Brian Miller has been working in training, diversity and recruiting for nearly 15 years at three companies. when he joined Adobe last August he was given a broad mandate that was reflected in his bit of a title: chief talent, diversity and inclusion officer.
Their challenge is to create a diverse workforce where everyone feels part of the organization with the opportunity to thrive in their careers. He acknowledges that it is easier said than done. Simply saying you want to be diverse and inclusive is just the first in a long series of steps to building a more diverse company.
Miller emphasizes a few key themes. Chief among them is the use of data to drive every decision he makes, giving him current status and helping him understand where he needs to improve. As Lybra Clemons, Twilio's chief diversity officer, told me in an article last year about her company's diversity efforts, the data helps clarify the process:
“The data helps to understand that we increased or not in this particular demographic or population. So how do we use the data to move around and make some changes or changes to our policies or practices etc?
Miller also emphasizes that building a diverse company requires serious commitment from the executive team, and not just in the short term, but in the long term, which he calls having the perseverance to move oneven when it gets tough.
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Miller says it all starts at the top of the organization with a belief in creating a workforce that reflects the world the company operates in and leaders who are willing to do more than talk about it. However, Miller found that even when the will is there, it takes consistency and commitment to continuously review and work to build a fair and inclusive company.
“It has to start with the leader in charge. They compromise? Do you have conviction? The next thing I try is what is your constancy? Because this is going to be difficult. I'm going to delay goals to get a diverse slate of candidates and you're not going to be happy with me. So let's have this conversation now."
Fortunately for Miller, Chief People Officer Gloria Chen and CEO Shantanu Narayen have his back in this regard. While he is still in a period of understanding the business and helping the organization understand what this all means, it all starts with a plan.
The first step was to look at the current data because only by understanding the lay of the land can one begin to make a plan to move the company forward. He says that most tech companies like to work from data to better understand customers and markets, and he believes in applying that same approach to diversity.
“We should know our numbers. So, for example, how many women do we have in the organization? Do we know that really fast or not? This is the kind of thing that I've been trying to test more and more and continue to test more and more, is to have those numbers available,” she said.
As an example, she says that Adobe has about 8000 women out of a global workforce of about 25 employees. That number of about 000% is in line with most tech companies, but he knows these numbers are just a starting point.
"We continue to work to increase the representation of women at Adobe, as well as increase women in leadership positions," he said. To help achieve these goals, the company runs a number of programs to help women succeed, including sponsorship and mentorship of senior leaders, as well as leadership development.
He added that the industry as a whole should not be satisfied with this 30% number. "As an industry, we must strive for stronger diverse representation and unifying moments that allow organizations to reach their full potential."
He said that the next step is to seek fairness and parity throughout the organization, which is a multifaceted concept. For starters, he might consider paying women and men in the same position. Are they earning the same amount of money? The same goes for other historically underrepresented groups.
The company reports that it achieved global gender pay parity for fiscal year 2021 for the fourth consecutive year. The company also achieved pay parity in fiscal year 2021 for historically underrepresented groups, which Adobe defines in the US as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Pacific Islander, and/or employees of two or more races , for second consecutive Year. .
The next piece is parity promotions. Does everyone have the opportunity to advance in their field and find ways to ensure that historically underrepresented groups have a fair chance to move up to management positions and the executive team? He says this parity of opportunity has to move faster across historically underrepresented groups and has coined a new term for it.
“I came up with a new concept or a new way of thinking that I call 'opportunity velocity'. It means that we are going to invest too much in certain groups, and we will promote or invest in them so that they can increase in number over time at Adobe. That's just a different way of thinking,” he said.
Technology in general must work harder on all of this. "This includes continued investment in diversity recruiting, an outreach strategy that encompasses the university alliance, and an unwavering commitment to developing diverse talent."
bringing people together
Miller says that to achieve opportunity velocity, you really need to change the notion that in order for someone to make a profit, someone else has to lose it. The difficult thing is to create alliances instead of division. He said that when it comes to fairness, making sure everyone is paid the same for the same job, making sure there is equal opportunity for promotions, all of that has the potential to bring people together, but it's not always easy. convince people that this is the case.
“There is this moment of thread the needle in Adobe because that's the hard part. The easy part is creating moments where you say, 'I'm going to overinvest in one group versus the other.' The hardest moment is when you say, 'wait a minute, how do I create unifying moments?'”
Miller's conversations with Chen and Narayen are about finding ways to create those unifying moments while respecting people's differences. “We have to attract everyone. Now we have to become a much more united company where, when things are pulling us apart, we figure out how to come together."
Overall, the company's diversity numbers are moving in the right direction, but there is still a lot of work to be done. The company has set a goal of having at least 30% women in leadership roles by 2025, while doubling the number of other historically underrepresented people in leadership roles by then (with the understanding that sometimes will overlap).
With that in mind, Miller's message is to keep working while using the data as your North Star.
“The question I keep having is, how do I create constancy for this movement? How is it maintained? And to me, that's just speaking the language of business, which is basically, what does the data say? What are we going to promise and stand for, and then how are we going to continue to track it and be transparent about it.”
