is still an unfortunate reality, especially in the tech industry. 

“Everyone is looking to some degree for that idealized, young, energetic person who will take the company to the next level, whatever that means,” says Toby Haberkorn, author and Senior Recruiter at Ayecer Group. “Maybe we can go beyond that stereotype or that idealized candidate. For older workers, it’s hard.”

Words Matter 

A job posting is often the first introduction a job seeker will have to a potential employer. Companies that aren’t careful in how their employment ads are worded run the risk of excluding workers. Ageist phrases like “digital native” are very common in job postings.  

“It refers to someone who grew up using technology. Before the ‘80s, computers weren’t that common, but it doesn’t mean that older people can’t learn. There are older people who are a lot more technologically savvy than younger ones,” says Dr. Simone Phipps, Professor of Management at Middle Georgia State University, Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School’s Centre for Social Innovation and member of the PhD Project.

Advertisements that indicate a company is looking for young and energetic workers or use the words “rockstars” or “ninjas” can also be problematic. 

“Energy, vigor and vitality are associated with youth,” says Phipps. “When you use that word energetic, it may not seem like you are looking for an older person, even though older people can be very energetic.”

Videos and Pictures 

Visual content in job postings like photos and videos can entice job seekers to find out more about the company, but it could have the opposite effect.  

“If the video isn’t inclusive or representative in terms of encompassing a number of generations and it’s just young people in the video, then that is going to show age bias that may run over into the hiring process,” says Phipps.

Often ageism goes much deeper than a job posting — it can be embedded in the company’s culture. 

“If that word culture fit is accompanied by a picture or video in which you only see young people then and an older person may feel they are not going to be welcome,” says Phipps. 

Visit the aforementioned digital media agency’s career page and you are invited to “jump-start your career.” Below the invitation, you’ll find a glowing employee review that says “everyone here is young and ambitious” and the words in bold lettering “we work hard, play harder.” The site is also filled with pictures of young workers engaged in various activities, like playing foosball. 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s an engineering company or a retail company,” says Haberkorn. “If the majority of the photography and the media shows younger employees, that tells you something.” 

Years of Experience 

Work experience is valuable, but when you’re older it may count against you. 

Job postings that provide a range and cap the amount of experience needed could potentially tilt the candidate pool away from older workers in favor of younger applicants. 

Some job ads specifically target current college students or recent college graduates. But is the practice illegal?

“It’s not a black and white issue, but it could imply ageism since a large number of people who graduate college recently are probably on the younger side,” says Florence Mao, associate attorney at Ogletree Deakins, a labor and employment law firm. She says bias in job postings, which are called failure to hire claims, are usually harder to prove. 

“The employer is going to have all of the documents,” Mao says. “The job postings will be public, but they’re going to have the interview notes, communications about the interviews and debriefing. Then you also have to find out who they ended up hiring. That can come out in the litigation, but it is much more kind of shooting in the dark unless you know who was hired for the position.”

Complaints can be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or state agencies that enforce employment discrimination laws. However, Haberkorn notes that if older workers see job postings that target young people, in most cases they will realize the position is not for them and move on. 

READ: The Damaging Effect of Age Discrimination in the Workplace 

Social Media Algorithms 

A social media recruiting strategy is a great way to reach diverse candidates. According to a 2017 study by the Society for Human Resource Management, 84% of employers use social media to recruit employees.

“You can go to a social media site and ask for the demographics that you want and your position is shown only to that demographic,” says Haberkorn. She says some companies that want to attract younger workers are targeting their job postings on social media platforms that typically have younger users. 

In 2019, Meta settled lawsuits filed by civil rights organizations that claimed Facebook allowed companies to illegally advertise job opportunities that discriminated against older people and other groups. As part of the settlement, anyone who wants to run employment ads will no longer be allowed to target someone because of their age.  

To ensure job ads are reaching the greatest range of applicants, companies should expand the job boards and social media platforms where they advertise openings to avoid missing out on the value of older workers. 

“People are living longer,” says Haberkorn. “They’re taking better care of themselves. Today’s generation of older workers continues to have significant skills and purpose that make them a real asset to the workforce.”

