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conversation. I'm Tara Thurber, Co-founder and Director of Talent Partnerships here at DefinedTalent. And joining me today are two amazing humans that I've gotten the chance to get to know well being being an active member of AIR, also known as Allies in Recruiting. Michele Daly, one of the founding partners and Solange Collins, a co partner on the leadership team. Hi, ladies, how are you today?
We're great! It's so good to be here, Tara!
Hey, Tara! Thanks for having us.
Of course! I'm so excited to have you both joined today to share your Top5 Reasons to Join AIR. I guess let's just kick this off. And please start sharing AIR's mission and how/why AIR came to be?
Yeah, absolutely. So the mission of Allies in Recruiting is to champion talent and educate ourselves in our communities to create a more diverse, inclusive and equitable creative industry. And how AIR came to be so AIR really formed in response to George Floyd's murder. Right? So thinking back and was June 2020. Quarantine was in full swing, so many of us were unemployed. And it was just it was a rough time, right? All around.
Yeah. I just got goosebumps thinking about back then.
Right.
Right? Um, you know, it's so weird. It just it almost seems like a lifetime ago. So Kim Easley who's an advertising recruiter, at least at that time. Now she's more in the tech world. She is I'd describe her as an empath. And she reached out to a bunch of us fellow recruiters and we got together on a video call to connect and talk about some of the stuff that was going on in the world, you know, specifically, following George Floyd's murder.
Right.
So we were talking about how can we just do better to address the lack of diversity, equity, inclusion, specifically of black talent, and specifically across the advertising industry and beyond? So we just sort of just got together just to you know, kind of look at each other and be like, what the hell is going on? And what can we do? And we started we meeting every week.
And it was sort of this beautiful grassroots sort of fashion where more and more people just started joining us and Lesley Kay, Tammy Skerton and I, we just kind of organically, I'd say stepped up to help Kim from an
organizational standpoint. And then we pulled together some other people who became our kind of founding partnership team, Hilary Black, Lionel Carrion, Emily Allchevetz, Dani Herrera, James Kenny, so each of us representing very different perspectives, different backgrounds, different skill sets. And importantly, I would add to that, at the beginning, we were a bunch of white ladies.
Right.
So really bringing in people that could really help us just look at things differently and come together in a different way was just really, really important from the start. So we had this amazing kind of foundation, we had, like 30 or so members, week after week, we'd get together, we'd plan, we'd figure out what we could do
to make an impact. And it sounds really cheesy, but it was like this sort of beacon of light in this otherwise, like very dark time because there's just so many things, right Solange?
Yeah.
So many things that were beyond our control at this time, right? Picture Summer/Fall 2020. And, you know, we were outraged.
Yeah.
And we were angry. And you know, Black Lives Matter brought so many things to light. So this was kind of a way that we could feel like we were making an impact. So cut to now three years later, we've probably had close to 200 members coming in and out.
Amazing.
All professional people, probably representing 100 different companies. And we meet in large groups, smaller breakout groups that we call AIR Pods, and we're actively doing the work to try to improve DIC across our collective industries. And we're focusing on black talent and other historically underrepresented and marginalized groups. So I'd say that's how we started. And Solange if you want to just kind of quickly jump in about kind of what this last year has been like with the one club and so
forth. And you know, the the current partners,
Right? Absolutely. So I co lead AIR now with three other managers, and the last year has been has been amazing. So we merged with Under the Umbrella of the One Club for creativity. And that's what organization that also tackles that diversity issues within the advertising industry. They have a lot of different programs, including Where Are All the Black People, which is a diversity conference to bring in black creators that companies
attend. But as Michele mentioned, just doing the work one thing that I think Michelle, you had said, was it's always good to have an idea, but it takes an extra step to actually do the work. Right? And that's why you see change. So for us, meeting every, every other Wednesday, it's a community coming together doing the work for change. And that's how we met you as well, Tara.
Yep, absolutely. And I mean, being a part of AIR, I've learned so much. But I've also been able to share and help by joining the different pods and getting to know so many different types of people as well. But then taking what I'm learning, and then being able to share that with my networks, and my clients and my candidates. And it's just been such an amazing experience. And then, going under One Club has been
huge for me too. And I love that AIR continues to expand, AIR continues to say, you know, it's not just for people in advertising, it's for people of all different industries that come together, because everybody is dealing with it, right? Everybody, every company, there's such a huge shift that from 2020 to now that has taken
place in the workforce. But going back to what Michele said, and then Solange, as you just said is, a lot of these companies have the idea of and they don't know how to implement and make forward movements around DEIC. And to me, it's crazy, because, yes, there's a lot of talk, and they can put something up on the website saying, oh, you know, we believe in DEIC and we have all this, but do you really? Do you really have it implemented in your company to make sure it is all inclusive?
