Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Conversica: Transparency Leads to Change

In continuing my commitment to communicate our push for change, Conversica is sharing our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) goals, as well as our progress against those goals. This is a reminder for all of us to continue bringing awareness around the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion for all.

The power of diversity is real. We at Conversica have organized ourselves around nine discrete initiatives—our pillars for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:

1. Conversica’s Employee Days for Diversity: Set annual goals for diversity, equity, and inclusion within our organization each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and revisit those goals mid-year between May 25th (the anniversary of George Floyd’s untimely death) and Juneteenth June 19th.
2. Conversica’s Services for Diversity: Provide minority-owned businesses and charities supporting minority advancement with free augmented workforce solutions.
3. Conversica’s Recruiting for Diversity: Achieve our employee diversity mix targets by requiring a diverse selection of candidates for every role.
4. Conversica’s Training for Diversity: Promote management training on diversity, inclusion, and equality will be provided annually, and maintain zero discrimination complaints/incidents by employees.
5. Conversica’s Community Support for Diversity: Encourage employees to volunteer in external diversity initiatives and reward them for their community service. Conversica will sponsor events and webinars to support our continued education and community participation in diversity, inclusion, and equality topics.
6. Conversica’s Metrics for Diversity: Report Conversica’s progress on its diversity KPIs to employees, and to the public, ultimately holding ourselves accountable with transparency.
7. Conversica’s Retention and Advancement for Diversity: Increase career development for underrepresented group members, as well as retain employees and measure/manage the time and rate of promotions.
8. Conversica’s Trusted Exchange for Diversity: Offer an environment where all ideas are welcomed, and employees feel comfortable and empowered to have discussions about diversity, equity, and inclusion.
9. Conversica’s Ecosystem for Diversity: Enforce our diversity, equity, and inclusion by “firing” customers or partners who don’t adhere to our values. Encourage the use of minority-owned, women-owned, veteran-owned, LGBT-owned, and differently abled-owned businesses as suppliers to Conversica.

We’ve made important strides in each of these areas and continue our efforts for change, equality, and diversity. 

At Conversica, we continue making progress within our employee base from a gender mix, to the ethnicity makeup of our employee population.  We also are continuing to make progress in promoting women and minorities across the organization.  During 2022, 47% of our promotions were female and 28% were people of color.

From a recruiting perspective, we reached out to various universities and organizations that support minority groups to help with our recruiting efforts.  We targeted HBCU schools in the south to promote our openings and build relationships. On Community Events, Conversicans partnered and volunteered at several organizations focused on working to end hunger and homelessness.

Internally, we celebrate diversity in various ways, from hosting virtual events celebrating cultures and diversity (Hispanic History, Pride Month, and Black History month, to name a few) and encourage team members to share experiences on our #Conversica Connects Slack channel. We also hold monthly DE&I meetings to specifically discuss diversity at Conversica. We celebrate and discuss these topics in hopes that all employees at Conversica feel comfortable and included in our culture. It is our way to not only bring awareness around the importance of Diversity, but also to create a culture of employee engagement.    

As part of our commitment to transparency, we are reporting on our progress within Conversica itself. So, here it is…

Let’s set the baseline. How many people within our company contribute to our diversity goals as a company at year-end in 2022? Answer: 196

Here is our progress on gender diversity. Even though, as a company, we have reduced our staff size from the last reported size of 241 to this update at 196, we still attempt to stay focused on our goals. We have a goal of 50% male and 50% female across all functions—the Board, our executive team, our broader leadership team, and the company as a whole.

Here’s where we landed at the end of December 31, 2022. Our company is composed of 62% male and 38% female Conversicans. We have lost 2% in female Conversicans since our last report – namely, a function of a shift in gender mix in the rank and file. See the details across groups below.

Now, the equally important measure of success in our diversity efforts at Conversica—our progress on racial diversity. At the company level, we still have a majority of white workers at 60%, followed by Latinx at 22%, Asian at 12%, and African-American at 3%. As a whole, we lost 2% in ground with non-white workers since our last report. See the details across groups below.

As we continue to grow Conversica, we have aggressive initiatives to drive recruiting and, ultimately, our selection of new team members to achieve our targets for race as follows:

• White: 55%
• Asian: 20%
• Latinx: 15%
• African-American: 10%

In talking to my peers, creating the right pipeline of diverse candidates coupled with blind resumes, and pre-defined interview questions and ranking by role, helps. Also, with fewer requirements around geography should allow us to recruit a richer set of diverse candidates.

If you are a peer CEO reading this, transparency leads to change. So, what are your commitments to much-needed change, and how are you performing against your Diversity & Inclusion goals?

Here’s to diversity as a superpower,
Jim