February - WE Embrace - Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

February 1, 2022 Elizabeth Chrane

Hello Team,

Looking back on my past few monthly messages, I realized that I have shared a lot about the success of our business, our impressive growth and my confidence in our strategic path ahead. I’ve also shared my pride in how purposeful our work together has become as our ability to “do well” as a company is largely a byproduct of our desire to “do good” for those that we serve. The truth is that the impact that we have as a company has far greater reach than a great place to work, happy clients and a healthy balance sheet. I was reminded recently that our ability to serve others extends well beyond our business and reaches into so many communities across the country. I was proud to see a number of meaningful service projects across our OneDigital communities in January to celebrate and honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Here in Atlanta, we focused on food insecurity as a many of our people did a virtual education project while others went to the local food bank and packed or sorted food.

As I admired the caring and giving spirit from so many of you this past month, it also reminded me that I missed an opportunity to remark and honor the significance of MLK Day in my recent virtual Town Hall. And, that same week, I watched the news in fear and dismay as four Jewish Americans were held at gunpoint for over 10 hours in their place of worship. It’s now been more than 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and yet we remain painfully aware that hatred, injustice and inequality still exists in parts of our society.  While it’s easy to be angered and want to give up when events like this persist, I’m also reminded of Dr. King’s timeless words "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

So, with hope on my mind and an eye toward progress, I wanted to focus this message on an important priority for OneDigital - that we continue to embrace and strive to advance Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. There has been a lot of great progress at OneDigital with DEI&B and there is still a lot of work to do.  Top of mind for me right now is our recruiting efforts and the importance of diversity in our workforce as we look to expand our talent across so many impactful roles throughout the organization. We have such an important opportunity in front of us and I am encouraged by the important work of our recruiting team as they revamped their processes and are consistently presenting diverse slates of candidates to our hiring managers. Our recent data shows that we are now doing this nearly 80% of the time. While our ultimate goal is 100%, we are making real progress and it is contributing to the talent that we are bringing into the organization. I am seeing this firsthand as I am involved in several key searches for Sr. leadership roles at OneDigital. My priority right now is our search for a new Chief Information Officer (CIO). Having diversity in our executive team is important to me and our search firm and hiring team have brought forward a very talented and diverse set of candidates. While I don’t yet know where we are going to land, I’m immensely confident that our expansive process, and focus on diversity in our candidate pool, will ultimately lead to us hiring the best individual to lead our technology team and the business going forward.

I’m proud that 100% of our employees completed Unconscious Bias training in 2021 and that we’ve launched a new Foundations of DE&I program. It’s my personal goal that 100% of our leaders will voluntarily complete this learning pathway this year.  I’m also proud that our OneDigital DASH contributed almost $200k last year to non-profits in our communities that support and foster DEI&B programs. And, I’m proud of the programs that our employee resource groups and local DE&I committees continue to facilitate and share with our internal teams.  

Yes, I am proud of a lot… but I also know that we are only at a point in time in this journey.  It’s not a project that has a beginning and an end, it’s something that we’ll always need to work on and continue to do better. I’d like to thank the many OneDigital leaders that have made this a priority in their strategic goals. And, I’d like to also thank the many people who take the time to give feedback and input on our efforts. This February, the beginning of Black History Month, I’d like to reaffirm my commitment and prioritization of DEI&B within OneDigital. I hope that we can become an example for the clients that we support and for the communities where we serve.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also reminds us, “The Time is always right to do what is right”. Please join me as we endeavor to do what is right as WE embrace diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging within this special organization.

Adam

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