And they don't.
Right.
Some do it better than others.
Some don't, too and with that, let's dive into DEIC. Let's kind of put this out there. And let's describe what is DEIC? And why is it important in the modern workforce. And, Solange, I mean, how can the modern workforce create this open space? Nowadays?
Great question. You know, diversity, equity, inclusion cultures, it's not new. Right?
Right.
And I remember being in this industry gosh for the past 25 years, and I remember working at the agency, and when I first came in, I looked at the internship programs, they were doing not diverse at all, because, you know, interns were usually college students from the clients or higher ups, right? No one thought about, oh, maybe we should get, you know, diversify the workforce and get younger people from underrepresented
groups. But there are a lot of different organizations that work towards bringing diverse interns into our industry. And then, of course, also, in terms of how they got interns, the same thing, how they got employees, it was through word of mouth sometimes, right? And most of the time, it's how we, you know, so it was looked at as it was mostly all white, all white males and females, especially in a creative realm. All white.
It's so true. You know, we saw a stat that noted Yeah, yeah.
So there was a big push for diversity about 25 years ago, so it's nothing new. I mentioned some do it better than others, but it really has to come from the top. Right? And that just HR, but from the top, and it has to be integrated through all the different programs that you have at any company, not just advertising, marketing, but any organization. And that's in the hiring practices. That's how they onboard, you know, how you rate employees, and whether it's
quarterly or yearly as well. So really has to be integrated throughout the whole process of an organization from top to bottom of the employee lifecycle. diverse companies enjoy 2.5 times higher cash flow per employee, than companies without DEIC policies, and three in four job seekers and workers preferred to diverse companies and co workers. How does the increase in DEIC affect what the two of you do or what we do? And do you see the spotlight on DEIC getting brighter over these past
couple of years? Or do you find that it's maybe losing - I feel like it became this big thing. And is it diminishing? Or? Like, is it fizzling out? I mean, we we've got changemakers here, right? We've got people that have a voice. Yeah.
So what are your thoughts?
Well, we definitely saw it in 2020 after George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, companies have posted on LinkedIn and on their website for support. And you know, a lot of companies have hired DEIC practitioners to run that department. And a lot of a lot of black and brown folks were hired.
Yeah.
And then I would say about Michele, about past eight months to a year, as things had calmed down, right? Calmed down in terms of not being in the spotlight any longer. Then when the economy started to turn a lot of the DEIC positions that were hired were let go. A lot of layoffs.
It wasn't the hot topic anymore.
Right.
You know, some of the anger, the outrage, but also I'd say the accountability isn't what it was anymore. So some of that corporate responsibility, you know welllll....
And that's continuing. We're seeing it continue. Today, a lot of articles that have been written recently about the lack of representation, the lack of DIC practitioners, and it's a problem. So for your answer your question, yes, it's not good right now.
Yeah.
It's not good right now.
It's really, to me, it's disheartening to see that and what's it going to take for it to be back - air quotes over here back in the spotlight again, in order for just to be implemented across the board? Throughout all industries as being something that is part of any companies that any startups, it should just be, in my mind, it's like it's simple, it should just be implemented and be a part of a company and workforce. For and with individuals.
You would hope, right? It's just that simple. But more diversity means more breadth and depth of ideas and experience, right? Research shows that businesses that make diversity a priority, outperform their peers.
Right.
So it's a it's a given, but for some reason, we can't get there. And I think part of it, it seems like, it could be some groups feel if this group gets more, I get less.
Yeah.
It's not that. It's a huge pie, we all can share it.
Right.
Well, some people feel that they're getting less and get more but it shows that black and brown groups are lower in terms of everything, the money that you make, right? So it's really the work that we have to continue doing, to make it a reality and to keep it moving. And companies who do it right. Definitely see better results.
Yeah.
You know, and I think also brands have to step in as well, and say that it's important to them.
Yeah, I agree in for me joining AIR, I think I've learned I'm so much through AIR and through the speakers, and the experiences of some of these speakers that I leave a call sometimes. I mean, I've cried on some of the calls, because it's so heartfelt and it's so real.
Yeah.
And they're vulnerable, right?
So vulnerable.
Yeah. It allows us to kind of walk a mile in their shoes for at least a brief moment in time, right? To at least try to understand what other people go through and what their experiences might be.
Yeah. And it's all the groups. It's all groups.
Yeah.
And one thing I really love about AIR as well is you have to go through DEIC training.
Yes.
Before you even become a member.
That's part of the membership.
