Equity Needed for the American Dream

TRANSCRIPT
Horizons podcast – Seasons 3, Episode 3 Ashley Black

Abigail Disney
This isn't the only form of capitalism we have to practice. We've been brought here historically by people on purpose and it can be changed, and all it involves is imagination and courage. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
That was filmmaker and philanthropist Abigail Disney, whose family name—through its Walt Disney Company—has inspired generations to dream big. But it was a wage dispute, brought to Abigail’s attention by Disney workers, that inspired her to produce the documentary film— “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.” In the film, Abigail confronts the most privileged and powerful businessmen in America, challenging them to make decisions that fundamentally shift the American economy to eliminate low-wage work. Today—we’ll take the lead from Abigail as we discuss the current state of the economy, who it favors, and how those with the least to lose can influence change for the better of all workers. 
 
Welcome to the Horizons podcast, where we take the inspiring discussions from the stage at Jobs for the Future’s annual Horizons summit, and invite a special guest to help us move that conversation forward. I'm your host, Tameshia Bridges Mansfield. 
 
Today, we'll be joined in the studio by special guest Ashley Black, who leads equity strategies at Delta Airlines. But first, let's head back to the Horizons stage, where Abigail Disney is in conversation with Ellen McGirt, senior editor at Fortune magazine.

Disney challenges the audience to think about why low-wage work exists and how to make those jobs better. 
 
Ellen McGirt
If you were going to create a wish list for us to go into the world to think more seriously about where we can start addressing some of this inequity, particularly at the frontline level, at the earlier, more vulnerable level, what would it be?

I'm going to imagine that tuition reimbursement, for example, just isn't going to cut it.  

 
Abigail Disney
No. Would you know, we've created this series of imaginary things in our heads about how the economy works. That's it. Yeah. So, the economy is like the weather, you know, it just kind of happens.  

It's not the weather. People make it happen. People make decisions all the time that shape the economy. We live it and it can be changed. We have it in our heads, but it cannot be changed. Of course it can be changed. It got changed. That's why we are where we are.

It got changed from an economy where there were three legs of the stool— business leaders, labor, and government. And they had a balanced relationship which was thrown out of whack by advocates and people who spent a lot of money on that happening. Education doesn't answer the question of… if you see the workplace as like this ever-flowing escalator, you know, and you get some education that takes you a little higher on the escalator, and then you go a little further, and you go a little further.

That's how we imagine it works in business. But unfortunately, what that escalator helps you forget to see is that at the bottom of the escalator, someone's always filling in that spot.  

So, it's a way of tacitly acknowledging that we accept and, in fact, can't live without a class of people who live at the bottom all the time.

Right. And that's the part we need to pay attention to. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
Welcome back to our studio.

I'm now joined by Ashley Black, managing director, Equity Strategies at Delta Airlines. In her role, Ashley drives to close societal equity gaps for Delta employees, largely focusing on access to opportunity, health, and wealth. Ashley, welcome to the Horizons podcast. 
  
Ashley Black
Thank you so much for having me. It's a joy to be here.  
  
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
Great. I'm looking forward to diving in. So, Ashley, as Abigail pointed out, the U.S. economy is not formed by happenstance. It's influenced and even shaped by really smart, savvy, and influential players, including major corporations like Delta. So, as a major employer, what should Delta's role be in ensuring all of its employees, including its many frontline workers, have a quality job and access to career opportunity and economic mobility? 
 
Ashley Black
That's a really great question. Um, I would say for years, Delta's culture has been rooted in care and connection. Our mission is “no one better connects the world.” And we'd say in order to connect the world, you have to reflect and respect the world. Um, and to care and connect authentically, you have to listen and get proximate to your employees to better understand what they need and look at the gaps or inequities that may exist across various groups within Delta. We made a commitment in 2020, a very public commitment to be an anti-racist, anti-discriminatory organization.

And, in conjunction with that commitment, we also said we were committed to boldly pursuing equity and so making some really tough decisions at times for our business in the pursuit of equity for Delta people. Um, we see that not only as a business imperative, but also to drive systemic change that promotes equitable outcomes for all. For years, our philosophy has been to provide our employees with industry leading total compensation for industry-leading performance. And it's not by coincidence that earlier this week, we paid out $1.4 billion in profit sharing to our employees.

