Becky Evan – How White DEI Professionals Can Decenter Whiteness

Connect with Becky:

• 

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Becky's Full Research Paper
• DEI Consulting
• HR Data Labs Season 7 Episode 13
• HR Data Labs Season 7 Episode 11

• “I felt like there was a desire and a need to understand the role of dominant culture . . . within an organization”
• “Many times when we’re looking at [HR] data, dominant culture becomes the comparison point.”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host David Turetsky alongside my friend, trusty co-host and colleague from Salary.com, Dwight Brown, Dwight, how are you?

 

Dwight Brown: 0:56

I'm good. How you doing David?

 

David Turetsky: 0:58

I'm good. Hey, Dwight, I heard a rumor that you got something brand new that you saw for the first time today.

 

Dwight Brown: 1:05

It was like Christmas today, or last night when I picked it up. The I am the new owner have a pair of the Apple Vision Pro VR goggles or I think they're calling them AR goggles at this point.

 

David Turetsky: 1:19

Hashtag jealous.

 

Dwight Brown: 1:21

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 1:22

They are crazy cool. And our guests for today, Becky Evan, had actually seen them. We actually had given a Dwight had given a demonstration of them. Becky, what did you think about Dwight's new Christmas present?

 

Becky Evan: 1:35

Oh, I thought it was really cool. Thank you for sharing it with us. It was it was also awesome just to see how lifelike the Avatar was when you popped into the meeting. So I'm excited to see where this technology takes us!

 

David Turetsky: 1:52

Blew us away, Dwight!

 

Dwight Brown: 1:53

Totally it is, there's so much potential with this and a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Takes you to a totally different world. But it was fun being able to be able to try them on Teams, like you said, the avatar and a lot of craziness.

 

David Turetsky: 2:10

So we're gonna put a picture of that in the show notes, so you can see how actual crazy cool this thing is.

 

Dwight Brown: 2:14

See, that's what I love most about it is that it And you're gonna be like, Well, isn't that just a picture of Dwight from 10 years ago? No, that's Dwight today. made me younger.

 

David Turetsky: 2:27

Dude, your spirit is already younger. But we're not talking about that today, we're gonna be talking with Becky. So Becky, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to today.

 

Becky Evan: 2:35

Yeah, thank you so much for having me here. I'm really excited to be here. Today, I'm an associate professor at Metro State University, which is based in Minnesota, it's part of the Minnesota State four year university system. And I teach in the College of Business and Management there. Prior to academia, I was a training and operations executive in Fortune 500 companies. I led things from compliance training to supply training, finance training, so lot lots of different backgrounds in various HR areas. In this role in in higher ed, which has been a shift for me. So I'm entering my fifth year and still feeling like I'm figuring out what is higher ed since I was in corporate for so long. But my focus is really on researching and also teaching DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion within organizations. And so that led us here to some of the research that a team that I'm on published last year.

 

David Turetsky: 3:42

And when we get to the topic, I think everybody's going to be quite interested because it's going to be a different take, one that we've never had on this program. So we're very excited to talk about it. But first, we always do this, we have to ask Becky, what's one fun thing that no one knows about you?

 

Becky Evan: 3:59

Yeah, so I actually really thought about this and tried to pick something that I've never shared before. So to be fair, my family knows this about me, but I am a bad driver. I am! I am a horrible driver. And I don't know if it's because I grew up in California and so I never really learned to be graceful on the road? Or learn to go over 20 miles per hour maybe because I was always stuck in traffic. But now that I'm in the Midwest, I'm like, Oh, wow, I'm really bad at this. And people in the Midwest, they love driving. Like why would we fly to Chicago? That's an eight hour drive! And I would have never said that living in California. But no, I'm just bad. So most of the time, my wife will gently say "hey, how about I drive?" and I know that's her way it's saying, I've had enough of your like, follow hands, my eyes fell on my hands. You know, yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 4:54

That's how you know she loves you, by the way.

