Amid the Great Resignation, as employees depart jobs in search of professional environments that can better support them, it cannot be overstated how important a factor a company’s commitment to racial justice has become in attracting and retaining top talent.
In 2022, creating a sense of belonging for all employees, regardless of their race, gender, religion, age, socioeconomic background, physical ability or sexual orientation, will become even more widely recognized as a priority for all tech companies. And for good reason: diverse and inclusive workplaces thrive creatively and connect a company more fully to the world beyond its office walls.
Beyond that, job candidates will no longer accept lip service from corporate America or failures to follow through on public pledges to fight for racial equality. Instead, the onus has been increasingly placed on company leaders to assess their workplaces’ success and failure in achieving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals. We spoke to two business leaders prioritizing DEI in 2022 about the specifics of their commitment to change — and the support they’ve secured on this front so far.
As part of the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston works to promote sound growth and financial stability in New England and the nation.
What’s one way you are committing to improving diversity, equity and inclusion at your company in 2022?
As is the case for most companies, the past few years have been a period of intense reflection and change at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. An ever-evolving pandemic, continuous reminders of racial inequities that plague our society, and experimental new ways of working have elevated the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion to new heights.
The Federal Reserve has been committed to DEI for decades, and these recent events have energized us and renewed our resolve to advance important DEI objectives. We have made some progress, but we’re not satisfied. Most notably, we want to ensure all levels of our workforce better reflect the nation and communities we serve and that every employee has the opportunity to reach their full potential.
I am responsible for driving DEI success at the bank. The executive leadership and I have agreed to focus on several key elements that we believe will help our Boston business develop a more representative workforce. We know no single initiative will drive our success — this must be a multi-dimensional effort that weaves DEI into every aspect of the bank’s operation.
What do you plan to do to fulfill this commitment? And how is leadership supporting these efforts?
In 2022, we will ultimately become an organization that better reflects the communities we serve through measurement, tracking, leadership accountability, employee engagement and DEI learning that is both foundational and continuous. We will also dig deep to uncover policies and practices that foster potential inequities in how we acquire, develop, retain and promote talent.
For any success to be lasting, we must remain committed to listening continuously — not just in times of crisis. The Boston Fed will make listening a part of our culture. We will ensure leaders take time to understand the issues faced by our diverse employee base, and the insights we gain will inspire action and help us develop solutions.
The Boston Fed is driven to take our DEI commitments even further through our dual mandate to promote price stability and maximum employment. We serve the public interest, and it must be clear we are strongly aligned with this core mission. One way we do that is by placing additional focus on supporting minority- and women-owned enterprises (MWEs). This goes hand-in-hand with our efforts to make our workforce a better reflection of the local community. Giving guidance and support that enables MWEs to compete for and win contracts with our organization is both an obligation and an opportunity.
Our internal commitment around DEI will remain strong and focused. We will continue to collaborate with our public and private partners to highlight societal DEI challenges and search for solutions. And we are committed to research that elevates these conversations by uncovering new insights at the intersections of race, gender, and economic opportunity. The Fed is well-positioned to lead from the front on these complex issues, and that is exactly what we plan to do.
A leader in patient access technology, Kyruus operates as an enterprise data management and customer access platform. Its multi-channel SaaS platform connects patients to healthcare providers by applying a data-driven approach to modern search and scheduling experiences.
What’s one way you are committing to improving diversity, equity and inclusion at your company in 2022?
Kyruus’ vision is to make healthcare work more effectively for everyone by connecting people to the care they need. In order to create solutions that make it easier for everyone to access the care they need, we are committed to building a team that — while creating, marketing, selling, delivering and supporting our solutions — is representative of the diverse patient population that will use them.
As such, Kyruus has two specific goals related to DEI that we’ll continue to progress against in 2022. We aim for Kyruus’ employee population to be representative of the U.S. population in terms of racial and ethnic identity and gender identity. We additionally aim to foster an inclusive culture where folks can bring their full selves to work and feel a sense of belonging.
What do you plan to do to fulfill this commitment? And how is leadership supporting these efforts?
Starting in 2019, we began a companywide quarterly readout of our employee demographic makeup data. We will continue that in 2022 for accountability and transparency on how we are progressing against our goal. In 2021, we launched our inaugural “belonging and inclusion” survey to capture a metric of how inclusive our environment is. We received a lot of great data and commentary from employees that gave us plenty to take action in response to.
In 2022, the people team, in partnership with the executive team and DEI committee, will continue to prioritize the highest-impact initiatives coming out of that survey, including the maturation of our talent development frameworks and the evolution of our hybrid working norms.
Why have you decided to make this commitment a priority this year? And how are you holding yourself accountable to it?
A commitment to DEI has been at the center of Kyruus’ vision since the start. The last few years have been about building on our momentum and scaling for greater impact. In 2022, we’ll continue to use our DEI roadmap, employee demographic makeup data and future iterations of our belonging and inclusion survey to stay focused, without letting perfection get in the way of progress, and while relying on tools and data to measure our results. As one of our DEI principles, we state, “We recognize that this is a movement, not a moment.”
