Amy Waninger

#IncludingYouPodcast Interview with Tony Holmes

Tony Holmes Interview Transcript

[00:00:48] Amy: Welcome back to including you. I’m your host, Amy C Waninger. My guest today is Tony Holmes. He’s the director of talent and diversity of United way Houston, which transforms individual lives and brings long lasting systemic change to tough issues. This nonprofit organization employs about 160 people in Houston, Texas, Tony, welcome to the show

[00:01:08] Tony: Amy. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:11] Amy: I am so glad to have you here. I love talking to people from all different industries and I don’t know that we’ve had anyone from a nonprofit yet that we, at least not an episode we’ve released from a nonprofit like United way. And so, it’s neat to get different perspectives from different industries.

[00:01:27] Amy: Can you tell us why is diversity and inclusion an important focus for United way Houston.

[00:01:32] Tony: Wow. Yeah, I’m glad to be a barrier breaker here for having nonprofits on, I would say that for United way, diversity is important for our work because a lot of our work is lives in social services.

[00:01:47] Tony: And so, when it comes to social services, a lot of times your end user is a person of color or it could be an individual that may be facing oppression, which is also a big, huge part of diversity, and so for our organization and our city, we are one of the most diverse cities in the country.

[00:02:05] Tony: In a very culturally aware city as well, and so for United, we have Houston, we are positioned to really make change in the social services area specifically when it comes to diversity internally and externally, and so diversity work is super important for us, and we’re so excited to be knee deep in the work and continuing to trade forward.

[00:02:26] Amy: And so, when you’re talking about a community service organization, like United way, you’ve really got your efforts in a lot of places, right? I’ve seen United way campaigns in different cities, and there are just so many services and organization like yours provides, what are you doing internally around diversity and inclusion that’s having an impact on, broadly, with the services that you provide, or specifically internally to your 160 employees?

[00:02:57] Tony: Yeah, such a powerful question because internally is where we started, internally is where we worked first. So, when it comes to where we focused our efforts for diversity, equity and inclusion, we added belonging to the Ladder of acronyms also.

[00:03:12] Tony: So we focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and we started internal, and so what we did was in the fall of 2020, we launched a diversity cross-functional team where we opened the opportunity up for members of the staff that had served for longer than a year and wanted to make change within DEIB.

[00:03:32] Tony: And so, we gathered together and we worked together with our officer’s team to create a framework for change, and that framework was open ended, it did have a charter and that charter allowed us to have a base plan of action, where we wanted to work around, and so what we did was create frameworks, create opportunities to engage our staff.

[00:03:54] Tony: So, we engage our staff around knowledge evaluation, and self-awareness, and these strategies allowed us to teach the organization about diversity, it also allowed us to evaluate where we are as an organization, and then we promoted self-awareness for people to do learning on their own also.

[00:04:11] Tony: And we found that pretty helpful for getting started and we started with knowledge, especially we opened our doors to experts in different diversity fields, we invited them in to our all-staff meetings, and we did 12 months or so worked of all staff trainings, where we had people come in and actually teach.

[00:04:30] Tony: Our 160, 120 participants in those various different all staff meetings, and so that’s where we started internally and we’re working to do more externally, but we know we wanna have a certain level of commitment internally first, and so we’ve been focusing on that at each level of our organization.

[00:04:49] Tony: We break our organization up in three levels, which is core, which is our all staff, and then managers and directors, and we also have a board of directors also that is required by United way worldwide to participate in two hours of racial equity training, and so that’s where we started and that’s where we are and we continue to move forward every day.

[00:05:10] Amy: And how long have you been doing this work? I know you mentioned you did a 12-month long program. How long ago did this all start for you?

[00:05:17] Tony: So, this all started for our organization October 1st, 2020, and for me personally, I’ve been in the space for a while now with being boots on the ground working in underserved populations for quite a while, and just doing research because of my nonprofit experience and my nonprofit landscape.

[00:05:34] Tony: And then I’m also a doctoral student as well, and that program that I’m in, has a lot of racial equity training and knowledge base that we utilize on a daily basis for the readings and the requirements for the program.

[00:05:48] Amy: I think that’s fantastic, and so when you are, when you’re engaged in its work internally, where your focus is, what does that allow you to do or be as an organization that you couldn’t do or be other.

[00:06:02] Tony: Wow, that’s a great question. I’d say for us, the internal work really just allows us to take off the imposter syndrome because if we are doing the work internally, then we can now proudly push out more services to communities of color and challenge our corporate partners to do the same.

[00:06:20] Tony: When we’re doing the work, it also allows us to measure to see if we’re actually making change and making successful strides towards this work, then now we’ll talk a little bit about what measurement looks like for us also, but for our organization, we find it important to walk the walk, we walk the walk in our hiring practices.

[00:06:38] Tony: We walk the walk in our equity lens is how we look at various different facets of our organization and all that started with knowledge, because we cannot move forward if we don’t know what we need to know, and so we’re rooted also in training, our organization, our staff as well, including our cross-functional team and any other teams that do diversity work.

[00:07:00] Tony: We want them to be trained in diversity and not necessarily trained to become diversity practitioners, but trained in a way where they can at least feel like an ambassador or be able to have the knowledge base to talk about diversity comfortably so that we can push out the same message for our organization.

