Today’s guest is Jennifer Sutton, the Global Head of Diversity, Equity & Belonging at Instacart, a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States. Jennifer originally worked in finance but made the transition to HR and diversity over 14 years ago. Jennifer’s approach is to couple diversity hire strategies with genuine mental frameworks to reach an organization’s diversity goals. In today’s show we find out about Jennifer’s background in finance, her transition to HR, the benefits of diversity to an organization, common mistakes organizations make regarding inclusion strategies, the importance of identifying root causes, and much more.

 

Key Points From This Episode:

 

• We find out about Jennifer’s professional background and her current role.
• Her professional journey from finance to HR and diversity.
• The benefits of non-recruiting qualifications to HR.
• Why mixing competencies is a key part of diversity hiring. 
• How to change career paths if your current role is not fulfilling.
• The type of team you should surround yourself with.
• Jennifer’s approach to her role at Instacart and her system design.
• Making the systems already in place for diversity hiring sustainable.
• The organizational mindset needed to make a genuine impact on diversity.
• The importance of identifying the root cause of the lack of diversity.

 

Tweetables:

 

“It’s not necessarily about how the role is designed but what is needed to succeed in that role.” — Jennifer Sutton [0:06:37]

 

“It should be people that potentially, not only can mentor you but also sponsor you. And I use those words very intentionally because they’re different when done right.” — Jennifer Sutton [0:11:07]

 

“It’s a level of trust and vulnerability that I’ve been able to leverage and I celebrate being able to have those conversations.” — Jennifer Sutton [0:15:59]

 

“If that belief system is flawed and if that belief system might be giving advantages unintentionally, but still giving advantages to some and not others, you will never have a healthy process.” — Jennifer Sutton [0:18:31]

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

 

Jennifer Sutton on LinkedIn

Hired

Talk Talent to Me