Employers To Prioritize LGBTQ+ Benefits Or Lose Talent With LaFawn Davis of Indeed

What if your company could not only create a diverse and inclusive environment but also provide benefits that specifically cater to the LGBTQ+ community? Join us as we unpack this crucial topic with LaFawn Davis, Senior Vice President of ESG at Indeed. LaFawn shares her insights on intersectional identities within the LGBTQ+ community and how employers can prioritize benefits that support their employees. We also explore the significance of environmental sustainability through the lens of social impact, with LaFawn highlighting Indeed’s goal of achieving net zero carbon neutrality in 2021.

From understanding the fluidity of identities to learning about LGBTQ+ benefits, this episode is packed with valuable information. We’re delving into the vital role of allyship and advocacy in making a positive change within the LGBTQ+ community. We’ll also discuss the ever-evolving terminology and social constructs surrounding gender expression and sexual orientation. As we navigate the complexities of the LGBTQ+ community, LaFawn also provides insights on creating safe spaces, gender affirming care, and effective communication strategies for companies to adopt. Don’t miss this enlightening conversation on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace.

Listening Time: 32 minutes

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LaFawn Davis
SVP of Environmental, Social, and Governance Indeed

Globally-recognized Operator with 20 years of experience.

Pronouns: she/her/hers • Preferred Pronoun: Queen

Accolades:
• 2021 Entrepreneur Magazine 100 Women of Impact
• 2021 & 2020 Fast Company Queer50
• 2019 SF Business Times Most Influential Women in Business

Areas of expertise include: Sustainability • ESG • Social Impact • Emerging Technologies • Talent Management • Leadership Development • Operations • Corporate Identity • Public Speaking • Recruitment • Retention and Advancement • Communications • Organizational Needs Assessments • Accessibility • Product Inclusion • Inclusive Hiring

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Employers To Prioritize LGBTQ+ Benefits Or Lose Talent With LaFawn Davis of Indeed

William Tincup: [00:00:00] This is William Tincup and you’re listening to the RecruitingDaily podcast. Today we have LaFawn on from Indeed, and our topic today, or our discussion is going to be about employers to prioritize lgbtq plus benefits or lose talent. And I’ve actually wanted to tackle this topic for a long time because she’s been on my mind in the back of my mind, so I’m glad the crew at Indeed got LaFawn and I together.

So [00:01:00] why don’t we do some introductions. Indeed’s, probably, if you don’t know indeed, you’re probably something wrong with you. But we’ll go ahead and do Lavonne. Why don’t you introduce yourself and then maybe say what you do at Indeed.

LaFawn Davis: Absolutely William. Thank you so much for having me. Sure. My name is LaFawn Davis.

I am Senior Vice President of E S G, which is Environmental, social and Governance at Indeed. So I lead teams that work on a course, environmental sustainability social impact AI ethics, DEI B plus, which is diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And I’ve been at Indeed for, it’ll be almost four years.

Oh, wow. In about 10 days, I’ll be, my

William Tincup: goodness. And all the way through Covid too. Oh my goodness, yes. Bless you.

LaFawn Davis: Yes, definitely joined at an interesting time for the company. Normally when I introduce myself, William, I like to talk about my intersectional [00:02:00] identities. So I am black, I am queer. I am a woman.

I am of a mature age. We have a, an adult son, so I’m a mother of an adult son, and I am fabulous. So those are all of the ways in which I identify. And that really does help me with the lens that I have in the work that I do.

William Tincup: It’s, as you as you mentioned, those, what’s interesting to me is these would’ve been historically strikes against you.

Yes. So as you went through the list, it’s I’m black, I’m queer, I’m woman, and I’m of age. We’ll just say yes, right? Historically, hopefully not as bad today as maybe even five, 10 years ago, these would actually been things that, that would’ve been strikes against you, whether or not it was.

Overt or covert. These would’ve been things that you would’ve been thinking about that other employers would’ve been thinking about again, either consciously or subconsciously, et cetera. Most definitely. Out of all the things that you manage with the e [00:03:00] esg, What do they all have intersection points as well, but what, yes.

