recruiting and hiring
Hiring a Chief Diversity Officer Won’t Fix Your Racist Company Culture
This article discusses how while diversity, equity and inclusion are becoming parts of the mission statements of companies across America, many companies are failing or unwilling to address deeper issues of racist culture. Through a series of examples, the author exposes how people of color are often hired by companies to “solve their racism problem”, but are prevented from doing substantive work. For more read here.
Workforce Development Racial Equity Readiness Assessment
This is a tool put together by Race Forward, a racial justice advocacy organization, for the field of Workplace Development. It offers a toolkit to assess organizational approaches to racial equity on a number of levels and resources for how to improve racial equity within the organization. For more read here
Let’s Get Real About Why Women of Color Are So Tired: Playing by the rules in capitalist America comes at the cost of our mental, physical, and emotional health
This honest article by a woman of color examines why women of color experience actual trauma and suffering working in majority-white nonprofits. Specifically, the article addresses the scarcity mentality and a culture of celebrity and competition that underpin the culture of most nonprofits, including in the environmental and conservation sector. For more read here.
WHITE MALE WORKERS RESPOND POORLY TO WOMEN AND RACIAL MINORITIES IN POWER AND TAKE IT OUT ON COLLEAGUES: REPORT
This article begins “How do white male executives handle it when a woman or person of color become CEOs of their company? Not well, a new study from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business suggests.” We like this article because though many conservation, outdoor, and environmental organizations may be succeeding in recruiting, hiring, and promoting women and BIPOC, these employees will still struggle without concerted efforts to address unconscious bias on the part of their peers. Read more here.
Toolkit on Implementing the President’s Memo on Diversity & Inclusion in Public Lands & Waters
We built this toolkit to help you implement the Presidential Memorandum issued on January 12th, 2017. The memo is available online here. The toolkit is attached.
DownloadBlindspot: The Hidden Bias of Good People
In this seminal work, the authors of the Implicit Association Test discuss the impetus for their research on implicit biases. The book is peppered with fascinating activities and stories. Because implicit bias is what fundamentally gets in the way of our doing good diversity, equity, and inclusion work, we recommend everybody read this book. For those who are more audiovisual, listen to the podcast we’ve posted with Mazarin Banaji. If you have some time to read, order the book online here.
Diversity Derailed: Limited Demand, Effort and Results in Environmental C-Suite Searches
In its most recent report (October 2016), Green 2.0 researches executive search firms and their approach to supporting the green sector with hiring. The upshot is that search firms—upon whom big green organizations are increasingly relying to fill leadership positions—have neither valued nor integrated diversity into their hiring priorities. Though this study is on search firms, the full report and the checklist contain some useful recruiting and hiring tips for all organizations in the conservation and environmental sector. Read more here.
Cluster Hiring and Diversity
The concept of cluster hiring originates in academia, where increasingly, universities hire multiple scholars into one or more departments based on shared, interdisciplinary research interests. Cluster hiring since been interpreted to mean hiring multiple people from a specific identity (women, people of color) at a time. This has been shown to increase gender and ethnic diversity. This article discusses the benefits of cluster hiring in academia. Read more here.
Green Leadership Trust Board-Led Best Practices on Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity
The Green Leadership Trust is a network of people of color and indigenous people who serve on environmental boards. We work to build the environmental movement’s power by diversifying its leadership through promotion of best practices and other resources and by driving the leadership pipeline. In December of 2014, the Green Leadership Trust launched the “Board-Led Best Practices on Diversity, Inclusion and Equity.” Find their resources here.
Diversifying Mainstream Environmental Groups Is Not Enough
In this article, Bob Bullard & Robert Garcia challenge environmental organizations to think bigger than just diversifying their own ranks, and to actually provide resources to the grassroots organizations who are bringing environmentalism to local communities of color. Some refer to Bullard’s work as “Green 3.0.” Read here.
DownloadToolkit to Mitigate Bias in Recruitment & Hiring (Updated 11/2021))
We have compiled a list of some of the most current and salient ideas for ensuring your hiring practices are as equitable and inclusive as possible. This toolkit takes you through the entire hiring process, giving suggestions for each step. (Updated November 2021)
DownloadHow to tell someone they sound racist
Jay Smooth instructs on how to have a productive conversation with someone who just may have said something racist. While he focuses on race here, his tactics apply to addressing any difficult or sticky conversation, especially around identity, power, and oppression.
Watch here.