[00:07:19] Amy: You mentioned measurement, and I wanna come back to that in just a second, but you also mentioned something about engaging your corporate partners, is that a typical relationship or is this something unique to United way Houston?

[00:07:30] Tony: I think for us, it’s more of a partnership where we co collaborate with our corporate partners, a lot of our corporate partners have been doing the work for quite a while, and so we work with a lot of oil and gas companies here in Houston, and many of them have requirements in the DENI space that we can glean from and learn from.

[00:07:45] Tony: And we can also position ourselves to share that information with our agencies and nonprofit partners in the community as well. We also look at how we can position ourselves to extend our reach so that we can have even more donors of color making a difference in being able to participate in United way programs and United way opportunities to give.

[00:08:07] Tony: And so, we use diversity as a lens to do many different things before our corporate partners, what we do is it’s probably more of a brain share. We’ve opened our doors to our corporate partners to come in and talk about diversity from a philanthropic standpoint, and also from a corporate standpoint and many of our donors that participate with the United way, they also participate in other organizations.

[00:08:31] Tony: They participate in their communities and their churches, and so when we are able to house those offerings and those conversations internally, we’re able to extend our reach, which makes the mission of diversity work everlasting, because now we’re really systemic by being able to be in different communities, different corporate organizations, and also in different nonprofits too.

[00:08:55] Amy: Excellent, thank you for clarifying on that, and you I’ll go back to the measurement question. You said, that you have different measures of success, how are you measuring success in this work? What metrics do you look to? Are there hard metrics, quantitative qualitative metrics?

[00:09:09] Amy: Is it, more storytelling kinds of data? What are you looking at and how are you holding yourself accountable?

[00:09:14] Tony: One thing for sure is that we definitely survey our staff so that we can find out if it’s working, we ask specific questions so that we can get, as you mentioned, story, tell storytelling, we get stories.

[00:09:26] Tony: We get understanding of where staff are in the work of diversity. It’s not a one size fits all or one shoe fits all, it’s really each individual person, and so self-awareness goals is a huge part of our work also, we quantify how much time we spend doing diversity work, we count how many hours we participate in knowledge sessions for our all staff meetings.

[00:09:48] Tony: We also count how much opportunity we share with organization for them to individually participate in diversity work. I’d say another measurement is, like I mentioned earlier, our board is required to do two hours of racial equity training and we have more measurements that we plan a roll out down the road to also allow our staff to have more trainings on an individual level as well.

[00:10:10] Tony: When it comes to diversity work. What we ultimately hope to have is an organization that has a pretty strong knowledge base on what diversity means. The walk is different for each individual person, so, we have had staff that are not ready to have certain conversations, and then we have had staff that say we’re not doing enough.

[00:10:28] Tony: So, we have to find a balance and you have to find approach that makes diversity a word or a buzzword that doesn’t have a negative connotation, we don’t wanna offend people, but we also wanna be honest and truthful about the work of diversity, equity and inclusion, that’s how we work to build our measurement practices.

[00:10:46] Tony: And it’s an ever-growing ever-changing process, and we’re excited to continue to walk down the road and continue to find new measurement strategies that really allows us to hold our organization accountable.

[00:10:57] Amy: I love that you include the self-awareness piece as one of the areas to measure, because I think self-awareness is one of those things that if people don’t have it, they obviously don’t know it.

[00:11:08] Amy: And so when we talk about diversity and inclusion at the individual level, a lot of what we can change from a policy perspective is behavior. We can try with training and education to change attitudes. But getting that feedback from individuals about their own behaviors and attitudes is probably very telling in how effective the entire program is overall.

[00:11:31] Amy: Is that, is that fair to say?

[00:11:34] Tony: Yeah, yeah, because with self-awareness, it’s how you individually respond to DENI, and so if you have a poor response individually, then that, that collectively pulls down the results across the organization, and so we believe that if you can individually start to make the tracks and walk down the space of diversity for your own individual self.

[00:11:57] Tony: Then everybody wins. So, from a behavioral standpoint, you have to look deep within yourself and try to figure out how this work resonates for you, what’s coming up for you, what is, what’s blocking you from walking down that road? What support can the organization provide? What kind of trainings do you need to see?

[00:12:17] Tony: And all that information allows us to go back full circle and retrain our staff on what’s missing and what gaps lie, and so that’s super important for us because if we can be an organization that’s behavioral based when it comes to DEIB, then now we can walk the halls together and look each other in the eye and have a eat more, even deeper understanding of our cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity.

[00:12:44] Amy: So as you’re doing this work and you’re seeing this progress, I know that the work is never done. Cause there’s always, there are new people coming in that need to be onboarded and assessed and trained, and educated and managed through these processes. But aside from just continuing to operationalize what you’ve done so far, what do you see as the next initiative or the next level of success for United way Houston in this work?

[00:13:07] Tony: I think what’s next for us is gonna be cross collaboration across the United way network, so we want to be able to partner with our United way partners across the country, even across the world that are doing DEI work. We also have our conversations with the United ways of Texas so that we can work statewide and regionally also.