This translates to 10.4% of eligible earnings for employees. And it really is about sharing in that success with our employees. And we've done that for close to 20 years. Equity is in the center of the work that we do. And it's really looking at things like striving to provide our employees with family sustaining wages, career mobility opportunities, and sense of belonging. And we believe if we do those things, that we are able to find, hire, and retain the best talent. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
Um, and I think that, I like what you say about care and connection of your employees because they think, what businesses also have to realize is like how you treat your employees also, um, kind of translates to what the customer experiences on the other side. And it is all connected. So, I appreciate you kind of lifting up kind of how you all think about care and connection, both internally in your culture, how you live that out, and then what it looks like on the other side.

And I think it's also seeing, um, you know, Delta has a really, um, powerful video on its website that like at first glance, it looks like it really celebrates the diversity of your workforce and of Delta’s people. But I think when you look underneath it and you kind of have a better understanding, and I want you to talk a little bit about this, that it's also about what it means to support skills-based hiring and skills-based talent practices. Right? So, can you talk a little bit about how long Delta has been focused on the skills first approach and what that means, and what that looks like, and how it's lived out in the experience of your staff? 
 
Ashley Black
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, we could say that for many years when we've recruited for our frontline workforce, which, you know, that's 90% of our workforce are our frontline employees who are interacting and serving our customers, whether that be flight attendants, pilots, mechanics, customer service agents, all of those folks we've hired, uh, really looking at skills. But, then it was probably around 2019, 2020 when we started looking at skills-based talent strategies for our merit workforce as well.

So, the back-office support roles, things like marketing, HR, legal, finance, you know, those areas of the business. And, we started looking at some of the job descriptions there and saying, let's think about what skills are needed and focus less on this degree piece and really understand the skills that someone brings to the job.

Um, and so I say it's been a long journey because we started that. And then, um, obviously in Covid, some things definitely stalled, um, in prioritization and focus was elsewhere, really around the health and well-being of our people, candidly. And so, um, it was really when we signed on to a partnership with the OneTen coalition, that was a catalyst that just really reignited our focus on this skills-based talent, talent focus.

And so we looked at this partnership with OneTen as an opportunity to say, let's look across all of our talent programs and policies and really dig into this skills-based talent practices, looking at job descriptions, looking at leadership development programs, looking at everything to really drill in and understand, redefine what that needs to look like from the ground up. And so, we've joined forces across, um, across multiple aspects of HR as well as across the business to begin working on developing a skills inventory where employees can put in their skills. 

We can search for talent that way versus always having to, um, you know, post jobs. We know we have talent inside that have the skills we need for many of these jobs. It's just understanding where they are and finding them. And so, again, a lot of work that's been going on for some time, intentional focus on tracking equity gaps to achieve stronger diversity representation at every level of the organization. Our talent acquisition teams have been working for months to clean up and disaggregate our demographic data to better understand where to focus our efforts.

And really being transparent with people to say, we know this is a long journey, we know this is going to take time, but also, we need everyone to see themselves in this skills-based talent journey. And what does that look like for individuals? I think sometimes we've really struggled with how do we provide opportunities for our frontline workforce to move into some of these merit or back office jobs? And, you know, we've done a good job here and there.

But really, how do we get the momentum and scale and move more and more people who have an interest in those opportunities? Well, um, and so by working with OneTen, by working with different partners, we've been able to look at every aspect of our employee ribbon and journey to start the work on that. Are we finished? Absolutely not. Do we have a lot more work to do? Absolutely. But I can tell you that the momentum, the energy and the buy in across HR is really there and across, um, I would say even the business and educating leaders to help them understand why, um, focusing on skills, you know, removes barriers for everyone.

It addresses inequities and really creates opportunity for Delta people in a way that we haven't been able to historically. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
It sounds like it's a commitment, right? It's a culture change commitment. Absolutely. It's your people,  it does go beyond just like what your what your job postings say. Right? And that's, I think, what we're seeing, um, right? Is that like there was a recent survey that was done by Burning Glass Institute that shows that. Right? While there's a lot of talk and like energy in that way around skills-based hiring, right, that corporations and other places are like still hiring people who have college degrees for many of their positions, even though on paper, right on the posting, it says that a degree is not required.

