Diversifying Digital Health

Earlier this week Health 2.0 held a TECHquality meetup focused on diversity in the digital health industry.  We hoped that this event would foster an honest and frank discussion about how we can create diverse workplaces and develop inclusive technology for the people we serve.  After speakers, Jean-Luc Neptune, Co-Founder at Athletik Health and Nyala Khan, VP of People at Baby+Co, shared their thoughts, meetup attendees were encouraged to share their own experiences and comments in relation to the topic at hand.  Following an engaging and insightful discussion, where people of different backgrounds and walks of life shared their individual viewpoints, the hard questions remained,  what more can we do to ensure that our workplaces are not only diverse, but inclusive? How do we ensure that the companies we build with people, embed the diverse perspectives of those people from the very start?

Year after year diversity reports show little improvement.  This interactive infographicfrom Information is Beautiful shows a breakdown of employees by gender and ethnicity at some of the top tech companies.  One of the many things that this infographic shows is that the percentage of Black and Latino employees hasn’t changed for many of the companies between 2014-2016. So when will it?  How can we move the needle forward and convert conversation to real action?  Down below are a couple of takeaways from our event,  ones that allow us to not only educate ourselves in the right ways, but takeaways that we can use both as employers and employees of our respective organizations:

Employers

  • Get your people teams onboard

  • Establish inclusive values, “not just who, but how”

  • Perform structured interviews

  • Institute unconscious bias training

  • Examine your job descriptions and interview practices for hidden biases

    • Use inclusive language in interviews and job descriptions

  • Diversify your interviewers

  • Encourage development of employee resource groups

  • Facilitate mentorship within your organization

Employees/Candidates