Tracking Diversity Progress in Corporate Spaces

by women for the first time. So we have definitely seen some progress when it comes to women in the c suite and at the top of companies, but they're still making up less than six percent of CEOs of S and P five hundred companies. Let's get into this um. Delighted to have with us Kara Helander. She's managing director and chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer over at the Carlisle Group based in Washington, and that's where she joins us

on the phone. Also with us as Bloomberg News Finance and Wall Street reporter Shnelli Boss, She's joining us in our Interactive Brokers studio. So car is so great to have you here with me and Shnally. I know you guys have talked a lot over the past, but let's just kick it off with where are we when it comes to diversity and inclusion in the workplace? Have we made significant progress in your view? You know? Carol, thank you first of all. Um, delightful to be here, but

I would say, you know, there are we have made progress. Um. The objective numbers show that we're making movement, but it's slow and it's something that we are as a community, business community, and certainly at Carlisle, we're very focused on and as I have spoken with Shnali about, part of the reason that we're very focused on it is it really does lead to value creation to improve business performance, you know, and we're we're about making the portfolio companies

that we invest in stronger and this is definitely part of our value creation for them, and it's also part of making sure that our organization has the right skills, that perspective, the diversity of thought that we need to really make the best investment decision. Carl you mentioned that the change is slow. I'm wondering what is the friction? What are some of the reasons that some of this progress that are being slowed down. You know, I think

that this is it's about a couple of things. One, it's about UM changing and perhaps improving the way that we have traditionally done things like higher people UM. And secondly, it's about helping people see and improve the ways that we make decisions so that we are as objective and unbiased as pros possible. And you know, I'll give you a couple of examples for us at Carlisle. UM. What we've done is put a lot of focus on making

sure that we're improving how we attract and UM recruit people. UM. For example, we require that every interview slate has at least two diverse candidates. UM. That's based on some evidence that that makes a difference. But we've also become more consistent in how we're evaluating people against you know, the most important criteria for that role. UM. And that helps us all just make sure that we're hiring the person who's the best qualified, perhaps not the person that we

immediately connect with as readily. UM. It almost sounds a little bit like and forgive me, I just wanted a bit like we've had a lot of discussions around Bloomberg about should we bring back quotas and it has helped bring more women into the workplace, But what do you

how do you feel about that? You know, I think it I think first of all, you can set aspirational targets, but I think what's really important is setting um measuring the quality of the process right so that you are if that example of having at least two diverse candidates weates is important because you are then saying we want you to make sure that you're running the most quality

process possible. And we know that's part of it because if you haven't cultivated that, then you haven't really reached out and identified the best talent in the market. Speaking of measurement, you know, as a reporter, we try to look for everyone's diversity data and traditionally it's been so hard. It's so hard, Um, what what are these difficulties about? Why is it so difficult for so many companies to disclose the product the progress they're making? You know, I

can't speak for other companies. What I can speak to is Carlisle and the fact that this is a strategic priority, and like any strategic priority, we measure it um and so and it's not new we've been doing this for a while and that's important because, um, we really need to be able to do that to drive change. And I think the other thing I would emphasize is that we're pretty comprehensive in what we're tracking. Just as I spoke about, you know, the gender equity index that we

we were part of Bloomberg's Gender Equity Index. Um, you know that is certainly important, but we also track metrics around a broader range of diversity in our workforce. You know, we define diversity as being including the meaningful differences that are in our people and in our portfolio companies and in the markets we serve you. And we're talking to the break that you know, measuring diversity, measuring inclusion, like,

there's different things. You're measuring women, you're measuring race. There's a lot of things. There's a lot of things, and race tends to be very difficult as well. There are different types of rules around how disclosures are made and car I'm really interested in how you think about this issue and how when you're thinking about disclosure, how you're going beyond gender and looking at all forms of diversity.

