The Importance of Transparency In-house - Karen Boykin-Towns
Karen Boykin-Towns, a change catalyst and results-driven leader, recently participated in a virtual panel discussion, A Conversation on Gender, Race, and Success hosted by Zoetis. Zoetis is the world’s largest producer of medicine and vaccinations for pets and livestock.
Through the course of the panel discussion, the participants discussed a wide variety of topics ranging from gender, success, how not to be racist and more.
One of the topics Karen delved into was the importance of transparency internally and externally for organizations. You can watch that part of her video here, or read the excerpt below.
“I think some of the mistakes companies make, is to be outspoken externally, but not do the actual work internally. In this case, they aren’t really making changes. We have all seen companies which have been a bit more forward-leaning and then employees come out and talk about how the issues aren’t being addressed in-house. That is definitely something that should not be done. I think another problem is not taking any action because leadership is busy wrangling their hands and not wanting to be embarrassed or making a mistake.
“The fact of the matter is that usually we can get a good sense of which companies are doing the work. Just because you don’t have your numbers out there, does not mean that people don’t have a good sense as to whether you are diverse or not. Transparency is really the way. Today, 25 of the top 100 companies thus far have been transparent and have released their EEO 1 information for everyone to see (the EEO-1 report is a compliance survey mandated by federal statute and regulations. The survey requires company employment data to be categorized by race/ethnicity, gender and job category). I think we’re going to see more of that. Ultimately they’re trying and I think people want a little less talk a lot more action.”
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