The Inclusive Workplace: How Small Steps Create Big Impact

The Inclusive Workplace: How Small Steps Create Big Impact

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Guests: Charlotte Dales, Co-founder & CEO, Inclusively and Julie Bugala, HR Leader, Edward Jones

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. The only constant in business is change, and 2023 will be no exception. That’s why hundreds of in-house compliance professionals at Paychex compiled a list of regulatory issues that could impact businesses the most this year to help you prepare. In our guide, find out about federal and state regulations and programs that may affect your business and your employees in the coming year, so you can take appropriate action now. Visit paychex.com/awia to check it out, today.

This week we met with Charlotte Dales and Julie Bugala to talk about how organizations can work to create more inclusive environments and create opportunities for people.

– Simplicity of making accomodations in the workplace

– How to demonstrate an inclusive environment

– Positive outcomes of utilizing a workforce inclusion platform

– How small steps can have a significant impact on outcomes and access to opportunities for people with disabilities

Thank you for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Transcript follows:

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to At Work in America sponsored by Paychex. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts Steve Boese, and Trish McFarlane Steed.

Steve 0:24
Welcome to the At Work in America show. We have a great show today, we are going to be talking about inclusion and how organizations can work to create more inclusive environments and create opportunities for people and how working with a platform or a partner to help you reach those goals can help and be really beneficial. Just we love this subject. Trish, I love inclusion. I love accessibility. I love everything about creating opportunity for people who traditionally maybe have not had a lot of access to opportunity. So this is gonna be great show.

Trish 0:59
Oh, I agree. I think especially because it is still plenty of companies out there with help wanted signs in the windows and in posting jobs in different places. And being able to find highly skilled people who maybe have been under their radar a little bit will be a good, a good show. So I’m glad we’re doing it.

Steve 1:18
Yeah, me too. Don’t get me started on the labor market and the low unemployment right now and millions of open jobs.

Trish 1:25
It’s not Friday. Yeah, you gotta wait till Friday.

Steve 1:27
I’ll save that. Before we get to the show we welcome our guests Trish. Let’s thank our friends at Paychex. This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex. One of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes, the only constant in business is change and 2023 will be no exception. That’s why hundreds of in house compliance professionals at Paychex have compiled a list of regulatory issues that could impact businesses the most this year, and help you prepare for them. So in their guide, you can find out about federal and state regulations and programs that may affect your business and your employees in the coming year. So you can take appropriate actions today. Visit paychex.com/awia to check it out today. So thank you to our friends at Paychex. I’m actually wearing my Paychex hat for folks who are listening only to the show and not not watching us but they’re awesome folks, and we thank them once again.

Steve 2:21
So just we’ve got two guests who are patiently waiting to be welcomed to the show and I will welcome them one at a time. First we are very happy to welcome Charlotte Dales. Charlotte is the Co-founder and CEO of Inclusively, the workforce inclusion platform empowering employers with accommodation insights, access training and the support they need to attract and retain previously hidden talent. Charlotte, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Charlotte Dales 2:48
I’m good. I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Steve 2:51
We are excited to have you and we’re also excited to welcome another guest. I love having two guests on the show. It’s great because that means I talk less. But please welcome Julie Bugala. She is the HR leader at Edward Jones where she is responsible for leading the home office workforce acquisition strategy and execution including all operational aspects, DNI talent acquisition strategies, executive recruitment and the contingent workforce acquisition and management program. Julie, welcome to the show. How are you?

Julie Bugala 3:22
I’m great. Thank you, looking forward to the conversation.

Steve 3:26
It’s great to have you and I appreciate everybody being here. And I won’t brag too much about how I’m taking this call from warm sunny Florida while many of the other folks on this podcast are dealing with snow and inclement weather. But I’m glad everybody made it through the snow to the podcast today.

Trish 3:45
Yeah, it’s good to be here.

Steve 3:47
Charlotte, I want to start with you. We mentioned Inclusively at the top. But there’s a kind of a story behind Inclusively, at least the story behind the story. What kind of inspired you down this path? I’d love for you to maybe share some of that with this. And then after that, maybe tell us just a little bit about Inclusively.

