Episode 19: Creating Equitable Organisations with Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano
Trina Sunday: This episode is a conversation I had with Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano from Culture Amp a couple of years ago. She’s the Vice President of Equitable Operations at Culture Amp and we chatted about how she questions and reimagines and redesigns the systems that surround us to ensure that all people access equitable opportunities. She’s equal parts math nerd and empath. So she’s the math path who combines an empathic and intersectional approach with social scientific methods to create meaningful, sustainable changes. She is driven by fairness and her own lived experiences of exclusion. We look at diversity, equity and inclusion from a different perspective and focus on what really will drive meaningful change. And spoiler alert, it’s not unconscious bias training. There’s an opportunity for HR to think more holistically about evolving, you know, to meet the needs of a rapidly diversifying and globalising world. And we can’t wait to hear your thoughts. Welcome to Reimagining HR with Trina Sunday, the rule breaking podcast where we challenge our thinking and our current people crafts. This podcast is for time poor HR teams and business leaders who are feeling the burn, lacking laughs and not feeling the love. I’m Trena, your host and I’m here to cut through the bs, explore different ways of thinking and create high impact HR functions because happier, healthier organisations are better for our people and our bottom line. So if you are keen to flip traditional HR on its head, hit the follow or subscribe button to be the first to know when new episodes drop. I’m here to help and also to shake things up. So let’s get started.
Trina Sunday: Welcome Aubrey. I’m so excited to be talking with you. I’ve been following you for a long time and I thought that I’ll give you some context so I can kind of share with you what’s happening. And so obviously wanting to reach out to you is because I’m creating a conversation in the Reimagine HR community around creating more equitable organisations. So I’m typically working with HR teams who are game changers in their space or have an appetite to be and so some are overwhelmed and want to do. People practises differently but don’t know where to start. We’ve got others that are roaring make positive, meaningful change but they’re banging their heads against brick walls. So we’ve got a mixed bag. Right. And they, specifically keeps coming up as one of them. I don’t want to call it a function. It’s not a function, it’s not a Programme, it’s not a function. So I thought let’s have a chat around where this sits for you and explore maybe, you know, how we can shift some thinking in that space.
Aubrey Blanche: So excited. And I think I, like I said, I’m always really excited to get to chat to folks that are thinking in a really future forward way about hr. I think my experience is that like the US and APAC or Australia are different in some ways, but I think most differences in the branding.
Trina Sunday: Yep.
Aubrey Blanche: So I think that APAC often gets this reputation for being quite far behind and I don’t know that they’re that far behind us. I think the US just says prettier words sometimes.
Trina Sunday: What the kind of language differs.
Aubrey Blanche: It’s like. So as an example, like in the US, the trend is like getting rid of performance management. Like that’s just as bad as having a poor performance management system because all you’re doing is you’re like, we now have no way to audit all of the racism.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: Like we’re leaving it, but we now can’t find it. And so I think that’s something where, you know, like in some ways, or like a lot of culture amp customers that we see coming in are just beginning to build their performance management processes, for example. So like in the US they’ve circled back to the previous times where they’re like, we just didn’t have it and now we’re getting rid of it on purpose. And I’m like, we ended up at the same point and it’s still not good from perspective.
Trina Sunday: So I think encouragement’s an interesting one though. Right. It’s one of those ones where we have a lot of debate in the HR circle, but it’s because it’s done so badly. And so we see it as in lots of organisations, as this highly resource intensive process that’s not meaningful generally because a lot of the time it’s missing the critical part in the middle and that’s the conversation. And so, yeah, it’s interesting to see how that’s coming full circle. I love and cannot tell you how much I love that you call yourself the math path and that you’re like the math nerd come empath. And I’m just so curious to know where that came from and how that describes you because I love it.
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, absolutely. It. Like I was a little bit like, oh, am I like Ziggy Stardust or something, but way less cool. It actually came. I worked with like a personal branding firm and the problem that I was trying to solve or sort of the tangle that I was in was that I found that I had built a little bit of a point of view and a reputation that wasn’t just tied to sort of my formal role, but I was really struggling to articulate like how would I describe my philosophy and my theory of change and approach in a really simple way that I could explain to people because I felt like I just wasn’t being very articulate there. And so it meant that, you know, the wrong clients were coming to me and I wasn’t getting that, you know, working on the types of projects that I’m really excited about because the Math Path is also my consultancy in addition to the consultancy of mine. And so for me, Math Path was something that I worked with a team on after doing really extensive interviews and discussions and frameworks. And so it really came out of this idea of like, well, you bring together kind of two, what people think of as opposite ends of the spectrum. And I really wanted to say, but I actually think they’re not ends of the spectrum, they’re parts of the circle. And so this idea that we both can take a really rigorous and analytical approach to systems analysis, to data collection, to the action planning that we’re doing to create changes, but we can do it in a way that’s constantly sort of human value and dignity first. And I didn’t see those things as contradictions, but I think they often get painted in this very opposite black and white way.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, I think you’re right.
Aubrey Blanche: That language just encompassed something. And so I was like, I’ve got to run with this.
Trina Sunday: You need science a lot of the time, right? Like you need the science to be able to have the patterns of behaviour or to have the insights to know where you can pull levers to kind of drive change. But it’s like not a lot of people, well, I don’t know, your experience, maybe this issue who. I won’t make any assumptions, but I didn’t grow up, for example, as a little girl dreaming of working in hr.