WEBINAR RECAP: The Impact of Implicit Bias During the Hiring Process

Lack of Diversity

The workforce is more age-diverse than it’s ever been with five generations of employees working together in the United States – the silent generation, baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and Generation Z. 

“They write these job descriptions and don’t realize that it’s sending a message that older people may not be welcome at this organization,” says Phipps. “Sometimes it’s on purpose and sometimes it’s not.”

One way to solve the problem is to have input from a wide variety of employees. 

“Instead of just one person crafting the job description, maybe it’s a team,” she says. “Maybe that team is diverse so that they can spot things that may be problematic in the posting.”

Haberkorn says companies that engage in age discrimination aren’t reaping the benefits of a multi-generational workforce. 

“If you have a limited, single generational workplace, everyone is siloed,” she says. “To a great degree, most of those people echo similar thoughts and have similar experiences. When you conclude that a multigenerational workplace has value, your recruiters have a much larger and diversified employee recruitment base.”  

Haberkorn says embracing a multigenerational workforce can also bring forth more ideas, innovative solutions and mentoring between the generations. She has this warning for people and companies engaging in age discrimination. 

“If we’re fortunate, we’re all going to get older,” says Haberkorn. “Anyone who thinks they’re going to stay at 25 forever, that’s not going to happen. What you see today – if that is not changed – the people who are practicing that right now, they someday might be the recipients.”

While it’s great that companies like these and others are standing up for women’s reproductive rights, there are some grey areas when it comes to how company benefits will cover abortion services for employees. 

During a webinar titled “Ensuring Reproductive Health: What Are Companies Doing?” presented by Rutgers University’s Center for Women in Business, Nadia Khamis, Director of Corporate Engagement at Planned Parenthood, said companies have reacted in various ways to abortion care since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month. Those companies that have come out and said they look at abortion care as a healthcare issue have moved to cover and extend benefits to their workforce to ensure abortion protections. 

The companies that are covering abortion care through their benefits packages are looking to cover their entire staff, whether they are full-time employees, hourly workers or other stakeholders across their supply chain, Khamis said. 

“They started establishing community health funds and thinking about emergency relief funds and other ways that they could provide financial grants outright in complement to their healthcare services,” she said. 

Potential Legal Obstacles for States and Employers

Employers considering covering abortion travel outside of a group healthcare plan need to be careful to not create another group health plan as that “would raise numerous compliance issues,” attorneys at law firm Jackson Lewis wrote. Some of those issues include Employee Retirement Income Securities Act (ERISA) reporting, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy requirements and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) continuation rights. 

Providing travel reimbursement outside of an employer’s healthcare plan and treating these reimbursements as taxable income to the employee also presents risks, according to law firm Ropes and Gray. 

“Such risks include having to balance the need to respect the right of an employee to keep her health care decisions private against requiring proper documentation of the expenses incurred and considering the scope of medical services for which travel reimbursements will be paid to avoid potential liability under state law for having a policy that is designed to cover travel expenses incurred only for abortions,” the law firm wrote. 

This type of policy would not be governed by ERISA, “so an employer would not be able to avail itself of the argument that ERISA preemption would apply to any state law attempts to restrict this benefit,” Ryan and Gray added. 

The law firm suggests employers meet with legal counsel to evaluate the risks of this type of plan. 

Another obstacle for employers is whether states will be able to ban employer aid for abortion seekers. While companies have said they will pay for abortion travel for employees in states where it remains legal, states like Oklahoma and Texas have laws in place that prohibit helping someone get an abortion, which “threaten legal risks for employers and their executives who actively support abortion access for their employees,” according to Bloomberg Law.

Companies could also face the risk of being barred from doing business in states such as Texas if they cover abortion-related expenses for employees, although this might not matter to some companies. Khami said some companies are considering not doing business in states with abortion bans. 

Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, a professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations at Rutgers University and Faculty Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers, said this could result in a loss of business for states with abortion bans as companies are discussing changing where their events are held as a political statement.

