Why a Diverse Workforce Matters
By: Alejandra Martinez | August 2021
UC Davis prides itself on being an organization that values diversity at the forefront of everything we do; whether it’s on the university campus or at the medical center, our organization looks to the Principles of Community as an embodiment of the ideals and commitments we seek to uphold.
These commitments, however, are not simply a feel-good effort based on feelings; there are many quantitative and impactful reasons as to why cultivating a diverse workforce matters.
Business-wise, it makes sense. Research by McKinsey shows that “companies in the top quartile for gender or racial and ethnic diversity are more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians." Diversity amongst our workforce ensures that we are constantly forward-thinking and evolving. This isn’t limited to race and gender; diversity comes from personal identity as much as it does personal background and lived experience. Hiring a truly diverse workforce that spans multiple types of backgrounds and mindsets ensures that creative thinking and innovation are nurtured within our organization. It’s how growth happens, and how we’ve become such an innovative leader thus far. Cultivating diversity cultivates creativity and progress.
As a university, we have the opportunity to impact the lives of our students through our diversity efforts. When we make the effort to cultivate a diverse staff that accurately represents the students at UC Davis, retention rates and graduation rates amongst students who come from underserved populations increase.
It’s not just their sense of belonging that improves; it's their overall success in completing their education. Diversity as action leads to feelings of inclusivity and belonging for students, which results in better outcomes for their education.
As a medical center, patient outcomes are substantially improved through our diversity efforts. These improved outcomes happen because patients are more readily able to trust their healthcare team when they see themselves reflected in it. Having patients trust our staff because of its diversity and representation is an effort that will continue because it can, quite literally, save lives.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion have always mattered, but they’ve only recently become a focus of organizations as a priority. This newfound focus comes with serving the needs of a global society that is diverse by nature.
In addition to the practical and quantitative progress that comes from cultivating diversity, there is also the ethical component that drives our efforts. It’s no secret that our society carries within it historical and deep-rooted injustices and biases. Those injustices need to be combated in every aspect of the work that we do if we are to embody the UC Davis Principles of Community.
Cultivating a diverse workforce is important and necessary for reasons beyond feelings or figures. It is an all-affecting component of the workplace that has an impact on our students, our patients, and the community at large that we’ve endeavored to serve.
It is our responsibility to ensure that the weight and importance of this mission is not lost along the way of our daily tasks and responsibilities. Together, we are capable of driving our commitment to diversity forward to new frontiers.
Citations: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters#
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Forbes Recognition
By Alejandra Martinez | May 2021
There is exciting news in the work that we’re doing in the world of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion!
UC Davis & UC Davis Health have been recognized by Forbes yet again as one of the best employers for diversity in 2021. It is something that we as HR professionals should be immensely proud of. This recognition comes to the University as a result of the hard work and dedication that our staff puts into creating a workplace that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive of all people.
In 2020, UC Davis ranked #52 and UC Davis Health ranked #101 amongst a list of 500 employers throughout the nation.
This year, our rank increased to #35 for UC Davis, and #59 for UC Davis Health. This improvement in ranking showcases that the efforts we’re putting in to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our organization is working. It is an accomplishment worth celebrating and reveling in.
While we celebrate the University’s accomplishment, let’s also remember to keep pushing for progress in our efforts for diversity, equity, and inclusion. This work is important not because of the awards that the University receives, but because of the impact, it has on our community. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work is never “over” or “completed”, and it requires commitment from all of us in order to be successful.
- You can find more information about this exciting recognition here:
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: A Personal Journey
By Alejandra Martinez | March 2021
When I was first contacted by Lyndon Huling for an interview with the Leadership Recruitment & Diversity Services (LR&DS) Team at UC Davis, I remember feeling simultaneously ecstatic and terrified. I’d submitted my application for the Diversity & Outreach Coordinator role as a wishful dream. In my eyes, I was as likely to win the lottery as I was to land an interview with an employer as prestigious as UC Davis.
