The Foreign Service Journal, September 2020

28 SEPTEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AWorkforce That “Looks Like America” The State Department is the face of America overseas, and it has a unique mandate to fully represent the country and people we serve. An important piece of that puzzle is ensuring that the department recruits, retains and develops a diverse and high-performing workforce. It begins with providing fairness, transparency and opportunity to all applicants and employees throughout the talent life cycle and then ensuring the diversity that strengthens us is reflected in our senior ranks. The department emphasizes the search for diverse talent through its national talent acquisition platform, which places recruiters around the country to seek competitive candidates from all backgrounds. Recruiters identify candidates on uni- versity campuses, in professional association gatherings and by engaging with communities underrepresented at the depart- ment. They cultivate internship, fellowship and career candidates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges and universities, among other places. They recruit skilled professionals through alumni networks, trade organizations and targeted career fairs. They also meet can- didates where they are, online. The State Department has long had an online presence and has stepped up its virtual recruit- ment activities dramatically since March with the cancellation of most in-person events. Thousands of Americans pursue a career in diplomacy each year, and the State Department has several programs designed specifically to make a foreign affairs career accessible to com- petitive individuals from historically underrepresented groups. The Pickering and Rangel Fellowships, the U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program and the Foreign Affairs Information Tech- nology Fellowship are all important programs that directly and successfully support the recruitment of diverse talent. Focus on Retention To stand the test of time and translate into a Senior Foreign Service that looks more like America, however, effective strategic recruitment must be accompanied by internal cultural shifts. An inclusive work environment that ensures employees feel respected, valued, heard and empowered is crucial to retaining and developing talent to rise through the ranks. Recognizing that the department has work to do in this regard, Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Global Talent Carol Perez is committed to making this happen. Underscoring the importance of fostering a culture of inclu- sion at the department, DG Perez has introduced new workplace flexibilities within her authority, advocated for new ones to Congress and enhanced existing programs to maximize the per- formance, career development and professional satisfaction of employees. These initiatives include an extended Leave Without Pay pilot program, additional lactation rooms and flexible lunch schedules. Recently, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the workforce has become familiar with telework. It will be interesting to see how many telework-eligible employees con- tinue to make use of this option once the pandemic abates. Understanding and mitigating unconscious bias are other essential elements in strengthening diversity and inclusion at all levels of the State Department. Science tells us that uncon- scious bias is a natural and necessary response to processing the millions of bits of information we are all exposed to at any given moment. But this unconscious process can introduce inequities into activities such as recruitment, interviewing, performance recognition or task assignment. Often, we are unaware that bias is affecting our decision-making at all. Yet unconscious bias can have a major impact on an employee’s career—from hiring to career progression and promotion—as well as on how teams and, therefore, our workforce are constituted. State takes unconscious bias seriously and has taken several major steps to raise employees’ awareness of bias and mitigate its effects on departmentwide procedures. Institutional actions to tackle unconscious bias, whether in recruitment, hiring, perfor- mance evaluation or task allocation, are incorporated through- out the 2020 DISP. But understanding and mitigating one’s own biases is also a personal responsibility. Fortunately, employees do not have to do it alone—in 2019, the Foreign Service Insti- tute launched a new course on “Mitigating Unconscious Bias” (PT-144), available both in classroom and online versions to our global workforce. FSI reports that as of early August, 11,500 employees have taken the course in person or online since Octo- ber 2019. The Bureau of Global Talent Management and Office of Civil Rights’ joint initiative called Open Conversations is another bur- geoning effort. Allowing safe, candid, constructive and voluntary conversations on issues that affect inclusion, these facilitated The numbers are important, yes, but there is a story—and an entire culture —behind the numbers, and it is time to focus on that.