 

Dwight Brown: 4:56

Well, you would do fine down here in Phoenix, because everybody talks about the California drivers down here in Phoenix, and I gotta say, ever since moving here, I have to agree. California drivers are the worst. I don't know what happens over there in that state, but.

 

Becky Evan: 5:11

I don't either! And I didn't know it until they

 

Dwight Brown: 5:12

Hang your hand out the window? moved somewhere. And it was probably three years and my wife says, "Do you ever turn on a turn signal?" And I just didn't realize that I wasn't using a turn signal! And in California

 

David Turetsky: 5:29

Are you sure you're not from Rhode Island?

 

Becky Evan: 5:31

Oh, is that a Rhode Island thing too?

 

David Turetsky: 5:33

They never use turn signals. And if they do, it's after they, they're passing you at 95 miles an hour.

 

Becky Evan: 5:38

It's like an FYI, I just passed you. Yeah, it's so funny. Things I just didn't notice until I lived somewhere else.

 

David Turetsky: 5:46

Well, it was a very brave thing for you to admit. And so we really appreciate that. Tesla sales people with the self driving cars are about to call you.

 

Becky Evan: 5:57

I'm their target audience. They're like, yes, this will be safer for everyone if this is what drives. Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 6:04

So our topic for today is a fascinating one. If you follow the HR Data Labs podcast at all, you've noticed that over the last three seasons, at least, we've spoken about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging probably, I'm not trying to make anything up here at least 30 or 40 times. But today, we're going to take somewhat of a different take on it and it's going to be a fascinating discussion. Today, we're gonna be talking about qualitative data from a study that Becky and her colleagues had done on white DE&I professionals. So our first question, Becky, is what led to your research on those people who identify as white on DE&I teams?

 

Becky Evan: 6:57

Yeah, thanks. And I agree, it is a unusual topic. And so I'm really happy to dig in with you and talk to listeners after afterwards as well, because I am curious about how we can begin to unpack DEI and the impacts of DEI within organizations. And so this research with the research team, we started talking about this after the murder of George Floyd. And I'm in Minneapolis and that was, you know, it hasn't stopped. We've seen murders before, we're seeing murders after, and as researchers, we were like, "What can we do?" And we felt like it was important to really begin digging in and try to understand how all of these organizations, and again, we saw them in Minneapolis that were coming forward, and committing millions of dollars, think of the Targets, the Best Buys the 3Ms, these are all in Minnesota, right? And trying to understand like, what really is going to change the culture within organizations? And as a white researcher, I really, I really felt like I needed to think ethically about what is my role in this research. And is my role to talk to marginalized, underserved racial minorities, and understand their lived experience? And I just didn't feel like that was my role. I feel like there are researchers that have been doing that work for years and years. And I wasn't sure if us knowing that information would actually make the change that we want to see. As I was doing research, it was really around looking at who holds the power within organizations, who holds up status quo, what does this look like? And I felt like there was a desire and a need to really want to understand the role of dominant culture. So those who identify as white, those that are in positions that can in fact make changes for individuals, whether that's the policies, procedures, informal rules within an organization. And so, after about a year of going through the literature, we landed on, why don't we talk to those who are white in DEI teams? So the which is a majority, at least it was when we did research. I know there's been a lot of changes with DEI teams, a majority of DEI leaders identify as white. A majority of people on DEI teams also identify as white and so one we had a question about that in general!

 

David Turetsky: 9:49

Right.

 

Becky Evan: 9:50

Is that the way, is that the most effective way? And why, like how did folks begin to join DEI teams? What what's their training been like? What has been the role navigating multiple different in group out of group experiences? It's, you know, social identities. And so that that's really kind of where we started with the research and the research that we did. And so over the course of 18 months, we interviewed 16 people throughout the United States, many in Fortune 500 companies, and asked them, okay, tell us, tell us about your experience. How did you get on a DEI team? What do you see as your role? How does? How does being white help or hinder your experience and breaking down the structures that are not beneficial for all employees? And it was a pretty enlightening experience.

