Lyft's Head of D&I Tariq Meyers shares how he partners with his recruiting team to make sure that the overall recruiting process, from sourced to hired, helps the company continue building a rich, inclusive culture.
It Matters How You Get There: A Successful Partnership Between Talent and Inclusion
1. It Matters How You
Get There
A Successful Partnership:
Talent and Inclusion
Head of Inclusion & Diversity, Lyft
Tariq Meyers
@TheTariqMeyers
2.
3. Agenda:
Empowering Talent
Leaders for Success
1. Let’s Talk about Talent: Building a Diverse Pipeline
2. Source to Hire: Inclusion Starts from Within
3. Beyond the Hiring Process: Shaping Culture
6. It’s our job to earn access to diverse communities.
7. Building a Diverse Talent Pipeline:
Bring the center to the margins
Identify the Talent
Portfolio
Recognize Talent
Power
Earn Access to
Communities
8. Recognize “Talent
Power”
● All technology talent is in high
demand
● Underrepresented candidates are
especially sought after
● Recruiters are your greatest
ambassadors
These candidates are looking for organizations which
authentically create belonging for diverse communities
9.
10. Creating a sense of belonging for marginalized
communities significantly reduces stress and
improves well-being and performance.
Walton, et al., Stanford University
Journal of Educational Psychology, 2015
11. Recruiters are the Gateway to Company Culture
● You are the first touch-point of the company culture for
many candidates
● Building cross-cultural fluency with diverse communities
allows for effective engagement
CONSCIOUS ACTION:
We all have different perspectives; continue to learn about the experiences of
others through internal and external programs
12. Build Community Partnerships
We need to earn access to
these communities by
engaging them where they
are.
CONSCIOUS ACTIONS:
We’re all have different perspectives; be intentional and open to learning about
new experiences through internal and external programs
CONSCIOUS ACTION:
Reach out to local community organizations to hold events in your space
15. The Successful Talent Acquisition Hiring
Team
Talent Acquisition
Leadership
Recruiters
Sourcers
Coordinators
Executive
Leadership Team
Inclusion +
Diversity
People Business
Partners
Hiring Team’s Exec
Leadership
Hiring Managers
Interview Loop
DRIVERS CHAMPIONS STAKEHOLDERS
16. A Grassroots Approach to Diversity
CONSCIOUS ACTION PLAN:
1. Assessment: Diversity-trained recruiters, along with D/I, meet with each
Department Head to assess opportunities for growth
2. Team-Specific Plan: Work with stakeholders to build a team-specific plan to
create a more diverse team
3. Follow-through: Ensure diverse interview loops, unconscious bias training for
hiring managers, and full team alignment on goals
19. Creating Lasting
Behavior Change
● No more “diverse candidates”—focus on
building the most diverse teams
● Leverage organizations like Teamable to
encourage diverse referrals—everyone is
a diversity champion
● Move away from “culture-fit”, move
toward Culture-Add and Values Fit
Of Lyft’s People Team
underwent unconscious bias
and conscious action training
100%
20.
21. Imagine a world where people are not defined by their life
circumstances, but empowered to defy them.
23. To hear more from Tariq, watch his
dynamic Summit session here:
https://www.lever.co/resources/tale
nt-innovation-summit/diversity-
inclusion-forum
Tariq Meyers
Head of Inclusion & Diversity, Lyft
@TheTariqMeyers
Editor's Notes
Tariq’s story - Hopeful that Lyft would be a place you could belong
Didn’t know // didn’t see reflections of myself more broadly in technology
Excited by Lyft’s core values, having an incredibly candidate experience, and seeing these values lived by leadership
Not underrepresented candidate in tech is able to have an experience like mine
Today I’m going to talk about some of the challenges we all face in building diverse teams amidst aggressive hiring goals and a very competitive market, and more importantly, how partnering with talent acquisition teams and hiring managers is essential to building the diverse teams we all want.
First, I am going to talk about some of the myths around diverse talent
Secondly, I am going to talk about what a successful partnership looks like
And finally, I want to talk about how a successful partnership can lead to real change within an organization.
Recruiters drive culture at every organization - you are
Our job to find and build the talent pipeline - Center to the margins:
Industry stereotype that the talent isn’t out there, but the the talent exists
It’s our job to find and foster that talent
We can expect marginalized communities to come to us - those of us in power and privilege need to go to them
It’s time for us to take ownership about solving this problem
Transition: So let’s talk about what this looks like practically.
Talent Power:
The reality is, underrep candidates have the ability to choose, now more than ever
They want the ability to actualize, to grow to develop
Talent Power:
The reality is, underrep candidates have the ability to choose, now more than ever
They want the ability to actualize, to grow to develop
Talent Power:
The reality is, underrep candidates have the ability to choose, now more than ever
They want the ability to actualize, to grow to develop
Externally: Recruiters are the front line:
Open our doors - throw community based events
Build relationships with community partners
Recruiters must be super engrained in inclusion initiatives and company culture to be able to authentically articulate these throughout the hiring process
Example: Black in tech
Reachout out the full team to build invite list from referrals
Reached out to partner organizations
Built a agenda that wasn’t focused on recruiting, but was focused on helping black folks in tech connect, gain mentorship, and build their careers.
Talent acquisition must be aligned internally
What does a successful Talent Acquisition task force look like?
Full team - authenticity requires alignment
It’s hard - if it wasn’t we wouldn’t have underrepresentation
First step is getting alignment and building a strategy that has executive leadership buy in
If it isn’t consistent across a candidates experience, they will sense that, and view the culture as inauthentic.
It takes a village
Yes org level goals, more important is working locally on each team - moving away from just looking at diverse candidates and moving towards building diverse teams
Action plan:
Align stakeholders on strategy
Executives must hold their teams accountable and be driving vision and goals to all team-members
Team level assessment and action plan
Training: Unconscious bias training, interview training, diverse interview loops
Illustration: Hispanic Heritage Foundation, Teamable Partnership, etc.