Charlotte Dales 4:03
Yeah, so um, I started this company a few years ago. It’s my second tech company. So, um, while I was selling my first company, I was living over in London. My cousin became the first licensed facialist in the state of Florida with Down syndrome. So she gives facials at a local salon. And after getting my first facial from her, she, you know, obviously it was incredibly impressive what she was able to achieve, and especially against what many people thought she might achieve in her life. But I think what really inspired me to start the company was what I noticed was how easy it was for her employer to make some slight adjustments to her working environment. And so what I wanted to figure out was how can we use technology to make it really, really, really easy for employers to accommodate candidates unique requests at scale and that’s, you know, across also disability spectrum, from Down syndrome and autism to stress, anxiety, depression, long COVID is now included under the ADEA. And it’s, you know, it’s not one size fits all, even within one disability category. And so how do we make it really easy for employers to handle all the personalization that’s required to sort of fulfill people’s different accommodation requests?

Trish 5:27
You know, Charlotte, thank you for sharing that story in the background. One of the things that I think over the years if you’ve been in either human resources or just in business, there’s always a little bit of a maybe a myth that making these types of accommodations is expensive, or it’s, you know, very tedious or something that you really have to spend a ton of time tracking, could you maybe address that angle of it too, because I know that a lot of the people listening will want to know, how easy can it be right, and how inexpensive it is maybe compared to what they think it could cost?

Charlotte Dales 6:00
Well, I think that, you know, the majority of accommodations are free or under $500, a person. A very well known accommodation that is made for everyone these days is you know, flexible work schedule, remote work, hybrid working environment, those were accommodations that were requested by the disability community long before COVID. And were denied. And so I think this is this, you know, COVID really brought to light, you know, not only how easy it can be, but also how ubiquitous accommodations can be throughout your organization without so much disruption to your, your existing business, you know, day to day.

Steve 6:43
Julie, I’d like to turn to you, first of all, thank you again, for joining us, from snowy St. Louis today. Can you tell us just real quick, I think everybody probably knows Edward Jones, right? We’ve seen them like in every town probably in America has an Edward Jones storefront and it probably but maybe for folks who may be not as familiar with the Edward Jones, can you give us maybe 60-90 seconds on what Edward Jones is and what you do there?

Julie Bugala 7:07
Oh, sure. Yeah, thank you for the question. I appreciate that. For those who may not be familiar, Edward Jones is a fortune 500 financial services company. What we do is generally speaking for the past 101 years, we’ve offered we offer wealth management services, like Financial Planning and Investment Services to individual investors. And, and that is, you know, over 7 million clients and counting over the last 100 years. And we are located in, you know, almost all 50 states in the US and all 10 provinces in Canada, about 90,000 financial advisors. Our scale is one of our advantages.

Steve 7:47
Yeah, for sure. Thank you for that little reset. In that little overview, I’d love for you to maybe talk a little bit about sort of the topic of the day what we’re here about both the organization, you know, at a philosophical level, but also at a practical level, the commitments that Edward Jones has made. And some of the steps Edward Jones is taking to, you know, to create more opportunities, create a more diverse organization and a more inclusive organization. Because I’ve read, I did some homework before the show, Julie, it’s remarkable the commitment to this topic that I’m seeing from such a huge organization.

Julie Bugala 8:21
Yeah, thanks. Thank you so much. I just stated a second ago that over 100 years, right, we’ve been providing these wealth management services. So we you know, we have just celebrated 100 years of service to our communities in 2022. And a while it was a celebratory birthday milestone, it was also an opportunity for us to reflect on the impact that we have made on our clients and our colleagues and those communities. And as we look forward to the next 100 years, now thinking about how we can make an even greater impact for all of our stakeholders, which includes also the current and prospective workforce, which is along the lines of the topic, we’re talking about your right labor. So you know, of course, we are committed to that place of belonging where everyone feels like they can bring their authentic self. And like many companies, we also are striving to put all of our associates in our leaders with all of the resources and the tools that they need to reach that increasingly diverse pool of clients and candidates that we’re seeking to serve, that want to bring them their authentic selves to work every day. So what the, you know, one of the what that really comes down to is that that place the belonging is one of our culture mindsets. That’s important. It’s a culture mindset, something that’s embedded in our culture, but also equally important. It’s also about a set of actions or behaviors to bring that mindset to light. Right. So our approach then is we get to practicality here our approach is affirm is to address some of those pressing challenges.