Aubrey Blanche: Right.
Trina Sunday: Like a lot of people I know fell into this space and you know, I worked in marketing and PR and events before my then 20 plus year HR career. So I’m in it now. How did you end up in the DEI space? Did you grow up dreaming of working on diversity, equity and inclusion?
Aubrey Blanche: I’ll give you a yes and no answer. So like, did I know it was a job? No. I got into it the same way that like most other. How many of us are there in tech but like queer, disabled women of colour. White assumed, but still women of colour. Yeah. I started complaining about the problem and someone said, why don’t you fix it?
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: Now, I was lucky that I was actually at a company that cared enough like, create a role and let me do it, which I think is not always the luck that people have. And then I, you know, for me, I wanted to be an attorney or an astronaut or, you know. And then I intended to be an academic political scientist. But I dropped out of Stanford when I figured out that was not the right path for me. There were many people who were better suited. And so I didn’t grow up dreaming of death, but when I look back, it feels a little inevitable that I’m working in it. So I tell this very silly story, but I used to, like, steal books from my dad when I was, like, 6, 7, 8. And I tried to read them before he noticed I was a very awkward kid. And, I read something in a book and I come running into the room and I’m like, dad, this thing is not right. Like, this is not fair. And he says, you know what, Bob? the world’s not a chair. And I got so angry at him. And my response was, what a lazy thing to say.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: And, like, it just didn’t compute for me that you could, like, know something wasn’t right and not try to fix it.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: And so I think that that really informs why I get so much meaning and I feel so grateful to do the work that I do is because, like, having stumbled into a way that, like, you get to just try to make the world better and work better, especially for people who are often not given that opportunity, that’s a very blessed and privileged place to be. So I think it was partially inevitable that I just care so much about these issues. And I think I’ve been a very privileged person in so many ways. And so it feels like the right thing to do with my privilege is to spend a lot of time trying to share it. But, yeah, so that’s it. But I definitely didn’t grow up. I didn’t even know that DEI was a field when I got my first job in it. If I’m being totally honest about myself.
Trina Sunday: Level of need, lots of people don’t. And so how do you talk about dei? because I find the language really, you know, like, when we break it down. For me, it’s kind of about people belonging, you know, people being able to own their identity, all facets of it. because there’s lots of different intersectionality, you know, that can come together than in a perfect storm of systemic discrimination. But it’s. How do you talk about dei? What language do you use?
Aubrey Blanche: I hate the acronym dei.
Trina Sunday: And then I have paper and the acronyms die or like everyone’s like, they.
Aubrey Blanche: Think they’re going to make the biggest difference in the world by being like, we put inclusion first. And I’m like, well, sure, that’s fine, like it’s not harmful, but it’s not the point. So I actually prefer to talk about the concept of equitable design. So I believe that when you design for equity, you get the GI outcomes on the back end. But when you really focus on the outcomes rather than the process, you often cut corners, you do things in unsustainable ways. And so if you actually want to create sustainable change, I say focus on equity above all else. Because if someone is being treated equitably, meaning that they are given what they need to thrive based on their unique circumstances, you feel like you belong, you feel included and you’re probably more likely to be marginalised, which means we’re going to get to those diversity outcomes. So when we were talking earlier, to me equity is a process and that’s the only thing that we should be worried about. Yeah.
Trina Sunday: So your title, I think Global Head of Equitable Design and Impact, is that right?
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah. So I’m our global Senior Director of Equitable Design. And really what that means is that I help Culture Amp constantly be thinking about it because Culture AMP is a complex, evolving system like any other organisation. How do they think about the way that we evolve to be more equitable as we go through? So from, you know, the work that I’ve done, I really built on the work that, you know, Culture Amp’s first head of Diversity and Inclusion did, to build a culture of awareness and thoughtfulness around issues like equity intersectionality. And what I’ve tried to do is bring an intentionally anti racist fence to the right. So we ground our entire programme in anti racist education and anti racist philosophies. But when you think about equitable design as opposed to dei, DEI is more like, let’s bring in a speaker for Black History Month. And I’m like, why do we audit our performance promotion and pay processes for black equity? And like, it’s not that the speaker is terrible, right. Or a bad idea, but like, it’s not going to get black women paid. So I kind of don’t give a shit about it.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, it’s not where the right and.
Aubrey Blanche: But it can be a yes and answer because that speaker might inspire someone or create a cultural change that is important, right? Or uplift or highlight a set of experiences or voices that people wouldn’t have access to. So I just think that what happens when you focus on DEI is you don’t always get funding, support or action on the sort of deeper things. Like I always tell my clients or Culture customers, they’re like, what’s the one thing that I could do to help my company from a DEI perspective? And I’m like, audit your performance process.
Trina Sunday: Can you tell me more about what that looks like?
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, absolutely. So at Culture amp, we do comprehensive audits from a gender, race, disability. English is a first language, caregiver and lgbtq, perspective. And what we look for is we look for different distributions of ratings across those groups. And what we’re looking for is systemic differences. And so we have a quite progressive approach where we actually audit our results pre calibration. We actually, our business partner team works with my team to actually go into calibrations to say, hey, for example, we’ve seen that white employees are actually being given higher ratings for lower performance than. We call them campers, campers of colour. And we need to discuss that and make some adjustments to these ratings because at the end, size, that shouldn’t be happening. And then Culture amp, we also do those audits after the calibrations and we don’t finalise our ratings, our promotion or our pay before those have been audited. And we have a zero tolerance policy for statistical inequity. So it’s really about working with, we have a brilliant in-house data scientist, but this is something that certainly consulting can also help with if people don’t have it in house. But I believe that those things are the number one, two and three things that you can do from an equity perspective.
