Do hiring goals still matter? Yes, especially if building a racially equitable and inclusive workplace is the goal

The Racial Equity Dividends Index (Index) is a comprehensive analytical tool developed by the Center for Economic Inclusion that helps businesses measure their progress toward building a racially equitable and inclusive workplace. This post explores the research behind the standards in the Index, and how implementing these policies and practices can help close the racial wealth gap in Minnesota.

Shoreé Ingram

By Shoreé Ingram,
Managing Director, Employer Services and Consulting

In 2022, just 35% of companies participating in the Racial Equity Dividends Index indicated that they set enterprise-wide goals for hiring, retaining and advancing Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Asian people in their organizations.

This racial equity standard is one of the most important ways that companies can make real structural change in their organizations. A key lever for this permanent structural change is organizational responsibility—when leaders take responsibility for reaching these goals.  

Studies have found that setting specific goals for hiring, retaining, and advancing workers of color is a highly effective strategy for increasing the racial diversity of an organization’s workforce, especially for management-level roles. This practice has a stronger demonstrated impact on workforce diversity than efforts to create mentorship networks or trainings to reduce bias and discrimination.

While setting the goal is the first step, creating shared accountability across the organization toward achieving these goals is the immediate second.  

What Gets Measured, Gets Done

Companies need to have mechanisms in place not just for measuring progress, but for supporting and holding leaders accountable for developing, implementing and resourcing those anti-racist strategies, and actions needed to achieve goals.

Here are three examples of racial equity standards companies can incorporate into goal setting:

• Hiring, retention, and advancement questions in managers' annual performance evaluations.

• Holding specific strategy sessions with managers on a quarterly, biannual, and annual basis to review progress.

• Offering performance bonuses to managers based on their success in meeting hiring, retention, and advancement goals.

Goals combined with resourced action plans with clear accountabilities will achieve and sustain positive organizational change critical to a racially equitable and inclusive workplace.

Companies increasingly understand the benefit of goal setting to increase racial and ethnic diversity in their organizations and cite research that shows commitment in practice to racial equity and inclusion positively shapes perceptions of culture and work environment for all employees.

Research also shows that companies with teams made up of diverse backgrounds not only benefit from improved financial performance, but are more innovative, able to evolve to meet current market demands and compete in a global economy. This study cited diverse teams are more likely to challenge ideas and rely closely on facts with less likelihood of mistakes or errors. 

Maintaining the Commitment 

While setting goals, and putting action and accountability plans in place are critical, companies need to also maintain this commitment not just during times of stability or growth, but when grappling with economic downturns. Historically during economic downturns, including from 2019 to 2020, Black and Brown workers are too often the first to be laid off or fired, and the last ones hired.

A company and our region’s commitment to racial equity and economic inclusion must be centered in an understanding and commitment to what data has already showed us: we all benefit when we are all included and able to fully participate in our economy.  

Do hiring goals still matter? Yes! Set those goals and be accountable for measurable progress toward a racially equitable and inclusive workplace where every employee thrives .

The Center is ready to help you kick-start and achieve your hiring goals through participation in the 2023 Index. Let’s build!

To learn more about how your company can use the Index to build enterprise-wide goals for hiring, retaining and advancing Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian people in your organization, register online by February 24. 

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Are You A Racial Equity Navigator?

Tawanna Black

By Tawanna A. Black, Founder & CEO

Have you had to navigate any potholes lately? Perhaps you even took a drive down a winding road and had to navigate tree branches that had fallen after our early spring snow fall, while also looking above to ensure that low hanging branches were not scraping the roof of your car…WATCH OUT! Don’t swerve too far to the right or you’ll hit the car in the next lane, and don’t you see the officer sitting in the parking lot up the street, he’ll give you a ticket if you’re not careful!