[00:13:26] Tony: Do we currently have an opportunity to sit on United way worldwide calls within diversity equity inclusion, so we are able to hear what’s happening across the network, which really makes our work even stronger because we can thought partner with other organizations, but we wanna bring them in house so that we can.

[00:13:44] Tony: Pair up and really work together to not only make our United way of Houston stronger, but make our United way, but world worldwide stronger also, so the more that we can brain share, the more that we can thought partner, I think that’s, what’s gonna be key for us going down the road. So not only are we not reinventing the wheel all the time, but we’re also.

[00:14:05] Tony: Using practices that work in real time, and then hopefully we can share that with our community and our nonprofit and corporate partners as well so we can see what’s working across the country and make it happen here in Houston.

[00:14:20] Amy: This is such an important piece that the best practice is sharing and know, sharing what’s working well, so that other people can pick it up and examine it and adapt it to their own environment, and I love that you said that because that’s really what this show is about is, talking about what’s working well so that others can be inspired and also take action because inspiration is not quite enough.

[00:14:42] Amy: You have to actually go do the thing, and take action. Tony, I wanna thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your journey with United way Houston and what you’re doing that’s working. Thank you so much.

[00:14:51] Tony: Thank you, Amy. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:15:45] Amy: That’s it for this week’s episode of including you join me next week when my guest will be per Jefferson from full stack academy.

#IncludingYouPodcast Interview with Franchesca Carrington

Interview Transcript

[00:00:47] Amy: Welcome back to including you. I’m your host, Amy C Waninger. My guest today is Franchesca Carrington. She’s the vice president of DEI and talent development at shark ninja. Shark ninja is proud of its history as a pioneer in small household appliances and cleaning solutions that fit the lifestyles of busy people.

[00:01:06] Amy: You probably have a few other products in your home, I know I do, and they’re based in Nita, Massachusetts shark ninja employs about 2,700 people in 10 countries. Franchesca, welcome to the show.

[00:01:17] Franchesca: Thank you, Amy. I’m happy to be here.

[00:01:20] Amy: So, I don’t wanna play favorites with my guests, but when we talked about what we were gonna talk about for this show, I got very excited and I’ll get there in a minute, but my family was laughing at me because I couldn’t shut up about the hair dryer.

[00:01:32] Amy: So, we’re gonna get to the hair dryer story in a minute, but before we get there, can you explain to our viewers and our listeners shark ninja does all kinds of products, right? The vacuum cleaners and blenders, and we’ve got a very nice double oven what’s that called? The thing air fryer, right?

[00:01:51] Amy: Yes, sitting on our cabinet. I think I’ve got your blender that has the cups really cool products. But can you talk a little bit about why is inclusion so important to shark ninja as a company?

[00:02:04] Franchesca: Oh, for so many reasons. One reason as you said, because we make products, and so we know just based off of research, within the DEI space that consumers are being intentional about their buying dollars.

[00:02:20] Franchesca: So that’s number one, they want to spend their money at companies that are not quiet about, things that are happening in society, they want to spend their money with companies that show representation that looks like them, and so they are being very intentional about that. So that’s one of the reasons.

[00:02:44] Franchesca: But another reason is, as you said, we make so many products, and when we are thinking about product development, we have to think about all demographics. If we want our product to be inclusive, which is the goal for shark ninja, then we have to think about what does that mean? We need to define it and we also need to work towards it.

[00:03:06] Franchesca: And so that is one of the reasons that it’s also important at shark ninja and that’s external facing, but internal facing. Let me just talk about that for a second as well, just the internal culture of shark ninja. We want to build a culture where people feel like they are belonged, that they belong.

[00:03:27] Franchesca: And so, we work very hard about around doing that. We want our employees to feel included, we want to hear their ideas, we want them to bring their very lived experiences to the table, especially when we are making products, we want to hear about their cultures, we want to make sure that our products are appealing to a diverse group of people.

[00:03:54] Franchesca: So that’s some of the reasons why it’s important to shark ninja.

[00:03:59] Amy: What I love about this is you all are pretty new in your DEI journey, right? You’ve not been doing this a long time at this company, the company, the role is new.

[00:04:08] Amy: The department’s kind of new at the company, but the way this has taken, hold in what I believe is the driver of culture, which is everyday decision making by everyday employees. Has been phenomenal for the amount of time you’ve been doing the work internally and the hair dryer is part of that story.

[00:04:27] Amy: But can you talk about how this shows up and how it’s shown up so quickly in shark ninja culture?

[00:04:34] Franchesca: Yeah, I have to say, I have to give kudos to our president mark Barocas, because it really started with him in the C-suite with the executive team, and mark has been the driver of DEI and it is actually one of the things that attracted me to the organization, because I strongly believe for DEI to be embedded, to be infused in an organization.

[00:05:03] Franchesca: It has to start at that executive level, and I will say shark ninja got it, it started there, and so in my opinion, that was the right place for it to start and it has not, and we haven’t taken our foot off of the gas. DEI has only been around for two years at shark, but man, have we gone far within those two years and we just have such dedicated, passionate people that are involved in DEI.