Privacy Considerations for Employees

While it is great that companies are looking to support employees seeking abortions, Rodgers said not all employer-offered benefits for abortions will protect the privacy of the abortion seeker. 

If a company is offering abortion services through its healthcare plan, that likely will protect the privacy of the abortion seeker. But if care is offered through means of direct reimbursement, that may not protect the privacy of the abortion seeker, she said. 

“People looking for these services do need to take into consideration what the privacy aspects are, especially since abortion is still unfortunately stigmatized in our society and we still need to deal with that stigma,” Rodgers added.

In 2021, UK’s Prince Harry broke with tradition when he took five months to help raise his second child. The same year, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg faced criticism from conservatives when he took two months of paternity leave to take care of his two newborn twins. 

The three men are the exceptions, not the rule. 

Seventy-six percent of fathers went back to work after one week or less following the birth or adoption of a child, while almost all fathers took two weeks or less. The majority of men take only about one day of leave time for every month a typical mother takes. 

Why don’t more fathers take paternity leave? The answers lie in the availability of the benefit, the financial and professional implications of men being out of work, the stigma associated with paternity leave and the lack of awareness. 

It’s Not Widely Offered

The United States is behind the curve regarding paid parental leave. 

Out of 41 of the world’s richest countries, the United States is the only country without nationwide, paid parental leave. The Biden administration’s Build Back Better Plan includes a proposal for four-week universal paid leave, but the legislation has stalled on Capitol Hill. 

“We need to have a comprehensive paid family medical leave program in the United States,” says Sharita Gruberg, Vice President for Economic Justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “In 2022, it’s unbelievable that this is not the case. It’s the right thing to do for workers, but it’s also the right thing to do for our economy.”

The lack of a national program leaves states and employers with the task of providing paid leave for fathers and not all of them do. 

A handful of states including California, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey mandate paid paternity leave, though the policies vary by state. Laws in Delaware, Colorado, Maryland and Oregon have yet to go into effect.

Only 45% of employers offer workers paid paternity leave, according to The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Of the ones that don’t offer the benefit, the reason cited the most was the cost, which can be as high as $43 billion annually. 

The SHRM study found that the largest employers are more likely than others to offer paid leave programs. Compared to mid-sized employers, small employers tend to provide more paid leave in part because of stronger personal relationships between executives and their staff and competition for talent. 

“Losing an employee and having to hire and train and do that search is expensive,” says Gruberg. “If you’re giving your employee the choice between taking some time off and returning to work versus losing that employee – especially now with the Great Resignation – companies are seeing that it’s not in their interests and the support that employees need.”

It’s Not Fully Paid 

The amount fathers make when on paid family leave depends on the state they live in and how much they earn.

In California, parents can receive 60% to 70% of their weekly income, for up to eight weeks. The maximum weekly benefit for Washington, D.C. residents is $1,009, which is based on a minimum wage of $15.20 per hour. To bond with their child, fathers can get eight weeks of leave. 

“There is just that freedom of mind that comes with taking the benefit,” says Christopher Hook, a new father who is out on paternity leave. “There’s also this amazing bonding that happens. You get to stare into his/her eyes and be fully present.”  

Hook is the Senior Development Officer at Equimundo, Center for Masculinities and Social Justice, an organization that engages men and boys through their lives to foster gender equity. He is taking three months paid leave to care for his newborn son. Hook is fully aware that many men aren’t able to take that much time off, especially those who are the primary breadwinners.

“If we weren’t financially stable or if I was working a minimum wage job or I was younger, earlier in my career, this would have been a concern,” he says. “That’s why I think a lot of people wait to have kids. They want to wait until they build up their savings or until they reach a salary point that even if they have to take a 50% or 60% reduction, they can.” 

Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), fathers can take up to 12 weeks of protected, unpaid leave for the birth or care of a newborn, adopted or foster child. But there are restrictions. 

FMLA only applies to companies with at least 50 employees. Employees must have worked at their employer for at least a year and 1,250 hours in the past 12 months. While the FMLA covers 90 million workers, the restrictions exclude about 44% of workers. 

