100: The Unexpected Value of Diversity and Inclusion

1. Embracing diversity and inclusion is just the right thing to do.

If companies want to attract top talent, that talent needs to feel included and a sense of belonging – both of which are major drivers of engagement. When the team is more engaged they are more productive. When they feel like they’re valued and their voice matters, they buy into the mission and bring more value to the company. With that level of engagement, you won’t have to worry about retention.

2. Diversity and inclusion is about race, but it’s about other issues too.

It’s about diversity of thought, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, and pronouns. All of those things matter and are important. All of us came from a different place with different experiences. With D&I, we seek to learn about those experiences and about each other.

3. D&I starts by just having conversations.

This reveals where the pain points and gaps are that need to be addressed. After that, it’s important to be allies, do your homework, and champion others that bring different experiences and opinions.

Ryan Fitzgerald on LinkedIn and Twitter

Tonia Benas on LinkedIn

Beth Thompson on LinkedIn

BELAY’s Accounting service

(02:51) Tonia and Beth talk about why they’re so passionate about diversity and inclusion and how they found themselves on the front lines of this conversation at BELAY.

(06:03) Why does D&I matter from a business perspective?

(09:28) Tonia and Beth explain BELAY’s journey with diversity and inclusion. 

(12:28) What are some of the metrics that BELAY is looking at with diversity and inclusion?

(15:23) What is the objective of a D&I committee, and what are their expectations?

(17:00) What are some other organizations and businesses BELAY has looked to for help in this area?

(18:55) How are things going for BELAY, and what can we expect in the coming years?

(19:46) Tonia talks about the tension and pressure she felt when she started leading the charge on D&I.

(21:24) What are the first steps someone can take if they want to begin incorporating D&I at their company?

Beth Thompson:

Two of our top core values are God and team. And we truly hold to the idea that we’ve all been created in the image of God and therefore we all deserve to be valued. Additionally, if companies want to attract and retain top talent, it is absolutely, incumbent on us to focus on inclusion and belonging. And the thing is if you achieve that level of engagement, you’re not going to have to worry about retention because if your employees can bring their authentic selves to work, they will naturally be working from a place of strength.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip, practical tool and small step away from growing your business. One Next Step is brought to you by BELAY. The incredible 100% remote organization, revolutionizing productivity with virtual assistance, bookkeepers and social media managers. Accomplish more, juggle less, modern staffing from BELAY. And now to your hosts.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Welcome to One Next Step. The practical business podcast that helps you run your business so it stops running you. I’m LZ and I’m joined as always by my fabulous co-host Ryan. Hey, Ryan.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Hey, LZ. It’s so good to be here today. I’m so excited about today’s episode specifically, because it’s about a subject that is near and dear to us here at BELAY, diversity and inclusion. I can’t wait for you all to hear the interview that I did with Tonia Benas, our talent acquisition recruiter and the D and I committee co-chair here at BELAY and Beth Thompson, our HR generalist.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Man, what two fabulous team members we have here at BELAY. Did you know that one recent study actually, showed that racially and ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to perform better. But at the same time, 41% of managers state that they’re too busy to implement any diversity and inclusion initiatives. Ugh, so sad. So they’re going to be sharing with us why diversity and inclusion actually, matters for a business as well as walking us through BELAY’s own journey.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Speaking of busy leaders, LZ. Let’s talk about BELAY for a second. As a business owner, you eventually realize you can’t do everything yourself but hiring is complicated. And what if you only need part-time help. Your job is to be the visionary but instead you spend countless hours on tasks that could be done easily and arguably better by somebody else. That’s where BELAY can help with modern subscription staffing with virtual assistance, bookkeepers, website specialists and social media managers for growing organizations. Accomplish more, juggle less, modern staffing from BELAY.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Well, I can’t wait for our listeners to hear your conversation, Ryan. So let’s get started.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Tonia and Beth, thank you so much for being with us today. This is going to be an awesome conversation about diversity inclusion. Before we get started, I’d love to just hear a little bit from you about why you’re so passionate about this and how you found yourself on the front lines of the conversation? Tonia, would you share a little bit with us about your story?

Tonia Benas:

Absolutely, Ryan. I would say back in 2020, Krisha Buehler, she’s our chief people officer who reached out and asked me to help her start a D and I committee here at BELAY. And I was like, absolutely, just because I have a lot of passion around it. I grew up as a military brat, we lived in several different countries and I was always immersed in a variety of different cultures. So to be in a setting that isn’t diverse, I always thought was abnormal. So I’ve always been a champion of making sure that everyone knows that they’re seen and that they matter. So when she came to me with that idea, I was like, “Yes. Let’s definitely, do it. I think it’s very much needed.”