[00:05:31] Franchesca: And so, we have, a number of affinity groups, a number of business resource groups, a number of DEI groups globally, but it goes back to what you said that each employee owns DEI, and so one of the questions that I ask do during new hire orientation is how will you champion DEI in your role? And that is a question that every employee has to think about, because that is the message that we want to send immediately.

[00:06:02] Franchesca: That DEI is owned by every single employee at the organization, and so when you are thinking about your role, no matter what department you’re in, think about, how will you champion DEI, whether that is in your personal interactions, where, whether that is with team collaboration, whether that is with making products, we want you to really think about how you’re champion DEI and how you’re being intentional about it.

[00:06:34] Franchesca: So just constantly being aware, constantly, being intentional about your efforts, and so that is just, one of the things I think that makes shark ninjas special,

[00:06:45] Amy: And employees are taking this to heart, because they are actually championing. DEI they’re incorporating different perspectives at every stage of the product life cycle.

[00:06:55] Amy: Can you talk a little bit finally about the hair dryer and I love this, not because of the hair dryer. I love it because of what it represents, I love it because of the story around it, how this came to.

[00:07:07] Franchesca: So finally, we get to the story that everyone is waiting for, but the perfect example, as I shared with you, Amy, the perfect example of how DEI can impact a business, how it impacts an organization and decision making.

[00:07:25] Franchesca: So, with the hair dryer, which is now out, on shelves. So, if you don’t have a hair dryer, plug go and get a hair dryer, go get the shark ninja hair dryer. But as we were thinking about making the product a question came from an associate, of have we thought about how this is going to react or act on various hair textures?

[00:07:50] Franchesca: And it was just that one question that spiraled everything, all it took was one question for us to think us, to start thinking creatively and to start thinking differently, and so what I loved about it is that the subject matter experts, put themselves in a vulnerable space and they were okay with saying, hey, we are not the subject matter experts on everything.

[00:08:18] Franchesca: And so, we need help, we need feedback in order to make. Inclusive product, we need to think differently, and so I love that they put themselves in that space and that they were, okay with being uncomfortable with, not knowing everything, and as a result of that, we engage Latin ex hair salons.

[00:08:40] Franchesca: We engage black hair salons, we tested the products with internal employees, we held focus groups, we engaged the affinity groups, and the various DEI groups, we talked about the connection between culture and hair, which was a very rich conversation, we looked at the marketing materials and started talking about, how do we want to present this product?

[00:09:08] Franchesca: And what does that mean? and so it was just a very collaborative initiative, and it started with that one question, and as a result of that, that made the product better, all the teams accepted the feedback and it, at times I’m sure it was not easy hearing that feedback either, but all the teams were open to getting to receiving that feedback, but not only receiving the feedback, acting on it because we truly were bought in and we really wanted to make an inclusive product.

[00:09:43] Franchesca: So, I love telling that story because I feel like that’s the perfect example of how DEI can impact, product, how it impacts and organizations bottom line, and so it’s just a great story to tell,

[00:10:00] Amy: And I’m sure that there was also the catalyst for a lot of conversations that opened people’s eyes.

[00:10:04] Amy: Because hair, especially for black men and women, black people in general, I shouldn’t be gender binary about that, but black hair is a big cultural flashpoint, but it’s also a big topic of discrimination, and this was a way to open that conversation that might have, and probably in some other companies is uncomfortable.

[00:10:27] Amy: For some people who hold power to have an open, honest conversation about why is this important? Why is it important to be on the product? Can you talk a little bit about how does awareness spread from this one question beyond the politic design?

[00:10:40] Franchesca: It’s just so happened, not just so happened because again, everything is intentional, but during this time, so we did this, but also during this time we had black history month.

[00:10:55] Franchesca: And so, the black affinity group we’re doing, various events, and so some of the things that we do is we bring in external speakers so that we can continue learning, as an organization, and as we were thinking about, because we’re always thinking about how are we connecting DEI to what we do as an organization.

[00:11:16] Franchesca: And as I was having that conversation with the affinity group leader, of course, we thought about the hair dryer, and one of the reasons we thought about that is because this was a time where the crown act was getting a lot of awareness, and so we sought out as a speaker, an external speaker to talk about the crown act, because we thought this was a great opportunity to educate employees and also just talk about, what this means, how this plays out with a product that we have made, as an organization.

[00:11:49] Franchesca: So, we brought the external speaker in to talk about the crown at, somewhat, some weren’t aware of it, some were not, and during that conversation that presentation, the speaker also talked about the petition to sign, and so there was just a rich discussion around what is this and what does this mean?

[00:12:07] Franchesca: And why is this important? and some people said, I had no idea that hair discrimination even existed, and so it was just a very rich conversation about that, and then of course, the conversation turned to, does Massachusetts, support is Massachusetts, supporting this? how can we support this?

[00:12:27] Franchesca: What are some actions that we can take? So, it was just really a really rich conversation, but again, this started on one question and we are linking and we are continuing that conversation through the speaking events that we do as part of, a heritage month.

[00:12:47] Franchesca: And so that is just an example of how it can just blossom how it grows, but you do have to be intentional about it as well.