Trina Sunday: A lot of the time when I’m having conversations, it’s around, well, how do we look at all of our processes which have systemically been built by colonised white guys, you know, like, so how do we look at all the aspects of it to see, you know, how it might be excluding different groups of people? Because it’s naturally not an inclusive process and performance management’s a big one, right? Because it’s what’s going to impede promotion and cut off growing and learning opportunities, you know, all of that. And so it’s where people can then experience some kind of disadvantage. So it’s really interesting to have a really deliberate equity lens that’s put on that data and I don’t know a lot of organisations outside of. Obviously I’m familiar with Coltrap and with my own consulting customers, there’s some that are using Coltramp. but it’s part of where it is a unique space to be looking at it from that perspective. And I think because to your point around, if we’re not making meaningful shifts in that space, the rest of it just becomes tokenistic growth. And that’s kind of the conversation that I’m having is I’m seeing a lot of tokenism where we can kind of call BS on that as PR stunts in some regard. And if we’re really serious about it, it’s kind of where change needs to happen.
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the, I feel like you’ve articulated the why so beautifully. I want to like cut that out and like put that on LinkedIn. Just send that everywhere on the Internet. Internet, make everyone read it. I think the same thing that you’re describing also happens when people start by solving the recruiting problem.
Trina Sunday: Okay, tell me more.
Aubrey Blanche: So like most of the time your heads of DNI can get like budget for recruiting, but like nobody’s going to pay for the actual internal cultural transformation that’s actually needed. And we have a VP at Culture Amp who we were talking through because, you know, we’ve spent the last two years aggressively investing in cultural and process transformation, anti racist education, building our employee communities and we’re now in year three of our strategy. We’re investing in recruiting.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. Okay.
Aubrey Blanche: And so like that is an approach that very few heads of DEI would be able to get approved. One of our brilliant VPs, who supports me a lot in our work, she says, but isn’t that kind of like building a driveway but not building a house? And like, it sounds really ridiculous as a thing to do when you think about it that way. The other analogy that I use for folks is I actually believe that investing in recruiting before you’ve done cultural transformation is actively harmful to people. So I think that leaders should be held ethically to account for it. And the reason is, you know, thinking about the profession of M mining for a moment and we talk about that phrase, the canary in the coal mine. And really what that was there for was, right, if the canary stops singing, if the canary is not doing well, it tells you that the air is toxic. And so companies say or prioritise or hire their head of DNI as a recruiting programme manager. I know you, I see that company, it’s basically like saying, while the canary died, let’s throw 50 more in and see what happens while all of your mind dying. And so from that perspective, it’s like it’s totally irrational from a basic logic perspective. But I think one of the reasons that it happens is because senior leaders, if they did cultural transformation, they would have to take responsibility for how broken the culture that they created is. And that’s not a very easy emotional journey to go on.
Trina Sunday: It’s tough, right? It’s where, you know, in the work that I do, you know, there’s a lot of conversations I have. Leadership drives, culture.
Aubrey Blanche: Right.
Trina Sunday: and no matter what process we change and systems we change, if the leaders are not authentically wanting to change. So I feel like DEI is one of those spaces where equity is a great idea until I have to do something different, you know, like equity is amazing. Until I have to change what I have to do and say, oh, hang on, no, you know, I’m too busy or I don’t like. And suddenly the importance that was around the boardroom table drops away because it’s inconvenient. That’s a scathing review, but I think, I don’t know that it’s an inaccurate one from my experience.
Aubrey Blanche: I think you’ve hit the nail completely on the head, to be honest. I mean, I can tell you I’ve worked with and for organisations with varying levels of executive engagement with the work and you look at culture amp and I’m happy to share with you maybe for the show notes or something, our equitable design and impact report. So we put that out in January which covers our EDI sustainability, social impact work is the reason that we’re able to publish something that shows a really aggressive forward, ah, progress on our goals is because our leadership team is really involved in 2020. We made some very large anti racism commitments like many companies did. But you know, the first step in that process was our entire leadership team going through a six month long anti racist leadership and coaching programme.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. Because it’s a program. Right. Like that’s not where change happens. Like so six months did you say? And it’s purely around anti racism, which is just, it requires those deep dives.
Aubrey Blanche: Right.
Trina Sunday: because I think there’s still, it’s still that. And, and I love and want to go back if I can because it’s all about identity. Right. And you talk about a wide assumption and I was talking to an indigenous friend of mine that, you know, was being challenged around and actually got asked, you know, are you indigenous? And you know, like 10 times. Are you indigenous? Because apparently they were not dark enough to satisfy that person’s, you know, and I think. And you’ve got a Latina background, right? Is that.
Aubrey Blanche: Yes. And I’m also. So I’m also mixed, white and Native American.
Trina Sunday: Right.
Aubrey Blanche: So. Yep. And then I grew up, I’m adopted, but I grew up in a mixed, Native American and white household. So my adoptive father and I are not from the same nation, but we’re both mixed, but we are also both white assumed.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. Okay. So in terms of. For aspiring anti racists out there, like, what does that look and feel like? How does that play out for those of us that can have more empathy in that space or just more insight into that? What can we learn?