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s awesome. What about you, Beth?

Beth Thompson:

Well, for me, I just raised my hand really. I joined the efforts that were already in progress when I joined BELAY in 2021. And it’s interesting because I would say that I had a very different life experience from Tonia. I grew up in a white middle class bubble most of my life and although, I was always taught to respect everyone equally, I don’t think I really had a clear perspective on just the challenges of individuals from diverse backgrounds. And so I really haven’t even shared this story with Tonia but when I was preparing for my HR certification a few years ago, I came across one of the competencies which was Diversity and Inclusion. And honestly, at that time I rolled my eyes and thought, “Oh, here we go again.” And I’m really ashamed to admit that now but then 2020 happened and all of the events that came along with COVID, the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd.

Beth Thompson:

All of those things began to awaken in me this question about what is really going on here. And so I just started listening and I started reading, I read Ta-Nehisi Coates and Austin Channing Brown and Robin DiAngelo. I started watching films like 1619 and When They See Us, I started listening to Emmanuel Acho and the Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man that he started producing. And it sounds cliche to say that I’m awakened but really I feel like that’s what happened. I feel like a convert and that I can’t go back to seeing the world the way I used to see it in the past. And so I am thrilled to get to be part of this at BELAY.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s really awesome. I feel like for a lot of us, that was an experience we had whether we had had exposure to it prior to that moment in time that was 2020. But when you look at it from a business purpose and I think so many of us had that experience but then we stepped into our professional roles, that wasn’t a… For me that was a very personal experience and I was in a very religious environment at that time.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

I worked at a church and so the intersection of faith and politics and ethics and all these things really hit really hard. But then for a context like our listeners, for profit businesses or churches or whatever it might be, the organizations they’re trying to grow. If you were to say you take those personal learnings where you’re at and you apply them into the business settings, I guess, I’d just love to hear from you as we set up our conversation and talk more about the journey that BELAY has been on, why does D and I matter from a business perspective in your opinion, Tonia?

Tonia Benas:

I would say the business case for the focus on D and I is that the cultural gender and generational diversity produces cognitive diversity and cognitive diversity leads to stronger decision making and better customer experience. Because of that, it produces revenue for business but I’d actually, love for Beth to continue as to why it’s so important.

Beth Thompson:

Yeah. I think as Tonia pointed out, the business case is clear and you really don’t have to do a whole lot of research to see the statistics on that. I really feel like we’ve even moved beyond that at this point. I don’t think the question is, should we do this? I think the question now is, how can we not do this? There are more than just the business case to encourage us to get involved in this work, a deeper why for why we do it. And I would say probably, the biggest one is the moral case which is, this is just the right thing to do. Here at BELAY, two of our top core values are God and team. And we truly hold to the idea that we’ve all been created in the image of God and therefore we all deserve to be valued.

Beth Thompson:

Additionally, we are aware of the talent war that’s going on. If anybody is aware of that, BELAY is aware of that. And if companies want to attract and retain top talent, it is absolutely, incumbent on us to focus on inclusion and belonging because both of those are major drivers of engagement. So if you have a more engaged workforce, you’re going to have a more productive workforce because those people are bought into your mission. They feel like they’re part of it, their voice matters and they’re going to bring value to you. And the thing is, if you achieve that level of engagement, you’re not going to have to worry about retention because if your employees can bring their authentic selves to work, they will naturally be working from a place of strength. And then one of my favorite experts on this topic is Dr. Jarik Conrad of UKG.

Beth Thompson:

And he talks about two other cases for why we want to do this work. One is the career case and that is the fact that as professionals, really, this is a skill that we need to build. We need to be able to interact with and work with and be productive with diverse teams who have different experiences and different backgrounds. And so if we want to continue as individual professionals to be relevant in the workforce, we’ve got to build those skills. And then the personal case which is that exclusion is painful and it’s painful not only for the victim but it’s painful for the perpetrator and conversely inclusion is healing and energizing.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Gosh, that’s amazing. I know in my hiring experiences building a team here at BALEY, one of the first questions, many of our candidates ask is about our D and I initiatives and our approach and it’s not just a box to check. They really want to know the type of community that they’re joining and the type people they’re going to work with and that they have the same values. And I think we have seen the work that we’ve done and what I’ve heard from you all is that’s made a difference in our talent acquisition and the quality of the work that our team is doing.

