‘True support is rooted in an action plan that creates long-term, sustainable change,’ says Ericsson African-American Alliance Co-Chair
Ericsson’s African-American Alliance (AAA) is one of the company’s employee resource groups, all of which are led by members of the workforce to advocate for important social causes. According to the Ericsson website, the AAA supports the company’s African-American employees by promoting “professional and career development, building and sustaining a pipeline of talent and advocating for broader awareness of challenges unique to Ericsson African-American employees and communities.”
To learn more about the program and some of the other ways technology companies can better support their black and African-American workforce and community members, RCR Wireless News spoke with Daniel Smith, who is a global strategic sourcing manager at Ericsson and the co-chair of the AAA.
What are some of the main goals of Ericsson’s North America African American Alliance (AAA)?
The mission of the Ericsson African-American Alliance (EAAA) is to promote professional and career development of its members, build and sustain a pipeline of talent for Ericsson and advocate for broader awareness of challenges unique to the Ericsson African American employees and communities we serve. We operationalize this mission through our pillars of: Connect, Grow and Serve. To Connect is to foster an inclusive environment for our membership; to Grow is to develop and strengthen the competence of our membership as they work towards their career goals; and to Serve is to bridge the EAAA’s mission beyond the walls of Ericsson and into the communities at large through external partnerships.
What would you say is one of the biggest barriers for people of color (POC) entering the telecom/tech workforce?
One of the biggest barriers for people of color entering the workforce is primarily the systemic hiring practices that have been in place for decades that negatively impact people of color. There is very clear racial disparity at the top of many companies, which reflects their diversity in leadership across other areas of the organization. Many of the processes today in screening candidates and evaluating qualified talent for an organization are often subjective to the hiring manager’s preferences and biases, which, whether recognized or unconscious, create gaps for POC in a system that does not reflect them.
OK – but how do we fix this?
Companies have to evaluate their current hiring process and begin to ask questions about if their process opens them up to biases or limits opportunities for people of color. Companies can ask a great couple of questions: Are my hiring managers trained properly, and often how to remove bias in their hiring processes? Does my organization have the talent I am looking to bring in? Beyond bringing them into your organization, do you have the infrastructure to support people of color when they are hired? Is there access to mentorship? Does your culture foster a sense of inclusiveness for all? How often do you reevaluate your processes to find optimization opportunities to improve the hiring process? Do you have tangible goals toward diversity requirements in your hiring processes? Does your organization have key performance indicators and accountability to ensure these goals are met?
These are a few questions of many that companies can ask to address the issues facing people of color entering this workforce.
How can companies strike the right balance between supporting and embracing its black workforce without ignoring the fact that they are black? Basically, “color blindness” is not only impossible, but it’s also not a real solution and is likely damaging. So how can companies show true support?
The company needs to define what support means to them and evaluate if that definition aligns with the audience they claim to support. From my perspective, true support is rooted in an action plan that creates long-term, sustainable change and not just a band-aid solution.
Much like any company looking to drive change in their organization to attain the goals of their customer or workforce, there must be infrastructure, investment and buy-in to enable successful change for an organization. I believe this is no different as it relates to the black community. An organization must be prepared to reorganize its workforce, drive cultural shifts through leadership influence and create an accountability mechanism that ensures this support is being reinforced in the organization. Then the organization has to be clear in its messaging with how they can actually support their black employees without marketing an disingenuous message that only serves the short-term and not the long-term.
Is it important for companies to get involved in national conversations around race and to make their stance clear? What sort of message might this send to a company’s black workforce?
My consistent stance here is any message without action is deemed performative and disingenuous. Many injustices affect how people show up to work every day, especially the black community. A company’s choice to take a stance also means they have a responsibility to take action on that stance and not just a marketing message like many companies have done, especially in 2020. If those two things do not align, I would say it’s more important to create a safe space to empathize with black employees.
Ensure managers embed values of empathy and humanness in connecting with their employees. Invest in your resource groups to lead dialogue and support initiatives for their members, and don’t be afraid to say you don’t know everything about a given situation. Often, companies feel they need to absorb the knowledge and understanding of any given community when this is an opportunity for a company to uplift someone or an organization that can provide the proper support when injustices arise at any given time in society.
Any advice for young black professionals interested in getting into telecom?
Network. Network. Network. Successful businesses are built on their ability to create viable and mutually beneficial relationships with other people. You are the CEO of your career, and in order to reach your goals, you have to adopt the same mindset as businesses do when they look to develop new opportunities for themselves. We have to be willing to knock on doors, find sponsorships, identify mentors, upskill in the ever-changing industry as often as possible, and continue to brand ourselves to find the opportunities we’re looking for. We have to take responsibility for our careers to the best of our ability and not wait for a system to grant us permission to succeed. Be disruptive, diligent, and determined in our approach to make an impact in spaces we are not highly represented in.
