Lesley Slaton Brown, chief diversity officer at HP, joins Cheddar News to discuss diversity in corporate workspaces and what companies can improve on.

All Hands: Race Toward Inclusion

Addressing Diversity in Corporate America

all right pivoting here a little bit. The level of diversity on America's biggest corporate boards has never been higher, but it is still far from on par with what our our society society actually looks like according to a survey by Alliance for board diversity in 2021 white women and minorities made up 38.3% of fortune 500 board seats in 2020. And since 2010, the number of companies with greater than 40% diversity, that is almost quadrupled. But the average growth rate in minority representation on a Fortune 500 board that has remained unchanged. Alright, so joining us now to discuss this is Leslie slate in Brown. Chief diversity officer at HP. Leslie welcome. Um let's just talk about this. Why do you think it is such a struggle to maintain and in some cases just achieve diversity at the corporate level? Well, you know, I think that so, so first and foremost I think that we do have slow progress that's happening. There's obviously much, much more we can do um I think that we have to focus on and ensure that we build the right infrastructure for diversity to happen for it to really thrive and um and I think it starts, it starts at the top and so it's very important that you have minority representation on the boards of directors. Those board members are key um influencers and decision makers and visionaries, you know, for the company. So it's very important and I just think back to surveys where we have done in prior shows around, it's going to be more profitable for companies. Companies that have a more diversified kind of background are actually seeing that generate, you know, in terms of revenue. Um you know, we know that some companies actually disclose their racial representation figures, but more broadly, I wonder should do you think that companies should kind of broadly disclose these representation figures? And and why? Why is that so important? Absolutely. I think companies should be fully transparent. Hp has in its 80 year history for the last 20 plus years. We've been publishing our report um in our sustainability report, we've been publishing diversity data. Um I think it's important to be very transparent about those numbers because when you see them then you can action on them and you do better. You know, we have seen the great resignation over the last year or so and it's impacted a lot of sectors including and some would even say especially the tech sector is the lack of diversity a factor here in terms of a reason for some of these departures. I actually like to call the great resignation the great reengagement. It's it's an opportunity to listen to the needs of the changing workforce. And so as you think about the workforce of the future, you should be thinking about flexibility. You should be thinking about listening to the different audiences generationally ethnically racially in all aspects of underrepresented groups, there are trends that occur and if you listen to these groups of people, you can start reshaping and re engaging your workforce for the future work. You know, we know that HP has launched its what 2030 human rights goals and an inaugural and racial equity and social justice task force. Can you just talk about, you know, how this has helped support, you know, employees of color at HP? Well, first and foremost, it allowed us to make some bold, you know, uh, the on the heels of George Floyd's murder really afforded us the opportunity for one real bold, real courageous, real open conversation, which is important to solve the problems. You have to be able to talk about the elephants in the room. And so, um, so we've had the opportunity to have, you know, not only more training and education, but also focused in the areas of of of it's not always the underrepresented groups, it's not always the blacks and the Latinos that you have to go fixed. Sometimes it's looking at the general population to to have the conversation the hard conversations about the differences in the workplace, so exciting to hear about this initiative. You know, you think about minorities in the workplace and being a Latina woman myself and I'm sure you as a black woman, you've been in those positions where, you know, if you feel like you're the minority don't feel like you have a voice or that your voice is heard and you're you're able to speak up. And so seeing companies do that in a company like yours. I imagine that it's going to have a difference and hopefully it leads to a domino effect within corporate corporate America. Really appreciate your insight. Leslie Slaten Brown, chief diversity officer at HP.