Julie Bugala 10:00
As we look ahead to the next 100 years, and one of those challenges around is around how do we continue to advance inclusive growth, not just with our clients, but also within our workforce within our workforce. So all of that, really, for Edward Jones starts with setting some ambitious representation goals, to increase the number of people color and women, and other among leadership and financial advisors. So we’ve got 90,000 advisors, right, but we have 50,000 people in total, and Edward Jones. And so we’ve got a magnificent opportunity to increase the impact there as we think about people of color and leadership, females and leadership with people of color in our financial advisor ranks women, people with disabilities in these positions as well. So a number of different things then that we do, to bring or to demonstrate those activities that help us bring that culture to life. So a couple of examples than real time external for doing things. When we talk about recruiting, and we talk about development. We’re doing things like refreshing our mentorship program, taking a look at the framework of the mentorship program, all inclusive, is it? What is the framework that the the leader the mentor and the mentee are using to further those their conversations, we’re doing things like committing to diverse slates as part of that interview process, so that we can expose our hiring leaders to a broader range of qualified talent. And ultimately, like we’ve been talking about widen our lens and our access to this untapped talent pool that’s out there.

Julie Bugala 11:42
Like you said, Steve, we’re at a historical moment, at least in the US at a, you know, 50 year unemployment, low historical moments. So so doing what we can to tap, you know, untapped labor today, which includes part of the reason we’ve got our partnership with Inclusively, there’s a few other things. So I just might mention that might be relevant or interesting to the audiences where you know, we’re doing a go to the things like updating our career site so that we can explore ways to bring greater transparency, to our commitment to diversity throughout that hiring process. So for example, you say, right, you’re committed to being an inclusive environment? How do you demonstrate that as I’m moving through that selection process? Things like creating realistic job previews, embedding testimonial videos, on our digital interview platform? Those are a couple of examples.

Trish 12:38
Thank you for sharing that, Julie. Those are all really good examples that I think others can learn from and, and imitate right in their own organizations if they’re not already. One question for you. I mean, you mentioned realistic job previews, is that something that Edward Jones is sort of bringing down to that skills level, I know, Steve, and I have for the last, say, three to five years really, really progressive companies, or maybe not moving off of a job description, if you will, but definitely a much more skills focused job preview, and we’re finding that that actually benefits people who are maybe neurodiverse, or, you know, on the spectrum, or they’re physically, differently abled in some way, is that something that you all are looking at as you’re sort of making these job previews?

Julie Bugala 13:27
Yes, Trish? Yeah, absolutely. We are, I mean, we will maintain your traditional job description, which, by the way, is also something that we’re looking at to ensure like, this is a simple thing that we can do to ensure that the job descriptions are inclusive, and are not, you know, inadvertently exploiting people through language choice, for example, another thing we’re doing is maintaining our enhanced job descriptions. And an enhanced job description is where we may have, for example, employee testimonial video that goes along with the job description. But then the next step for us then is, is to explore the realistic job preview, which puts a focus and a lens on the skills that are being used in sort of a day in the life of that individual in that position. So it really does act as a first screen or the process because it’s an opportunity for a prospective candidate to see if they can, if they see themselves aligned to those skills, in that those responsibilities and make a choice about whether or not they would like to continue further.

Trish 14:28
Yeah, I think with that, too, that’s a really good opportunity. If you have people in roles already, who are people of color, women may be in leadership positions, or people that have different, you know, physical or mental differences that they you know, you can show these are people that work here and are doing these jobs very successfully, right?

Julie Bugala 14:48
100%. Yeah. We’ve got a really terrific a really engaging career website today with Edward Jones. And we’re going to make that even better. We are building we’re curating and building out some additional content that will demonstrate our commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion. I mean, I think it’s always work in progress, right? We’ve never just, there’s always going to be work to do. So we would never say we’ve arrived or the best, we would say that we’re continuously learning. We’re continuously on this journey, testing what’s working, and then, you know, getting feedback and seeking to improve that.

