- Hi, everyone, my name is Raul, and this is my colleague, Richard. We're both engineers
at Spotify. The focus on diversity has created a rich environment of cultures, ideas, and
innovation. However, this has been the sole focus on the industry. We believe that diversity
is not enough. We must work for a culture of belonging to improve personal and mental
growth in the organisations. - There are a lot of amazing presentations
on the topic of diversity by many skilled professionals. In this presentation, we share
a simple story with example of simple practices we do with creating a safer space for engineers
in our teams. - First, I want to share a little bit of my
background with you, which I believe that is is not so different from some of my colleagues,
and also some people from this convenient. We all have several identities, many layers
who make who we are today. We need to define ourselves as a person. We consciously and
subconsciously bring all those identities. When stepping in any place, we also bring
those different identities with us. I couldn't walk in places and be my full self. Sometimes,
before starting my work day, I had to plan what I could share, my phone calls, my emotions,
my reactions, my words, even from the weekend, so that nobody could see one of my identities
as a gay man. All of that had a huge mental impact on me. It really drained my energy
before even starting my work day. And most of the time, I didn't feel that I belonged
there. It stressed me so much to keep some parts of myself shut. Because of this, I didn't
have enough energy and focus to unlock my full potential.
- In my experience, I've been the lone representative of the black community in some companies.
It has been an opportunity to be myself, share my story, and hopefully and build a belonging
culture. - We know that diversity is important, but
most of the conversations stop there. It is actually the very first step. Most importantly,
we have to make sure that employees can have their full selves in their teams. They can
be seen, and also we take their backgrounds into account. In this presentation, we want
to share with you how belonging is important for us as individuals, and how beauty and
environment for belonging has several positive impacts we want to show how leaders can help
in this process and it can be a safer space for engineers.
- The conversation about diversity and belonging has a lot of dimensions. In this simplified
view, diversity is often the most talked about most and easily measured. It is usually about
employees from different minoritised groups. Inclusiveness starts with inclusive leadership,
role model behaviours, and then process norms. Belonging about culture is perhaps the least
tangible piece of this conversation. Looking at the industry a lot, efforts on diversity
can weigh on the hiring process, and sometimes less emphasis through other employees' life
cycle. Marketing and communication ensures that companies are attractive enough for different
minoritised groups, and then recruiters are tasked with creating a diverse pipeline of
candidates. But how can we, or how can the role of leadership be allowed to this? How
can we mark inclusive leadership approximate as belonging in this package as well?
- And here it comes, belonging, which is a key element in this conversation about diversity
and inclusion. As you said before, it is about the culture of the organisation and the least
tangible aspect. The opposite of belonging is exclusion. A study from the University
of California shows that exclusion is damaging because it actually hurts. The sensation is
aching like physical pain. How belonging is increased to increase in job performance and
reduction in sick days ... which has an impact on the financial gains as well. Let's take
a deeper dive into the culture of belonging, and, for that, we're going to use a framework
from HR that is called Employee Lifecycle. So, this is the Employee Lifecycle. It's a
model from HR, and it helps us to understand way better the journey of the individual in
a company through these different phases. The good experience is made by adding elements
of belonging in each of those phases. This lifecycle is also a good way of keeping sure
we keep track of your actions and staying involved in your success. Belonging is about
all of these micro experiences that sum up it being a safer environment for the employee.
A simple example here, let's say you're a tolerant, then, when you go to the first time,
or first day at work, you see that the company has coffee machines with lactose-free options,
or that the company is playing songs from Latin artists in the common areas during the
Latin heritage month. We're not going to cover every single aspect of the employee lifecycle,
because we have a limited time, so we're going to focus on those ones that tech leaders can
have more impact on, and to understand better how we can put together culture of belonging,
and employee lifecycle, we're going to tell you the journey of Alex, an employee that
was recently hired. - So, on the story of Alex, she applies for
a position at the company, does very well and gets an offer. Before starting and before
receiving all the cool and fancy company swag, Alex receives a welcome email from her manager.
