Department of Energy contractors and other groups seeking a more diverse workforce might consider starting with a self-examination, speakers told the Oak Ridge Small Business Diversity Summit Wednesday.
Many organizations seem to be looking for “quick fixes” to promote hiring of racial and ethnic minorities, Claudia Caballero, president and CEO of Centro Hispano de East Tennessee, said during the online program.
“Focus on culture,” said Harry Boston, the president of DOE contractor Boston Government Services. “You have to keep people, and talented people have their choice of employers,” Boston said. “Make each individual feel valued and respected for themselves … Be the best version of you.”
To get the best hires, businesses should cast a wide net across diverse groups of people, Boston said.
Groups should do more than check a box saying, “yes, we completed diversity training,” said Mae Mosley, the director of human resources for Oak Ridge Associated Universities, a consortium based in Tennessee. “Assess your environment” at the leadership level, Mosley said. “What do you want your company to look like?”
For starters, an organization might ask who is currently looking at its job postings, said Darris Upton, diversity development manager for the Knox County, Tenn. mayor’s office. “We have a website,” might be the reply, Upton said. “Well great, [but] everybody has a website.”
The event was organized by the DOE’s environmental contractor for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, UCOR, which is an Amentum partnership with Jacobs, along with Roane State Community College in Harriman, Tenn.
Keynote speaker Nicole Nelson-Jean, the head of field operations for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, praised UCOR for its target of subcontracting 10% worth of its $3.9-billion prime contractor to minority or disadvantaged small businesses. She also praised UCOR for trying to build a personnel pipeline with historically black colleges or universities, or HBCUs.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has made diversity a key goal for DOE over the next four years. As of September 2020 about 74% of the DOE’s 13,000-person workforce was white. About 72% of the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s roughly 1,200-member workforce is white, according to agency stats.