[00:12:57] Amy: I love this story so much, I’m still geeked about it, I’m so glad we get to talk about this. It occurs to me that because your products are in people’s homes. Because so many of your products are in so many people’s homes and home is where culture and tradition are lived and passed down.

[00:13:15] Amy: It’s not just a hair dryer, right? The way food is prepared, the way homes are cleaned, the kind of the surfaces that exist in people’s homes to clean the textures of the food, I’m thinking about my blender, and the, and how a puree in India may not be the same as a puree in Massachusetts and how those textures are so important.

[00:13:37] Amy: Because when they’re not right, and it’s an intergenerational experience people notice and it feels in-authentic, even if they’ve made it themselves. It, to me, this is, it’s just such a beautiful story of interweaving the internal diversity, making sure people feel included and empowered, making sure that the consumer base is represented inside.

[00:13:58] Amy: Leading not just to your own internal processes, but to broader advocacy and education. It’s just a remarkable microcosm of what’s possible when the work is done intentionally and systemically.

[00:14:08] Franchesca: Exactly, yeah. I talk about intentionality all the time, because nothing just happens, and that is part of my job. That’s, my role is to connect, DEI to everything is to see those opportunities and help others see those opportunities as well, and you do, you have to be intentional about this work, right? And so that is also why we know, or we haven’t taken our foot off.

[00:14:40] Franchesca: Is why we continue to focus on DEI as an organization is why we also say to associates that this isn’t just a one-time thing. This is something that we continue to do, and it has to be built into every decision that we are making. So, it goes to being transparent, about policies and processes.

[00:15:03] Franchesca: It goes to having to revise some of those policies and processes to ensure that, we are being equitable. So, you are absolutely right, and I have another good story for you, Amy, it’s a story that I didn’t tell you, but I have another good story because when you started talking about food, also, which is interesting during black history month, we brought in an external speaker who actually was an ex shark ninja employee, but she had, she has since left the company to start her own catering business.

[00:15:37] Franchesca: So, we brought her back in to talk, and she’s a, and she’s vegan, and so she came in and she did a cooking demonstration using shark ninja products, of course, but she did a cooking demonstration about, being vegan, and again, that is something, when you thinking about DEI, I think a lot of people think about that.

[00:15:59] Franchesca: The narrow definition of DEI sometimes, so people only think about race and gender, age, so those typical things, but when you are thinking about DEI, it means so much more. So, it also means, providing a platform to talk about like diet restrictions or food restrictions and, bringing in the variety, the different, the variety of food and, for example, but we brought her in to do a cookie demonstration using our product.

[00:16:30] Franchesca: Talk about vegan, cooking, where that started, why that’s important, to her personally, but also to her culture as well, because she’s shared a piece of her culture with us. So, it’s just, it’s so much you can do. It’s so much you can do, and I can talk all day about DEI.

[00:16:48] Amy: I love it. I could too, and I loved what you said about being intentional because, a lot of times when I’m working with corporate clients or speaking to conference audiences, one of the messages that I give them is you’re making decisions all day, whether you realize it or not. Don’t you think you could make better decisions if you were doing it on purpose, and that’s really what you’re talking about is looking at all of those little decisions that people make and making them with intention, with purpose with this notion that we need to include as many perspectives as possible. So we can come up with the best product, and ultimately, for the company when in the market, the why is a little bit different for every organization, but that, that need to.

[00:17:27] Amy: Solve problems from a variety of perspectives, so that we’re not going back and bolting something on at the end, if we make it part of what we’re doing, if we, like you said, infuse it in, it makes the whole process better, it makes us better, it connects us more effectively and more personally, in a very human way.

[00:17:45] Franchesca: Yeah, exactly. Like thinking about it at the, from the start, that is really the goal that we all want to achieve thinking about it to be at the beginning. But if you don’t think about it, then don’t be afraid to course correct either. So, it is fine, if it is oh, I completely missed that, but don’t just say I completely missed that and don’t act on it, say, I missed that.

[00:18:10] So now I’m going to go back and correct it. So, it’s also giving ourselves grace, allowing ourselves some grace to get it right, because you’re not going to always get it right the first time, but so we have to remember to allow grace, to be able to get it right, to do it differently, to course correct.

[00:18:32] Amy: Absolutely, and just saying that calls people into the conversation, that might have been afraid of it, or might have stood out from it out, apart from it, and seen it as someone else’s job or someone else’s issue or, someone else, benefits from, but really the reality is we all benefit and it should be everyone’s job.

[00:18:47] Amy: And so, I’m just, I’m so grateful for the stories that you tell for the work that you’re doing. Franchesca, thank you so much for being on the show.

Franchesca: Thank you, Amy.

[00:19:46] Amy: That’s it for this week’s episode of including you join me next week when my guest will be Carolina Veira from CareMax.

#IncludingYouPodcast Interview with Wanda Lee Florestine

Interview Transcript

[00:00:48] Amy: Welcome back to including you. I’m your host, Amy C Waninger. My guest today is Ms. Wanda Lee Florestine. She is the talent and acquisition director of grid alternatives.org grid is an entrepreneurial high growth nonprofit organization that provides solar installation and project development, clean mobility options, workforce training and service learning opportunities and low income solar policy advocacy employing around 400 people.