Beth Thompson:

Absolutely.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

As we jump in, I guess, I’d love to hear about BELAY’s journey specifically for companies who were trying to figure out how to take their next step, where they’re at or organizations. So obviously, you both said we started in 2020 really all across corporate organizations. Some people started well before that, some people are just now trying to figure it out. Everybody’s in a different place but that was our starting point and that’s the story we get to tell. That’s where we are at so I’d love to hear, “Hey, it’s 2020 started.” So how did it get started and what was that initial spark where the company decided to make this a priority?

Tonia Benas:

Definitely. So in March of 2020 as we all know COVID swept the world by storm and at this point it officially shut the country down. So originally I told you that we wanted to start in January. We put that on hold just to see what was going to happen and stay hopeful. But then we began navigating math, the lack of toilet tissue, being on lockdown in our homes. And then coupled with that was the political unrest that was still unfolding and then the racial divide that just made it even harder to sit still. And it was like, the time is now, we need to get started. So in the midst of that, Krisha was like, “Let’s go.” And so we reached out to the managers of each of our departments and asked them to nominate someone that they felt was passionate about D and I or that had spoken up about how they were feeling with everything that was going on.

Tonia Benas:

And with that, we reached out to each of the nominees, all of them gave an astounding, “Yes. We definitely, want to be involved.” And we kicked off in June of 2020. At the same time, our company released a diversity statement that we have front and center on our website to this day. And in fact, Beth and I were talking that a lot of our contractors and even corporate employees came to BELAY because of the diversity statement that we put out. BELAY also offered us resources to be able to go out and purchase books and videos, to become more knowledgeable, the entire company, just to help us all get on that same page and see what we could do better as individuals and even as a company. We had a lot of low hanging fruit that we tackled that first year in terms of just diversity in the company.

Tonia Benas:

I don’t know if many people know it but at that time we were about 95% female and only 5% male. And so that in itself was a gap that we needed to fix so that we did have more males that were welcomed into the doors, same thing with gender and age as well. And so we tackled a lot of that upfront and diversified where we were sourcing our talent from to try to really make sure that we were being more representative of everyone. And then we did implicit bias training as well company-wide and multi-generational training. And it was interesting to see baby boomers enjoy more of the face to face contact and communication whereas more millennials and generation Z would prefer to text you instead so just learning those differences and trying to close the gap on how we could make that better.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

I think there are a lot of assumptions that come along with what D and I means and I think you just, you laid out a bunch of different categories there that’s not just racial diversity. When we look at diversity and inclusion at BELAY, what are some of those different metrics or those different areas that we’re focusing on not just the racial side?

Tonia Benas:

Well, in the beginning, race was one of the big ones but it was also gender, age also diversity of thought, disability, sexual orientation, pronouns, all of those things are completely important. Everything matters it isn’t that one class is better than the other or one is more important. Every single one of them matters so we want to make sure there’s diversity across the board even diversity of thought and experiences. Every single one of us came from a different place, we grew up differently with different thoughts, different perspectives and so all of that matters. What you went through, I might not have gone through so I want to know, what did you go through, what are your thoughts, what are your perspective? Because it just helps us all to grow and be more appreciative of one another.

Beth Thompson:

And Ryan, I’ll hop in here and say that another element there is this idea of intersectionality. None of us is singular dimensional, we all have multi dimensions to our personalities and to our life and our experience. And so for instance, Tonia is a black woman. That’s going to be a different set of experiences than a black man. And so we have to be aware of those things as well, just that it’s this whole conglomeration of your age, your gender, your race, your religion, the way you were raised, your socioeconomic status, all of those things play into who we are as people and just really taking the time to listen and getting to know what that means for people.

Catherine Bowman:

So one of my favorite things is getting on a Zoom call and a couple of times I’ve looked into the eyes of some exhausted and tired leadership. I implemented really a focus for my clients on delegation and had one leader in particular who just held it all in. I said, “Let’s start with delegating and doing that from a financial perspective,” and so we built his budget and his chart accounts around what ministry head is going to own this. I challenged him to not look at the nitpicky line items to just look at the overall budget for a couple of months and he quickly became relieved of that stress. And that was a huge win for that client. I remember talking six months later and he was not the same person he was six months ago and it was a win-win for both of us because I could do my job and his people could do their job. And then he could do his.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Their story can be your story too. And all it takes is One Next Step to get started. You shouldn’t have to do everything. And with a BELAY bookkeeper, you don’t have to. Visit belaysolutions.com today to start accomplishing more and juggling less.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

So when we took that first step and we solicited names from our managers, what was the ask, what is a diversity and inclusion committee? What are we asking those people to be a part of and what is the initiative and the hope to accomplish in that environment?

