What They're Not Saying About Inclusive Recruitment
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In this week's episode of the 'All Inclusive Podcast,' Natasha speaks with Judy Ellis, the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Advisory at AMS.
Judy Ellis leads AMS’s global DEI consulting business, enhancing clients' DEI outcomes by refining talent systems for fairness and inclusivity. With a track record as a strategist, innovator, and trusted advisor to top global firms like Bristol Myers Squibb and Barclays, Judy has profoundly impacted recruitment processes, leadership training, and the development of underrepresented talent. Her efforts extend to serving on the AMS Diversity Board, steering DEI strategies for the firm.
Before AMS, Judy headed two DEI consulting firms and began her career at Procter & Gamble. She's an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Cincinnati, teaching Workforce Diversity with degrees in Management & Organizations and Theology, and holds certifications in Diversity & Inclusion and Coaching.
Honored as a “Top Diversity Officer” by the National Diversity Council and recognized for her contributions to business and communities, Judy's insights are featured in leading publications, and she's a regular speaker on DEI, leadership, and organizational change. Active in her alma mater's alumni club and several non-profits, Judy's leadership and advocacy continue to drive meaningful change in DEI and beyond.
Episode Highlights:
Judy's DEI Journey: From Undergrad to Global Leader (01:27)
The Legacy of "The Black Manager" (05:03)
DEI Progress and the Glass Cliff Concept (06:07)
Industry Insights: DEI Challenges and Advances (09:36)
Choosing the Right DEI Partners (15:20 )
The Misunderstood Aspect of Inclusive Recruitment (20:28)
Anticipating the Future of DEI (23:36)
Connect with Judy Ellis on LinkedIn to follow her impactful work in the DEI space.
Transcript
Natasha: Hi, Judy.
Judy Ellis: Hi, Natasha.
Natasha: Welcome to the All Inclusive podcast. I'm so pleased for you to be here.
Judy Ellis: I'm really happy to join you.
Natasha: So I think the best thing is let's kick off, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you became involved in DEI leadership.
Judy Ellis: Yes, I'm the SVP and Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory for AMS. So in my role, I lead our global consulting practice supporting our clients with any and all DEI initiatives around the globe. And my team and I do things like what I call DEI diagnostics, looking at their talent processes to ensure recruiting, for example, is as inclusive as possible. They're reaching the widest net, and then their selection processes are biased, mitigated, because we know you can't always eliminate all bias, but that they're mitigated for bias and inclusive so that everyone can get through that has the capabilities and qualifications. I also do training and inclusive leadership. We have some disability audits that we can conduct, but a number of projects that support companies reaching their DEI goals. And how I got involved in this space started, actually, when I was an undergrad over 30 years ago, I'm the youngest in my family, and I was hearing my sister's friends talk about their experiences as they were some of the first engineers, business professionals that were Black that were entering the corporate world. And I, as a young person, thought, oh, they've made it. They've got these great jobs. But I would hear on the weekends or summers when they would visit what kind of challenges they were facing being the kind of one and only or only lonely in an organization. And when I went to college, I got a fellowship one summer, and I said, I want to study the issues of Black managers and corporations. And my advisor said, what issues? You have to start by doing a literature search, and I've never read anything about this. And at the time, way back in the late 80s, I found one book called The Black Manager, making it in the corporate world by Floyd and Jackie Dickens, where they had documented some of what they saw and had a developmental model. So that kind of started me down the path. But then I eventually, after some corporate life, ended up in DEI consultant.
Natasha: It's great that your journey has been something where you've noticed that there's been some trouble, some fight in going into the corporate world with people that you're surrounded by, and then you're wanting to kind of research that a little bit more. It's really interesting. And you managed to find at least one book. So thanks to the authors of that book, it must have been a really interesting read. I wonder if you're still able to get it.
Judy Ellis: You are. I just look, I have a chapter I wrote in Anthology that's coming out in February, and that's why this story is so top of mind. So I went to look, and it is still available, some used copies. And I used to have one behind me in my bookcase. I'll have to check. But there are some copies available. It was published by Anacom. And Floyd Dickens is still living. He was one of the first Black engineers, I think made it to director at P&G, where I started in my early career, just serendipitously, ended up meeting them and becoming involved with their consulting business.
Natasha: Oh, wow.