What’s the hardest, like when you mention, even, just like the your footprint. I can see, cause you’re a global company. We are, I can see people in Germany seeing, the carbon footprint in a different perspective than maybe someone in, Montana, et cetera.

Yeah. How do you manage those expectations?

LaFawn Davis: Yeah, so you know, we actually set as of 2021, we set some really audacious goals in the E S G space. So for the environment, we actually are not just going for carbon neutral cuz we are already carbon neutral as a company. Oh, cool. We are going for net zero.

Wow. So carbon neutral normally means that you just invest in enough good product projects to offset the badness. Yeah.

William Tincup: And well and that’s okay. If that’s what, as a company, if that’s

LaFawn Davis: actually significant as well. Because if you look at not just okay, we’re going to invest in planting some trees [00:04:00] you’re still looking at your business operation as well, your offices. And that’s why it’s like scope one, two, and three. Once you get to scope three, you’re thinking about your suppliers, your vendors. Yep. It’s not easy work. It’s not easy work. But the way that we look at environment is also around environmental justice. Understanding that climate change impacts marginalized people even more.

So there’s a socioeconomic. Part of that as well, and Right. And we wanna help people find green jobs. So we wanna help people find jobs to help the environment. And that’s also our way. Give us an

William Tincup: example of that LaFawn. Cause I think I get it. Yeah. However, when the audience hears something like this, I think it’s sometimes it’s great to anchor okay, for example, yeah.

LaFawn Davis: For example, you could work for a company that has environmental goals. Where you are focused on their programs, where you are driving the work. That would be a green job if you are actively working to help combat climate change [00:05:00] within an organization. So on indeed, you can actually see, you can use a filter for green jobs.

You can look at and see what kind of jobs would actually help me make an impact in a positive way for the climate. So we wanna help people find jobs that can actually help with that. And we feel like that’s also our way of. Affecting climate change?

William Tincup: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.

So especially if someone’s already hardwired and interested and passionate in that way why not? Why not have a filter for that? Let’s get back to the topic at hand cuz I could talk about all the things you’ve got, your fingers and all kinds of interesting things. So I let’s stay on topic as best we can.

Sure. So employers to prioritize LGBTQ two q plus benefits. What are the benefits that the community needs, like as you look at it, especially now versus maybe just a couple of years ago? What what’s changed or what do you think like the, [00:06:00] this is table stake Williams, these, this is the table stakes for benefits for this community, period.

End of story. And then if you wanna do something extra, okay, here’s some of the things you should look at.

LaFawn Davis: Yeah, so I, I love this question and I’m going to make it even broader than just the specific benefits, right? Cause I think there are ways that companies really need to just support l g LGBTQ plus employees.

It is a mouthful. There are so many letters, and that’s the reason why we have to do a plus.

William Tincup: I know. And I’m horrible at it.

LaFawn Davis: So there’s a couple of eyes and there’s a number two. I know. I,

William Tincup: I think I heard a niner. Yeah. Great. Oh, go ahead. No, but that’s also, what’s fascinating about that, I think that’s, Where I’ve where I think some people get tripped up by that.

By is because we’re learning more as we delve, as, again, these are things that were taboo 20, 30 years ago, you just didn’t talk about it. They’re just the l n [00:07:00] g done the rest of the story was again suffering in silence. Yes. I think the more we learn, The more, it’s like peeling the onion, right?

So the more we learn, the more we learn about other marginalized groups that are subsets, or even people that are there and have always been there. Yeah. But we just haven’t dealt, we haven’t treated it, we haven’t talked about it, we haven’t, embraced it. And so That’s right. It’s gonna be, we’re gonna wake up in four or five years and it’s gonna be more.

More initials and more things because we’re gonna learn more. Yes. That’s just my assumption. I don’t know that to be true. Cause I, not It’s a

LaFawn Davis: really good assumption though. It, it really is. There’s so much that changes over time when we allow ourselves to help people show up as they really are Right.

As opposed what we think they should be. And because of that, the lgbtq plus community is not a monolith. That’s right. There isn’t one thing that is gonna help that entire community of people. And [00:08:00] we’re now in a space of, especially in the US, where we have over 400 anti LGBTQ plus laws.

Oh yeah. And so the workplace has to be a safe space for the community. Yeah there’s lots of ways I think that companies can do that and most of those ways are simple and cost effective. I know that’s always a question, especially when we look at benefits. How is that gonna, what kind of cost analysis are we looking at?

But that’s why I wanna make it a little broader than benefits. So as we look at our survey that we did, only 34% have an LGBTQ plus. Employee resource group. So that’s a community of like-minded people and allies within companies there, there aren’t a ton of companies that have that community and that space for people to, be aligned in the same community, but also help be a resource to the company, meaning surface things that would actually be helpful.[00:09:00]

For LGBTQ plus employees and be able to actually push the company in a better direction and be more innovative around the types of support that they give.

William Tincup: Help me with my, help me with my struggle because this, the struggle is real and this particular struggle is absolutely something I’ve struggle with for a long time.

I love ERGs and love six. So if someone wants to build a sig around drone racing, totally get it. If someone wants to build an e r g around African Americans at Indeed, et cetera, like I love that. How, like the first of all the communities themselves I think are important. My struggle is that.

Oftentimes it’s not, it’s the other people that aren’t in that ERG that need to learn.

LaFawn Davis: Yep. So the

William Tincup: struggle is like a yes, I totally agree that you should have ERGs, especially for all of the different people being inclusive of ev, all the different folks. But the [00:10:00] learning.

Isn’t those people per se? Yeah, there’s a lot of learning internally. Yeah, of course. Just cuz you’re African-American doesn’t know mean, you know everything about Yes. The African-American experience. I like, I get that. Yeah. Yeah. However, outside of that group is a whole bunch of people that have no idea what the African-American experience is like.

Absolutely

LaFawn Davis: you are. I love this conversation William. And

William Tincup: it’s a struggle for me because the learning is trapped in this little area and I want the learning to go

LaFawn Davis: here. And I don’t want you to think it’s just you, that is Okay. A struggle that sometimes people face. So there, there is a community aspect that is great for all of the reasons, right?

There’s also an allyship and an advocacy space within those groups, right? It’s not just people who aligned to same identities, right? But I had this is a couple years ago, and indeed I had a manager who came up to me and said, Hey, I, I wanna go to these. We call them igs, but Right.

I wanna go to these i r g events, but I walk into a [00:11:00] room and I’m the only one that looks like me. And I said, I can say that, right? And I said, Hey, welcome, welcome to that feeling. Sit on that for a minute, because that is exactly what underrepresented people feel like every single day when they walk into a building, when they are on a team where they’re the only one that looks like them.

Feel that feeling and see this is how they feel. And then know, You have a shared experience. We’re all here at the same company. There’s a shared experience that you have with them too. Even if you don’t share the same identity right now, when it comes to the learning and education, that is why it’s actually important to have an intentional, we call it D DEI, B plus, which is diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging is it is important to have an intentional group within a company.

Who can drive things like inclusive learning and education and enablement, because it’s not actually on the marginalized community. To educate anyone. That is emotional [00:12:00] labor that takes away from other things that they can do. And so what we encourage is for, we actually have an allyship slack channel.

We have an ally lead that is a part of each of the irg. And the job is to take things where allies might have questions like, what do I do? Where do I go? How do I help that? They don’t put that on the community that needs the help.

William Tincup: It’s, it mirrors the, an experience I had all my African-American friends after George Floyd was murdered.

I would talk to ’em just, over text and whatnot, and they were like, I’m exhausted. Why are you exhausted? What’s up man? And they’re like, I have to I’m people are I, it’s a good thing, bad thing. People are reaching out. They wanna talk about this, they wanna podcast, they want to get my take on this, that, and the other.

And it’s a, I don’t speak for all African-Americans. B I’m wrestling with this myself. Yes. Like I’m dealing with this myself and my family, et cetera. Like I can’t, I love the way you phrased this, like [00:13:00] the community itself. Putting, having the community there so that there’s a shared experience and again, people can learn from one another, et cetera.

It, the burden isn’t on that particular community, especially marginal. The burden isn’t there. The burden is on the company. Exactly learn from. And I’ve been in the situation that you mentioned about allyship and I’ve, and it’s actually, it’s, I, cause I love vertigo. I’m strange like this, like I, I love the feeling of vertigo and so when I love improv comedy and so like, when I’m in an awkward situation like that I love it. I love it. Like it’s actually I get adrenaline from it, but what I found in allyship is my job’s not to talk. Which is, I talk for a living there’s that. My job is to shut up and just listen. And then, when people want me to talk, that’s a different bit.

But like most of it is just listening and hearing people what they [00:14:00] go through. That is eyeopening.

LaFawn Davis: Yeah, it William it really is. So we have, we’ve had sessions called brave Spaces And those spaces were meant for the communities to do some storytelling. Like especially if we look at the LGBTQ plus community and the fact that it’s not a monolith.

We, we have varying different experiences. And when you intersect those identities with others, it becomes even a different story. So I think about one of the stats that is from the the survey that we did, black members in the L GT LGBTQ plus community were 85% more likely than white members to face discrimination.

Wow. So even though we’re all a part of the LGBTQ plus community, if you are of color, you might have a different experience. Our trans population has a different experience. And There, there is a space to be had if you’re, again, intentional around storytelling, and that is a place where you definitely just listen, right?[00:15:00]

And you start to understand the lived experiences of others. But we also have a space where allies can do that. But when you move into the advocacy space, right? Then what you’re doing is what actions can I take, right? That is gonna be helpful to the community. Then it’s beyond. I support you. I’m listening.

I’m understanding, and it’s, I’m going to help in ways that actually matter.

William Tincup: It’s interesting because the actions part, I think, and again, some of this could be just excuse making, so let’s just call that what that might be is they don’t wanna fail. Oh, of course. It’s scary. It’s terrifying, right?

Yes. I’ll just speak as a middle aged Pear shaped white guy. So you know like it’s terrifying to then take something on and then say, okay, let’s do this. And it just, Fails again, I’m a recovering marketer. Most of what we do in marketing fails. That’s, that, that’s the [00:16:00] bit like it, it’s supposed to fail so that you can find something that works

LaFawn Davis: well, and sometimes with the best of intentions, William, right?

The wrong action. And so that is why it has to be what in this moment is going to matter to the community that is already harmed. Not, what do we think should happen? Not this is what I think I should do. It is what do they need and then you can take action. It is extremely scary. William, I’m, I’ve been in this kind of career for almost 20 years and I’m trying to fight for everybody, right?

Not just people that look like me, right? What that means is I have to understand communities as well as I possibly can before I actually create a strategy. To create change what’s, and so the same thing on a smaller level, for anyone that wants to be an ally and advocate for a community. When you’re taking the time to learn, when you’re taking the time to hear the [00:17:00] lived experiences, then it’s okay.

How can I actually make a positive change? Nothing performative. That’s just on the surface, gonna make you as it not you William, but the person as an ally or an advocate feel good. It’s really what would be most helpful in the moment. There’s real time things you can do. So if you, one of the, one of the things a company needs to focus on is having very strong anti-bullying, anti-harassment, anti-retaliation policies in place, so that an ally or an advocate can in the moment when they see those kinds of behaviors, can say, hey to the aggressor, can say, Hey, that isn’t okay to, let’s say deadname someone or to misgender someone. And you can also, in that moment, to the person who is caused harm, you can say, what? What can I do for you in this moment?

And sometimes that person might say nothing. And you have to as an individual, go, okay, I wanted to check in. I wanted [00:18:00] to make sure that I was, helping to advocate for you or being an ally to you. And if in this moment there isn’t anything I can do, I will respect that.

William Tincup: So two things that I want to ask. One is, like you mentioned dead names. And there’s a, I think it gets back to the monolith that, that this is, the community isn’t a monolith. Communities and plural plural are not, they’re fluid. And we’re learn, again, we’re learning new things.

And so how do we the first question is how do we keep people, how do up to date. And maybe not even just up to date, but just more again, what’s right, what’s wrong in something that’s fluid? Yeah. Like things are black and white. Speed limit’s 55. Okay, great. 56 over the speed limit.

54 under the speed limit. Okay. Okay. I get it. And I don’t drive the speed limit, so I know that I’m. I know that I’m breaking the law on this podcast, but I’m okay with that. So when I get a speeding [00:19:00] ticket, I’m like, eh, alright. Yeah, you didn’t catch me the 6,000 other times I was speeding.

I’m okay with it. But the thing is like what I’m interested in really getting your take on is okay, we’re you, the communities themselves are learning things that we didn’t know two years ago. Great. Yes. Okay. How does, how do we communicate that in a way to make sure that everyone understands like this is fluid?

Yes. And okay. Again, something that last week might not have been, we would’ve evenly recognized or talked about is now this week. Okay. Hey, we need to pay attention to this.

LaFawn Davis: Yeah. It absolutely is fluid. There are things that we used to say years ago that we do not and should not say now. And sometimes I’m like, oh, an

William Tincup: example of that.

If you don’t an example of that, we’ll fall on.

LaFawn Davis: Homosexual. Yeah. Used to be a term that was used very frequently. We don’t say that anymore. I felt like. I was, [00:20:00] behind the curve. Cause I was like, oh, we don’t say that. Ok. It gets into it, it gets into what we were talking about earlier.

Before it was like, you are gay or you are lesbian, and that was it. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. You’re gay or you’re lesbian. There may have been like you’re transsexual. I. Before. Or they would shorten it to what has become derogatory and say things like T tranny, which is Right.

Cross stressor. Yeah, cross dresser, things like that. Yeah. And now it’s much more about gender expression and a full sexual orientation. They’re not the same. So that’s the other thing about the LGBTQ plus community. You have a mix of gender expression and sexual orientation. That’s why you have so many letters now. And so I think. The fluidity of it all is by, by being open and accepting of new things that we haven’t constructed before. Meaning outside of just gay, just lesbian. What else are we saying? How do people truly feel, fear, feel and [00:21:00] identify. Like for me, I identify as queer and people are like, what does that mean?

And I say, exactly.

William Tincup: Yes.

LaFawn Davis: Personal definition. I don’t identify with lesbian, even though I’m married to my wife, I don’t identify with bisexual because to me that means two genders and Right. I so for me, queer is the comfortable place and. And because there’s so many different expressions of either gender or sexual orientation at this point, I’m just open to everything.

William Tincup: Right, and the thing is the freedom to then say, and again in time, whatever, six months, two months tomorrow, doesn’t really matter. The point is you can change your mind. Oh, absolutely. You can see that differently. And I think that’s off-putting is probably the wrong word, but probably challenging for folks that, that maybe, let’s say heterosexual, if you wanna go that route, that they don’t, they can’t see that things.

Can be fluid in that nature and people can change [00:22:00] their mind. And that’s not a, that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that they’ve changed their mind. It means that they’ve learned something new about themselves and they again identify. I love the way you said that expression is one thing.

Orientation is another. I, and this is makes up your identity. And as you and a, again, as you age and as you learn new things and have new experiences you can change and. Change is okay. Change isn’t bad. Yes.

LaFawn Davis: But our social construct, Williams. Yeah. Yeah. Our social construct says it’s not, I know you are this and that is it.

And that is where we find the conflict and some of that is founded in like a belief system, right? Some of them founded in the social construct. There’s all of those things that people. Think about it, William. We in the LGBTQ plus community, we are up against those social constructs, belief system, cultural things every single

William Tincup: [00:23:00] day.

Oh, every moment of every day. I listen to Whenever I’m bored and have time and I’m driving or just, eating in my car or whatever is, I’ll listen to conservative radio, talk radio AM radio. Or sport. Just I was gonna say why, just to, yeah. Just to see what hatred is being sped at that particular level.

Yeah. Because it’s, one of the things is I could, obviously, I could listen to things that are more in line with the way that I feel, but I already know that stuff. It’s like I, I remember a CEO telling me, I, I know what I know. I don’t know what you know exactly. And so I listen to conservative radio, not because I care about any of that’s the stuff that’s being sped, but it’s fascinating the way that they hate Yes.

The way that they remarket hate. Oh, definitely.

LaFawn Davis: And honestly, William that it, like when I was growing up, my father cause I’m in the Bay Area, I grew up in the Bay Area and RA racism isn’t always direct. A hundred percent especially in this area. [00:24:00] And so he would often say, I’d rather someone call me a name to my face.

Okay. Instead of smiling in my face and trying to destroy me behind my back. I

William Tincup: had this discussion in 1993. I went to the University of Alabama. So in political science, the professor actually brought it up and said, okay, where, how do you like your racism? And everybody was like, frozen And what?

He’s would you rather people march? You now know who, what their feelings. Or would you, are you or would you rather it be they’re in three piece suits and you just don’t know? That’s right. And it’s fascinating to think of it that way. It’s I’d rather March.

LaFawn Davis: I’d rather know. So that way I, yeah, I know where you’re coming from.

You know where I come from. A hundred percent. I’d rather know You do. And I think even. The ways that like companies can combat all of that. If somebody has a different belief system, if somebody has a different [00:25:00] social construct, it really is in the policies and practices and programs that a company does that says, this is.

As a company, these are the values that we hold. Yes. So the benefits you that you mentioned earlier, making sure that if we’re getting down to true benefits that like medical and dental and vision and all of those things are actually taking the lgbtq plus community into account for looking at things like gender affirming care and things like that.

Making sure that company records are updated with pronouns, and their chosen name. And having a transition plan in place so that. Teams also understand, and their colleagues know how to engage and the things that are important. Having the handbooks and the policies especially for those in the transgender community who, again, are fighting every day, not just because of their identity, but also.

Being dead named all the time, or being misgendered [00:26:00] all the time. And looking at things like family leave policies. Or some companies still have dress codes that really enforce gender categories. Like women can’t wear pants. Where do they still do that? Yeah. Yeah,

William Tincup: Yeah. But you know what, I have hope.

There’s cause that could be easily go down the rabbit hole and get really depressed. But the, where I have hope is in, in millennials and Gen Z the folks that are not necessarily a part of those communities saying, yeah, no more. We’re tired of that. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know what I mean?

I’m like, I’m squarely Gen X and I would’ve just kinda taken it.

LaFawn Davis: William gen X is the greatest generation. I’m just gonna say that.

William Tincup: It’s like I’ve, I have hope because. I see this with millennials and Gen Z where they’re just not willing to tolerate a lack of change or the speed of change.

So it’s like they, again, like we were talking about benefits or lose the talent not only are we gonna lose the talent [00:27:00] of those communities, okay, we’re gonna lose the talent that our isn’t a part of those communities because of our practices. That’s right. And I think as you talked about earlier that, it’s gotta be tied to our values.

It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be. I think it’s also, and I knew, I know you’ll get there and. It’s gotta be tied to our actions at the end of the day. Cuz values are only as good as they’re expressed with actions, right? Yeah. And it’s interesting because candidates are asking candidates across the board, not just of the community or but candidates are asking questions about marginalized people.

That’s right. And if the answer, yeah. And if they don’t like the answers, they just move on.

LaFawn Davis: They absolutely do, and that is the beauty of it all. Even just looking at the LGBTQ plus community, the workforce in the US alone is comprised of roughly 15 million people and growing. Those are people that are out right.

That’s not even for people who, who either choose to or can’t come [00:28:00] out, right? And so that means that, that makes up roughly like 9% of the entire US labor force. But again, to your point, this isn’t even people who just identify with the community. These are people who are asking, how do you treat people?

