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Award-winning ways to embed Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging into the business
It’s easy to express commitment to increasing diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DIBs). The hard part is turning words into actions.
Fortunately, at ServiceNow, many of our employees are putting in the extra effort inside and outside our company. To recognize the progress they’re driving, we created the “DIBs Champion Awards.” Colleagues across ServiceNow nominate other employees for their work as change makers in three core areas: growing our communities, practicing a growth mindset, and evolving inclusive practices and programs. Recipients show what it means to lead inclusively and what it looks like to be intentional and proactive in creating belonging inside and outside ServiceNow in meaningful ways.
Read more about our efforts in our annual ServiceNow Diversity Report.
Let’s meet and congratulate our winners!
Team Winner: NextGen Program
ServiceNow skills are some of the most in-demand skills today. Our customers and partners are looking for talent who understand our platform and whose skills can help them implement, administer, and maintain ServiceNow. The NextGen Program, created in 2019, trains a talent pool of women, Veterans, and others who’ve chosen to pursue a non-traditional career path, and matches them with employers who need their ServiceNow skillsets. When students complete the program and get hired, NextGen Program founder Faez Ahmed says, “It’s a life changing moment.”
Team members recall successful students who started the program after years of raising children, had experienced homelessness, or ending a career in the military and searching for a new career. Kristen Knepper Bahbahani says, “The most important thing we do is show employers the possibilities and help individuals understand their own potential.” The key to its success is removing economic, accessibility, and educational requirement barriers.
Nick Winham shares, “We want to create that inclusivity, those moments of belonging, not just within ServiceNow, but also for our individuals going through the training programs, within our partners, and our customers as well.” For Kurdin Bazaz, it’s personal. “As a minority myself, I know this is important work and to work at a place that makes it a priority to incorporate DIBs in everything we do, makes me feel very proud of the place that I call my employer.”
Learn more about NextGen >>
Team Winner: DIBs at Product
Tech and engineering organizations in particular are faced with improving methods to increase representation and build out an inclusive culture. Cheick Camara leads a lean team in our Product organization that focuses on three areas: recruiting, especially from HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities), internal learning and development, and community outreach.
As part of the learning efforts to deepen belonging, the team brings together external speakers and internal employees to openly and productively talk about bias, equity, and raw topics such as racism at work. Cheick says, “It's not something that people are used to. Teaching people how to have those uncomfortable conversations is so important.”
Alysson Whitlam says of being recognized, “This award really speaks to the passion and enthusiasm that so many people within the Product organization have for this commitment and these initiatives.” With commitment, actions must follow. As Chris Rogers advises, “Let's be okay with being uncomfortable, to do something different, to get some different results.” Gretchen Wagner adds, “You can simply make a conscious choice to contribute differently, to contribute meaningfully. So, take that next step.”
Leadership Winner: Allison Hughes
Allison Hughes started the brand new digital go-to-market team in early 2020. Her vision is clear, “We have to have diversity of thought. We are trying to promote a culture of inclusion and are continuously improving and iterating on how it can be best-in-class.” It’s working. The team is attracting and hiring people with a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.
The first thing she did was double down on how and where her team was showing up to recruit people to the organization. They expanded their reach to community colleges and looked at four-year universities under a different set of criteria than before.
Then, she launched a video series called “Insider Insights,” interviewing folks from around the team about their personal and professional journeys, how they've arrived in the role they occupy today, and how they stay motivated. She reflects, “I am endlessly inspired and motivated by those moments.”
Her advice to other leaders, “DIBs is something that we have to strive for. It allows us permission to make mistakes along the way. Without that room for error, it would be very difficult to make progress.”
Individual Winner: Stephane Lalonde
Over the last nine years, Stephane Lalonde has been part of the exponential growth at ServiceNow. He learned along the way that attracting and developing a broad set of talent was key to a successful team.
As a people manager, he first focused on job descriptions and realized that some of the criteria were biased. He says, “By modifying criteria and really focusing on the areas we want (amazing storytellers, quick learners, etc.), it really creates new opportunities in the candidates that you'll get, and also the people that you are able to get, makes it a stronger team.” He also focused on mentorship to learn how to be a more inclusive leader and mentored employees to help them grow and develop their careers.
"Diversification really helps makes us as a better organization and also makes us as people better and stronger.”
Hear from the winners !
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