The technology sector still has a long way to go for growing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), but according to Highspot VP of DE&I Jyl Feliciano, the industry is actually setting the bar for other sectors.

Highspot uses its software-as-a-service (SaaS) sales-enablement platform to streamline enterprise sales and drive revenue performance. Gartner predicts diversity of tech sales leadership will surge in the next five years.

Christopher Gamble, senior director analyst at Gartner, explained to SDxCentral that companies will need to build “new annual budgets that allow for compensation adjustments by as much as 30% and auditing pay equity at least biannually ... the cost is recouped when open territories are staffed with higher-producing reps who affect both the top and bottom line."

From the perspective of a company like Highspot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and data-point analytics to help clients with strategy and execution, Feliciano says the same framework will be essential to propelling DE&I as a business imperative.

“I understand frameworks, methodologies, core metrics, KPIs. I understand the data. I understand the psychology behind it. But what really make-or-breaks DEI is the environment and the leadership's willingness to lean in and actually be a part of embedding this work in the DNA of the company,” Feliciano told SDxCentral.

Data, data, data

Data is “top of mind" for DE&I practitioners, Feliciano stated.

DE&I practitioners work with a persistent fear that the “buzz and urgency” will fade. But Feliciano insists it is here to stay because the data points display it as a major differentiator for success.

“But we have to take that data one step further and tie it to the ecosystem of the business. That's how you drive buy-in and that's how you drive accountability … looking at those data points by identity group to articulate the different experiences that people were having,” she explained.

This means using methods like employee engagement surveys and evaluations that reflect the confidence in leadership from different underrepresented backgrounds, or having “courageous conversations,” Feliciano noted.

Cisco's Alice Sanchez highlighted a similar need for courageous conversations, which Feliciano said allows them to become leaders in this metric-based method of growth.

“That insight is very powerful when you're thinking about how you close equitable gaps," she said. "And our leaders take those data points really seriously, but I think in the past, we just haven't had the data. Now, we can tie that data to [employee] satisfaction, performance output, which is innovation, and now revenue" using DE&I as a competitive advantage, she further explained.

Tech is setting the trend in enterprise DE&I

Feliciano has been in the DE&I space for more than 17 years and has seen the work move from affirmative action into an actual enterprise discipline, adding that she was often the only one in the room.

“I'm an amalgamation of diversity, and the way that I saw the world was very different. But the environment for sure told me that I was not safe,” Feliciano explained. “So I assimilated, and over time I just got tired of it,” prompting her life-long focus on creating equity in the workplace.

Feliciano has worked across a spectrum of different sectors, and believes technology is actually a progressive industry pushing the paradigm for enterprise DE&I.

“Corporate Fortune 500 organizations, yes, they were mission driven, but profitability was the name of the game and [they] were less likely to take calculated risks. We can't do unconscious bias training because of the perception of it,” she stated.

In those settings, the needle moves much slower, and despite tech's homogenous label, it "is actually setting the DEI trends – if you actually look at who the influences are [and] the new adoptions. That's because of the innovation in the diversity that we find within tech.”

Feliciano said the work has gained real traction within the last three years, but the challenge has been around “helping leaders understand the business imperative behind DEI ... it is a part of making a good business decision.”

Feliciano is now brought in on customer conversations about how to integrate equity and inclusion into the vendor-selection process, and "it's really driving revenue growth … in addition to that it's attracting the brightest talent.”