Lessons - How To Hire A-Players | Janelle James - Senior Vice President at Ipsos

As you're discussing this, I'm just thinking back to like hiring and recruiting process now and how all these lessons everything you're now This is this is this is the the million dollar question When you're trying to find somebody that's going to be successful in the role where you do have to eliminate certain not not people in terms, but like if they don't have the skill set they can't be in that role so how do you bring over these lessons and learnings from from your research and and your market research and and background and then you bring these into an environment where you don't where you get the right questions so you can get people We're qualified for a role, but you aren't removing anybody based on making them feel uncomfortable or well, I think a couple of things so one just in terms of holding this conversation out. I think you can audit any process that you have you can audit any Thing that you're doing to really understand where bias exists. This is not just how we do research, right? You can take a look at the steps in anything that you do marketing recruiting To understand and just asking critical questions about where it can live in terms of you know if I'm working on an engagement Or there's an opportunity. Well, here's a actually here's a really great example. I think you can oftentimes It's how you're able to think about learn, you know a particular skill set or a particular genre of information and so if diversity and inclusion is important in Your work or in your role and you don't necessarily have that experience then you bring in consultants You bring in you know, I'll give you a great example. I was doing research for a CPG brand and a see skincare brand very successful skin care brand and They were looking years ago to launch a new product For black women and just in a lot of the research they'd conducted they realized that this was an opportunity And they also realized that they sort of under indexed with black women and black women used a lot of skin care products and So after I did the research I made a number of recommendations that they absolutely loved and They said to me they were like hey, do you know any consultants that we could like partner with to Bring this to market Because And I was like me I can do it You know I had to figure out my company But what and they literally brought me in as a quote-unquote voice of the consumer consultant now what I ended up doing And in large part was a lot of the things that I did in my past life, you know writing briefs to for the media company for the For the advertising agency. I would help talk them through you know Creative and what could be potential issues, you know as the voice of the consumer I was bringing a lot of this perspective throughout the creative development process I was literally in extension to the brand team for about nine months and I it went all the way like I went to the commercial shoot Which is what I would have done in advertising helping them with casting how to think about this and it ended up launching very Successfully being one of their most successful launches literally in their hundred-year history and what was fascinating about that I mean Their agency lineup never changed, right? They're insights team never changed and they had a good amount of diversity But what they realized was they didn't have The skill set needed for this project and so I think companies can do a number of things You can bring in assistance when you need it Particularly in the short term as you figure out how to ramp up for the long term So I think there are ways to and now in this day and age I'm sure it's so much easier to pull in freelance or Consulting talent than it would have been in the past But again, you know, I think working through your networks to figure out who might be best suited To bring in that perspective whether it's a short or on or on a long-term basis and I think if you know I think the other thing that's really interesting about diversity and inclusion is You know helping people realize that this is not just an initiative for HR This is not just an initiative that lives in one part of the organization. It's really a route to innovation Or can be thought about like change management Initiative and from that perspective everyone should own it and so Whether you feel like you're part you have some sort of diverse identity Or the initiatives are targeting you it still should feel like your responsibility to help make the organization more Diverse or inclusive or equitable. Yeah, and from that perspective everyone can participate because it bare minimum Even if you're not one if even if you're not part of one of these marginalized groups You know how to navigate your organization and that culture and you can be a bridge So one point so let's so let's because that's that's gonna segue into another story that you're telling me before so I told you We should have we should have just done these stories at the beginning because they're all really good story anyways So one one one point one point on this so Let's not diminish how important this is for diversity But everything that we just discovered and spoke about for the past you know 30 minutes These are all just best practices in terms of any taking any product to market It's there's no different like if you already know how to if you understand the concept of taking a product and getting The data points and the research and the consumer insights apply that Apply that with the same tenacity that you would when you want to make money to the other parts of your organization And that's that's really what it is I think the challenge is it's easier for people to understand or Spot discrepancies when they're part of that group Because they know automatically something's wrong, right? And so the challenge is how do you spot discrepancies if you're not Okay, so tell me the story about you said you were working with an organization Guy