[00:01:16] Amy: Grid alternatives works locally through eight affiliate offices to serve families in California, Colorado in the Mid-Atlantic region. They also have an international program serving Nicaragua, Nepal, and Mexico, and a tribal program serving families nationwide. Wanda, welcome to the show.

Wanda: Thank you, Amy. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:33] Amy: I am so excited to talk to you. I’ve already met with someone who works in energy policy at the federal level, and then having someone who is involved in an organization that does local activism, advocacy, and actual installations and construction is really exciting to me.

[00:01:53] Amy: And I’m sure to my viewers and listeners as well. I’m wondering if you can tell me why is a focus on inclusion so important to Grid.

[00:02:02] Wanda: We have to include everyone. There’s no energy revolution without everybody being a part of that equation. We need to make affordable solar and renewable energy opportunities available so that everyone can participate in.

[00:02:18] Wanda: Everyone can have a hand in helping our climate. All the impacts that we’re having currently on the climate to, to not escalate, but to hopefully level them off and renew some of them in some cases,

[00:02:33] Amy: It’s interesting, as you were saying that it occurred to me. We don’t all live in the same world, but we do all live on the same planet.

[00:02:39] Wanda: Very much true.

[00:02:41] Amy: And I’m curious, is there a focus for grid on helping the inside of the organization reflect and represent the constituencies that you serve on the outside of the organization as well.

[00:02:56] Wanda: Yes, we definitely wanted to move away from what has been called the savior, white savior syndrome and make sure that we are listening to our clients and also reflecting them internally as well.

[00:03:09] Wanda: So, we’ve done a few things, a number of things actually starting well actually before our director of equity, inclusion and diversity, and we call it equity, inclusion and diversity versus DEI, which is what’s out more popular now, but we call it E I D because. If we have equity and we have inclusion, then you’re gonna have diversity.

[00:03:30] Wanda: We have been consistently for the last six or seven years working to include first women in construction, that was the first leg of this journey, and then once we hired our director of EID we implemented several programs not all at once. We had a strategic flow of how things were going to be implemented into each area of our organization so that folks can get educated on why we even want to do this and why it is very important to the business and also to the health of our nation and the climate.

[00:04:07] Amy: And so, a lot of the work that you’ve done around your hiring practices has really been fueled by a focus first on equity, then on inclusion and ultimately in diversity, can you talk about some of the changes that you made to attract people into the organization? That may not seem like a big deal, but really gave you amazing results.

[00:04:30] Wanda: Yes, we’re doing a lot around how we per, how we are perceived to the public. So, we speak out about current political things that are occurring. We talk openly about that on our website. We have written several op-eds I guess, for lack of a better term about our thoughts, about why we either agree or disagree.

[00:04:51] Wanda: Current event had happened. Additionally, we looked at how we post our jobs and how inviting an actual job description is to a particular candidate that maybe didn’t go to an Ivy league college, or didn’t have, great succession of corporate jobs in their history. So, we decided a few things about the job description and one of them was and this is like an easy fix for a lot of people.

[00:05:13] Wanda: We, a lot of companies publish their AAEOC statements near the bottom of their job description, and it always feels like for me, especially as a person of a woman and a person of color, it feels like an afterthought or I we’re just putting this here because we have to put it here. We moved it into the description of who we are higher up on the job description, because it is important for us to include everyone and to make opportunities available to everyone.

[00:05:38] Wanda: So, we just by repositioning that piece and embedding it into our mission, it was just really very powerful I think, and I’ve heard from candidates that have applied that they really like the, our emphasis on equity and inclusion. Another thing that we did was really look at the job descriptions and decide are any of these really required to have a bachelor’s.

[00:06:00] Wanda: Degree or a master’s degree which we know that has been a tool to block access in some cases like do you have people in outreach that absolutely need a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree to go out and talk to people? That’s an easy answer, great, no construction, same thing, there’s some skills that you need to have.

[00:06:19] Wanda: We’re not saying that, anyone can walk in and get a job. You need to come with something, but we need to know that we wanted to, to our potential job seekers to know that you don’t necessarily need a bachelor’s degree in order to get a job and not just an entry level job, again, you may be able to get that without a mid-level job or a management job, even without a bachelor’s degree, if you have history of doing great work.

[00:06:50] Amy: And so, what did that change for you? As you’re looking to hire people into your programs, you have various programs. We’ll talk about those in a second, but everybody’s talking about how hard it is to find qualified people. You made a couple of pretty, they’re significant but small,

[00:07:04] Amy: they’re not huge hurdles that you had to overcome to implement these changes to make significant changes, and what have you seen as a result of that in terms of looking for talent and what you’re finding?

[00:07:13] Wanda: We’re finding that we’re getting applicants across the board. We’re finding that we’re taking time to mark really evaluate resumes and cover letters versus looking for keywords and key schools or key companies and, trying.

[00:07:26] Wanda: Tier them for the top, the next level the third level I’m old school I’ve been recruiting for a couple of decades, and that’s how we were trained to do it. We want the cream of the crop, like we want the best candidate, like, how are we defining best? Can that be expanded now?