Aubrey Blanche: My perspective is that I’ve both experienced what it feels like in the world to be white and to be racialized and experience racism. In addition, I’m also Latina, which is technically an ethnicity, not a race. It’s weird, funky, racial. on politics. Yeah. But I think for me it gives me personally an experience on both sides of the line. And so I think in many ways I’m quite lucky to have access to that set of experiences that not everyone necessarily would because of their identity. But really I would say the biggest thing is as, someone who, you know, is very deep in a lot of communities of colour but who really benefits from white supremacy in a lot of like, both blind to me and very obvious ways, I think that it is truly astonishing how much easier life is when people do not know. And like that’s what I would want people to take is like the sheer magnitude of the positive benefits to me of being white assumed. They are enormous. The amount of friction I experience on a day to day basis is just so much lower. And that’s what I would want people to know because I think it’s so hard to understand how much easier something is when you’ve never felt the harder version. And so, that really informs my view that if you’re going like, if you’re going to do anything from a DEI perspective, solve for racial equity first because it intersects with all of these other systems of oppression. But it is so much more extreme in so many ways. I think those would be the two things I want people to know is like the sheer benefit of white privilege is absolutely astounding. And also it’s why we need to tackle white supremacy first.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. And I’m really curious, but I’ll give you a thing to explore a little bit the differences between the US and Australia when it comes to racism. But I think because for me, I have travelled my whole life, right? So I’m an active traveller, I have a complete addiction to exploring other cultures, you know, so I surround myself with diversity, I seek it out. And it’s been interesting that my life really transformed in that space when I married a black man. So it’s been a really interesting journey because I thought I had sufficient empathy. I didn’t. I thought I was quite astute around the challenges and friction’s a great word, but it was intellectual, right? It was an intellectual understanding of what racist impact could be. And it’s so different when it’s a feeling word and where your actual life is being, you know. So for me it was family stability and immigration processes that were, you know, potentially ripping my family apart and, you know, all of that kind of thing. It’s like, so when you’re in that immersed space and you feel helpless, you’re not in control of the outcomes. It’s been phenomenally the most life changing experience for me in terms of my passion for stepping into this space. And I know I’ve got a lot to learn. I’ve always identified that I’ve got white privilege because my life’s always felt easy. And it’s like I found it. Some people will shy away from making that statement, but I feel like until we can have those kind of open conversations and real talk, it’s not going to shift because I don’t even know if it’s unconscious bias anymore. I feel like there’s an element of conscious bias which is worse in some regards.
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, I think it’s totally right. And I think there’s something really beautiful that you’re sort of storytelling about, which is so much of the way we learn to understand these things is through our relationships. And so to get back to your original question, but to tie it in, I think the really important story that you’re sharing is that like it is through our relationships that we often learn about all of our different ways that we don’t understand systems of oppression we’re not subject to. But I think whiteness is one of those things that it’s especially hard to feel and see when you’re omitted. But one of the things I see, and I think this is true in Australia as well as the us the data I have comes from the us, but it says that the average white person has significantly less than one person of colour. And there are immediately sort of social circle. So they might like black People at work.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. But not, close relationships.
Aubrey Blanche: Close relationships. And so I think that’s something that’s really important is like, how do you construct your life such that the people that you’re encountering and have the opportunity to build a relationship with actually don’t look like you? And how does that actually make you a better person? In a lot of ways. Right. And it does take intentional effort because again, our societies, all of them, have been built to be segregated. I think the US has very particular history with mortgage lending and redlining and things like that. But, you know, when you think about the fact that the White Australia policy was. Policies were in effect until 1973. 1973 or 76, I always get them mixed up. But it was early to mid-70s. It’s like, that’s not even my parents generation. That’s people that I would consider part of mine. You know, I’m 33. And so you think how pervasive these systems are still? Because how could we possibly have unwound hundreds of years of systems in a couple of decades?
Trina Sunday: Yeah, because it’s one of those things where I think that we need to disrupt kind of exclusion like this because it is so systemic. Right. And I feel like there’s a passion that colleagues I have, they have the passion to change things, but then it can feel really hard, you know, it can feel really hard because it’s so complex, it’s so kind of wrapped up in everything in an organisation. So that appetite and that leadership is paramount if you’re going to be able to invest in and get people on board in terms of making significant change in that space. What have you seen as the biggest shifts, if any, in the equity space?
Aubrey Blanche: I think we’re getting past the business case, which makes me really excited because I think the business case was always going to be not good enough. Like, it’s true. But the fact is, like, if you’re only doing this because you think it’s going to get you profits, as soon as business turns out, you’re going to be like, screw the LGBT community, basically. You probably won’t say that intentionally, but you will yank the budget, which is, in capitalism, the exact same thing. And so I think that we’re seeing more leaders take the moral and ethical responsibility. They understand it’s not just. And it will get you greater innovation and better problem solving and less group think. And we know the data about financial returns and retention and employee performance, but it’s really about, this is the right way to treat other human beings. And I See more and more leaders that I’m talking to come to it from that lens, which makes me incredibly optimistic because I think this work is so hard, it is so long term. Not every choice is hard, but the difficulty is in the dedication that it takes to actually create sustainable changes. And so you have to do it from an intrinsic motivation place, and it has to be from the motivation of caring about the humanity of others. I really, really believe that other changes will be temporary.
