A few words on D&I + tech jerks exposed + people to know in HR + Glassdoor manipulation

What a week. It’s freezing out in NYC and it doesn’t even come close to what’s going on in the midwest. I couldn’t help but think of any individuals or animals not able to seek shelter.

A word on Diversity & Inclusion:
In sunnier news, I met with some great folks this week, like Simon Fenwick, an exec at the 4A’s and expert on Diversity & Inclusion who will be (hopefully) speaking at HR Uncubed this year. His organization produces loads of great events. Like Talent2030 here in NYC.

D&I came up as a major topic at our HR Breakfast yesterday morning as an ongoing challenge in 2019. Lots of interesting dialog on the importance of hiring diversity into leadership and/or focusing your energy on inclusion (which inevitably solves for your diversity problem). A point I hope to one day elaborate on surfaced from Sarah at CaaStle, who recognized that a failure in cognitive diversity is real and damaging to companies as well (and, if you ask me, also to society).

The takeaway: cultural, cognitive and socioeconomic diversity play major parts in a fully inclusive work environment.

I picked up the thread with my pal Lindsey Holmes, who is the Director of Talent at SoulCycle. As a black woman in tech, she agrees with me that there remains an ongoing opportunity for companies and civic representatives to invest heavily and intentionally in the education of those living in marginalized communities so they, too, can participate in the economic vision of the more privileged classes.

Topical: Movie (of the century): Do yourselves a favor and go watch Green Book right this very second.

Related (event): The Korean and Birmingham, Alabama raised female founder of Lever will be at HR Uncubed sharing how her journey and background continues to shape Lever’s product. They’re also picking up the tab for the Day 1 Happy Hour…so don’t miss out.

In other news, but topical when it comes to community, I reconnected with Bethany Crystal after a few years. She’s currently GM at Union Square Ventures and has been discovering powerful ways of helping the USV portfolio solve challenging hiring problems by pairing up with counterparts at other companies. She has a blog where she often writes about this stuff, like this piece on bringing “big” company benefits to startup communities.

Schedule permitting, she’ll be sharing these tips at HR Uncubed as well.

Video (of the week): As much as Jason Calacanis’ mannerisms often make my skin crawl, this is an excellent interview with the co-founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures, discussing why they invest exclusively in “world-positive” businesses. Certainly makes recruiting easier. Give it a watch or listen.

Jerks of the week? One company that gets brought up in the aforementioned video (for its world-negative impact), is JUUL. The company that many think is helping people to quit smoking is apparently swimming in cash from the pockets of teens addicted to vaping. As you’d hope, regulation is soon to follow. But the thoughtful leaders at JUUL are quickly hiring up former employees of regulatory agencies within the United States Government, like this person, this person,  this person, and this person.

More jerks of the week? How employers manipulate Glassdoor

Goodbye,

Tarek

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