Judy Ellis: Jacqueline Dickens has now passed away, unfortunately. But it's amazing that their work is still available even today, over many years that have passed.
Natasha: Talking about the time that has passed, obviously, since you've started working within DEI, thinking back and looking over for what's happened, how do you perceive the progress that we've made so far? And how has that influenced the workplace dynamics?
Judy Ellis: We've definitely made progress since the early years I'm talking about. We saw an entrance of a lot of women in the workplace in the 1970s. And then we saw a lot of the beginning Black professionals entering the workplace towards the end of the 70s into the 80s and 90s. And especially driven by the civil rights legislation in the US, affirmative action policies, which I must say do not lower the bar or aren't about setting quotas, but about opening talent pipelines to all qualified talent. And when that happened, we began to enter the workforce. What has changed is we now have in many organizations a critical mass of historically underrepresented people so that many times you aren't the only professional in your environment. We've kind of codified support for different marginalized groups. We didn't even call them ERGs in my early years, but organizations have built up over time to provide some support for various people from marginalized identities and ERG groups, although they also now are in most organizations really tied to the business strategy. So the existence is there of people. We still are extremely underrepresented and it's a downward slope as you move up in almost every organization. As you get to more senior levels in the organization, you see less and less people of color, for example, less women at more senior levels, but we're starting to crack through. So the glass ceiling has a lot of cracks and people are moving through, but there's still a need for support. I don't know if you've seen people talk about the glass cliff now for senior level professionals that you often can rise to the position, but all the supporting structures, the team and resources aren't always as there. So you might fall off the cliff, but people are breaking through now.
Natasha: It's kind of like the way that I see that is you've worked your way up, you've now gained a seat at the table, but your chair is missing a couple legs.
Judy Ellis: That's a nice one.
Natasha: And so it's one of those ones where you're sitting on it and it literally crumbles beneath you. So yeah, I totally agree. I think there is still a lot of work to be done, but I'm glad that we've made the progress that we have made. It's just now it's really kind of drilling down and knuckling, sinking our heels in and really trying to keep on fighting forward. Have you noticed any variations across the industries in terms of the ongoing challenges that underrepresented groups continue to face?
Judy Ellis: Yes. And one of the significant things I see across industry is that women, particularly women of color, while they're the most educated group in the US, black women, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But despite that, they still represent just 8% of private sector jobs and hold less than 2% of leadership positions. And that is pretty much what I see in most organizations, in most industries. We do have some gains really being made in the bio pharma space and in somewhat in CPG consumer products that they've been involved in kind of diversity and inclusion efforts for decades. And so they have more mature talent processes. Even some of the banking clients we support are providing coaching for internal candidates to help them move and have more internal mobility in the organization. And what I really see it, it, the real delineating factor is how long and how mature an organization is in having a focus on diversity. If you just started three years ago or five years ago, you're just learning about the issues. You're just realizing how much more support and how fragile the attrition may be of candidates or new hires that are from marginalized identities. But if you've been at this for 10, 20, 30 years, you have more robust support systems in place. Your development programs are more codified and you're able to then provide the kind of support and opportunities that are needed. So I do see bright lights across various industries, but really it's a function of how mature their DEI strategy is, which is typically a function of the amount of time they've been working at it.
Natasha: And for those organizations that are kind of earlier on in their journeys, like as you said, like three to five years old into this work, what would you say from your experience are some of the key three, three key things that those early organizations need to focus on or should be doing as you've explained?
Judy Ellis: I would say first do a really robust audit of your own representation numbers. That is for organizations that are just starting, often just getting a clear picture of who you already have in your organization at each level is kind of step one. So that you know who are your employees, who are your candidates, and then branching off from that to understand and get more insight about what the sentiment is like for these different employee populations or candidate populations. But for many, especially large organizations, that means making sure your technology is enabled to capture the kind of demographic data that you need. And in the EU, it's being aware of legislation that your local country has around capturing this kind of protected information. There are ways to use outside third parties if you're not up to date yourself on how to put a firewall so that you can't link people's demographic data to other information. But it's important to see who you have in your organization so that you're able to understand where do we have gaps. It's like any business issue. If you don't really know what you're dealing with, it's hard to make good informed decisions. So you can see in this particular business unit, we need more women. For example, we're really underrepresented based on what the availability is in the market. So we want to put a real focus on talent development in this space, recruiting in this space, etc. But understanding who you have and then understanding the outside market to see what availability is, is kind of step one.