Absolutely so, Tonal, You're absolutely right, different locations, different geographies by law and also what's meaningful in terms of diversity differs. We UM. We definitely collect information that we can by law UM, and in fact, we've been expanding so we can collect gender, we collect race, ethnicity in the US UM, but we've also been looking at ways that we can expand the information that we can collect on our employees

so we can better meet their needs. One great example, as we recently allowed or helped our employees UM with the ability to self identify lgbt Q plus status, and what that means is because we better understand the makeup of our workforce, we were better able to serve them with the benefits that they need. UM. We recently announced enhanced fertility benefits that are really quite cutting edge, and in part that information helped us to do that. UM. We're also but we're on a continued effort to UM

understand what we can collect. We also collect data on the boards of our portfolio companies UM, and we do this because our data shows that those companies that have more diverse boards outperform those that don't. Let's talk about that for a second. Car I just wanted to chime in here because I wanted to explain. Carlisle owns a lot of companies across the country, across the globe, and so do many of your peers. When it comes to the portfolio companies, what is what are some of the

areas where you can make the most progress? Um, The board is a is a key area because the board sets the tone, it sets the strategy and direction for the company, and so we are very focused on that. And in fact, as we mentioned, those boards that are diverse in our portfolio show average earnings growth annual earnings growth that's nearly twelve percent higher than those that don't have a diverse board. And so that's clearly part of

our value creation strategy. And we set a goal of having diverse directors on the boards of our controlled companies within two years of our ownership. And you know, this is a great example we're measuring and keeping track of. It really makes a difference, um in of the new directors added to those company boards were diverse. You know. So it's that old it does what what what matters?

You measure, and so we're definitely measuring. I ask and you know, I feel like these conversations we've been having, not just with you, but with so many people for a long long time about diversity and more women, more minorities, whether it's boards, whether it's senior positions, Um, why is it taking so long? First of all, it takes intention. You've got to embed and reinforce this in everything you do. It's not just one prod checked, it's not just one

sponsorship or one statement. And it has to be comprehensive and it has to be led from the top. And I think you know our CEO q S only. He is the chair of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Counsel and he is committed to driving this. I give you a good example. We have specific action plans around diversity equity inclusions for each one of our funds and our functions, and progress against those plans gets reviewed in quarterly business reviews just like any other priority. What we see is

when you do that, you can make progress. You know, last year in the United States, six of everyone we hired into the firm was either female or an ethnic minority. So you can make progress with consistent intentional effort and focus and using some smart strategy. So some of these things are really hard to measure, and when we look at for example the Bloomberg Gender Equally Index. What we're seeing is one of the things we measure is inclusive culture.

Some of these things so feel so intangible. How do you measure things like that? It is intangible, and we can we do we put the measures in place that we can and that can be measures from employee sentiment surveys, it can be tracking how talents is moving through your organization and are is the career trajectory progressing at the

same rate? Um you know, I think one of the other things that we've done is we've equipped all of our people with an understanding of what unconscious biases, how it can show up, but more importantly, what they can do in their day to day to mitigate it. And I think you know we've had of our employees go through that session. So that's one of the measures we're raising awareness and a quick being people to contribute to

him inclusive culture. So one thing I wanted to ask you because one of the things that car we've talked about, and there's been reports out too, about women being set

back in the workforce because of the pandemic. What have you seen on that front, whether it's you know, the struggles within your within Carlisle or your portfolio companies, you know, more broadly, I mean, what are your thoughts about that are just more broadly in society, you know, I think, Um, there's no question, UM, we've all been juggling and challenge. I had a colleague who ran into her closet to

do a conference call because her kids were making noise outside. Right, we's all been living that life, um, I And I think you know, we're very attentive to UM making sure

that we're taking that into consideration in how we're managing folks. UM. I want to go back to the point about inclusion and shannali one of the other things that you know, for example, we're beginning to measures who is on the deal teams that are in due diligence for those you know, those key companies, who's managing those companies sort of it's measuring not only the outcomes, but what are the what are the what's the access and opportunity that helps advance

somebody's career and are we giving those equally throughout the organization or cross population. UM, in terms of women and the challenges faced with COVID, there's no question, UM, and I think what we're trying to do is be attentive,

equip our managers to be aware and manage effectively. In light of that, well, Kara, I hope we can continue this conversation with you, because I think it's an important one and the more we talk about it and it's conversations, but as you says, it's intentions, setting intentions and actually deliberate actions that are making a difference and we can hear it in terms of what you guys are doing

at Carlisle. Thank you so much. Have a good weekend, Kara Hilander, she's managing director, Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer at the Carlisle Group. And our thanks to our own Shenali basic important conversation and let's keep this going. Let's keep it going. Yeah, it's really really important,