During my interview, I discussed my experience (limited as I may have felt it was), but also my passion. I spoke to my now-colleagues about the personal meaning diversity, equity, and inclusion held for me. I remember connecting with the interview panel and visualizing what working with them would look like. I kept telling myself, It’s a wonderful dream, but nothing more. Don’t get your hopes up. Others are likely better suited for the role.
At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure how or why my mindset was so fixated on the fact that I probably wasn’t the best candidate; that so many others were much smarter, much more experienced, and much more capable than I was for the role.
And then I was offered the position.
I was in complete disbelief. UC Davis had always been an enigma to me; an organization that was out of reach for myself and for those like me. Why would I stand out to them when the applicant pool was surely full of candidates so much more qualified than myself?
Of course, I’ve now come to the realization that UC Davis is not an unreachable goal; I simply saw it that way because I was so accustomed to seeing myself as non-essential.
The reality is this: I am a Latinx woman that grew up watching every adult around me struggle in poverty as a farm or factory worker. My parents were both immigrants from Guatemala, and while their children went to school, one of them worked on the grapevine, and the other sorted almonds at a distribution facility.
All the while, my parents encouraged me to do better than they had, for them. They’d laid the groundwork for my sisters and me; they’d gotten us to a country where education was common, and where opportunity was plentiful. It was now our job to obtain that education and become successful in life. My father used to tell me, “Eres inteligente, mija. Usa tu cerebro en vez de tu espalda.” You’re smart, honey. Use your brain instead of your back.
I did exactly that. I sought out higher education, obtained my bachelor’s degree, and found a job in a small organization’s Human Resources team that I was sure my parents would be proud of. Although these were feats that I’m still proud of today, I often find myself wondering where my self-confidence went beyond that.
Why was I in disbelief at having obtained the job I’d dreamed of? Why did I think of UC Davis as a completely unattainable goal? Why was the idea of a “dream job” so laughable to me? I’m still not sure I have the answer but being embedded in the work that LR&DS does has allowed me to look at my journey from a perspective of inclusion.
Maybe I felt that this position was unattainable because I’d never seen anyone in my personal life successfully work their way towards a “dream job”. The goals that my parents had set for me, like so many other migrant farm worker parents, was simply to obtain an education and find a job that didn’t include harsh physical labor. I’d already met the ceiling of their expectations, and of the expectations society had set for me as the daughter of immigrants. Wasn’t it unreasonable for me to want more?
It’s taken quite a bit of effort, but I’ve come to the realization that it’s far from unreasonable. In fact, it is necessary that I continue to do what I am passionate about, and to continuously seek out opportunities to break the barriers that I would have previously accepted as status quo. If I am to be truly successful in my role as a Diversity & Outreach Coordinator, I need to value my own inclusion in the same way that I value the inclusion of others. It is essential that I see my potential as clearly as others do, and as clearly as I see the potential of others. To doubt my capability simply based on my background is to doubt the capabilities of those who come from experiences like mine.
It helps that the UC Davis team has been nothing but welcoming and inclusive since the day I started working in this role.
Embracing diversity, striving for equity, and ensuring inclusion is essential to creating a workplace that truly pushes innovation and progress. It takes all of us to actively do the work for that change. So long as we’re mindful of that effort as individuals, we will continue to see the positive influence that it has on our organization, and on society.
The self-doubt that riddled my subconscious in the past still likes to rear its head now and then. I like to remind myself, however, that the value UC Davis places on diversity means that my perspective and experience is just as valued as any one of my peers.
I’m excited to push our goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion forward with expanded outreach in the coming months. I’m sure that, together, we can prevent others from doubting themselves in the way that I did. By embracing diversity wholeheartedly, we’re ensuring not only that the community sees themselves represented within our staff, but also that they can envision themselves as being a part of our team at UC Davis.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
By Ellen Jordan | October, 2020
Diversity, equity and inclusion are hot topics most everywhere you look these days. And they should be. This is especially true at UC Davis and UC Davis Health, and within HR. As I started to write this, I thought, what quick information can I share that will be beneficial to everyone reading this – not just recruiters (hi there!) or hiring managers within HR.