[00:07:41] Wanda: We’re in a different place in society and we’re, we have more opportunities that are available for more people of every background. No, there’s no reason that a person with a desire and a work ethic of doing great work and being accountable for the work they’re doing, shouldn’t be able to find employment.

[00:08:01] Amy: And so, you’ve actually seen an increase in applicants, right? Because of all those that you’ve done, and these changes that you’ve made.

[00:08:07] Wanda: We did, we actually as at the end of Q2 for this year, we had the same number of applicants are close to the same number of applicants that we had all in all of last year.

[00:08:18] Wanda: And that’s been very rewarding for the work.

[00:08:22] Amy: Yeah, so just integrating equity into your mission, which makes sense for the work that you do, but then also being more transparent about who’s welcome to apply, who’s encouraged to apply and knocking down some of those barriers.

[00:08:36] Amy: It, I’ve read and I’ve studied that’s quite a bit and it’s seems to be universally true across the board that when people who have been historically excluded from opportunities, the job description, they want to check every box in the requirements and every box in the preferred qualifications, before they even think about submitting a resume and that alone, just that mindset of if I’m not better than.

[00:09:02] Amy: If I’m not living up to the full list, I’m not good enough to be there, they won’t see me as good enough to be there, which I think is probably a more accurate depiction, and to taking some of those check boxes away means people will self select in at a higher rate.

[00:09:19] Wanda: Yeah. It just makes it more friendlier and warmer, we did an experiment too on LinkedIn where we posted just the essence of the job and it was a little bit of word pros thrown in there to make it sound really attractive and engaging, and people responded really well to that as well.

[00:09:35] Wanda: So, it took the stiffness off of it or the, opportunity to incorporate imposter syndrome into your app applied for a job, and I think it removed the fear of not feeling like you’re enough to allow more people to apply.

[00:09:51] Amy: Yeah, and then let’s talk a little bit about the different jobs programs that you have, because you’re not just looking, as you said, for people who are recent college graduates or people who are transferring in from other fields, you’ve got programs.

[00:10:04] Amy: Really across the board, can you talk about some of the programs that you have that are skill building, job, building job creation programs?

[00:10:10] Wanda: There’s, it’s a hodgepodge of different things. We do, solar works program in our Mid-Atlantic region where they find folks to come in through community based organizations to come and get training from grid.

[00:10:23] Wanda: We have an IBT 200 that we develop internally. We are in the process of accrediting as well, and it’s that’s hundred hours of solar work. It’s IBT stands for installation basic training, and the goal for that program is to have people be able to become gainfully employed after they complete the program.

[00:10:42] Wanda: We have our solar core, which is a program similar to the AmeriCorps program where we recruit YI can’t say college graduates cuz it’s not exclusive to college graduates anymore. But we recruit folks that are interested in a fellowship allowed to have an 11th month, 11 months of solar training.

[00:11:00] Wanda: It could be any in any part of the organization, not just construction and installation, it could be outreach, it could be operations, it could be workforce development. So, they get a real hands-on all-in opportunity, paid opportunity to learn solar. For 11 months is a 11-month job interview or audition for the program.

[00:11:20] Wanda: And that’s been very successful. The cohort for 2021, 22, just completed at the end of July, and we ended up hiring 20 of those folks full time. So, they’re now full-time employees at grid. We have, did I say women in construction programs that we’ve will do they’re more like events.

[00:11:38] Wanda: It’s not an actual program yet, except we’re moving in that direction as well. So, they’re more women will look at this industry as an opportunity for their careers as well, and I’m forgetting the others, but there’s yeah, and we’re always open for more. We have our solar program as well, where we have trainees there that are learning how to do solar.

[00:11:59] Wanda: So, it’s been expanding, it’s been great, it’s we have solar spring break for college kids to get an introduction to come instead of going to Miami or Mexico they can come and learn solar for a week, which is really cool, and then we have solar careers, I think that’s what it’s called for high school students where we’ll go into high schools to introduce solar careers to them as well.

[00:12:22] Amy: Yeah. That’s a different kind of fun in the sun for spring break than I think most college students have on their mind. But I think it’s great that, that you’ve got these programs at all different levels because, the work that you do touches so many industries, so many it’s engineering, it’s energy, it’s public policy construction.

[00:12:38] Amy: Trades, there’s just so much going on. Plus, all the back-office stuff that keeps all of that going. The marketing and the operations and the outreach, like you said.

[00:12:46] Wanda: Yeah, and there’s some designs. So, we do have college graduates. I’m a college graduate, we have, I don’t know what percentage of our employees are, but definitely we do have that as well, but there’s the mix of everyone.

[00:12:56] Wanda: So that, that is what makes it really great and dynamic, I think.

[00:13:00] Amy: And just having all of those different perspectives inside the organization at the same time, because I’m sure when the designers are thinking about, from their perspective, what needs to happen on a project, they’re probably missing a lot in terms of.

[00:13:14] Amy: The people that will be using the product or the people that will have to install it and how, or, how it’ll have to be distributed or shipped or, preserved or stored or maintained, so there’s a lot of different perspectives that need to come to the table.

[00:13:26] Amy: To do what you’re doing in sustainable energy itself, sustainable.