 

David Turetsky: 10:43

Becky, can I can I ask a question on that? So? So obviously, when we talk about DEI&B, we're talking about a few different things, not only we will be talking about race, we're talking also about ethnicity, gender identity, we're talking about disability or other statuses? When you did this, you were specifically focusing on I'll say, non Latino, non Latinx populations, who identified as white, correct? There weren't, and I guess the other the other part of that question is, as I'm trying to peel back, you weren't filtering on other things like mental disability, gender diversity, or other things. It was just strictly race and ethnicity that you were focusing on?

 

Becky Evan: 11:27

That's correct. And and I think that we allowed participants to that opted in, to identify themselves. And I think that even that presented a really interesting conversation, because so even though we all were sitting at the table, saying, Okay, we identify as white, we did unpack that a little bit on a on a DEI team, and really did everything we could to find a diversity within that. Meaning, we did have gender diversity. So we realize we were interviewing a majority women and so we intentionally reached out to ensure that we had gender balance between men and women. We also looked at age, we found initially, we were interviewing lots of individuals under 35. And so how can we do this all over the United States? So those in the South, on the West Coast. In the South was actually one of the harder areas to find participants, but we did. And then one thing that that was interesting is that as we were going through this interview, and hearing how people got connected to DEI, people started to reveal, I identify as LGBT, I identify as Jewish, I identify as a vet, down the list, right, of these initiatives. And so I think we had a pretty robust conversation with the, with the participants around, Okay, so how, how do you? How do you bring that to a DEI team? And how, how does or doesn't that impact anti-racism initiatives? How has that helped? So if you identify as a marginalized individual, how has that helped you in your work? Or not? So we we had a lot of those discussions as well. Because I think whiteness that's the hardest, one of the hardest things about whiteness is defining it.

 

David Turetsky: 13:24

Oh, absolutely. It's, it's really a rainbow. There's, you know, people don't realize their past, they don't realize their ancestry. They identify as something, but they may not even know that that's actually not even true, unless they did much more research. So, but but I think where you're trying to get to is culturally.

 

Becky Evan: 13:44

Yes, culturally. And so in our, in our paper we talked about both, right? So I think there's this idea of, if I can link my ancestry to Europe, then I'm white. So we found that in the research, but then to your point, there was this cultural element. And I think as we're seeing individuals who are immigrating into the United States, moving from countries identifying as white, it's really quite like we're questioning like, Okay, what is this whiteness now? I say that as a white person, because when I talk to my colleagues of color, they feel very crisp on what whiteness is. And so, so I do want to really give that caveat that this was talking about whiteness with individuals who are white, who are defining what whiteness is, and the ones who are responsible for moving this definition around and so that was also another part of our conversation.

 

Announcer: 14:42

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David Turetsky: 14:54

Which probably gets very emotional or heated in some ways. And I think what you are trying to do is look at it ethically, look at it more discreetly, and look at it objectively, and be able to try and put parameters around it, because what you are trying to do is study something, not try and introduce, maybe maybe I'm reaching here you see, I actually have a question at the end.

 

Becky Evan: 15:21

Yes.

 

David Turetsky: 15:21

You weren't reaching, trying to reach conclusions that were necessarily trying to trying to be provocative. You were trying to reach an understanding, correct?