Navigating the Potholes of Racism

As I drove to the office this week, and navigated the terrain, I was reminded not only of our work helping employers dismantle systemic racism, but of the experience of Black women, pushing hard to achieve our personal dreams, the dreams of our families, and the dreams of our communities, while navigating the visible and invisible pot holes of racism, sexism, conscious and unconscious bias rooted in capitalism that often jump up out of nowhere to force us into new lanes, vehicles, and opportunities.  

I continued the drive and thought about how important it is to have other drivers who are not only looking out for themselves, and the obstacles in their own lanes, but also watching my lane, and the obstacles that might cause me to slow down, speed up, pick up a passenger or two, or change lanes all together. As a large recycling truck who had much greater visibility than I did in my vehicle pulled alongside me, I began to consider how much I value those fellow drivers who have a heightened consciousness about the limited view their fellow drivers have of upcoming obstacles…how much I value those drivers who put their bright lights on so that others can see challenges up ahead, and those who bring their plows out to clear debris so that others can keep moving.

In this journey of building racially equitable and inclusive regional economies, we need each other, the same way we need each other as we navigate snowy, pothole, and tree branch filled roads and sidewalks. While policies and practices are important, dismantling systems of oppression and building anti-racist organizations require much, much more. 

Share Your Resources

If you have information, power, money, or assets, information, or knowledge it must be shared with people in a position to create change, who need those resources to accelerate progress. Relationships must be kindled, curated, and deepened across race, sector, neighborhood, and class in meaningful ways that transform our very way of being. Our formal and informal decision-making must begin to change to invite others to not only provide input, but to make the decisions, distributing power and accountability. And we must begin to interrogate our beliefs about one another that have undergirded generations of biased and racist policies and practices, actions, and inactions. We must ask ourselves what is true, and how know it’s true; why we believe what we believe about people who live, work, and play differently than we do, and how we can challenge our assumptions when making decisions that impact people’s lives, communities, and livelihoods. 

Stay on the Journey

These four conditions of systems change: Resource Flows, Relationships & Connections, Power Dynamics, and Mental Models, have a significantly greater impact on our everyday interactions than policies and practices, just as the fallen tree branches and the actions of our neighbors have on our ability to safely navigate sidewalks and roads after a winter storm on an early spring day. The potholes of racism won’t go away on their own. It’s going to take ALL OF US. I hope we can count on you to stay on the journey!

In solidarity~
Tawanna

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A Long Overdue Investment in Racial Justice: Raising Wages for Care Workers

Betsy Ohrn

By Betsy Ohrn Director of Research

At the Center for Economic Inclusion, we believe all workers should earn a family sustaining wage.

One racial equity priority that we were excited to see reflected in Governor Walz’s proposed budget is a major investment to increase the wages of direct care workers. The budget includes $300 million in this biennium and $500 million in the next to implement the tentative contract agreement between the State of Minnesota and SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, providing a historic rate increase for more than 20,000 home care workers in Minnesota.  This is a critical opportunity to address a deep racial injustice that touches the lives of hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans. 

“As a woman of color who has chosen to make Homecare a career choice I cannot express how discouraging it is to find an occupation that you truly love and are made for, which also benefits the people you provide services to, but find that you can’t earn enough at to financially support your own household without some type of assistance or additional employment.”- Tavona Johnson 

Women make up 85% of the direct care workforce, 36% of these workers are people of color. Based on DEED data, almost 11% of working Black Minnesotans work as direct care workers (personal care workers, or nursing/home health aides.) This follows a national trend which also shows that Black women are deeply overrepresented in direct care occupations. This occupational segregation reflects a legacy of slavery and domestic servanthood that continues today. Where enslaved Black women were once charged with caring for White children, Black women were then sidelined into work as domestic servants and childcare workers, and now increasingly they are called to care for the growing elderly population. 