So, it's like, how do you connect what you say on paper, right, in your postings or in your announcements to what your actual practices are? So, what is it actually going to take to like move more broadly so that it's something that everybody is, is, is actually doing and not just saying that they want to do. 
 
Ashley Black
Yeah, I would say for us, I think what has been so important in this work is really digging in with an equity lens to understand the root of why some of these barriers exist in the processes and the policies. We’ve turned over a lot of stones to look and understand why we do certain things the way we do, both as a corporation, but even as a society, and to ask questions and to say, hey, I'm asking the questions so that we can better understand how we might address this, to provide more opportunity and access for others and make  Delta be a more equitable workplace.

You know, back earlier to your comment, around these, these different studies. What I would say to people is, Delta, we are incredibly proud of the work that we have done in the way of skills-first, talent strategy. Yes, we have a lot of work to do, but we have removed barriers. We're seeing that, um, but it takes time. It takes the effort to dig in and to really want to change and disrupt systems.

I think it can be intimidating going back to when you look at the amount of work and resources to rewrite job descriptions, and that's even the easy part, right? Taking a degree requirement off of a job posting is the easy part. 

How do you rewrite that job description looking at skills? How does the leader interview candidates using a skills-based talent approach? How does your TA team look at when they pull the resumes together? What processes are they using to find talent to bring together, you know, the candidate pool. Who's involved in the interview process? There are so many aspects to this, and so, to think that it's going to be solved overnight is impossible. But what I will say is, what I tell people who are talking about this work, you know, come join us.  

We can share with you the things we've learned. We can share with you what's worked really well for us, what hasn't worked really well. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
Yeah. And I appreciate what you said because what I'm hearing you say is that like you have thought about, and moved in a way where, uh, skills first practices are really part  of an intentional equity strategy. Right. Absolutely. It's not just it's not just surface level. And so, what that means, though, is that it does take the pause that you talked about. It does take the reflection, the time. And I would even say a level of vulnerability to be like, oh, wait, absolutely. 

We haven't done this right thus far. And so, we need to make some changes to actually get it right. And so, I appreciate that you're talking about the entire process, not just the beginning starting point of like what you put on paper and what you put out in the world. I want to I want to shift a little bit and talk about, like, you know, where you've seen more opportunities and challenges to link this together. 

Your CEO, Ed Bastian, has a great quote that kind of encapsulates this work. He says the “Delta family will use whatever means we have to move the world toward a better, more just tomorrow.” And I feel like what you're saying is that, like, that quote is being embodied in the action that you're doing.

Can you talk about the general opportunities and challenges in your work to support equity and opportunity for your employee base, particularly given what's happening in today's economic and cultural environment? 
 
Ashley Black
Absolutely. And I am proud to say, um, that with the focus that we have had on equity, it's really been a game changer for us. It's changed the way we look at everything, the way we look at our health care plans. It's changed the way that we look at overall well-being for our employees. It's changed our talent strategies, um, the way we look at compensation. You know, when you have leadership at the top who says, this is what we're going to go do, and this is how we're going to do it, and empowering leaders across the business to go try some things and look at things differently and run up the hill with it. 

It does allow for a level of vulnerability with this work. That makes it, I would say, more sustainable candidly, um, you know, talking a lot about commitments and people following through and really sustaining them. When you have a culture that's rooted in equity and that acknowledges there are some things that we can't change overnight, but here's the progress, here's what we're doing, here's how we're going to go tackle that. And, you know, again, getting proximate to your employees to understand the needs, um, that they have and their lived experiences and really educating leaders and understanding, that's a big piece of the work, um, that we have been doing at Delta for the last year and a half, two years is taking our senior leadership through a program with the Groundwater Institute, where we spend two days looking at the data and analysis and outcomes, uh, within, you know, the U.S. and society and understanding some of the history so that we can better navigate business decisions and systems that exist today. 

Um, and how you go about changing those. Because if you don't understand the root of what it is that you're trying to address, you're never really going to solve the problem. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
Now, I think that's important. I often think about like your practice is only as good as your analysis. Right. And so, like what you change is only as good as the world that you understand it. So, I appreciate you sharing what you did about like how you're looking at the full world.

One of the things that you said earlier, Ashley, that I want to pick back up on is that having a skills first approach isn't just about who you hire in through that you know, method, but also like how you think about promotion from within. Can you give some examples around how Delta is thinking about skills first approaches for your incumbent workers and how you are applying that approach in promotions and advancement opportunities for folks who are already working at Delta. 
 
