Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Journey, Not a Moment in Time

Last month, we took pause to celebrate Black History Month, honoring the contributions Black people have made to our country. And while the value of diversity and inclusion in the workplace has made great strides since Black History Month’s inception in 1926, there is still more work to be done. Building a more diverse workforce and environment that offers equal opportunity for success, needs to remain a focus, not just in February, but year-round.

At CDP, we believe the focused effort needed to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is truly a journey, not just a moment in time. Our goals are constantly evolving to identify barriers to success and eliminate them as they arise. In the past couple of years, CDP has learned valuable lessons on our journey. We’re happy to share our experiences in the hopes that you find them helpful in your own efforts, just as we continue to learn from stations as they navigate diversity in their own shops.

Conducting Staff Surveys

This past fall, CDP conducted a staff survey to gauge sentiment on DEI in our workplace. The results allowed us to identify opportunities for improvement and gain insight on specific ideas from staff for initiatives that could help us reach our goals.

Incorporating DEI Goals

In the summer of 2020, CDP incorporated two specific DEI-centric goals into our company-wide OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). The first: improve recruitment efforts to create a more diverse workplace. The second: identify and remove any inadvertent barriers to success for our underrepresented talent.

Results of the fall 2021 survey provided a tangible mechanism to evaluate the success of these OKRs. In addition to our executive team defining company goals within strategic planning efforts, the summer of 2020 also saw the staff-inspired creation of the DEI Advisory Committee, with the goal to expand voices and conversations around concrete initiatives to help ensure DEI values are applied to our everyday work.

Creating Community and Connection

From the onset, a critical component to our DEI work has been the need to create a sense of community and connectedness which is a key driver of the “inclusion” component of DEI. But, like many workplaces during the pandemic, our staff continues to work remotely, which makes connecting with coworkers through conversations at lunch or in the hallway a thing of the past.

To address this barrier, the employee-driven DEI Advisory Committee created a dedicated communication channel where staff can post updates on DEI efforts, form connections through shared life experiences and celebrate cultural holidays. The Advisory Committee is also beginning to institute a series of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), comprised of cross-departmental team members, dedicated to fostering that sense of inclusion and connectedness.

Expanding Geographic Reach

Although remote work presents its challenges, there has been a silver lining in allowing for expanded hiring outside of the Boston area. CDP now has over 25% of our workforce outside of our Massachusetts headquarters, with staff residing in 16 states. Being able to tap into strong talent from across the US, with so many different backgrounds and experiences, has afforded us the opportunity to gain a far more diverse perspective.

A Change in Focus

As CDP Leadership and the DEI Advisory Committee began their work, the first goal was to publish a clear statement regarding our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion — now published on CDP’s website — along with a concerted effort to change our recruitment approach.

While expanding visible and nonvisible diversity within our workforce is a focus, our commitment to hiring the strongest candidates with the skills needed to serve our partner stations remains the same. To achieve this balance, we’ve modified job descriptions to incorporate language that reflects CDP as a place of inclusion, as well as place a greater emphasis on experience as a qualification. Additionally, we’ve broadened our outreach methods to better target strong talent within underrepresented groups. We’ve begun the process of educating ourselves on how responses to interview questions can have different interpretations and that just because a candidate’s experience does not match the prior norm, that experience can still serve as a strong indicator of the needed skills and competencies which drive our success. These steps have proven effective, creating a dramatic increase in our applicant base, and advancing us towards our goal of achieving stronger diversity.

Results, Next Steps and Challenges

CDP has made meaningful progress, increasing staff from underrepresented groups by 100% since December 2019. Seeing this increase in diversity is encouraging, and initial efforts seem to be paying off, but there are still many more areas to address, including the need for greater diversity within CDP leadership. In fact, 85% of staff who took the DEI survey chose increasing diversity within leadership as a desired initiative. We are making progress on that front as well, welcoming greater diversity at the Board level in 2021, which has allowed us to offer fresh perspectives to guide CDP as we continue to expand our services. But, as is the case with this whole journey, much more needs to be done.

At CDP, maintaining our commitment to current employees and recognizing their efforts and successes by promoting from within is of upmost importance. While this is something we’re proud of, it presents a challenge, as many of the open roles are, by definition, more junior. So, while we are making strides in our diversity hiring, one challenge we face is how to balance promoting from within (from a historically nondiverse team) to hiring diversity within leadership roles. We do not have an easy answer for this challenge, but it is one that we are collectively working to address.

As we move forward, CDP is enlisting a DEI consultant who will assist with identifying new ways to improve both our recruitment efforts at all levels and help guide us as we work to eliminate barriers to success. The consultant will also lead staff in trainings and workshops to help us understand the importance of diversity and how we can continue to infuse our everyday work with greater awareness on the DEI objectives.

Our Diversity Statement

To reiterate CDP’s diversity statement — at CDP we believe everyone has something incredible to contribute. By building a dynamic and diverse community, we will be able to approach our work of serving public media stations from all angles and develop new strategies by hearing from the most diverse perspectives.