Good morning Marketer, are you actively focused on diversity in your organization?
This week during INBOUND, speaker Tissa Hami offered diversity, equity and inclusion training through her company Korsi Consulting – and with it, shared her all-too-familiar story. Directly out of college, Hami joined a well-known white shoe law firm as a paralegal, recalling that out of 100 partners, there were only six women and one Black male. “No matter what good work I did, none of it got noticed,” she said.
Hami ended up moving into investment banking, where she found inclusion numbers “even more skewed.” She eventually made her way to speaking engagements, leveraging comedy as a platform to “speak up and speak out” about the challenges she – and many others – have shared in regards to diversity and inclusion.
We asked Hami how a company should assess whether it has a need for diversity training. “Every company does,” she said. “Nobody has it 100% right.” The place to start is with a salary equity audit. “Be prepared to pay what you need to pay,” she said.
“Companies need to catch up with the times. White employees want diversity. Gen Z is asking about diversity and inclusion.” Ask yourself who’s missing, what perspective is missing, and why, she advised.
Perhaps Hami said it best: “The best time to work on diversity was yesterday. If you didn’t do it yesterday, do it now.”
Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor
