Investing in D&I as a Series B or C Tech Company with Katie Allen & Dean Delpeache

Welcome to Crescendo Chats: Scaling Diversity & Inclusion. In this series, Crescendo co-founder Stefan Kollenberg hosts conversations with HR and diversity & inclusion practitioners, sharing valuable insights from their work. 

This week’s conversation is with Katie Allen and Dean Delpeache, the Sustainability and Social Impact Manager and Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition, respectively, at Fiix Software.

Listen to the podcast or read below for the edited transcript. 

Stefan: Can you share a bit about yourselves to get us started? 

Katie: Sure! In my role as the Sustainability and Social Impact Manager, it’s my job to ensure that we are fulfilling our higher purpose of creating a more sustainable world. We do that by integrating sustainability and social impact into every aspect of the business, including governance, environment, product, community, and workers. 

Dean: I lead Talent Acquisition - so I’m responsible for talent attraction within the organization. Our goal is to bring in the brightest talent we can, so my responsibility is to lead that initiative. I also partner with Katie to lead inclusion at Fiix.

Stefan: What do you love about D&I work?

Dean: I developed a passion for diversity through my masters program. I had a really good teacher who was very plain about what diversity and inclusion should look like. The number one thing I love about diversity is the fact that we live in a society where we have so many different people who have unique experiences and backgrounds. When you put all those in a room, you get so many different thoughts. I can’t even share with you the amount of times I’ve sat in a room with different people and they gave me a different view and perspective. 

I think diversity and inclusion brings people together in a unique way and you can really reap the benefits out of it from sharing people’s experiences and learning about people. 

Katie: I agree with Dean. I think it’s really great to see people unlock their potential and fulfill their own purpose. And when you have the right systems and tools in place to allow people to do that, you just see them flourish - and it’s so rewarding. 

Stefan: What’s been the biggest learning in your experience so far working on D&I in tech? 

Dean: I think the tech industry is ripe for diversity and inclusion initiatives. When employment equity came in the 80s, it was a federally regulated thing where banks and larger corporations had to show numbers and statistics. I feel like the tech industry has the ability to affect how inclusion practices happen - not just in our companies, but even down to elementary school. 

If we in the tech industry joined together, what will end up happening is you’ll have kids in school wanting to be part of this industry. You won’t have this thing where a lot of industries become male dominated. You’ll have an industry that’s bursting at the seams with all different types of people from different backgrounds - we’ll see so many things happening that will breed into post-secondary and breed into careers. 

Katie: To build off that, it’s a journey. You’re not going to get it right and you’re going to make some mistakes. It’s about picking yourself up and keeping going because there’s a lot to it that we’re all still learning. 

Stefan: Katie, we were talking before and you mentioned some 2020 D&I plans. Can you share your top priorities?

Katie: Yeah! We decided to focus on four main areas which have brought forward different goals and actions. 

Our strategy encompasses:

1. Diversity
2. Inclusion
3. Belonging
4. Equity

We defined each one and what they meant to us and then came up with associated topics under each one. For example, diversity might involve a lot of recruiting initiatives, while equity might involve compensation. It’s been a valuable exercise for us, because it allows us to look at the entirety of the organization to assess what we’re doing well and what needs improving. 

Some of our priorities are:

• Recruitment
• Partnerships 
• Training
• Engagement
• Culture
• Career development

Much of this is aligned with our B-Corp certification also. 

Stefan: Can you share the process you used to come up with this strategy?

Dean: Inclusion has been around before my time, and I think the goal of our founders was to create an inclusive organization. I think that what Katie and I have been working on is bringing it together in a tangible way so that our leaders understand it. 

So the real process was: Sitting down with our leaders to get buy in that diversity and inclusion should be at the forefront. Our leadership team is very accepting and wants to push diversity. And this bleeds up to our board as well. And then bumping heads with Katie to hash out things. 

Stefan: Can you talk more about how this aligns with B-Corp goals?

Katie: B-Corp is a third-party certification for companies that meet high levels of transparency, ethics, social and environmental justice… basically doing business the right way. 

Under their workers section, they have a ton of questions - maybe 50-plus that pertain to employees such as health and wellness, career development, or financial security, engagement, and satisfaction. And our mandate is to maintain the certification and also improve upon it. 

So we look at B-Corp as our guide light and our path forward. It provides us with different opportunities to improve through the certification itself but also through the resources and community that it provides as well. 

Stefan: Can you access B-Corp resources online?

Katie: You can find them online and take the impact assessment for free - you don’t have to be a member. 

Stefan: How do you position initiatives to get executive buy-in?

Dean: We’ve just talked. I think that’s really key before coming up with a whole bunch of different spreadsheets to prove it. Just have a real conversation. Most leaders possess a form of emotional intelligence that they can understand and be empathetic to the fact that these initiatives are important to building a strong company. 

Don’t get me wrong - I think business cases are very, very important. And showing data is very, very important. But I would encourage anybody to just start by talking to your leaders. Have a real conversation, give them some true examples, and start with that - then go into data to back you up.  