Natasha: What would you say are some things that organizations or the leaders that are in those positions that are other DEI leaders basically that are working on the programs and issues trying to gather all the data. Even myself, I know that there's loads of resources out there. There's loads of businesses that can offer the solutions in order to help you gather the data that you need. But how do you know which one to go to? That's one I'm always curious about. How do you know which one's actually going to be the best fit for your organization and for what you actually need it to do?
Judy Ellis: I think I'm kind of interviewing your potential consulting partner, for example, finding out what kind of use cases they've been involved in in the past. Are they familiar with your particular industry and your geography? Do they have people from various identities working on the issue for you, which is something I'm seeing more clients ask our organization, for example, you know, who are going to be, who is it that's going to be on the team that is looking at these kinds of things? Do they have any lived experience themselves? But I think case studies from organizations and actually interviewing people to find out how knowledgeable they are, what is their real expertise and experience in conducting the kind of work that you're interested in would be those things that I would put high on the list of things to look into.
Natasha: I've heard from many leaders that raising awareness in DEI about DEI is a crucial part in order to create the change that you're looking for. How do you emphasize the importance of diversity and inclusion? What strategies do you recommend?
Judy Ellis: You know, we're at a time in the world, and especially in the US, which I'm seeing in some of our other geographies as well, where DEI is under attack and training even is under attack. And I think some of the skepticism comes from the influx of thousands of people that come from various backgrounds that don't have much training or experience in leading these kinds of initiatives, because what may work really well on a social media platform, for example, as a strong advocate who is really representing their dimension of diversity inside a particular organization that could alienate the bulk of the organization. So having a skillful, inclusive approach is really important, because the real spirit of DEI is that we are opening the pipelines and the pathways so that all people can move through proportionately with at the level of their ability. We're just removing barriers so that once people are in an organization, that their identity doesn't hold them back from moving through an organization. And in the recruitment space, we're making sure our aperture is as wide as possible so that we're putting everyone that's capable in the net, because historically, for decades and decades, there were many barriers that blocked certain groups from entering into corporate life. You could not even get an interview. And so that's why we have the underrepresentation issue that we have. So just making a level playing field and giving more fair access to people is what we're trying to do. So diversity, equity, and inclusion is inclusive. And having the messaging to all that this is not an exclusive event that we're going to now suddenly open the pipelines and only let people from this identity in, which is how the approach I've seen cause some resistance in some of the organizations that I've gone in to work with them on their strategy and their communication strategy as well. So being open to all the ways that marginalized people have opportunities and realizing that there is disability involved in the diversity umbrella. There is LGBTQ acceptance and awareness that even there are some abilities and disabilities that aren't visible, like ADHD, autism, et cetera, that may not be visible, but those people are in your organization. So when they understand what's in it for me, that this includes people like me as well, then they're more likely to be a supporter versus a detractor of a DEI.
Natasha: Yeah, I think especially in talking about inclusive recruitment as well, I feel there's a huge misunderstanding I think for many people sometimes when we talk about hiring practices and being inclusive is that it a lot. I find that many people misunderstand what that actually means. And like you said, it's creating a fair playing field for everybody.
Judy Ellis: And Natasha, when you look at a system and you look at who is impacted the most or where are we the most underrepresented or what practice do we have that's maybe not inclusive? Let's talk about interview practices. When we flipped to virtual because of the pandemic, cameras on and virtual meetings became the way to do everything. For some people, having cameras on continually is fatiguing, particularly some people on the autism spectrum, for example, or that have other neurodivergent identities. And yet, maybe your policy is cameras on all the time. And for interviews, for example, by understanding that that may not work with this particular population, that they may get fatigued, they may need to have cameras off for a certain period of time, or at least one interview and an interview scheduled back to back, it's okay for them to have their camera off. If you understand that and implement it, you can then understand that there are probably other people who may not want to have cameras on all the time as well, or that that might be taxing for them. So when you make a more inclusive process, because you're fixing, so to speak, an issue for one population, the learnings apply to your entire organization. So it's not just going to work for if you connect and make, for example, like some organizations are doing, we're reducing the kind of education requirements for this particular role, because we realize a lot more people could be in the pipeline if we do that. While you make it more ethnically candidates that are Black and Hispanic, because they have less opportunity, you will also get lots of other candidates that from a social mobility standpoint, don't have the opportunity for this kind of level of education or certification as well. So focusing on the issues of one particular group and what blocks them actually builds a more inclusive process and system for everybody.