Steve 15:23
Yeah. It’s really thank you for sharing some of the things that you guys are doing at Edward Jones. And it’s remarkable, right, that the the commitment to these include the inclusive environment, it’s one thing to say it right, like, as you said, right, it’s what are you actually doing? And, and I think that’s kind of what I wanted to ask Charlotte next really, right. Because no organization, at least, to my knowledge, no organization would come out and say, Oh, no, we’re not interested in being more diverse or more inclusive, we’re not interested in creating more accessibility or opportunity, everyone would sort of line up behind those those statements, right. They’re easy to make, but they’re harder to actually implement or put into action. Charlotte, what are some of the things when you maybe you start working with a new organization, or even when you’re talking to organizations, or talking to other recruiting around or HR leaders, you know, in your role inclusive? Like, what are some of the things that that they could I don’t know, start with, right? If we’re saying hey, we’re we’ve never really actively or proactively tried to reach out and broaden our access to opportunities or organization? Where do I begin, I guess, is the way I phrased the question, as are some things that they can just start with that that can make an impact that that aren’t that complex?

Charlotte Dales 16:37
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I’ve learned in the past few years of of working in this space, and yes, I did another tech startup before, but I was not I’ve, you know, my experience in disability was from a personal family member and, and from the past, you know, three to four years, I guess. But one of the things I learned over these these years and more, you know, prominently recently is that, as you said, like people are making the statements and and I actually think there’s genuine intention behind them. I think where people immediately start to focus is like, how do we go find them? Like, how many people can we hire right now like today? And no one is taking a step back and thinking, why does this problem exists? Like, why are these you know, populations disproportionately excluded from the workforce? Why are they not making as much as you know, their counterparts and, like, let’s solve that problem, not the, lemme go shove 100 people into your organization right now, like, let’s, let’s solve the root problem. And I think what people don’t realize is, when you do that, you’re organically opening up the door much wider so that everyone can come in. And so I think, from like, a practical standpoint, things that people can do, you know, straight away is to start thinking about their interview process, even like, you know, are you are you forcing people to go through a panel interview? Because that’s just always how you’ve ever done this type of interview? Will many people in the neuro diverse community perform much better in a one on one setting? And so is it a big deal that you might change that? Why are we putting, you know, people through the exact same process when people are all all very different? And I think that’s something that we always, you know, we talked on like job descriptions as well. But it’s, it’s also about what I think is like, really out there on the screen and more than mindset of the person that they’re going to meet. And, you know, we’ve heard people, you know, make comments like, oh, well, that person has never worked at a place like x before. And it’s like, that’s opportunity, not skill, as we were saying earlier. And so I think, if you can really start thinking about the mindset of various different people at your company, when they’re going to screen in it a resume, and interview talent, that’s the easiest place to start.

Julie Bugala 19:04
Yeah, could I kind of just reinforce what Charlotte said there? I mean, really, so you know, Charlotte and Inclusively, are doing their part to address that particular question that is out there. You know, and as an as an employer, really, we’re seeking to maximize the confidence that our prospective candidates have is there then coming through the processes? So we’re really focused on looking at what are those common friction points for individuals who are different, different, differently abled that are coming through the process? Where do we have opportunities to remove those friction points? And we’re so glad that she’s out there solving that in the meantime, we’ve got work to do to make sure that as this is starting to unfold that we’re, we’re ready, right for these individuals that were removing those pain points.

Trish 19:51
I’m glad you share that, that not only is Edward Jones ready because I think a lot of organizations are ready. You know, Charlotte, you mentioned you know, obviously your entrance under this was on a on a personal level, I think that maybe that’s a good place to Steve, if you’re talking about where can people start? Think about people that you know, in your own family, right? If you’re listening to this, you’re in working in HR, ask people from your organization who do they know, maybe it’s someone at their church or a local, you know, community involvement that they’re in, but start seeking out people that, you know, maybe as your starting point to and find out, because what a good way to pilot, you know, some sort of program to start bringing people who are differently abled into your workforce, right, start there. I think the other thing, Charlotte, and I’d be interested, if you have any, any comment on this? You know, it’s, it’s to me, it’s a little bit of a generational thing like I, you know, I don’t think that people, you know, I’m 52, I don’t think if you’re in your 50s, and you might have neurodiversity issues, or maybe you’re physically challenged in some way. Your parents didn’t necessarily tell you, Hey, you can go out and have any kind of job you want, right? It just wasn’t, it just wasn’t done. There wasn’t the internet, you couldn’t go seek out information very easily. I do wonder, are you seeing that shift and change as now? You know, parents who have autistic children or physically disabled children that they can they can show them what is going on in the world that awaits them? Are you seeing that shift?