Yeah, such an amazing training that I've gone through, I even went back and did them again, to do all of them. Because I just, I wanted to refresh my memory, I wanted to refresh the importance, and the different verbiage or the different thoughts or processes.
You're talking about Equify, right?
Yeah. And - yeah, go ahead, Michelle.
Equify is it's an audio series, created by James Kenny, who is also one of our original founders. And it's an amazing tool and resource for anyone out there. But all AIR members it's kind of required education, Equify one and Equify two, for everyone to kind of at least have the same kind of baseline knowledge and information accessible to them. So that's really important for us, for all AIR members, because
it's free to join AIR. But, you know, in exchange, what we want is for people to do the work, and that means do the work on themselves. Learn for themselves.
Yup.
Because you have to do that first to then be able to help educate others, and that's one of our main pillars is, you know, we're looking to educate our industry, whether that's our clients, our peers, our companies. And we're looking to also help educate up and coming talent to hopefully have them see careers in, in advertising.
And right now, we are working on getting agencies, other companies to purchase Equify, because it's for leadership, and it's for everyone who works at any organization. And that helps out with the DEI Training as well.
Yeah, that's wonderful. I absolutely love that. Just taking a little step back - memberships? Can we kind of dive into how the membership works and how professionals become AIR allies?
Yes! good question. Thank you for asking. So we for one thing anyone could just jump on our website, it's
WeAreAIR.org. AIR meaning AIR for Allies and Recruiting and on the membership page now you can see it's really designed for, I'd say talent professionals, recruiters, people professionals, because we're really actively looking at things that we can do to help impact from a hiring standpoint, from a retention standpoint, particularly black and brown talent, but really all historically marginalized or underrepresented talent. So, we ask people to just kind of go on there and we ask a series of
questions. Why is it important to you? Why do you care? And, you know, what can you bring to us? Because what we ask people to do in exchange for the membership and all the learning that they get is is to actively take part in helping make an impact.
Right.
I love that. I love that and when people - and it can be individuals or people that are in HR or talent professionals, so really, anybody.
Anyone, yeah.
Can join AIR, and you get to also once you join, you get to be a part of making that impact through the different pods and being a part of it being active within that community.
Yes.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And some of those, I'd say they are, you know, in our top five, right? Our Top5 Reasons (laugh).
(laughs) I was just going there next. All right. So what are the Top5 benefits or Reasons for Becoming a Member of AIR?
Yeah. So number one, I mean, ladies, tell me if you agree with me here. It's because action matters. So, it is one thing to support a cause, or believe in theory in something. And that's wonderful. But it's another thing to really be an active ally, and advocate. And I looked up, I literally looked up the definitions of these words, because a lot of times these are kind of used
interchangeably. So if you're an ally, you're actively doing the work to support people from marginalized or historically underrepresented groups. If you're an advocate, you're taking action and service of a cause, and the people that affects to influence decision makers. So when I think about that, I'd say AIR members are really actively doing both. And something that I read a while ago, and it's stuck with me, because I feel like it's profound. And it was think of ally-ship as a verb, not as a
noun. So, you know, oh, I'm an ally. Right? That's a label that people can give themselves its social capital. Its, its moral credibility. Right?
Right.
But being an ally, and an advocate, that really about actions that make an impact, it's about actions and behaviors that make an impact. And I feel like that's what we do at AIR. So that would be the number one reason for me for for why to join AIR. And it's for some people not all people because there's a commitment that's involved in that, and a lot of people might want to, but they just might not have the time or the energy or whatever is going on in their lives.
This all volunteer for us, right? We don't get paid to do this. This is something that we're passionate about. And can I just say one thing about the ally and advocate? We can't make change without our allies and advocate and civil rights movement, right? Martin Luther King could not make the inroads without allies and advocates from other from other groups. Right? So it's so important that Michele So true. So, so true. had emphasized this, because this is how you make change.
Yeah, good point. So number two leads us to the number two reason. And that's making an impact across our industry. So what are we doing? Right?
Right.
