Episode 18: Equity, Diversity & Inclusion - What is your vision of the world? Salima Bhimani, Chief Strategist and Director of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, Other Bets - Alphabet

Salima shares how her personal, academic and work experience comes together to drive systemic change, asking us to reflect on the world we want to see, our own social capital and the barriers we ourselves face. Describing the importance of addressing equity and unjust outcomes arising in organisational culture and processes, Salima provides examples of how to drive change including the role of managers and the task of baseline analysis in designing ED&I strategy. Calling on all HR Leaders to invest in the capability of the profession to drive long-term change, Salima’s systems-thinking, from the personal to the company-wide and leadership perspectives, is incredibly inspiring and thought provoking. I have huge affinity with Salima’s outlook and approach, feeling more and more which each of our episodes that people leaders and social entrepreneurs have so much in common… Do you agree? Here’s a snapshot of a few things we talked about: [5:03] EI&D as an organisational design question and business challenge to solve, not only for HR to lead [8:18] Re-orienting to address equity – do we have a culture, systems and processes where some people have an unjust outcome because of their social identity? [15:07] Your view of the world you want – what would it look like and who would be included? [23:00] The commonality between People Leaders and Social Entrepreneurs and how we make small choices that create change [26:15] Thinking about our own advantages, our social capital and the assumptions people make – where do we have power and where will we experience barriers? [29:26] Racial equity – using social capital to create change and shifting the burden of change and the role of managers [34:00] Where to start with EI&D strategy – landscape analysis and a baseline [41:37] The opportunity for HR to invest in their own capability to drive long term change. “I love How HR Leaders Change the World” – if that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing our show! This helps us achieve our goal, to reach more of your peers, so we can all contribute to further and faster change. Scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review”. Be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast. We’ll add a bunch of bonus episodes to the feed and, if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out. Subscribe now!