Trina Sunday: What come into my head is just the fatigue that I’m seeing and, you know, whether it’s, you know, where we were with Black Lives Matter, not were, you know, in terms of. Me too, there’s a lot of DEI folk out there who are exhausted. And you add a pandemic in where, you know, we’re trying to support marginalised groups that are potentially further isolated because of pandemic response in some regards. Are you seeing much of that in your interactions with people that are working in this space?
Aubrey Blanche: Oh, yeah. I would say we’re exhausted. You know, I can also send you this, reminding me, our 2022 workplace DEI report. We surveyed HR and professionals and what we found was that 80% of heads of DNI have been hired in the last 18 months.
Trina Sunday: Oh, wow, that’s.
Aubrey Blanche: These folks are brand new. And, understand that only about 40% of companies have DEI staff, but only 14% of them have more than one person. So in almost every example, and, I mean, I spent almost five years being a team of one where it’s exhausting. You’re trying to solve systemic oppression with $57 and no headcount. I’m sorry, you’re like, by Thursday, please. Or for my quarterly earnings report. And I think that I literally just sent out a tweet about this yesterday, but I really believe that, like, I. When a CEO tells me, like, how much they care about dei, I’m like, how big is your budget?
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: Because your commitment and your care is absolute horseshit if there’s no budget. And I think it’s really important to hold leaders to account for that. M. I’m far past the point of trying to convince people to care, but I believe if you don’t care, you should be honest and you’ll get the talent you deserve.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, I feel like it’s the storytelling where I see the most shift, but it always takes the most vulnerable people sharing their most vulnerable stories of, you know, their challenges to just be able to step into their identity and bring their whole selves to work. I, don’t struggle with that phrase, but, you know, like to just have that comfort to completely be themselves and feel safe to do that. And I think. And it’s the storytelling where it’s gone really wrong and someone’s been unsafe or they’ve been hurt in their work environment where suddenly people listen. And I think, I think that’s representative of societal change generally though, probably where it’s kind of, um. And I think that’s playing out with Ukraine as well. It’s just heartbreaking where you just. It’s the storytelling where you are then connecting on that human level.
Aubrey Blanche: Right.
Trina Sunday: It’s the heart part which is going to drive change and it trumps every time. But I think, you know, there’s a lot in that space and I did bring it up. What are your observations of the racial escalation that played out during the presidential campaigns right through to his tenure.
Aubrey Blanche: Oh my God. So traumatic.
Trina Sunday: And still is, right?
Aubrey Blanche: So traumatic. I mean, I’ll be honest, it’s one of the reasons I left the U.S. m. You know, I, as a Mexican American woman, I was like, I can’t live here anymore and it’s an extreme privilege to even be able to opt out. It’s not the only reason I left, but it played a big part in it, you know, that I didn’t want to be a part of that society because it seems pretty clear that I am devalued in it. But I think as workplaces we haven’t figured out how to grapple with the level of trauma that people are bringing into their workplaces. So certainly culture amp, we’ve tried to invest in different ways to think about this not only or sometimes exclusively for our bipoc folks. So we just rolled out additional therapy benefits for all of our employees, which was actually based on needs we heard from our disabled folks. but we also work with an expert in bipoc mental health and actually offer mental health and wellness leadership development specifically for our BIPOC employees. And the reason is because we recognise the sheer amount of racial trauma they were struggling to function, let alone ask them to do high cognitive work that is often a part of their role scope. That’s a much harder mountain to climb for them than someone who’s not feeling personally affected. Although for obvious reasons, white people also feel the community trauma of these things in a lot of ways. I really believe in doing this in the context of the workplace. But so much of the work to dismantle these systems comes when we walk out of the Office as well. And so I think it goes back to, I always say your authentic self, not your whole self, because, like, there’s flavours of me I don’t want to bring to work.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, I wouldn’t bring all of myself to work.
Aubrey Blanche: It goes to this point that, you know, often our workplaces are like the fulcr where we learn how to put these things into practise. But it’s really going back to this theory of equitable design. How do we just consistently think about making things? Just doing what I always call, like, the next right thing or the next best step. How do we do the one thing in front of us that makes something more equitable? Now maybe that’s, you know, making sure that you’re not only going to professional associations where it’s all white people there, or if it is, saying something about how creepy it is.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, I think that part of it is, you know, we need to be creating, you know, when we do have these really kind of vanilla rooms that we’re walking into, it is being able to see it, spot it. But then there’s a deliberate desire to seek out diversity, seeking out connections, meaningful relationships with people. So that, because that perspective is so enriching and I know it’s, for me, you know, I can get a bit excited in talking to people around how phenomenal it is when you, you know, can learn from other people who are not like you. Because it can be so rewarding in terms of, like, the lenses it gives you to go through life. And then people would just like, you know, Trina’s on a rat. But it’s so true. And I think that if we can at least identify that we don’t have good representation in our workplaces and that we do, then because a lot of the time there is a fear of even calling that out. so I feel like there’s such a fear that people don’t look good, organisations, leadership, generally boards that we then don’t talk about it, don’t acknowledge it. We’ve then taken, you know, some conversations off the table, which then just pushes some of the bad behaviour underground. And I think that’s more dangerous because it’s. We don’t have visibility to call it out. Do you have any observations about that?
