In 2024, Andrea Lucas, the current Equal Employment Opportunity Commission acting chair, did a podcast interview in which she suggested 11 ways to diversify your workforce without engaging in unlawful discrimination.
The 11 items are listed here:
- Review job descriptions – Remove unnecessary career requirements.
- Audit hiring materials – Evaluate job descriptions, interview questions, and preferences for bias.
- Standardize interviews – Use consistent interview questions for similar jobs and eliminate unnecessary, subjective questions.
- Reform internal hiring and promotion processes – Remove unnecessary formalities, post internal jobs transparently, and consider an opt-out promotion method instead of requiring employees to self-nominate.
- Standardize sponsorship programs – Replace exclusive mentorship or sponsorship networks with programs open to all employees, without race or sex restrictions.
- Expand leadership development – Offer leadership training broadly to all employees at a certain level, rather than restricting access.
- Support first-generation professionals – Provide training and mentorship for first-generation professionals or college graduates to promote social mobility.
- Conduct privilege audits – Identify and address workplace discrimination, harassment, and systemic barriers.
- Expand recruiting efforts – Use diverse recruitment methods, such as wide-format job postings, multilingual applications, and alternative literacy requirements.
- Apply job requirement changes equally – For example, if lowering GPA cutoffs or other requirements, ensure the changes apply to all applicants, not specific groups.
- Fix workaholic culture in leadership – Address leadership cultures that disproportionately harm caregivers and those with additional family responsibilities, ensuring work-life balance is valued.
Resources:
Andrea Lucas shares the 11 points at about 32 minutes into the recording of the podcast in June 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/employment-law-now/id1201410446?i=1000647661532
EEOC NEW Publication #1 – March 19, 2025
https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-dei-related-discrimination-work
EEOC NEW Publication #2 – March 19, 2025
https://www.eeoc.gov/what-do-if-you-experience-discrimination-related-dei-work
Also, on March 17, 2025, there was a Press Release that Andrea Lucas sent letters to 20 law firms requesting information about DEI-related employment practices.
