Name: The pandemic's effect on diverse communities
Uploaded: 2020-12-01
Duration: 1 min 33 s
Description: Accenture's Julie Sweet weighs in.

 JULIE SWEET: Today, I wanted to focus on something that I don't think we're hearing enough about. And that has the disproportionate effect on our diverse employees in terms of career advancement. There's been a lot of discussions about the pandemic hurting diverse communities. But at our own companies, what we're finding is that many of our diverse employees pre-COVID, we talked a lot about the fact that they needed help with their networks. They had different kinds of networks. And what we're seeing eight months into the pandemic, is that those networks smaller and sometimes more fragile before COVID have been really challenged in a world where things are remote, where it's harder to connect. And so if you haven't done so already, and you run a company, you're at a company, it's really important to ask yourself the question-- have you focused on the impact of the COVID on networks and advancement for your diverse employees? Similarly, what we're seeing as people are going back to the office, we're having lots of conversations about how fast to go back, who to go back. But you need that same intentional discussion around how do you bring people back and not disproportionately affect those who may not be able to go back, for example, those with children. And that I think has been a missing part of the conversation that's important that all of us focus on both now, and as we bring back our employees. [NO AUDIO] 