So we have what we call AIR pods. And those are like smaller breakout groups that tackle specific, actionable initiatives. So within these groups, I mean, there's so many different activities, and so many different things people are doing, just to highlight a few. We've created interview guidelines that help reduce biases in our hiring practices. We create amazing decks, reels, presentations, helping kids who might not even know that advertising, for example, exists
as an industry, right? So really targeting students from HBCUs, sharing with, with companies the importance of doing their hiring, visiting colleges, visiting HBCUs. And high schools. Right, like teaching students at an early age and introducing to them just, I mean, there are so many accomplishments and so many things that our AIR members have
done. So in just point being, if you want to help create meaningful, positive change, impact, there's a great place to kind of join forces with professional peers and do that so that's number that's number two. Number three benefit of being an AIR it's the learning right? Its the learning and education. We touch on this a lot. You know, Solange, we just
Yeah (laughs). talked about Equify. We have what we call uncomfortable conversations. That's because that's how we learn right? So we try to be vulnerable, we learn we unlearn we have the most amazing speaker series. Tara as you know, as you mentioned, we learn from people and it's anyone and everything from I mean, some of the sessions that stand out to me, you know, it's not just about the black experience, although that is one
Oh, absolutely. Advertising, the different LGBT of our really main integral focuses. But we hear from incarcerated women who are trying to get back into the workforce. We hear from neurodiverse people who might need certain accommodations in the workforce, all kinds of I mean, really, I don't know, Solange are there any that stand out? speakers and groups that we have as those that's also a group that is fighting for equality in
the workplace, right? So it runs the gamut of all these different things that Michele has mentioned. So it makes for a really robust and learning experience every other Wednesday.
Yeah.
With different Pods, people can really dig in and find the topic that they really want to make change in and the pods me on the weeks that we don't meet on Wednesday. So just always activity happening there's always things that we're doing. Our pod members also do a lot of mentoring for young people coming into the industry as well, whether it's looking how to interview how to negotiate for that for a salary, just everything that they're not taught in school that we have
the knowledge to pass on. And that helps, as well.
And you know, Solange that actually brings us to number four reason and benefit for joining AIR, which is bringing back and applying some of those learnings, right. So whether it's to our companies, our clients, up and coming talent out there, even our personal communities outside of the workforce, right? So because certain topics in particular, that we can really bring back the importance of pay transparency, that was a really important topic that is very easily transferable to our
companies. The very tricky conversation around tokenism. That's one that I know I personally, I gained sort of the knowledge and the confidence to talk about some of that stuff with some of the companies that I work with. The big one developing talent, right? It's not just like hiring the talent.
That's huge.
These companies are - they want to hire black people, they want to hire black people, but then how are you developing them once they're inside the organization? You know, how are you creating the space for them how? All of these topics I could go, I could go on and on. But that's number four. And then the last one
(laughs) important reason for joining AIR and benefit. And this one is very near and dear to my heart. It's just it's the community, right? It's the support with fellow recruiters and people professionals like Tara, Solange, I've gotten to know both of you through this group. Solange your current AIR partners, right.
Yeah.
Tyler DeBord. Aleksandra. Mabel Yang, like, like the four of you who have made this like this wonderful unit. And it's supporting each other. It's it's best practices, sharing best practices, especially during times, like, you know, right now the market sucks for recruiters.
Yeah.
So we support each other. We help each other, as you said about mentorship, the younger, more up and coming, recruiters being mentored by some of the more experienced recruiters, so community just makes us feel really good.
Absolutely. And we have some members from Canada as well. I have to say that they'll be expanding outside of... International!
Yay! That's awesome. That's so awesome. And I have to say, too, when I first joined AIR, I felt very, almost like afraid to talk and afraid to ask questions. And what I learned very, very quickly, after I think maybe the first meeting, I was like, Oh, this is a safe place. I can ask questions. No question is a dumb question. And no question is, you know, maybe it might show that I could be a little bit naive, but it's because I'm uneducated for certain things.
And we admit that right?
Yes, absolutley.
Really admit, what you know, and don't know and, and unlearning and all of that.
Yeah. And I also think what's even more important now that I get to look back on is It's a place for me to go to find answers to questions that I don't know, or that I don't have an answer for. If I'm working with a candidate or a company, or I see it in a company, and I don't know how to raise the red flag and say, Hey, we need to make some shifting here, can I suggest a, b, and c? I feel that AIR provides all of that, plus our top five reasons as well.
But, you know, I mean, I think that's, that's a good point, because there's a lot of resources that are available to to air members, you know, both like written resources that are sort of housed in an AIR library. But also just being able to reach out to certain people that we know, are kind of experts in the field areas, right? You know, because none of us know everything.
We don't know everything.
Right!
But together we can kind of figure a lot of that out.
That's right.
Ah, amazing. Ladies, I thank you both so so very much for your time today. And I am so excited to share this podcast out with our networks and with everybody that we can, because I'm a big ally and advocate. And I feel like it's extremely important for today. And the life of what's ahead of us. So thank you both for being on today and sharing so much.
Thank you so much, Tara!
Thank you for inviting us!
Big shout out to our entire AIR community because they say it takes a village and there are just so many wonderful, hard working members of this community. So thank you all. Thank you, Tara.
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