Tonia Benas:

Really, it’s a safe space. Ultimately, for transparency, where you’re able to come and we usually meet one hour, once a month. Originally we were meeting for 90 minutes but it was for you to come and address issues. Talk about things that you’re seeing personally, in the company, in the world that you feel like these are things that we need to address and talk about to best point. It’s getting that conversation going where you’re aware of what other people are going through and then coming up with ways and action items of how can we fix this, how can we do better going forward now that we are aware let’s not turn a blind eye? How can we be more inclusive and make sure that everyone is feeling welcomed and able to be transparent? It’s a safe space, everything we talked about stayed there except for action items that did go to leadership of ways that we could do better.

Beth Thompson:

And as Tonia said, that first panel of our committee really had a lot of low hanging fruit to address. And so I feel like they were able to really knock out some action items really fast. And quite honestly, I feel like maybe our second year, we sort of stumbled around a little bit figuring out, “Okay, what does the next iteration of this look like as we brought in a new panel of members and where do we go from here?” And my encouragement would be, nobody has this all figured out, nobody knows exactly how to do this right. There is no one right way to do this but we keep digging in. We keep asking the questions, we keep talking and we keep listening and that’s really all you can do.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

As we’ve taken that process and grown and learned how to take next steps, are there other places or other organizations that we’ve looked to or looked at of how they’re navigating this, that not only are we learning from but our listeners could learn from as well?

Tonia Benas:

Absolutely. One of the first couple of places that we looked was Salesforce. They have a really great diversity and inclusion program and a lot of employee resource groups. But we aren’t at the level of Salesforce so we took a few things from them. Chick-fil-A as well, they actually, the two people over their diversity inclusion are Brandy and Miles and they both came and sat with us in one of our meetings to tell us how to initially do it and then how to keep it ongoing. And again, we are not the size Chick-fil-A either and so I think the biggest point in that is you can glean ideas from other companies and reach out to them as resources but then you have to figure out what works best for you. For us, we said, we had to figure out how to BELAYify it. So how to make it work best for BELAY and what is best for our culture and our people and go from there.

Beth Thompson:

Right. And I used the metaphor of a marriage when Tonia and I were speaking about this earlier which is a marriage can look good from the outside but then you don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors. And it’s the same way with matters of diversity and inclusion and belonging. A company can be doing all the right things and looking good on the outside but you don’t really know what’s happening inside that organization. And so really though we can grab ideas from other companies and certainly, reach out to them for insight and ideas and information sharing ultimately, we have to look inward, we have to look at what’s going on in our organization. What is the experience of the people that work for us and how do we make sure that it is what we want it to be?

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s amazing. So as you know we’re a few years into this now and that’s the question we’re asking, is this what we want it to be? I guess, the question I have is, how are things going and what do you expect in the coming years for us as we continue to walk this path and make this a core part of our culture?

Tonia Benas:

I think is exactly what you just said, Ryan. We did do a lot of low hanging fruit in the first year and as Beths just stated it was feeling it out this second year. But now go forward, we feel like we’ve done really well in terms of our progress and diversity. Now, the focus is more on inclusion and belonging and making sure that, “Okay. Now that everyone’s here, does everyone feel welcome? Do they want to stay here? Do they feel like they have a voice and that they’re seen?” So the focus going forward now is more on that inclusion and belonging and how can we do better at that? As of course, we’re continuing to maintain our diversity but how are we making sure that once people are here, they want to stay here and BELAY is the place that they want to be.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s awesome. Well, Tonia, I’d love to hear from you. Were there any tensions that you were feeling while you were obviously, excited to help implement this but als probably, felt a little overwhelmed to carry some of that. What tension did you feel and how did you navigate that as you were leading the charge of that in the beginning?

Tonia Benas:

I will say there was definitely tension. I was very excited about it but I also felt like that was a lot of pressure. How do you start a D and I committee at a company that’s never had it before? And then how do we measure success? That I think was the scariest part going into it. I will say it was great support between Krisha and even our D and I committee that everyone felt a part. And so everyone was able to give ideas, implement action items and things that they thought we could do better and so it wasn’t just on me to figure it out. So I appreciated that I was able to have a voice but also be able to speak with other people to determine what does this look like for BELAY going forward? And so that really helped just the community and support that we had.