“I don’t know who can afford to take multiple weeks off of work without a paycheck,” says Gruberg. “Very few folks. If you’re not offering paid family leave, you’re giving them an impossible choice. It’s either – bring in the money to support your family’s needs – or provide the care that your infant needs.”

Concerns About Job Security 

New and expectant fathers are bending to workplace pressures and not taking advantage of all the leave at their disposal.

Sixty-two percent of men admit that there is an unspoken rule that men at their job should not take full paternity leave, while 58% of fathers are worried that taking six weeks of paternity leave will set their careers back.

“Men worry that taking leave is going to risk their next promotion or they won’t be around for that big client meeting or that their manager will see a longer leave as a sign of disloyalty,” says Hook. “Women have been dealing with this since they entered the workforce.”

Research from McKinsey & Company found that fathers felt more energized and motivated after taking leave and were considering staying at their employer longer. 

Hook says once men see other fathers taking paternity leave, especially those in the C-suite, it will create a domino effect that will help men see it as an option for themselves. Kenneth Braswell, Chief Executive Officer of Fathers Incorporated, a nonprofit organization supporting fathers, says company leaders should stress to workers on leave that their jobs are secure. 

“Even if you decide not to come back or whatever happens, the nature of our relationship will not change — that’s what people are looking for,” he says. “People are looking for companies that are going to embrace their skill set and what they bring to a job.”

The Stigma of Men as Caregivers

The number of fathers who are stay-at-home dads and have custody of their children is steadily growing, yet there is still a stigma associated with men taking paternity leave. Gruberg says this is rooted in stereotypical gender assumptions of parental roles.

“You might see something like secondary caregiver leaves that have less time provided for bonding with a child,” she says. “Secondary caregiver is often code for a father or an adoptive or foster parents. This type of category is discriminatory as well against same-sex couples.”

Braswell says there needs to be a new definition of masculinity and he has already noticed a shift in societal norms with the younger Millennial and Gen Z generations. 

“They embrace all of the nuances of what it means to be both feminine and masculine,” says Braswell. “They make decisions based on their current realities much more than we make decisions based on tradition.”

Studies have pointed to numerous benefits of paternity leave, including more equitable distribution of child-rearing responsibilities, father-child bonding and improved outcomes for their children and relationships with their partners.

“I can’t tell you how incredible it is that I get to wake up and my sole focus gets to be caring for my very vulnerable child and the recovery of my partner,” says Hook. “It is setting us off on the right course for our family.”

Lack of Awareness 

Forty-four percent of employers admit that their workers aren’t fully aware of all of the benefits they offer or don’t fully understand them, according to research from Group Risk Development (GRiD), an organization in the group risk protection sector.  

“Companies need to train HR and managers across the board to encourage their employees to use the leave that is available,” says Hook. “They should be fluent in what the leave offering is and intentionally make space to listen when men voice concerns about the effect on their career and paycheck.” 

The National Institutes of Health Office of Human Resources publishes a guide to help employees navigate the process of requesting leave. A fact sheet produced by the Department of Labor lays out the guidelines for FMLA and contacting one’s employer. 

Braswell says when most men have a child, they view paternity leave no differently than taking a sick day, paid time off, or a vacation day. He says that needs to change.

“They should have an equal amount of time off when a baby is being born so that they can play a role in the nurturing of a baby,” says Braswell. “There’s a lot of awareness and education that has to take place with all men across all socioeconomic spaces so that they understand that this is and should be one of your rights as a dad. Most men are not even aware that there is an option to be able to take time off from work.” 

Some benefits may not resonate with employees if they are not relevant at a particular point in their life. Braswell encourages men considering becoming parents to ask questions about paternity leave when they are hired.

“What if my wife has a child, is there paternity leave at your organization?” he asks. “Are there ways for me to take time off to spend with my wife and child or my girlfriend? Giving men those critical questions to ask when they’re going into a job position, so that they are aware of what these circumstances are going to be if they happen to fall into that space – that’s where the work has to be done.”