[00:13:31] Wanda: Exactly. Yeah, it’s there’s a lot, and it’s great to have as many perspectives as we have, cuz you’re not just, in the echo chamber or just in your bubble or your silo of how things are done. You get to have that opportunity for diverse voices and diverse perspectives and it just makes a better gumbo.

[00:13:52] Amy: Well, and it makes us a more resilient nation as well, because we’ve already seen with the effects of climate change with, the lack of investment in infrastructure for the last few decades. Hopefully some of that’s turning around now, an overreliance on non-renewable energy sources for more decades than we should have had, all of that comes together to be.

[00:14:13] Amy: A problem, and a problem that feeds upon itself and makes itself bigger. And what you’re doing is not only important for the people that you’re hiring and the communities you serve, but for all of us who live on this planet. So, I’m just so grateful that organizations like this exist to do this work in really not just philosophical, theoretical, ways, but really practical solar panels on roof and, design and construction that matters.

[00:14:41] Wanda: Yeah. Yeah, I saw a colleague post. I didn’t get to read it, I just saw the headline that she, I think it was her five-year anniversary here at grid, and she was posting about the solar core fellows that, applications are open now for the next cohort that starts in September.

[00:14:58] Wanda: And she said that it changed her life and I wanted, I tagged it, so I could go back and read it to read what she wrote cuz because it, it really does impact people in so many ways.

[00:15:09] Amy: And just having people go through the program, even if they don’t stay in the industry or stay with the organization, you’re creating an awareness campaign that can filter out into communities and can filter out into advocacy in other places.

[00:15:21] Amy: And, just creating an awareness people can keep that top of mind wherever they go than I would imagine.

[00:15:27] Wanda: Yeah. That’s how the recycling trend started. It’s like people were made aware. All these things can be reused, they don’t have to be thrown away, and then more and more people started doing it.

[00:15:37] Wanda: So, the more people that know about solar and understand how it works is it’s been around for a long time, and we’ve got solar in space for the last 50 years or so, and so the more that folks know about it and how it works, then the more, the less I don’t know, , if frightening is the word or the less fear there is about learning more about it and using it and applying it wherever they can.

[00:15:59] Amy: Yeah, I think there’s so much resistance because people have not been educated, they don’t have basic understanding of the science of what solar power does and how, how the power stored and the cost savings, and besides that, there are a lot of programs. I’m sure that you take advantage of, but also that you create, they can help offset the cost of converting to solar or adding solar onto homes and businesses across the country.

[00:16:25] Amy: There are ways to do this that are very cost effective and the long-term savings are significant.

[00:16:29] Wanda: They are, and also, with the increase of the now the clean mobility areas that we, and programs that we currently have we’re allowing for folks that may not be able to benefit from having solar installed on the roof, but maybe you can benefit by trading in your combustible engine for an EV or a hybrid.

[00:16:48] Wanda: And we have programs where folks are giving grants to do that, to go in, and I think up to, I wanna say up to $5,000, it could be slightly less or more. I’m not sure what the exact number is and what the scale is, but there’s opportunities for people to move away from combustible engines to more clean, renewable electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles.

[00:17:12] Amy: Yeah, and we’re seeing the effects of having waited so long we’re seeing homes being destroyed by floods and fires and it would be hard at this point to deny that climate change is not just imminent but happening right now, and the more we can do individually, collectively, and at a policy level, the longer we get to live here.

[00:17:35] Amy: Because there’s not a whole lot of other places for us to go, and the inequities that result from that because it, it seems there’s always a threshold of access and wealth that allows people to escape certain problems. At some point though, we don’t have another planet to live on and this is going to affect everyone at some point, it won’t affect everyone equally.

[00:17:56] Amy: I think the work that you’re doing to build equity into the and equity into the work is really important because that helps, level the impact for some people that may not have access independently.

[00:18:11] Wanda: Yeah, and it, it becomes more common and not something that only certain income levels can afford.

[00:18:17] Wanda: The sun is for everyone. I like saying it.

[00:18:18] Amy: The sun is for everyone. Absolutely, Wanda, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the show for sharing what you’re doing that’s working. A lot of times I hear from people in nonprofits that say, we just can’t find people and clearly you have found the right formula, the right chemistry to make this happen, so that you can continue to expand.

[00:18:38] Wanda: Yeah I, yeah, that one to me, that one’s like kids on a playground that are underage and can’t drive yet are asking each other for, do you have a driver’s license? Whereas folks, if you’re only asking your current networks for.

[00:18:52] Wanda: Other people to hire and to diversify your talent pool, then you need to expand that, ask, I I’m available and you can call me. I’ll help you out. We have opportunities to refer people to various organizations, but there’s so much talent out. There’s no shortage of.

[00:19:10] Wanda: There’s no shortage of diverse talent.

[00:19:13] Amy: That is absolutely true. It’s all about where are you casting your line? What waters are you casting your lines into?

Wanda: Yeah, the that’s good analogy too.

Amy: Thank you so much, Wanda. I appreciate your time today.

[00:19:24] Wanda: Thank you, Amy.

[00:20:15] Amy: That’s it for this week’s episode of including you join me next week when my guest will be Francesca Carrington. From shark ninja