Charlotte Dales 21:23
Yeah, I mean perspective, data is showing that too. So if you think about, you know, the education systems now, everyone in you know, millennials and Gen Z’s have been accommodated for in in their education system. And so they’re just leaving that system and expecting their job to do the same thing. And you see that in the data, it’s, you know, the jet that this generation is 25% more likely to disclose a disability request accommodations at work. I mean, that’s a significant shift from, you know, the overall average, where, you know, it’s believed that about 30% of the existing workforce actually meets the federal definition of having a disability, so already at your company, but only 5% are actually requesting accommodations. So that’s a huge gap. And that’s a huge miss, like you’re by them not asking for accommodations that can’t be as productive, successful, and ultimately, they’re probably churning and trying to go find a better fit for them. So I think that yes, definitely, it’s become not just more of a cultural, you know, discussion, but I think just what people have experienced in their education system has, has now bled into what they’re expecting from their employer.

Trish 22:44
That’s great. Just a quick follow up for me. And then I know, everybody else has questions, too. So if you mentioned at the top of the show, you know that things like long COVID are considered, you know, protected under the ADEA. But also, you know, anxiety, right, any sort of sort of mental pressures or things like that, and mental health? Could you talk a little bit about that? What are some of the things you’re hearing from maybe your clients or just potential clients? What are they looking for assistance in? From a technology standpoint, when it comes to people who may have anxiety? Or long COVID? Or some things that weren’t commonly protected before?

Charlotte Dales 23:25
Yeah. So I think that, you know, how I was saying that, you know, only 5% of people are requesting accommodations, like, part of that is because culturally, what you what you said is, you know, originally people with disabilities were told, like, don’t disclose until you absolutely have to, or unless you absolutely have to. So what this means is that we have a whole lot of people with disabilities, that don’t even know what accommodations they could be asking for, because they’ve always been told not to ask for them. And so I think, you know, as we see, you know, long COVID and an almost like, disabilities come to light, like anxiety, depression, where maybe Historically people wouldn’t have identified as having a disability. But if we start to see like, the sort of, you know, net widen, more people are starting to figure out, you know, what, what should we be doing for people, you know, and so we actually did, at the end of last year, a proprietary research report on the effects of long COVID in the workforce. And it’s very similar to accommodating someone who has just had a baby like, it’s not like they need, you know, whatever, three to six months off, but getting a period of time where you don’t just expect them to come straight back to work and resume responsibilities immediately after their physical symptoms have left has really helped a lot of people that we interviewed, but most of them had said that, you know, the way they felt when they were talking about it was like It just appeared that they looked lazy or that they, you know, were just, you know, not motivated anymore. And I think, you know, that lack of understanding between themselves and even what they’re feeling they don’t even know. And the employer just shows that, you know, there’s so many. That’s exactly Oh, people, all people with disabilities feel that people don’t understand them or don’t believe them. And so I think by a lot of this coming more to light, it’s it’s much easier for people to start thinking about, Okay, what could I do for that person? Because it becomes more like something you might have experienced.

Steve 25:37
So, Julie, I had another question for you, because you talked a little bit about some of the specific programs and the activities that are happening and Edward Jones to sort of help embed the idea, the cultural mindset, I think you referred to right of the commitment to DNI and the expansion of opportunities. If it’s possible, I’m gonna put you on the spot too much. But if it’s possible, in you can anonymize this of course, right. Can you share a story or two, maybe perhaps, from your experience, or the experience there at Edward Jones, where, where some of these programs are, whether it’s working with partners like Inclusively or other programs who’ve done it, Edward Jones have created real opportunity for people that five years ago, 10 years ago, maybe wouldn’t have happened and sort of what’s been what’s been the positive outcome for both for them and for and for the organization as well.