Stefan: It can be hard to get a budget when you’re in fundraising mode. How do you approach budgeting?

Katie: We’ve allocated 1% of revenue to initiatives that support programming like this - our leadership is fully on board and they understand diverse teams lead to better outcomes. So the real selling of anything D&I or social impact related was around specific initiatives we thought were worth budgeting for. 

Things like how we can justify and prove that a speaker or training or workshop is going to pay off and be effective. We want to assure that any initiative we put forth has a purpose or return - whether that’s people, planet, or profit. 

We used a lot of surveys and data collection, and used those results to paint a picture of what employees want. And that shows that you have support from the masses - it isn’t just coming from us. 

Stefan: Can you share an example of turning data into a story?

Katie: For me, it’s a bit of a process. First, I want to understand leadership priorities. Right now our board is engaged and interested in increasing diversity across all levels of the organization. So we know that it is a corporate goal. 

Now, we want to take that and transcend it further into actionable steps. If we’re going to send a survey, we want it to align to those goals - and then use it in a visual way and send it over to leadership. We’ll usually send a PDF or email and then talk to them about it. We ask for feedback and ask how we can move forward - it’s a conversation, we’re going back and forth. We’ll usually have more than one meeting and refine it from there.

Stefan: Fiix was an early adopter of Crescendo - how has the platform complemented your D&I program?

Katie: Crescendo has been an excellent complement to everything that we’ve been doing. It’s been valuable for us at Fiix because we have something very tangible that we can point to and say ‘this is what you can look forward to and learn from on a weekly basis.’ Then we can support it more qualitatively through discussions or open forums so that we can dive into the topics a little bit deeper. 

Crescendo is not the be-all, end-all, but it’s foundational bedrock in which everything else revolves. And I definitely give kudos to the team because Crescendo provides a lot of resources to support the tool itself. So it’s become a multi-dimensional tool that we use internally. 

Dean: We were running D&I initiatives on a quarterly or semi-annual basis where we’re doing different types of training or stuff like that. But what’s crescendo has done is that it’s become a regular source of information for us, instead of waiting three months to do a training program or something. Those things still happen, but a lot of times you do some type of training initiative about inclusion, it stays with someone for a week or two, and then kind of falls down. But Crescendo complements it, keeping it in peoples’ minds. And I think that’s very important and why I’ve been a great promoter of Crescendo everywhere I go. 

Stefan: Has COVID-19 shifted your D&I programming?

Dean: The first thing that mattered, especially when we went to mandatory work from home, is making sure our people are ok. You could have a million programs or initiatives but if you don’t actually care about the well-being of your people, you’re not doing it right. 

I think the first thing we did was make sure everyone was doing well. Some examples are that our leaders called every single individual in the organization. We also gave everyone $50 a month toward internet or phone usage, just to help. In regards to usage of equipment, we allowed everyone to come into the office and pick up equipment that they needed to use and were accustomed to using in the office like double monitors and things of that nature. We also continue to put out information about how we can still be social, even though we’re physically distancing. 

Katie: We’ve been looking at how to engage our people in a healthy way as well. We always had weekly meditation and yoga, but now that’s turned digital and it’s been a savior for some people who don’t really get a break in their day, especially if they are sitting in the same spot and haven’t really moved. 

We’re also looking beyond wellness activities to things like maybe trivia or a baking class. 

Stefan: What’s one piece of advice you give to HR / D&I teams in a Series B or C company on running a great D&I program?

Katie: Integrate it with the larger business goals - understanding what’s important to leadership. You might not need the business case for every single thing. Maybe your leadership team understands that it’s an imperative, but just showing how they can get there is super valuable because sustainable and social impact is new and isn’t necessarily taught in everyday business class. If you can show them the way to make it easy, you’re bound to get more buy-in. 

Dean: Have a passion for people and figure out ways to make sure inclusion is at the forefront and is top of mind in everything you do and say. Also make space for people to feel like they belong within your organization. That could be simply in a meeting, encouraging people to speak up. Little things like that - sending appreciation and kudos. 

Stefan: Lightning round time: Favorite quote?

Katie: It’s actually a little poem. You may bake the sugar cane, break its joints, crush out its juice - and still, it is sweet. 

Stefan: What motivates you in life?

Katie: Kindness. People are nice. I think right now that’s especially evident. 

Stefan: What’s one book or movie that changed the way you look at the world? 

Dean: Outliers. It made me think differently about humanity and how people are.

Stefan: What’s your favorite podcast?

Katie: Beyond with Mike Kelton. It’s funny and not always focused on present day issues. 

Stefan: What’s the coolest tech product you’ve ever come across?

Katie: Carbon Engineering is a company that sucks carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and I think that’s the coolest technology that I have heard of recently. 

Dean: My Blackberry, to be quite honest with you.  

Stefan: How can people connect with you?

Katie: Email! [email protected]

Dean: Linkedin is probably the best place for me. 

Stefan: Awesome. Thank you both!