The injustice is not the work itself, but the fact that the work continues to be deeply underpaid, even though this work is essential to the well-being of hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans. In 2020, the average wage for all direct care workers in Minnesota was $14.72 per hour. Around 40% of direct care workers have insurance through Medicaid, Medicare, or another public source.1  

Further, these professions are critical to the future of Minnesota, especially as our population continues to age. Direct Care Workers, nursing assistants and personal care assistants, are two of the fastest growing professions in Minnesota. However, low wages and challenging working conditions are already resulting in large vacancy rates. According to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, the last estimate at the end of 2021 showed more than 9,100 job openings — a vacancy rate of 8.4%. In 2022, Minnesota nursing homes reported the largest staffing shortages in the country. These staffing shortages make the work harder for the remaining care workers, place extreme stress on family members, and are creating burdens on our hospital system.  Having committed, well-trained, and experienced workers in these roles is critical to the dignity and well-being of Minnesotans needing care.  

While some employers may want to raise wages, market failures and policy hold back what is possible. Federal Medicaid and Medicare rules constrain how much states can reimburse for direct care services. For this reason, state level leadership is critical to this issue. The agreement between SEIU Healthcare and the State of Minnesota would increase starting wages from $15.25 to $20 per hour by 2025. The deal covers more than 20,000 caregivers, about a fifth of the total direct care workers across the state. If the legislature approves and funds this contract, it will be a significant step forward for many direct care workers.  

This is a historic investment in the wages of workers who are essential to Minnesota’s economy. Not only does this benefit our homecare workers, it also goes a long way to attract committed people to these important jobs. However, you do not need to be a member of SEIU to show your support.  

• Want to know more about how we do our research? Check out our Indicators for an Inclusive Regional Economy

• Take Action: Find and call your legislator. Let them know you support this opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our workers and of all Minnesotans that need dedicated people caring for them. 

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Previewing the Racial Equity Dividends Index for the Public Sector

Nathan Arnosti

By Nathan Arnosti, Director of Analytics

Racial Equity: The New Public Priority

Forward-thinking leaders in local governments across the country recognize that many existing practices and policies stand in the way of goals to build racially equitable, inclusive, and prosperous communities.

Studies show that status quo practices – outdated job requirements that exclude candidates of color, purchasing agreements with longstanding contractors that hinder their ability to diversify their supply chains and increase regional job growth among Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Asian entrepreneurs,  land use planning that fails to integrate the needs and perspectives of historically marginalized communities, economic development incentives that subsidize low-wage job creation –exacerbate racial wealth gaps and restrict regional economic growth.

​​​​​​​Meanwhile, emerging practices based on research and pilot demonstrations in local governments across the country offer paths to improved service delivery, community relations, livability, and shared economic prosperity.

Many local governments have established taskforces and committees, created new permanent roles and teams, and joined peer learning networks to make progress towards becoming more racially equitable and inclusive. Yet these efforts are too often piecemeal, siloed within specific departments, and lacking broader context and peer comparison. Based on conversations we’ve had with public sector leaders and partners in recent months, we believe that those looking to take their next steps towards building racially equitable governments would benefit from a new tool developed by the Center for Economic Inclusion, the Racial Equity Dividends Index for the Public Sector.

What Gets Measured, Gets Done

This analytical tool evaluates a local government’s internal and external-facing practices across ten dimensions, including Procurement, Community and Economic Development, and Budgets, identifying more than 60 racial equity standards that research and experience affirm to support more racially equitable and inclusive outcomes. Participating organizations receive a customized score report that provides a clear, concise, quantified picture of their government’s overall current state for supporting racial equity, benchmarks progress against peers, and identifies opportunities for further progress. High-scoring entities will also be publicly recognized in an annual Racial Equity Dividends Index for the Public Sector report. The Public Sector Index structure is modeled off of the Center’s Racial Equity Dividends Index for the Private Sector, which launched in 2022 for private sector employers.

How To Participate

Registration for the first annual Racial Equity Dividends Index for the Public Sector begins at the end of April and will be available to city and county governments in Minnesota and select jurisdictions across the United States. Email me at narnosti@centerforeconomicinclusion.org if you have questions, and stay tuned for more information about registration for the Public Sector Index in the coming weeks!

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