Aubrey Blanche: I mean, I think it’s really true. I think this idea of like, coded versus, like, explicit, maybe exclusion or one of the isms that we want to talk about is true. But I think it gets back to this. Like, I don’t tend to like, differentiate majorly between, like, implicit and explicit. Like racism. It’s like, who cares? It’s all racism. Because I think implicit versus explicit, Suddenly we’re talking about, like, what was the intention behind it or how obvious was it? It’s like, if it harms someone who cares how obvious it was, or who cares whether you meant to do it. And so I think, for me, it’s about sort of treating implicit and explicit issues of exclusion or oppression as equivalent. Now, I do think intent can be important.
Trina Sunday: Right.
Aubrey Blanche: Like, someone who’s done something accidentally is probably in need of feedback, coaching and maybe needs to make a repair. Someone who’s done something on purpose. I think we actually know that’s an easier HR problem. Yeah, in a lot of ways. But I think there is wisdom in what you’re saying around things going underground. I think you’re always going to have people who don’t believe, especially in a large organisational context, aren’t on board with, you know, the DEI paradigm or the commitments that a leadership team has made. And that’s where I think norms come in. And it goes back to this, like, don’t bring your whole self. If you are actively, you know, taking steps to, like, harm people or things.
Trina Sunday: Like that, then don’t bring that.
Aubrey Blanche: Don’t be yourself. I actually don’t want you to bring that into work. And so I think that it’s our cultural norms that tend to enforce that. So I think it’s less like formal policies and things like that. It’s about norms. And this goes back to your point about leadership, that leadership sets the culture and the norms. And so to say we believe in this, we’re committed to this, and also we’re willing to remove you if you’re accidentally being harmful towards these ambitions. And I think that last part is what often companies forget about is they’re like, oh, it’s not that bad. It is that bad.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, but that’s the courage. It’s that courage that is missing a lot of the time. And it’s that courage for there to be a cost, you know, employment cost, a social cost, like, there has to be a consequence for people to believe you that this is important, because if it’s important, we wouldn’t let that play out. And so it’s that mixed messaging where we just get left in the grey, where actually it’s not that grey. And what’s needed is that courageous leadership. And for me, it’s where we’ve got the biggest gap. And even with people that are working in people and culture, I Think and it’s not just in terms of equity, but across all behaviour and misconduct generally. But it’s kind of that, how we influence leaders to actually step into that space. Because there’s a lot of leaders that are probably not capable or they might not be ideal leaders and that then reinforces the problem.
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah. And I think that’s such a good observation and the question I always ask is, why don’t you think of inclusive leadership as a competency, just like you do software engineering?
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: It’s one of those things where it’s like, we should take a growth mindset to this. And, you know, even at Culture Amp, we don’t have an expectation that every leader is the super genius at inclusive leadership, but we have a minimum standard of qualification. And, you know, we’ve suggested that certain leaders go through certain leadership programmes and said, you can do this or you can move on. You know, it’s your choice about whether you want to develop in this way, but this is a gap for you and it’s not a gap that we’re able to, you know, continue to have you as a part of the company if you’re not able to close. But we do want to give you the time and investment to do that. I’ll tell you, people have gone both ways. Yep. and I think that’s what it’s about. But it’s about letting people self sort anyway. I think about that. Inclusion is a competency, it’s a skill. Empathy is a skill, can be developed.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. And I think that’s part of, you know, when the competency framework is being built or. And this is where the design comes in. Right. It’s every single thing we build. How do we look at it with a lens of how there can be more inclusivity and equity that’s going to come out of that. And I think, you know, competency frameworks, a lot of the time they are built really heavily on the technical and then what some people would call soft skills skills. And I hate that language because there’s nothing soft about them. They’re critical skills to me. But, you know, like, it’s kind of how do we look at what we need to build up in our people so that we’ve got the strongest, most positive leadership that we need. Because I haven’t seen a lot in the work that I’ve been doing where that’s been in primary focus. Empathy has. But then I find that a lot of, not necessarily my clients, but organisations that I’ve consulted in and not necessarily ended up working with. It’s part of the joy of being able to say no to work sometimes when it doesn’t quite fit where you are. I think, you know, it’s the fact that there is no appetite for having kind of a really genuine lens put on some of this.
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, absolutely. And I think of the thing I’m thinking of. So Michelle Mi Jung Kim, if you don’t know who she is, everyone listening should and should listen to her at all times. But she often talks about how important it is to be accountable m and how important accountability is to this work. I always think empathy without accountability is insufficient because I think so often especially, you know, I believe storytelling is a way to open up people’s engagement and motivation and experience. But if you’re just allowing them to like to sit in a room and like to have a realisation, especially as someone who’s on that upper end of the privilege spectr it’s just not good enough.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: And so I think it’s both about empathy and accountability.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, I think, yeah, it’s absolutely fundamental. Right. And I think there’s a degree of how we create the space as well for the uncomfortable. You know, like, growth is going to come from the things that are unfamiliar, and uncomfortable. And I feel like in the diversity space and then in that storytelling, for example, it’s like it should be getting a little bit uncomfortable because it should be kind of really challenging your own thoughts around this. It should be challenging your beliefs that you’ve had since childhood. It should be challenging on some level what you value or at least giving you reason to reconsider some of those things. And I think that trying to create that safe space for that, and I know, so there’s a lot of work that’s happening on the west coast, for example, and there’s, you know, a lot of research and reports that have come out around bad behaviour that’s happening in different industries and the resource sector and things in between. But that accountability for change that’s going to need to come out of that is absolutely phenomenal and it’ll be interesting to see what happens. But I have people say, oh, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. no, no. But what’s happening inside for you? We don’t just watch all this really bad kind of stuff that’s hit the media around harassment and rape culture and like horrific kind of, you know, people not feeling safe to turn up to work and, you know, that those environments. But there’s a lot that I’m seeing Where it’s kind of people looking outward but not taking that as an opportunity to look inward to see where there might m be resonating factors for them.