 

Becky Evan: 15:34

Yeah, agreed. And, and this is just a little bit about, you know, me and my lens. One thing that I have found very frustrating about some DEI initiatives is, results will be something like, women need to be more assertive, or women need to negotiate more, or people of color need to make more eye contact or something like that. And that really places the blame on those individuals, that there's something that I'm doing wrong in the environment. And so I think with this research, it

 

Dwight Brown: 16:07

I guess the question comes to my head, when was really around looking at the environment through the lens of people that have power in the environment that are also you know, when you look at this from a white perspective, but actively working to change the environment. Because like all groups, whiteness is not a monolith. And I think with all groups, we treat them as a monolith to be fair. And and I you also take in all those other dimensions. Did, did you have a think that trying to understand dominant culture, trying to understand what it is and how it operates, will then allow us to challenge in terms of the way that I view myself, versus the begin to break it down to begin to say, this isn't working, or how this this person or how this group is doing it within this organization is working, let's continue to do that. Because I way that people look at me from the outside, and the conclusions think DEI is so nuanced. I can give you 10 tips of things to do in an organization, but your culture in your organization, that come with that? Because, you know, the way that I would the experience of your leaders, completely changes if that will work or not. And that has been one of the hardest things about this. And so doing this qualitative research was really view myself, like you say, some people don't dig into their trying to get us down to how do we get into the nuances? How do we get into the minutia? The things maybe we don't talk about? ancestry, I actually have Native American ancestry way down the line, not, not much. But I could view myself from that lens. But if you'd lined me up next to several individuals, they would look and they'd say, he's white. And so did you see different conclusions and experiences from looking in versus looking out? I guess, is what my question is?

 

Becky Evan: 18:23

Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And I think that that was one really tricky element of this is how, how do we center whiteness in order to get to decentering whiteness? Because we had to talk about this, what is this whiteness? What is your identity? What are these experiences that led you to this? Now, the one, the one thing that is unique is that everybody that we talked to was connected to a DEI team. And so they this group talked a lot about their in group identity of being white, but that they all had some sort of out group identity. Even the there were, there was a 55 year old, white heterosexual male and our group who does DEI, he had out group identities. And so we talked a lot about that, and how that gets navigated when we're talking about race or DEI in general. So I do, I think it's something worth talking about. I also think that it's an and this is just for myself, in my experience and those that I interviewed, it can be really uncomfortable because I'm talking to people who really want to break down some systems to make it more equitable for others. And they identify as white so they see their power in the system, and that can be really hard to talk about. I think that there is this acknowledgement, even in myself like, I know that I have biases. I know that I was raised to make decisions that I'm not necessarily proud of on paper, and how do I work through that, and keep trying to do what I believe is the right thing or the next best thing within organizations for everybody. And, and I think in to talk about that in a lens of of whiteness, with the hope of understanding this to begin to break it down. So we can decenter the dominant experience in workplaces and begin to create equality.

 

David Turetsky: 20:36

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well, you're in luck, we have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast, or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today. So Becky, our third question, let me throw something out at you. So how do we measure this? Where are the analytics with this? So you've created some really cool research, we can learn more about ourselves from understanding it. How do we measure this?

 

Becky Evan: 21:19

Yeah, I mean, that's the, that's the million dollar question. I think that's the question that a lot of folks in DEI are really interested in understanding. And there's some really great researchers out there that are looking at these inclusion measurements. And so for this research, which is a little different as qualitative. And and I think a lot of our collectively, a lot of our HR data is quantitative, we're looking at turnover rates, we're looking at retention rates are looking at recruitment rates. Employee engagement, in many ways, it's also a survey, some sort of annual cultural survey or engagement survey that we ask. And so as I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about, like, what could people do, qualitative in itself could be one of the measurements. And the other question that that I challenge us to think through is, how are we using the data from those that identify as members in dominant culture? And so many times when we're looking at recruitment data, employee engagement data, dominant culture becomes the comparison point. So we're looking to see, okay, are women more engaged than men? Are those who identify as white more engaged than those who don't identify as white or pick pick a group? And but then my question becomes that that that group that identifies in white as white holds a lot of power, in many cases, most senior leaders in organizations are in that group. And so what, what is it that we want to know about them, and about the impact that they're having on engagement? And so I encourage, it's a heavy lift, but I encourage qualitative analysis to go alongside any of those supports. Now we have some of those in place, exit interviews, take those for what they're worth, we get a lot of interesting information. But I'm also on my way out the door and maybe angry, and I'm not getting any helpful constructive information.

