Sometimes when you expose people to the same script over and over again, they become blasé. The effectiveness wears and it’s easier to ignore. I felt it happen to me with HR & AI. It happened with HR & technology. Then, to my dismay, it happened with diversity. Sometime in the middle of last year, I began to tune out of conversations on why we need more women in the workplace. I noticed that all text, talks and images said the same thing over & over again. I had stopped learning anything new and so I moved on.
That is when I realized the mistake.
I realized how easy it was to forget.
When scanning resumes, it’s easy to overlook the lack of resumes from returning mothers or from women who’ve taken a break from their career. In talent reviews, it is easy to forget to notice the difference in promotion dwell time of one gender over another. In everyday conversations, it is easy to fall into the trap of not wanting to work under women bosses.
It is so easy to forget to stay vigilant and staying vigilant is exactly what this cause needs.
I understood why the conversation needs to go on; why we need to repeat the same thing over and over again until it becomes second nature. To repeat, until people get tired of shaming us for playing the diversity card. To repeat, until we stop forgetting.
If you have space for one more resolution this year, let it be that you will not let this conversation die, so that a decade from now, people can move on to speaking about other things; not because they are tired of this conversation but because it is no longer a problem.
The HR Business Partner Story 