Tonia Benas:

And I mean, it went from leadership all the way down. And I think that was the most critical part that it wasn’t just the committee trying to figure it out. It was becoming a part of our culture. And now it is a very important part of our culture that even people are coming in because of that. And so they’re wanting to be a part so there’s more passion around it. So I think that has helped level out the pressure and now it’s just like, “Okay, what can we do forward?” And then in terms of measuring the success, what does it look like, what is our retention rate, how are employees feeling? Do they feel like they’re included, do they feel like they belong? And if they’re saying yes and most of them are saying yes, then I feel like we’re making steps in the right direction.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

So as we wrap up this conversation I guess, I would love to know and for our listeners who are trying to figure out, “All right, what do I do, what next step do I take?” What would y’all’s suggestion be to others who really want to make an impact with diversity and inclusion at their company?

Beth Thompson:

I would say if you’re an individual contributor, first thing you can do is just start talking to people, talk to your team members, talk to your colleagues, find out what their experience is in your organization. And that’s really going to reveal where those pain points are, where the gaps are, the things that need to be addressed. And you as an individual need to learn what it means to be an ally, go out there and do your homework then take advantage of opportunities to champion others who bring different experiences and perspectives.

Tonia Benas:

Definitely. And I would say to start where you’re at right now even if you don’t have all the answers get started. Some things you will learn as you go but just start, make sure that your leadership is fully on board. And that communication about everything that you are doing and wanting to implement gets communicated throughout the entire company. That way everybody has that buy-in, change is hard. So everybody might not be excited about it at first but eventually, they will respect it and value it. But it has to become part of your culture not just a box to check off.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

No. That’s awesome. We say on the podcast all the time that the secret to great companies is hiring really good people and keeping them as long as you can. And this is just one other way that the talent pool out there, really a thing they care about. This is a way that we can attract better talent and at the same time, we can hopefully make our communities and our businesses and the relationships that we’re in better.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

And I know both of you have shared when I started putting myself in intentional environments where I was around people who weren’t like me which took intentionality. I had to move somewhere, I had to work somewhere different, I had to have hard conversations with somebody that I wouldn’t have otherwise. When I started to do that, all of a sudden my understanding of all sorts of issues that I didn’t have came into play. And I think for us, this is really important. That’s one of the things I love about BELAY and I’m just really grateful for both of you and all the hard work that you’ve done to lead our company this way. So thank you. It makes me want to work here too. So I really appreciate it.

Beth Thompson:

Right. Thank you.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Tonia and Beth, thank you so much for being with us today. Gosh, this conversation was so helpful and I know for our listeners, it’s really given them some practical, actionable steps to go and figure out how to take a next step in their business, to really promote diversity and inclusion and make a huge difference both in their community but also in their ability to attract talent and with the lives they intersect. Gosh, this conversation’s been so good but we do have one more question that you’re going to want to stick around for Beth and Tonia are going to stick around and answer that for us. But the way you’re going to get that is you can subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you a link to our bonus content. Or you can go to onenextsteppodcast.com where you can find a link in our show notes to watch or listen to that. You’re not going to want to miss it. But Tonia and Beth, thank you so much for joining us.

Lisa Zeeveld:

What a great conversation with Beth and Tonia, Ryan. Wow. I really appreciated both of their compassion and commitment to diversity and inclusion and they have absolutely, made BELAY a better place to work with their efforts.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Absolutely. I’ll tell you, two of my team members here at BELAY are on our D and I committee right now. And they would tell you that it’s one of the most fulfilling things that they get to do in their jobs and it really helps them bring their whole selves to work. And I just really hope all of our listeners can take away something from today and really think about how they could apply some of these things in their business. I want to say special things to Beth and Tonia for their time today and their dedication. It’s been amazing what we’ve done. Now, as you know, LZ, every week we offer one next step for our listeners. So head to the show notes page for today’s episode to access the fantastic D and I resource we have for you and take the first next step towards elevating your business.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Well, thank you so much for tuning into this week’s One Next Step. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less, go to belaysolutions.com

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s right. Join us next time. For more practical business tips and tools to help you advance your business one step at a time. For more episodes, show notes and helpful resources visit onenextsteppodcast com.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Join us next week when our good friend Kevin B. Jennings from marketing consulting firm, Junction 32, will visit with us once again. This time, he’ll be talking with LZ about how to use social media and email marketing to grow your business. Here’s a quick preview….

Kevin B. Jennings:

If you’re thinking no one’s buying from social media, that’s because you’re trying to skip the dating process. I just met you, let’s get married. That’s not how life works. It didn’t work in your real life. It’s not going to magically work online because you say it enough. And I think most people want to show up and just say, “I’m awesome. Please marry me. Give me your money,” and that’s never going to work. Because it didn’t work offline, it’s not going to work online.