 

David Turetsky: 23:28

Right.

 

Becky Evan: 23:29

But what would this look like if I, as somebody who's on DEI, or somebody in HR, sitting down with a senior leader and actually saying, like, how do you really feel about this? How do you really feel about employee engagement? How do you really feel about our hiring processes? Do you feel like they're equitable? And what is equitable mean to you? It was really fascinating to ask people, their thoughts and their experiences with senior leaders. And I think it's it's listening for things like if I'm talking to a senior leader, and they say something along the lines of, hey, I'll hire anybody, I just care about the best candidate. And on the surface, that sounds really good, but it actually needs to be dug in. We need that there's a lot of coded messaging in that, that we need to unpack and understand what that means in our organization. These are very hard conversations, and a lot of us don't want to have these in the workplace, but they can help us at least get to what is really happening in our organization with our leadership team.

 

David Turetsky: 24:40

Don't you think that the, there is a I would like to say a social difference in those answers after the SCOTUS opinion on affirmative action?

 

Becky Evan: 24:51

Yeah, we're seeing that all over the place. I was just reading about Alabama, some of the legislation going through Alabama this morning. And I think that? And and I think that some of those and I encourage folks to go back and listen to some some of the speakers that that you've had on, who I think have done a nice job of talking through how do you bridge these conversations? Because I feel like the backlash or the current discourse in some areas, is that talking about DEI is somehow divisive. And that it's somehow, pick wherever you're falling on the issue that somehow someone is getting left behind, because of these policies. Whether we're talking about historically underrepresented communities or white communities, somebody's getting left behind, somebody's getting unfairly treated. And so I think that this work will continue and that many companies see this work as incredibly important. And so I think it's important to understand, do our senior leaders see this as divisive? Do they? I don't know but we have to understand that or where their fears are. There was a lot of discussion around fears and cancel culture in our research. About leaders who, even though they have empathy, and understanding and want to launch an initiative, they feel like if they put out a wrong post somewhere, that they'll lose their entire career. And so talking to senior leaders really helps, helps us begin to understand what are these unspoken barriers that our programs could run up against, that nobody's really talking about. And all of a sudden, things just die and we don't know why. And so qualitative can help us begin to unpack that.

 

David Turetsky: 26:48

My hope is that your research sheds a lens, on the things that we're doing well and the things that we're not. And that gives us an ability to be more aware, and get training on them. As a senior leader in an organization, as a CHRO in an organization, I worry every time I put an email out, or text or Teams message, because I need to, because everything I say and do will be put under a lens. And so I am on a journey, to be not only an ally, but also to learn every day. I make mistakes every day. I say the wrong things every day. And I'm not okay with that. And so I need to learn and I challenge people who I work with, to tell me in an unemotional as much as possible, what'd I do wrong? Yes, I'm a white male. Yes, I'm over 45, way over 45. And I was brought up in a different time. Like to your point before, the the thing I need to do and I need to focus on is be a learner, and ensure that I am sitting or standing where those people are, so that, and when I say those people I mean everybody who's not me, so that I know that the things I do and the things I say impact them in a different way than I perceived them, and be open to it. That my hope is that your research enables people like me to learn more, so I can focus and be better. And that's what I hope those conversations with senior leaders could be. So people who are listening today, you know, and I think you brought this up before Becky, go listen to perspectives from other people go read perspectives. And whether it's from Martine or Jennifer, Jackie, or Becky or other people who have put out lots of thought leadership on this, think about how the things and the things you say and the things you do are perceived. Now look at what your leaders are going through and try and help them understand that. And I think, Becky, if there's one message, you know, that that hopefully you're and I guess the question is, is there a way for us to consume your research so that we can get some of those perspectives?

 

Becky Evan: 29:13

Yeah, absolutely. So right now it is paid. However, if you're going to use it for your personal use, please email me or contact me whatever that looks like and I'm happy to share and I can send you the full article so you can review it. Because David to your point, there are a lot of things that are working!

