---
title: How We Set Up Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council
teaser: Some specifics on how we work towards a more equitable workplace.
tags: diversity,inclusivity,culture
author:
- Edward Loveall
- Amanda Beiner
published_on: 2021-05-24
---

Working on a team towards a common, united goal is one of the most
fulfilling experiences someone can have. It's also extremely difficult
to achieve. That united goal requires a broad range of perspectives to
challenge norms, make progress, and innovate responsibly. We know we
need diverse voices to guard against [harmful innovation][machine-bias],
but simply _having_ diversity isn't enough. It requires an environment
where all voices will be heard and trusted.

## The DEI Council

To try to build that environment, we have a Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion (<abbr>DEI</abbr>) council that [Collective][collective]
helped us form in 2019. The council's goal is to take on the work of
identifying ways we can advance DEI at a company level, come up with
actionable tasks to do that, and then hold everyone accountable. The
work the council does comes in the form of many things. For example,
selecting vendors for bias training, running workshops or bookclubs, and
making policy changes.

## Council Members

The council is made of team members at all levels of the company from
leadership to new hires. We aim to have two members of upper leadership
participating at any given time so our company goals stay aligned with
our DEI work. In addition, a rotating group of non-leadership members
help integrate DEI into our culture.

## Time Commitment

The expectation is that everyone on the council spends half a day per
week on these efforts. The council also sets yearly [SMART
goals][smart-goals] visible to all. The specificity of these goals and
the time the council spends on them ensures that we can hold people
accountable. Otherwise it's too easy for ambiguity or other priorities
to prevent us from making progress.

While most do this work during [weekly investment
time][investment-time] we trust that everyone will find time that works
for them. We even go so far as to explicitly schedule each member for
half a day per week to ensure that it remains a priority.

If a rotation on the council is too time intensive, we organize task
forces around specific initiatives so people can still be involved.
Finally, we try to work on initiatives in pairs or small groups. This
work is difficult, nuanced, and can be emotionally draining. Working
with a buddy is a guard against that.

## Adapting to Challenges

Our first iteration of the council was a good exercise in formalizing
work that people were already doing and teaching newcomers. It also
helped us regularly set aside time to complete that work instead of
trying to complete it ad-hoc. However, we found that non-council members
didn't feel up-to-date on what was happening with company DEI efforts.
All of the context was siloed to the current council which was a mistake
we needed to fix.

We iterated and came up with a new structure. It establishes smaller
groups working on specific focus areas. The areas are:

* Continuing Education
* Hiring, Retention & Culture
* Employee Resources & Support
* Feedback & Communication

Some example of how these manifest in our company are monthly internal
posts about work the council or task forces have done, setting explicit
guidelines and metrics for hiring managers, and reviewing or creating
new DEI training material. We also noticed that task forces had fallen
by the wayside, so we want to recommit to them.

Taken together, we hope that our focus on outward communication,
increased opportunities to participate via task forces, and more focused
areas of work, will give more opportunities for more people to learn
about and engage with DEI efforts at the company. The more opportunities
there are, the more likely we can weave DEI into our everyday company
culture. And as always, as we learn more, we will continue to refine our
process.

## The Future

Having a council to direct this work is useful, but creating an
inclusive company is the responsibility of all. Everyone has work to do
when it comes to diversity, inclusion, and equity. These biases are
deeply ingrained in our work and life. We will never be done working to
fix them. Our goal is that these efforts lead to an environment where
people can be happy, innovate responsibly, and live up to [our
values][values]. Integrating this work into our profession is a critical
step towards the fulfilling environment that we all hope for.

[machine-bias]: https://www.propublica.org/series/machine-bias
[investment-time]: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/investment-time
[collective]: https://hello-collective.com
[smart-goals]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria
[values]: https://thoughtbot.com/playbook/our-company/purpose-mission-values#values