Ashley Black
Absolutely. You know, we have an incredible frontline workforce. We have talent, both degreed, nondegreed, you know, and there are so many folks who are eager to continue their career journey. In some cases, that might be in leadership roles within the operation and leading teams and that sort of thing. But many have an interest in coming over and working at what we call our general offices such as finance, IT, HR, marketing, you know. When you look at our front-line workforce and the complexities of the jobs that they do every day, whether that be working in an airport as a gate agent, trying to get a flight out on time. You know, there are so many things that have to come together perfectly multiple times a day. And when you look at the skill set, and the behaviors that are needed there, uh, to really do that successfully, all while trying to ensure that our customers feel cared for and connected with and you say, let's break that down. And what are those skills that, you know, would benefit us here? Um, at the general offices and some of these back-office functions. All those things are really important to understand. With our apprenticeship programs that we launched a couple of years ago, we've been able to have talent move from some of those frontline roles into opportunities, basically, um, learn while you earn type roles within those apprenticeship opportunities and move into back office roles, uh, within the HR team as well as IT, finance, marketing, corporate communications, etc.
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
That's really that's really great.

Thank you for that. And giving that example around how you connect, um, your skills first approach across, um, employees. I want to dive in a little bit because we think about that as well. Um, with our North Star. So, at JFF, our North Star focuses on quality jobs for the millions who face systemic barriers to equitable economic advancement. And so, for us, quality jobs include ensuring workers have agency and advancement, which we've talked about, and also making sure that there's a supportive culture and structure to the job. 
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how Delta, um, is evolving to enable quality jobs for your employees, particularly your front-line employees? 
 
Ashley Black
Absolutely. I would say, you know, a big piece of this work as we talk about the groundwork that has to be laid in order for, you know, moving to a skills-based talent strategy, what that looks like. There is so much in the way of learning and unlearning, and I think a big piece of that that we've looked at, um, is around our employee engagement scores, candidly. For us, we look at those engagement scores and those sense of belonging scores to understand are there environments where, perhaps those parts of the organization aren't ready yet for, apprentices, apprenticeship programs, and that sort of thing.

You know, we we've been piloting an internal apprenticeship program and we have had I think it's three classes going through, and it's really around hiring, developing, and promoting internal talent with relevant skills, um, to open roles in the company. And it's that learn while you earn experience, and it results in a permanent role on the team um, of where you transition into and, again, we've had um even within our own team, um, on our DEI team, we had an individual who came to us from our customer engagement centers and has just done a phenomenal job, both as an apprentice, but now, leading the work and working closely with the team around our business resource group strategy, our engagement strategy with employees.

At the same time, we have an analytics academy that we've launched, and that really leans more into upskilling and certifying employees who are interested in going into more of an IT type role. Um, we've worked to increase the demand. Looking at an airline, there's an incredible demand for data and analysis. As you can imagine, we measure everything, we look at everything. And so, who better to come in and do that work than people who actually have lived and worked and breathed in that operation.

And so, they not only understand the data, but they understand the qualitative, they understand the experiences, they understand the barriers that might exist within that customer experience and we just think that's incredibly powerful when you put those two things together. Um, and so those are just a couple of areas where we have invested in partnership with Georgia State University, um, and developed a three-semester program. And, you know, we're continuing to look across the business to say what other areas are untapped that might, um, possibly be opportunities for frontline talent. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
Thank you for sharing everything that you've shared today. I think what I've really picked up in this conversation is how Delta is really using all of the tools in a talent management sense, and also in a DEI sense to really think about and put into practice what it means to have equity and opportunity for your employees. So, thank you for sharing what you have shared. Um, and I look forward to finding more time to talk and learn more about where you are in the future as an organization.  
  
Ashley Black
Thank you so much for having me. 
 
Tameshia Bridges Mansfield
And thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode of the Horizons podcast. Please let us know what you thought about today's conversation by sharing a comment wherever you find your podcasts. And mark your calendar for the next Horizons summit, July 22nd and 23rd in Washington, DC.  

Early bird registration is open at horizons.jff.org. I look forward to the conversation next time.

For now, I'm your host. Tameshia Bridges Mansfield. 

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