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, resonating factors. And like, where are you? Part of the problem, I m think, is a really hard question. Like, it’s a really critical one. But I don’t want to downplay how challenging of a question it can be. For first, the reason that it’s really hard to identify your own perception gaps, but also because emotionally we often construct these views of ourselves as like, good people and like our society has told us this story that it’s bad people who perpetuate inequity. and it’s bad culture that perpetuates inequity and we’re all subject to it. And so it takes a lot of intention because you have to continuously push back against these things. And it really goes back to why I talk about equitable design. Because it’s not about diversity, equity, inclusion. That feels like a point in time thing. And we’re talking about a process. We’re talking about a process of unwinding all of the things we’ve inherited and choosing to do differently and choosing to do better.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, and something you said earlier really struck for me and that is that it’s, what’s the next small thing? Like, I feel like, because if we look at the fact this thing can look and feel really, this thing, this fundamental passion for having safe, happy workplaces and happy lives, people, but it can feel really big. But it’s like, that’s not the reason to cop out, though. Like, it’s, it’s focusing on, what’s the next small thing? Like, okay, we’ve got, we want to bring speakers in to do training. How can we do that differently? We want to be, you know, looking at the performance management process. How can we look at a different lens? Like, it’s just every little thing. And for the work that I do with people and culture teams, you don’t need a DEI specialist if you don’t have one to be able to look at that. Do you know what I mean? Like, there’s nothing separate enough. I find it really odd that, you know, there have been some people, culture teams that have not stepped fully into the DEI space because they feel that they lack knowledge. And I get it. And that’s why, through the programmes that I work on, for example, it’s like, well, how do you fill your gaps? and I think there’s a bit of legacy around the fact that People and culture and HR teams are expected to do so many things and to be subject matter experts across so many different disciplines. No one person can be a specialist in every discipline or you’re not a specialist. And so if it’s. How can you be the most powerful generalist, for example, who can have maximum impact and get excited about that? Yeah, because there’s so much that can be done.
Aubrey Blanche: Well, there’s always so much that can be done. And I have this blog post where it’s. I think it’s titled like how do I get a DNI job? And like me, my number one advice is don’t like please, please don’t go get a D and I job. And the reason is not because I’m like, I mean this is a very hard profession and you’re underappreciated and underpaid and under resourced most of the time but it’s really because like to bring out a really powerful example, you know, I think about we have two directors of sort of people ops. So there are like head hr, ah business partners and the level of care and intention and how much they think about equity in the context of their work every day. Whether that’s looking at our exits and flagging, you know, where they think that there might be a gap and we want to address something culturally or being sensitive or getting a consult for an individual issue where we think there might be an EDI component or quite frankly them making the decision that we have a zero tolerance policy for inequity in our performance process. Like those things are so much more powerful than so many of the things that I do as the diversity lady every day. So I think that’s what I would want to encourage people with, as you’ve said is every single person has a DEI job already. It’s just a question of are you failing to do your job?
Trina Sunday: Yeah, yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: We each have components that are going to be about how we make the next equitable choice as a hiring manager. It’s building extra sourcing time or even better not just going to your recruiter and saying hi, can you find me brown people? Because I’ve failed to build a diverse network. Yeah, M. But it’s about extra sourcing time. It’s about educating yourself on anti racism and the way that people of colour experience the workplace so that you can create a better experience for them. It’s about being thoughtful that you’re not asking to pick the brain of DEI consultants for free. Right. Most investors are who marginalised across at least one Vector. But it’s also about if your company isn’t doing pay equity audits, why don’t you do one for your team?
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: It can be these little actions that add up to something huge.
Trina Sunday: Yeah. Because I feel like there’s still. And it’s to your point around the fact that, you know, we’ve had kind of the metrics and the business case and, you know, because HR gets stuck in terms of trying to get support for things and the fight for budget and. And I, do feel like we’ve been lost in that space. I’m glad that you’re seeing a shift beyond the business case. I’m not sure I’m seeing that as strongly here. I feel like we’re still in the business case vortex and we know that we need to talk business numbers. But it comes back to your point around the humanity aspect. And I think that HR’s opportunity is how we create different language around how that humanity creates overall a new, all encompassing, better organisation, better environment, better kind of work overall. But there’s not numbers always that you can put on these things and it shouldn’t be the reason we’re doing it. And so I think that that’s where the shift needs to happen. How would you recommend that HR leads and people and culture leads that might be wanting to do it, where do they start? in terms of trying to shift some of that thinking, do you think?
