Lesley Slaton Brown, HP Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, joins Alexis Christoforous at Yahoo Finance to discuss HP’s diversity and inclusion efforts and diversity challenges in the technology industry.
Video transcription
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. In recent years, technology enterprises in particular have come under pressure from customers, employees and the general public to finally get serious about diversity and inclusion. My next guest leads the effort at HP, where Lesley Slaton Brown is head of diversity and inclusion. Lesley, it’s good to see you. Thank you for being with us.
I want to start our conversation by sharpening women. We know that they have been excessively affected by this pandemic, especially women of color. What is your company doing in your position there at HP? What can other businesses do to retain female talent and give them a supportive environment, especially as the workforce changes and so many things are now virtual?
LESLEY SLATON BROWN: Yes. Yes, you know, it’s interesting. And when you think of the more than three million women leaving the workers, that’s very worrying. And so one of the things we did very early in quarantine at HP was to go out and do focus groups and really listen to our women. Especially women who are caregivers, single moms, working moms with students sitting there – they need to be their technology. They must be their teacher. They have to be their cafeteria worker, like all the different things.
And so it was very important for us to understand, as in the first place, how we can help them do their job? How can we also help them to be their best selves? And lastly, how can we help them to care for others? And so we took an approach – we took a proactive approach to listening, understanding and providing solutions, whether it’s about health education, building the community around them and flexibility to work around. help them meet the needs navigating through the rocky waters of quarantine.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Lesley, we hear time and time again that there is a pipeline issue, that there are just not enough qualified minorities to go to some of these technology fields. Do you find that this is still the problem?
LESLEY SLATON BROWN: You know, what’s interesting about the question is that there are an abundance of organizations, universities, whether it be HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities, HSIs, Spanish ministries, there are a number of places to look for great talent . The challenge was that most organizations had a system or structure from which they were recruited.
And I think there is now greater exposure to, and greater visibility to, this amazing talent, in some cases, untapped. When you think of North Carolina ANT, it achieves more than 65% of your best engineers. And it’s also an HBCU, Historically Black College and University. And so these are the opportunities that companies have to recruit and to build the diversity within the organization.
If you do it now, while you do it, you must also understand when you bring in people, if you bring in different talent, you must also be able to have an inclusive culture in which people can come and thrive. And so it’s just as important as exploiting the diversity.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Lesley, we know that during this pandemic, it really shed light on inequalities and injustices that have been going on in our society for many, many years. I know you’ve put together a task force there at HP with some pretty objective goals. Just tell us quickly what it’s about.
LESLEY SLATON BROWN: Well, you know what? As we sit as a nation, actually as a global world, witnessing the brutal assassination of George Floyd, HP is acting very quickly. And I often say the time for talking is over, and the time for action is now. And I saw how our executive leadership team performs. We asked them to make commitments, to make promises about what we could do. We recruited more than 400 volunteers within HP to participate in the task force.
We’ve built a town hall in which we– or a number of town halls in which we listened and heard from our employees, our black employees, employees who are allies and advocates. And we built programs. We focused on three pillars in particular – people. How do we increase our diversity, really look at it and start our leadership? And there was opportunity for us to improve.
We also looked at the industry and looked at our suppliers and suppliers. And how can we have a kind of multiplier effect, if you will, to influence the work we do internally with our partners representing HP’s brand? And lastly, we have built our local and national pillar. And it’s based on the fact that we can see how we are doing in the communities in which we work and in which we live and to ensure safety – psychological safety, physical safety for our employees.
And so with the three pillars, we have had some of the opportunities to attack some of the structural and systemic racism that exists in the US – and worldwide, aggressively, aggressively.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yes, the word is aggressive. Congratulations on the work you do at HP. Lesley Slaton Brown, thank you.