What has changed in the DEI landscape over the past decade?

In the 3rd installment of DEI Download, Y-Vonne Hutchinson reflects on the changes in the diversity, equity, and inclusion landscape since ReadySet's first year in 2015.

ReadySet started in an environment filled with optimism and a belief in the role of technology and workplace culture in shaping a better future. However, a series of wake-up calls followed, including the #MeToo movement, the polarizing impact of the Trump era, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted issues of remote work, ableism, and disproportionate impacts on certain groups. The 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising led to a reckoning with institutional racism and anti-Blackness.

Today, while these problems persist, there is an ongoing effort to maintain momentum and create positive work environments despite economic, political, and generational challenges. It represents another inflection point in a series of moments that force us to question the role of work and its impact on those around us.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson, the Founder and CEO of ReadySet, shares how the DEI landscape has changed since she started ReadySet. She founded ReadySet in 2015 as a diversity, equity, and inclusion firm that has since evolved to serve clients in a variety of ways through evidence-based methods in strategy consulting, learning and development, and executive coaching.

Transcript (Y-Vonne):

“Year one ReadySet.

Year one ReadySet was

Y-Vonne Hutchinson [laughs]

in a room by herself with her laptop,

uh, you know clinging to this DBA

for dear life.

I--I think it was, uh,

it was a really interesting time, right, because, uh,

it was the end of, I think, of an era of optimism.

Right, like let's--let's flash back to 2015.

It was before the 2016 election,

and--and all of the nastiness that that brought out.

It was, you know, the end of Obama's term.

We were sure, you know, a lot of people,

I won't say "we," not all of us,

but a lot of people were certain we were

going to have our first woman president.

I think we were still kind of

dusting ourselves off from the recession.

You know, we were--we were really optimistic about the role

that technology, um, was gonna play.

You know, and about the future that these companies were building

and about the changes in the workplace cultures

that these companies were promoting.

I mean, Google didn't just like export...

like Google's product wasn't just search, right?

Google's product was also Google's culture.

Right, and so I think that there was like so much optimism

that was happening and a real question of like why do we even need DEI?

Why do we need to know about our bias, like this is the--

the myth of the meritocracy was ali-- alive and well and thriving.

And I think, um, you know, we in the U.S.

but globally have been now today,

fast forward today,

we've been in sort of a series

of like wake-up calls, right?

We're ki--I feel like we're perpetually waking up out of the a dream

into the reality of what life is like for a lot of people,

and what life was like for the people who came before us, um.

And I think as we sort of have awakened

to that reality that in a lot of ways has always been there,

we've also awakened to the need for DEI.

You know, and first it was the sort of Metoo movement

and the kind of polarizing impact that Trump

had on the workplace and that was--

that--those were kind of happening simultaneously.

And, uh, and the MeToo movement we used to work really closely with tech,

we still do, but just like predominantly our clients were tech companies,

hit tech really hard, you know, Susan Fowler's,

um, expose around Uber

and--and a lot of the stories that came out, uh, after that,

you know, so there was a lot of reflection

for people who had been basking in that optimism before.

And then, you know, after MeToo,

we sort of got hit with COVID pretty quickly,

and then it kind of became a

what does it mean to work remotely,

how are we included,

how are these groups being disproportionately impacted,

how do we think about ableism

in the workplace and access there?

And then it became, you know,

2020 was the rise of the--the--

the Black Lives Matter like uprising

and really thinking about

what is institutional and systemic racism?

What is anti-Blackness?

How is this showing up,

um, in our everyday lives

um, and also in the workplace?

Um, and then there was that--that was a huge reckoning.

and then I think today we're kind of

um, I don't want to say we're living

in the aftermath

because these problems haven't gone away,

but I think we're--we're,

so we're not living in the aftermath of the problem,

but I think we're living in the aftermath of the movement

and really trying to figure out

what does it look like to maintain

momentum and to continue to

want to create positive environments for people

when you know socially we're--

we have different economic conditions than we did before.

We're politically a lot more fragmented

and fragile than we were before.

And you know, we have now the rise of Gen Z in the workplace,

who have this whole different set of expectations,

and so it is kind of like--it is--

it's a another inflection point in a series of inflection points

that really push us to question

the--the role that work plays in our lives

and how we in the workplace

impact those around us.”