Aubrey Blanche: Yeah, I think ultimately you need to focus on your senior most leaders first. So it can be slow. You know, everyone wants to like do training for everyone or like set up an erg. And I really, really think the most important step is getting your senior leadership aligned, that this is a priority and agreeing, if they say priority, what that means from a resourcing perspective and also aligned about what it means from a transformation perspective. Because I’ve worked with companies of all sizes and lots of different GEOs. And you know the thing that has been true of all of them, to butcher Tolstoy a little bit, you know, every inequitable organisation is inequitable in its own way, but the fact is they all needed to go on that journey of transformation.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: And so I think getting really clear with leadership, if you’re committed, this is what it will take. Are you still in? And I will take your yes as a cheque.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: And that box, I mean, one with a signal.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I think that what’s really critical in some of the work that I’m doing with HR leads is around that reputation and connection and so having these conversations needs to come off the back of the fact that we’ve proactively built relationships with our senior managers. That means we can step into a space of having strong conversations around what needs to change as well. And it’s not then just engaging with exec when we’re trying to put up a proposal or lodge a report. Like there is a way of working where we fundamentally need to shift in terms of how we partner with business leaders and how we really immerse ourselves in terms of the relationship building. And it takes effort. Right. And there’s a lot of time I’ll be we’re too busy or we’re a lot of these conversations then of getting support for what we want to change in the diversity, equity and inclusion space becomes a much easier path of getting going. Because we’ve built the relationships to know how to influence the people around the table. We can connect with them on a human level. Around what something that might have happened with them and their child that’s suffering. With some ableism, there’s always a connection because there’s always someone that’s got something going on. Right. That’s the reality of it. If you. And it’s not just rolling out unconscious bias training. Right.
Aubrey Blanche: Okay, I’m sorry, I’m just like, you know what, if you want to start with unconscious bias training, it is better to just set money on fire in the middle of the office.
Trina Sunday: Obviously coming from a similar point. Talk to me around why you think that unconscious bias training is burning money and I’ll share my experience.
Aubrey Blanche: Well, Culture, one of our writers just wrote a great blog on this. But the fact is like the research on it is super mixed.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: And the reason is because it was mostly just invented by lawyers to like be a cover your ass. To be like, look, we did something. Yeah. it’s kind of like, you know, the really rote sexual harassment trainings that solve exactly zero problems but we’re legally required to do them. So it doesn’t actually solve like a behavioural problem for the most part. And I think without actually this comprehensive audit portfolio that you should build for your processes, there’s just no point. So at Culture amp, we actually do provide guidance about bias in our hiring training, in our pre calibration sort of training, in actually our business partners bring up, you know, in calibrations to prep for that. So there are different ways that we educate about bias throughout the employee experience. Experience. But we’re not sitting someone down for unconscious bias training. We’re Literally giving them specific strategies at the moment that they need it in order to help make more unbiased decisions. And then we’re holding them accountable to that with audits and with a systemic response.
Trina Sunday: Yeah, because I think it the pattern of where we have come, as you said, like we rolled out sexual harassment training for a while and is cultural awareness training, which I find really interesting because it’s really non English speaking, but we’ve excluded indigenous and first nations people from a lot of that. But that’s a whole nother discussion, you know. And then we’ve got. Yeah, unconscious bias training that’s become the band aid and the tick flick thing, which again, it’s governance, but it’s governance without purpose. And so it’s not going to drive meaningful change. You mentioned something before about using your privilege to drive change and I’m curious to know, how can we use our identity and privilege to create change?
Aubrey Blanche: The exercise I would give to folks is like, think about the advantages that your privilege has given you and how do you figure out how to share one of those? So is that about, like. I’ll just give a little example. So I often will have folks in my network who will be like, hey, will you talk to my kid about a career in this? And I always say, I would love to. Please introduce me before I schedule that meeting. I will make that person go out and find someone who is marginalised compared to them and offer them the same career coaching.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Aubrey Blanche: They’ll say, you have to make it like you have to earn my time by creating access for someone else.
Trina Sunday: Love that.
Aubrey Blanche: And so I’m both teaching them how to do equitable design, but I’m still giving them the help that they’re asking for. Right. It doesn’t require me to say no, it requires me to say yes.
Trina Sunday: And yeah, love that, love that. Because it’s a ripple effect as well.
Aubrey Blanche: Right.
Trina Sunday: like if all of us did that, then the impact can be phenomenal. And I think, oh, that’s awesome. I love that. If you were to reimagine HR and what that might look like to help us get better outcomes in this space, what would you change? Everything, say, hI forever.
Aubrey Blanche: I mean, I think that’s what it is. It’s about a constant process of evolution and getting better than anything. But I think that what I would want to sign off with saying is just don’t do nothing, do one thing today that’s more equitable. And so what should she change? It depends on where you sit. But there’s always something if you’re willing to look for it.
Trina Sunday: Love it. Thank you so much for your time. Aubrey.
Aubrey Blanche: Thank you for having me. This has been such a wonderful discussion and like I said, I’m so excited that you’re supporting folks and actually thinking about and reimagining the way that we can do business because we can definitely do better.
Trina Sunday: Thank you so much and I’d love to talk to you again another time.
Aubrey Blanche: Absolutely. Shoot me an email. We will get to it.
Trina Sunday: Thanks for tuning in and leaning in.
Trina Sunday: To this week’s episode as we look to reimagine how we show up for.
Trina Sunday: Our people, organisation and community. Reach out to us via our website at reimaginehr.com.au with your HR horror stories or suggestions of people you’d love to hear from or topics you want to explore. It’s all about people, purpose and impact and we are here for all of it.
Until next time, take care team.