Natasha: Fantastic, Judy. That's great. Looking ahead, looking into the future, I know there's been a lot of some naysayers that are shouting quite loud at the moment. So I'd love to hear from you. What changes or improvements do you hope to see in the future?
Judy Ellis: There's so much I could say, but what I hope is that, you know, I've been in this space for over 20 years and it ebbs and flows when diversity is de rigueur and when we fall out of favor. It's just now moving into the mainstream is how I position this, as many people that don't know this kind of function and organizational change and development even exists. And now that they've heard about it, all they've heard is the acronym, or maybe they heard a famous person that owns a social media company, cast aspersions at the industry. And so they just pick up on that messaging.
What I would really like is for people to understand that this work is about making fair workplaces, period. It's about opening pathways and pipelines so that everyone that's qualified that can do a job has the opportunity to actually do it and that everyone that comes in an organization with skill, talent, abilities, potential is able to rise to the level of their own competence and ability. That's what this work is about. And when you look at all the studies now showing how diversity wins, how innovation is improved, how financial performance is made better, when you bring all the people that are available with all the best talent and all the best minds and all the best insight into the, I mean, from a business perspective, all the consumers of the world and they understand their unique needs, that is a winning proposition for everyone. It's not the one, but it's been painted as this is just for these particular groups and it's a way to kind of tip over the apple cart and unfairly let unqualified people from different groups come in and just get through and get a pass. That is the communication that is now moving more into the mainstream of some of our geographies and I would like to see that countered with all the success and kind of unifying message of using everyone that has talent and capability to do a job and it's just fair. And most people around the world resonate with fairness and opportunity for people that want to and can contribute.
Natasha: Thank you so much, Judy, for joining me today and for sharing all of your insights. It's been amazing. Before you do leave us, what would you give as a parting piece of advice to the DEI leaders that are listening today?
Judy Ellis: Oh, for my fellow DEI leaders, I would say stay in the fight and look for allies and supporters across the organization. Times like this can be very taxing and take an emotional toll because at times you feel like you're fighting on every side and it's entering the mainstream. People are getting trolled on social media if they even post sometimes a diversity affirming statements, but I think I'm always fueled by movements like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others that history will prove that the work that we're doing is better for the world, it's better for business, and it's better for individuals. Most of the well-meaning people I have met in my work around the globe, most people are very, very supportive and willing to learn and want everyone to have the best opportunity and experience they can in an organization. There are detractors, as they said in the policing world, they're bad actors everywhere. That is not the mainstream of my experience. Finding support has been key for me. There are formal networks that support DEI professionals. ERG, I know even in my company now, even though I have a really demanding role, I pop in our ERG meetings when I can just to get that sense of, "I don't have to mask, I can just laugh," or "We may play some ethnic music to start the meeting." I feel like that camaraderie is just next level, isn't it?
Natasha: Yes, that connection and ability and just someone else that you can say, "Guess what happened to me today?" and they can say, "Oh, I know. It'll be okay that happened to me," versus saying, "Why? Oh, do you think that was motivated by this or that so you don't have to explain yourself?" Cannot underplay how important that is, and finding sources of strength, reading. Many of my mentors in my life, I say facetiously, they don't even know they're my mentors, but I've read every piece of literature they put out, every article. Now I can follow them on social media, like my friends and aunties, et cetera. But finding those ways to find support, even if you are an only lonely in your organization, I think is really key.
Natasha: That's absolutely amazing. Thank you so, so much, Judy. I wish you all the success in the future. Until we speak again, for anyone that is listening, what is the best way for them to connect with you and hear about all the great things that you're up to?
Judy Ellis: Well, please follow me on LinkedIn. I'm Judy Ellis, or if you're interested in DEI Consulting Services, you can reach out to me at judy.ellis@weareams.com, and that's W-E-A-R-E-A-M-S.com. Many people reach out to me on LinkedIn Messenger first, and then I say, "Here's my email." But that's probably where I'm most active and love being involved or even, you know, staying connected, supporting people with like interests.
Natasha: Well, Judy, wish you all the best in the future, and until we speak again.
Judy Ellis: Thank you.
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