Why gender and ethnic diversity are important in security

Like many industries, jobs across the security profession have historically been filled by males and Caucasian males, in particular. The industry biases in its hiring practices may not be intentional by and large but this lack of gender and ethnic diversity means many companies are missing out on having the different perspectives and viewpoints that women and minorities bring to the table.

The issue of broadening diversity and inclusion in security was the topic of a panel discussion last week during the virtual ISC West event. Among the panelists included: Willem Ryan, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, AlertEnterprise; Kasia Hanson, Global IoT Partner Sales Leader, Video and Safe Cities, Intel; Scott Schafer, Principal at SMS Advisors and Past Chair of the Security Industry Association (SIA); and Maureen Carlo, Director of Strategic Alliances at BCD international and Chair of the SIA Women in Security Forum, who moderated the discussion.         

The Business Case for Diversity

Beyond fostering diversity and inclusion just because it is the right thing to do from a moral perspective, according to Ryan, there are actually metrics for building a business case for gender and ethnic diversity in organizations. In fact, a report published earlier this year by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that gender diverse organizations are 24% more likely to financially outperform less diverse companies, while 33% of ethnically diverse companies are likely to do so. 

Additionally, Ryan said that some of the historical obstacles to creating a more diverse workforce are being eroded as evidenced by what has happened to the traditional office environment with the onset of COVID-19.

“One of the examples I would use today is the fact that we’re all working from home. That’s the new reality for today and as all of us probably have experienced when we’re hiring new talent, sometimes the challenge around hiring previously is you were confined geographically to who could either move to where your office was and have that relocation package and could someone make it to where your business was setup,” Ryan explained. “One of the benefits of the work from home movement with the pandemic is that now when people are hiring, we have a greater talent pool to draw from because we’re not confined to geographical locations for our physical facilities. That’s a great example of why getting more diverse and expanding your bubble allows you to be more competitive.”  

Hanson said that having a more diverse workforce can also help people see beyond the bubble in which they reside  enabling them to recognize when something an organization is doing from a sales or marketing perspective may not resonate in certain communities.  

“A friend of mine was telling me about a marketing campaign they were looking to run and everybody thought it was a great idea and everyone was so excited about it and when they went to go run it, they found out it was going to completely offend a whole ethnic background,” she said. “Oftentimes we’re just in our little bubble and having that diverse background allows us to look beyond our neighborhood or the office we drive to every day. It forces us to think beyond just ourselves.”

Schafer said that bolstering diversity and inclusion in your organization should not be thought of as just a theme, project, or program but rather as the building blocks of a strong business with a personal foundation.

“I was really lucky in my career that I joined a firm that was very focused on a company culture of diversity and I had strong people around me that gave very early coaching as to what diversity was all about,” he said. “A couple of the women that were in my organization were members of the National Organization for Women, they were leaders in that organization and they really clued me into what was important for them.”

Unconscious Bias

If diverse companies are more successful as evidenced by the aforementioned data, Ryan said it begs the question why aren’t more companies diverse? He said studies show that oftentimes it may be a matter of unconscious bias.

“Our brain has a way of falling into patterns that we’re used to in an unconscious way so that we don’t perceive that,” he explained. “It’s not perceived in our brain, we have a tendency to make decisions based on particular factors around who we’re surrounded with and our upbringing and so if we’re unaware of those things then it is hard to make that change. All of us are susceptible and suffer from unconscious bias.”

While addressing this more broadly in security and other industries will likely take some systematic changes, Ryan said it really begins with people on a personal level asking how they change their own unconscious biases. To aid in this, Ryan discussed the SELF acronym, which stands for slow down, empathy, learn, and find. Essentially, “slow down” asks whether an organization is taking the time to examine if it has a particular bias, “empathy” requires someone to puts his or herself in the other person’s shoes, “learn” encourages people to educate themselves about other cultures, and “find” is about finding positives in groups that someone may have a bias toward.   

Attracting a Younger Generation

Of course, diversity and inclusion in the industry not only applies to race and gender but also age. With the influx of Millennials and Gen Z into the workforce, attracting younger people to work in security will be paramount for companies to remain competitive. In fact, one of the reasons that SIA developed the RISE community initiative, according to Schafer, was they knew they needed to be able to attract younger people to the industry.

“We were looking square in the face of a big challenge of workforce development and recruiting new people into our industry,” he said. “What do you do about onboarding them and education about security technology and all the other things like that? We were kind of leveraging what we learned from the Women in Security Forum and said hey, ‘what about taking a look at what we can do about young people coming into the industry that are going to be the leaders of tomorrow?’ That went really fast and there’s now over 700 members in that group in about a year and a half.”

Despite the strides that have been made in the industry relative to diversity, Schafer believes that still more can be done.

“We’re trying to get more women and RISE committee people and people with ethnically diverse backgrounds on SIA committees for research, standards, marketing, membership, and government,” he said. “While we have seven committee chairs that are women now, I think there is a lot more that we can do to get more women and minorities at chair levels but also more people on those committees doing the work of the industry and moving our industry further faster and that’s when I think we will see a real balloon of activity and results.”