 

Dwight Brown: 29:32

Right.

 

Becky Evan: 29:32

And there are areas that even the the participants who cared quite passionately about this really saw were not working. And so I think it at least gives us a space to to begin to just another pillar and all the work that has been done by communities of color for decades to begin to understand, okay, what is this whiteness? How can we break it down for the benefit of everybody? Yeah, because I do think it's a learning journey and our participants talked about that extensively. What does this look like to educate myself? What does this look like to educate other people who look like me or might have similar experiences to me? That was a huge part of it. And the other thing that I, that I always share with folks, and so maybe always my shameless plug, if you don't know where to start, start with a professional. Start with talking to somebody who's paid to help you unpack things, because it can be really hard to jump into topics of like, talking about the last time you had a racist experience. Tell me about the last time you were a racist, those are heavy questions. And being vulnerable is a skill, and it takes time. And so if you're like, I don't know where to begin, connect with me, happy to share my paper. I also encourage you just to practice being vulnerable in a space where it's low risk, where it's with somebody who's paid to listen to you and help you process. And, and also beginning to see some of the pain from some of this work. Knowing that understanding that I have hurt people, that's a heavy thing to carry. And as somebody who loves other people like that is one of the worst things for me to do is to hurt other people. And so I think me working through some of that pain allows me to show up in this space and decenter myself, because I've been working through some of my pain. I'm not working through this in a public space with my colleagues of color. And, and so I think that there's lots of different ways to be to begin or to step in or to learn to educate ourselves to educate others. So yeah, thank you for bringing that up, David.

 

Dwight Brown: 31:49

Yeah. Hopefully it inspires a spirit of curiosity, as opposed to a spirit of judgment, whether it be self judgment or judgment of others. It's, the more we're curious, the more that we're willing to learn both about ourselves as well as others. And it sounds like what you're doing is really starting that conversation and giving that safe space. And

 

Becky Evan: 32:08

I hope so.

 

Dwight Brown: 32:10

and the vulnerability piece that you talked about is so, so key to be able to have that spirit.

 

Becky Evan: 32:16

It is. And I like to believe that we all got into HR because people are cool. I mean, I think people are super cool. I think their stories are interesting. I think why people make decisions, I find it fascinating. And so I think it's reminding myself of that like, oh, yeah, that's why I wanted to get in this industry. That's why, because I have this genuine love for people. And I genuinely want them to be successful. And I can get quite jaded when I start looking at reports or hearing why things are going wrong. And it's easy for me to swing like, oh my gosh, people are horrible! But it reminds me like no, people up close are all really cool.

 

David Turetsky: 32:59

Well, we hear about the bad things. We hear about people who are marching in the streets saying hateful things. We don't hear about all the wonderful things like someone volunteering on Presidents Day in a food kitchen, or Martin Luther King Day, you know, helping the homeless or, you know, people who put themselves out there to do the right thing for the right reasons. You don't hear about that, because that's not news. But you hear a lot about the wrong and, you know, I guess your encouragement of doing the right thing is the right thing for you. And making sure that you're good with it. Yeah. So yeah, I love the message. It's wonderful, Becky. Thank you so much. We learned so much today. This was really cool.

 

Becky Evan: 33:52

Thank you. Yeah, please connect if you have questions. I love talking about this stuff, even though it's hard work hard work. I think we're, I think we have a lot of things we can do that will really benefit people and our organizations.

 

David Turetsky: 34:06

So we'll put your your information in the show notes so people can contact you and, and maybe get access to your paper. And thank you. Dwight, thank you for being here.

 

Dwight Brown: 34:17

Thank you. Thanks for joining us, Becky.

 

Becky Evan: 34:20

Thanks for having me.

 

David Turetsky: 34:21

And thank you all for listening. Take care and stay safe.

 

Announcer: 34:24

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