comes up to you, I think and he says like hey, I'm not part of any of these groups How can I help because I'm sure like let's just be let's be on I'm pretty sure that has gone through the head of many people in many companies over the past two years, right? Yeah, well to set it up. Yeah, so doing work for a media company and You know so many brands today they want to learn more about the evolving demographics in the country You know when you look at Gen Z for instance, and that's what I find so interesting about Gen Z So the oldest person in Gen Z right now is maybe 24, right? Gen Z is the most diverse Generation that we have it's almost 50% people of color In some parts of the country like California. It's 60% people of color, right? And so one of the things that we have to keep in mind like if we're creating products that literally appeal to the future they need to Feel diverse and and be inclusive, right? Not only for the 50 or 60% of the people of color, but also for the 40 to 50% People who are not of color because they're accustomed to being with people of color, right? It's just a higher expectation and so Because of this as we are Helping our client partners, you know understand changing demographics and how to think about consumers how to think about Gen Z How to think about all these things we often conduct these like workshops To help them action the learning and potentially understand any barriers that might exist in their organization to reaching this type of you know inclusion diversity, etc and So doing you know a series of workshops with about any more than 10 to 15 people And you have to think a lot of these people earn these workshops with their boss We're trying to understand, you know Where in their processes where you know, they could be more inclusive more diverse and talking about many different things So in some ways of very uncomfortable conversation And one of the things I didn't expect was a few people actually reached out to me after the session to talk And One gentleman that reached out to me You know he said Well, I'll say when I do these workshops. I always like to tell people That I come from a place of abundance, right? This isn't a zero-sum game. It's not about loss at all It's how do we improve the processes that we have so that it can feel more inclusive for everyone So that's always the premise sort of like positivity Um, and so you know reached out to me afterwards and he's like I'd love to talk because I'm still struggling with some of this And I didn't necessarily feel comfortable thing everything around my boss and so We ended up having this conversation and he said to me, you know I know my company isn't very good at like diversity and inclusion And he's like I don't know how to think about this He's like I'm literally a white guy from the Midwest. He's like I feel very comfortable talking to you So he's like I just feel like I need ideas like I want to be on the bandwagon But like how do I do this and so I said to him I was like first and foremost um, you know as I mentioned before this is about abundance So I think it's always about making the processes that you have in place better But I think the key thing to understand is it's not only about Bringing more diverse people in that's surely a part of it But you need a champion on the inside to really bring this to life and you need people who Understand how to navigate the culture and so that's definitely something that you can do the other thing I would say is recognize What diversity you bring to the table as well because just because you're a white man That you don't bring a unique perspective to the table because diversity is not just about racial diversity, right You know, you're working in California. How many people on your team are from the Midwest? I'm sure you bring a perspective and upbringing. Yeah, but also frame a frame of mine too I think he said No, no, it's true, but I was going to say like a frame of mind like the fact that the guy's asking you this question Is indicative of enough that there's there's there's somebody that wants to do something or change something in a good way So that's that's a major yeah Of course and and does and is scared because you know often times I think when a lot of firms make these decisions and you know every firm every brand is on a different journey Um, but sometimes I mean yeah, what the actual goals are We want to be more diverse. What is that mean and all types of employees are asking questions internally Not just not just the black people or the Hispanic people or the LGBTQ plus people, right? Everyone wants to know what this means and what we're actually working towards and I think having clear You know clearly articulated goals on that front is is really important very good very good um So you know, it's so funny when when we first started this conversation You're like we can talk about a whole bunch of things and then like you know diversities like a portion of like what I do And then you go into like this you like the most clinical like educational like I feel like you know I just got like a full behind the curtain view of how we should actually look at diversity. It was very very good Thank you really like you know you're welcome. I mean one of the things I love about Diversity and inclusion just as sort of like a topic area It's the thing that I love about qualitative research. It's interdisciplinary It can apply to everything and so you can end up having You know, I and I didn't really think about it at the time, but When I was in college, you know, I was a double major um and Afro-American studies for instance, they had professors from almost every different department They had history to professors. They had English professors. They had sociology professors. You name it Because it was literally interdisciplinary and so as I think about diversity inclusion I literally think about it that way you can get experts from anywhere Um because it can apply to every category every business topic everything