Here's an absolutely amazing quote and insight into how federal and corporate employers should approach representation in their workforce, and a major strategic pitfall to avoid.
This comes from Uber's Chief Diversity Officer at last week's White House Summit on STEMM Equity and Excellence:
"In the corporate world, companies love to talk about a representative workforce. [But] what’s the strategy? Quite often, the strategy is that we just poach each others' diverse, underrepresented talent. And unfortunately, that is the HR equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It is why so many DEI strategies sink without trace, because all they do is just redistribute the existing talent from underrepresented groups instead of solving the systemic barriers and increasing the supply of that underrepresented talent."
Take-aways and implications:
1. To increase workforce representation, it's not enough to poach diverse talent from other organizations—even Chief Diversity Officers admit this is a losing strategy
2. Federal employers won't succeed at increasing representation in their departments and agencies if they emulate what the corporate is largely doing unsuccessfully: playing musical chairs by tapping into the same limited talent pool (this is the same issue that organizations deploy for cybersecurity, AI, finance, and other scarce talent, and it doesn't work)
3. The solution, for both private and public sector employers, is simple: increase the supply of NEW underrepresented STEMM talent
In other words, you can't poach...but you CAN coach!
Some pertinent facts:
- The Class of 2024 is one of the most diverse-ever graduating classes in American history
- There are over 2M STEMM students and recent grads with a BS, MS, or PhD at hundreds of minority-serving institutions. Total applications to federal roles from students at minority-serving institutions have actually doubled year over year
- Mid-level hires continue to be scarce and 25% of the most senior-level, most experienced workers are up for retirement in the government next year
- Today's early talent is applying to fewer tech jobs and more government jobs: 7.5% of job applications from 2024 graduates on Handshake have been submitted to government roles, compared to 5.5% for the Class of 2023.
So the supply is absolutely there. Organizations that move in this direction will see major wins in their representation, workforce, and human capital strategies.
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