She thinks this is a nice gesture, and she do also see the use of pronouns. Using pronouns
puts an inclusive space for people to be themselves knowing that other people are going to respect
their identity, just like using a person's name can be a way to respect them. Alex starts
at the company, and has the first meeting with their manager, Lee. During the meeting,
Lee initiates a lifeline activity exercise to share some of his background. Lifeline
activity includes sharing elements of our personal life. This can help our team-mates
fully. For Lee, this is about being a role model. It is about personal reflections and
learning a diverse array of perspectives and experiences that both Lee and Alex bring to
the team. I believe this is a process and not intended to make sure you feel you have
to share more than with you're comfortable with.
- A guide to onboard be an engineering is with a buddy, someone that gives some initial
advice and helps to acclimate the - acclimate the new joiner. Shanti helps Alex with practicalities
in the team, like documentation to read, which Slack channel she should join, meetings, and
so on. Also, Shanti introduces Alex to different community in the company. The onboarding phase
is a great opportunity for allyship showing how the organisation cares about every single
community. Continuing the onboarding phase, let's think about something more structured
like boot camps and intro days. In this case, Alex also is introduced to the company values
and culture, and she sees how diversity and belonging is an important part of the company.
Also, Alex is told about the code of conduct, discrimination policies, and more. There,
also, Alex is presented with her career development framework, so she can support it on her professional
journey, independent of her background. Onboard something a good opportunity to provide a
good experience for the employee right away. It's underestimated. In a survey of Stack
Overflow in 2020, for example, more than half of the people that answered to the question
said that they had a bad or no onboarding at all. A good onboarding experience accommodates
and supports all of your employees. It doesn't matter their background. With inclusion in
the front, you invite every single person to see their onboarding experience. They receive
the support they need to get settled and ultimately able to contribute more fully.
- Continuing the story of Alex, she has the first of the we think one-to-one meeting with
her meeting. One-to-ones are generally one of the most important leadership tools. It's
an opportunity to build a relationship with your engineers, provide support, help, and
performance and how to have a good work experience. Lee uses the check-in in the one-to-one in
the process of developing a personal relationship, and has the opportunity to care or show his
care about the mental well-being of Alex. In some cases, the check-ins can steer the
topic or the most important thing that they discussed to the meeting. The overall goal
is about overall trust, staying aligned and informed, and giving feedback for each other
to grow. It all starts with inclusive leadership. Here, Lee has ... retrospectives and planning
meetings. Having guides and playbooks available can create a fair rotation for the team so
any member that is comfortable can step up. - Another important recurring structure is
the development talk. Again, by making it inclusive, and providing templates and structure,
we make it accessible and useful for all the employees. Employees may have no experience
at all on driving their own performance journey. For different reasons, right? They have a
fair opportunity now. In our case, Lee also used the development talk to give Alex feedback,
guide her, and support her career. Another example for recurring practices, not necessarily
about the relationship manager/employee, is the practice of allyship. For Lee, is an ally
of the LGBT community and helps to organise events around the community. Lee acting as
a role model shows Alex the importance of allyship. It is also sending a positive message
to the engineers how we can help and contribute with other engineers and employees to have
a good experience at their daily work. - Other examples of showing support, when
traumatising experiences happen to other communities than our own. Giving support as an - it shows
your colleague that their identity is seen and respected. So let's recap: there are a
lot of dimensions involved in striving for belonging throughout the employee lifecycle.
In our experience, inclusive leadership practices, allyship, and focusing on our mental well-being
is helping us to create the safest space for the engineers in our teams.
- However, we want to remind you that it is a live-long journey, and it's not so easy
to measure the instant impact. That's where most of the companies they fail, because they
expect very immediate results. There is not a perfect solution also to measure those that
impact you, but a lot of time and effort has been invested with good improvements. You
in your organisation can develop surveys and focus on analysis how they can make the best
case for each of those phases in the employee lifecycle, for example. Also, should check
constantly the strategy to improve the belonging in the company, for instance, shifting from
inclusiveness to belonging. It really depends where the organisation is, in this journey
of belonging. I believe that this practice is not so new for you, and also, they're not
rocket science. Even I believe that some of you have put them in practice as well. Hopefully,
these are nice reminders for you to take them home. And, also, to ask yourselves how consciously
you have been using these processes, and these practices to create and nurture a culture
of belonging, and to understand we as tech leaders are responsible for the culture of
belonging, not only HR and recruiters. Thank you very much.
- Thank you. [Music]