Julie Bugala 26:22
Yeah, I mean, I’ll start with, you know, our partnership with Inclusively. And so this relationship began to come together just probably a couple of years ago. But I would say 2022 was really a big year for us both from, from yielding results from our partnership together as well as learning. So as we talk about, like, for example, success stories, we would look at 2022 as a, as a test and learn year, but also a success story, because of what we’ve learned and, and, you know, we still we set out the year to, you know, with some ambitions around how can we increase the application conversion rate? How can we get more applications? How could we increase the conversion rate and learn as we moved along. And so one of the things we learned is just putting just a little bit of additional focus on employment and opportunities for individuals with disabilities, just a little bit resulted in a significant impact on the number of matches and the applications and really the job offers that went out. I mean, we exceeded some of our goals there, which was just really fantastic to see. And that was just put the little bit of extra energy and focus. But a couple of key takeaways that we learned while we were going through as an employer is something that, you know, Charlotte kind of touched upon already, which is that without a need to prioritize, prioritize the improvement of our application process, we’ve got to prioritize that. But also, what we learned from the candidates coming through the Inclusively process and relationship with Edward Jones, is that they prioritize new ways of working as well, they benefit benefit from things like the remote work, telework, also, you know, having extra time flexible schedules. So these are some of the things that as we’re moving through the year together, we stop and pause, we talk about what are the key learnings we have? And how do we then incorporate those key learnings into the adoption of our practices moving forward. So 2022 is just a year learnings that we’re going to carry forward into 2023, to eat to strengthen the partnership even more.

Steve 28:32
It’s really thanks for sharing some of that. Yeah, it’s remarkable how small steps right, and Charlotte mentioned this at the very top of the show, right? Many of these steps are small, many of them are very inexpensive, sometimes even free, right. But they can have a pretty significant impact right on outcomes and access to opportunities for folks. And, and I think if there’s one takeaway from the I don’t know, church, eight or nine shows we’ve done on this type of topic over the last year and a half, two years, I feel like that’s one of them. Going back to some of the things our friends at the Special Olympics told us, our friend perfect. The professor at Vanderbilt told us right when we sent her. Yeah, yeah. He told us about expanding opportunity for folks on the autism spectrum, right. He talked about some very, very basic interventions that organizations can make on the interview process specifically, right to make it more accessible more and and not so much to favor anyone really, but just to create equal opportunities. Right, or opportunities to begin with. Right. And that’s, we hear that time and time again.

Trish 29:33
Well, I think it would be interesting. I mean, as we’re talking through this, it’s like it would be interesting if the word, you know, accessibility wasn’t something you had to even discuss, right? Or giving someone some sort of an accommodation, right if we didn’t even have to talk about accommodations. Because if we were just designing our workplaces, and the roles truly to be inclusive when we get to that point. I mean, Julie, you mentioned earlier right? This is always a work in progress, but we’re never done by But I do think maybe 10 years down the road, when we look back, I hope what we’re seeing is, is a workplace where we don’t have to make accommodations and doing air quotes, right? That that’s something where we’ve built that in so that people with all different abilities feel comfortable. And maybe it would be very rare that you would need someone to have something really specifically different.

Charlotte Dales 30:24
Our vision for the company is to create one front door for everyone. So we’ve started with the disability community. They’re the largest untapped talent pool. And they’re also the ones that have the most accommodation requests in terms of variety, and the most unmet, so if you can solve for people with disabilities, you can start I mean, a lot of these accommodations anybody would want? And so why wouldn’t we just design a more personalized process that everyone is, you know, happier at their job more productive and less likely to churn? And, you know, we have employers a lot of the time say, Oh, well, you know, what if, what if people without disabilities? Or what if someone without a disability starts to ask for this stuff, too? And it’s like, well, if you can accommodate people with disabilities at scale, why wouldn’t you accommodate someone else with the same accommodation? Like, imagine if you normalized and made people feel comfortable to ask for what they needed to be successful? Imagine knowing what would make someone churn before you even hire them? That’s the data that employers are really after is how do I reduce the, you know, $600 billion a year that employers are spending on voluntary turnover?

Steve 31:43
Julie, I just have one more question for you. Before we let let you go, certainly, and let folks go, which is, you mentioned, you’ve got some really aggressive goals, or goals that Edward Jones that you’ve talked about representation goals, etc? Are there ways you guys like, you know, communicating that throughout the organization? Is everybody made aware of them? Or is there any level of measurement and or accountability for folks to meet those goals, etc, I’d love to hear just about the philosophy of okay, we’re setting these aggressive goals, here’s what we’re going to try to do to make sure we live up to those goals.