What kind of space do you have? What do you offer? And they will not apply. Nope. Or if they find us out in an interview, they will turn down a job offer. It’s also, it’s not just candidates too, it’s also consumers. Percent consumers are saying, what is your company about? What do you do? Yeah. What kind of values do you have?

What kind of pro are your products for everyone? Are you subscribing to those societal norms and they will move

William Tincup: on? Oh yeah. No, they quickly too. They will. Very quick with a quickness and see, this is the thing, like I, I think so important in job postings is to have policies.

That are outside of that job. So if it’s a software engineering job, okay, yes. Straightforward, there’s things that need to be in that. But having a policy [00:29:00] against harassment, having a policy a DEI B, having a policy that states what having your values both expressed and also here’s how we judge ourselves, here’s success, right?

Like I think you can tell stories in career pages, but also I think in each. Job description, you should tell that story because people are judging you rightfully they’re judging you. Oh, police, rightfully so on that job description on whether or not they wanna join your team or whether or not they don, because when we’re talking about losing talent, but probably we’re talking about the community, marginalized community.

If you don’t put things in place that are for them at one point, someone else will like, okay, fair enough. But it’s

LaFawn Davis: not, and that’s where, and that’s where they’ll

William Tincup: go. And that’s Yes. And that. But it’s not just them it’s also folks that are not in that community looking for a better space, for people that they care about.

LaFawn Davis: Almost. Definitely. Like what we know is So job descriptions. Typically they may have [00:30:00] an e o statement. Right around, around where opportunities should lie and not being discriminatory and all of that. And almost 80% of job seekers are more likely to apply for a company that does have an e o right statement in their job description.

But less than 25% of US jobs hostings on indeed, explicitly include. LGBTQ plus

William Tincup: descriptors. I, that’s insane to me because I look at like the, not the eo, I look at that as table stakes. We’re not going to be, we’re not gonna be discriminatory. It’s okay, are you gonna breathe air? Great. Done. But I, but

LaFawn Davis: oftentimes I’ll focus on gender and race and that’s it.

William Tincup: Oh. Oh, that’s tragic. Yeah. That’s, again, you’re not gonna get that talent, but it’s, you’re not gonna get that talent cuz they’re. They’re gonna look at it and look for those words, check. However, it’s other folks that I’m really interested in looking at like the other, the folks that are in the community and outside the community are judging [00:31:00] harshly and rightfully the, that, again, if you don’t, if you don’t create safe space for everyone, you’re just not gonna get talent. You’re not gonna be able to retain the talent you have. That’s a problem. But you’re not gonna be able to recruit talent cuz they’re looking for different things these days.

LaFawn Davis: And that’s the kicker William it’s not about just the specific community, especially when you’re looking at Gen Z.

If they see that you are not focused and supporting even the most marginalized of the community. They’re like, it’s not for me. I’m not a part of that community, but I don’t like how you move. Yeah. I don’t like your vibe.

William Tincup: I I’m so jealous of just. Of Gen Z because I wish I would’ve had the, I wish I would’ve had the awareness,

LaFawn Davis: but we didn’t have that then.

It was a, I know it was a much different social construct. I didn’t come out until later in life William, because it wasn’t, yeah. I didn’t feel like it was safe for me.

William Tincup: Yeah. It wasn’t it you did, if you didn’t feel like it [00:32:00] was like perception is reality. If you didn’t perceive that it was safe, then it wasn’t safe.

I could talk to you all day, but I know you have a job and like things to do. So thank you so much for carving out time for us and being on the podcast.

LaFawn Davis: Oh, William, it was an absolute pleasure and I could chat with you anytime.

William Tincup: Thanks again and we’ll have you on again, so Sounds good.

And thanks for everyone listening. Until next time.

The RecruitingDaily Podcast

Authors
William Tincup

William is the President & Editor-at-Large of RecruitingDaily. At the intersection of HR and technology, he’s a writer, speaker, advisor, consultant, investor, storyteller & teacher. He's been writing about HR and Recruiting related issues for longer than he cares to disclose. William serves on the Board of Advisors / Board of Directors for 20+ HR technology startups. William is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BA in Art History. He also earned an MA in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University.


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