Here are ways you can help attract diverse talent to UC Davis (Health).
- Connect with diverse talent proactively
- You don’t have to be a recruiter or a hiring manager to grow your network and make connections. If you see someone on LinkedIn whose profile or career path you admire, send them an invite to connect. If you know your department tends to have similar openings often, connect with folks who have that experience so you can share the opening with them down the road. You can do the same thing when meeting folks in-person through networking events or at conferences.
- Build your network using LinkedIn
- I could go on for days about how beneficial the LinkedIn platform is to everything I do. You can grow your LinkedIn network by connecting with others in your field, and your connections are all potential future applicants. As you share posts and articles, you just may catch the eye of someone who in turn, takes a look at our job board. Perhaps one of the most obvious benefits of LinkedIn connections in the recruiting process is that you can share job postings and encourage folks to apply! Did you know that I wouldn’t even have a job here at UC Davis if it wasn’t for my previous manager connecting with me and reaching out through LinkedIn?
- Join professional organizations
- This can be at work, in your community, online, LinkedIn, etc. Between both campuses, we have over a dozen employee resource groups that you can be a part of; hr.ucdavis.edu/employees/diversity/resource-groups. Within your community, you can find various interest groups, networking groups or nonprofits to take part in. Online and on LinkedIn, you can also find dozens – if not hundreds – of groups you may be interested in belonging to. In any of these spaces, you may find folks that want a career at UC Davis (Health) and can help be a resource!
- Highlight the impact of your work through various tools and social media platforms.
- Share articles and create posts on LinkedIn that will engage your audience. In talking about diversity, there is so much out there through posts from UC Davis or UC Davis Health, posts from our diversity offices or other departments, posts from colleagues, etc. When you are actively participating and sharing valuable information about the work we are doing, folks will notice. Another simple way is through email signatures. When anyone opens an email from me, you’ll see the Forbes Best Employers for Diversity logo in my signature block; an easy way for me to continually highlight our commitment to diversity. Other tools include using your pronouns in places like your email signature, LinkedIn, on Zoom or Webex calls.
These are just a few things that every one of us can do to help attract diverse talent to our organization!
Ellen Jordan (she/her) | Senior Talent Acquisition Partner
UC Davis Human Resources
Direct: 916-734-8191 | Diversity in Hiring at UC Davis
HR Connects hosted HR staff in a conversation to discuss Ava DuVernay’s Oscar-nominated documentary titled 13th about the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom. The goal was to provide an opportunity for staff to discuss the documentary and share their thoughts and feelings in a safe and open environment. What took place was a thoughtful, emotional conversation about a documentary that laid bare the truth surrounding this nation’s history from the thirteenth Amendment until today.
- Read more about the conversation...
- The documentary brought forward feelings of frustration, sadness, and disgust for how our nation and its citizens have treated African Americans, and all people of color, throughout history; for the ways in which they have used the government, its laws and the media to aid their efforts. Most HR staff felt that while it was difficult to watch the images and listen to the information presented in this documentary, it was nonetheless important for all of us to hear, see and remember. Many of those who shared their thoughts felt that these conversations are necessary to ensure we continue to listen and educate ourselves to help bring forward true change and not continue to repeat history to the detriment of this nations’ citizens.
We would like to thank those who were able attend and participate. We felt that the contributions from those in attendance made this difficult topic approachable in such a way that it allowed everyone to be able to speak and share their thoughts and feelings.
At the conclusion of our conversation it was also suggested that we host light-hearted events, discussions or activities. We absolutely support and agree with that suggestion and already have some fun activities planned for upcoming months. This conversation felt timely and important to host. Look forward in the next few weeks to an announcement for an upcoming Fall Harvest themed event for staff.