Julie Bugala 32:17
Steve, thanks for that question. You know, we, you know, our our purpose as a company is to partner for positive impact with our clients and our colleagues and the communities in which we serve. If the purpose is our why our culture is our how, and our culture mindsets are a big piece of how we enable our purpose and our strategies was, which is our what, so that those culture mindsets that I referenced early on, those are really what’s embedded throughout, you know, sort of the fabric of the associate experience. So whether it’s part of the hiring process, whether it’s part of our performance management process, right, if, if what we if our objectives, our work objectives are, what are how is our actions and our behaviors is, that’s where we see culture in place of belonging truly embedded. All of this, of course, is communicated through to our associates, we, you know, all of the great things that the DEI organization does, is easily accessible and actually kind of permeates the organizations through our BRGs, for example, our business resource groups. So DEI brings those initiatives in this culture of place of belonging to light through our br BRGs. through things like dei conferences, that’s another connection point for associates, things like better together summits, which are specifically for our financial advisors. And that’s where we can bring our financial advisors together and what are some of the more like, traditionally underrepresented communities, bring them together and help push, you know, elements of DEI, recruiting help to build inclusive leadership, talk about what does it mean was allyship mean? Suppose Better Together summits, courageous conversations, that’s another touchpoints for associates, with our dei and, of course, curated content through things like RTL Learning Academy, so I’m kind of scratching the surface there. So it’s more than just things that you can find on our internal website. It’s a way that you can connect with our dei strategy and bring it to life.

Steve 34:27
Julie, thank you for that. And I’ll just throw in there just this is just for me, a lot of what you talked about is actually on the career site itself, right? You talk about the business resource groups, the commitment to DNI some of the goals are published on the website. Details about the DNI conference, you mentioned are also out there for candidates to check out, which I think is great, right? It’s great that you’re putting it out there and being really open and transparent about what you at the firm. The firm itself is standing behind. So that’s fantastic. Last question, I guess would be to Charlotte. Right, Charlotte? It’s been an exciting ride. On for you and the team at Inclusively. Anything you want to just throw out there for us to look for as 2023. We get into the year now and plans, goals direction, what which we look forward from you and the folks that Inclusively this year,

Charlotte Dales 35:17
What we’re really looking forward to this year is starting to broaden the application of what we’ve built into a more diverse subset of the population. So as I was alluding to earlier, everybody has personal preferences and accommodations that could make you know, their work, their work more productive, and them happier on the job. And so that’s sort of what we’re looking forward to this year is how can we apply this to other demographics that might also be sort of excluded from the workforce because of sort of one size fits all processes? And I’d say, you know, the other the other thing I would say, is a final thought, which we kind of alluded to, Trish did earlier on, you know, going and you know, how do people get started, but I get asked this all the time. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions for anyone listening on this call, or anyone, you know, working at a large company who would like to see their company moving towards this. People like Julie are not the ones responsible solely for the change, every single person at the company has the ability to just decide to do it differently, and to just decide to try and go seek out more diverse pipeline. And so I think that a big, you know, a big hurdle for us. And a big thing that we’re very excited about is just getting more people at the company on the inclusively platform just to start changing their mindset when it comes time for them to hire.

Steve 36:56
Great stuff. We could probably go on for a while. We’ve like I said before, we’ve done this topic a number of times from lots of different angles and never stops being interesting and never stops being important as well. So I’m glad we’re able to do this.

Trish 37:08
Thanks. I am to thank you both for coming on and bringing such different rich perspectives to because, as Steve mentioned, even though we do many shows on this topic in some way, shape, or form, I think what you both brought to to our audience is a new perspective, right? A new way to think about whether it’s a process or the way you you sort of think about things and new technology to think about, it’s all very helpful to the people that are listening. So thank you for coming.

Steve 37:35
Yeah, awesome. So do yeah, I’ll say that again. Julie, thanks so much. Julie Bugala from Edward Jones. May need to talk offline about my issue I had with my financial advisor Julie’s not an Edward Jones advisor. So maybe you can help me with that later. Charlotte Dales from Inclusively, thank you so much for being with us. We’ll put links in the show notes to Inclusively, to the Edward Jones career page where you can read a lot more about some of the initiatives that are happening with Edward Jones and some things Julie talked about as well. I want to thank them once again for joining us. And Trish, thank you. Stay warm in the cold Midwest winter tonight. And thanks of course to our friends at Paychex. Remember you can subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Network of shows anywhere you get your podcasts. Go to HRHappyHour.net for all the show archives. For our guests Julie Bugala, Charlotte Dales, for Trish McFarlane. My name is Steve Boese. Thanks so much for listening. We will see you next time and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai