In these challenging times, Eloiza Domingo, VP and Chief Inclusive Diversity & Equity Officer at Allstate, is making a herculean effort to build on the advantages of a values-driven corporate culture. In a conversation with The HR Digest, she explains why DE&I is a new frontier and plays a dominant role in motivating employees at the largest insurer in America.
The HR Digest: What major changes under Diversity and Equity stood out well for Allstate since you took reins as the Chief Inclusive Diversity & Equity Officer in 2021?
Eloiza Domingo: I walked into a great opportunity since Allstate has been at the forefront of accelerating change for many years and made significant strides in 2021. We tripled diversity training, with employees completing more than 106,000 IDE courses last year, including a 257% increase in optional courses. Our staff is training, learning and living into our shared purpose.
Our leader compensation is based on their impact on advancing IDE commitments, and we’ve reduced the number of jobs requiring college degrees, while focusing on ensuring equity in promotions and advancement. The broad diversity of our workforce makes us a better company, and more representative of our customer base.
In 2021, Allstate spent more than $308 million with diverse suppliers compared to $235 million in 2020, with our top 10 diverse suppliers representing 32% of total diverse spend. Since 2004 we have tripled our annual spend with diverse suppliers to $4.7 billion.
The Allstate Foundation added a Racial and Economic Equity Focus to its giving portfolio, and invested $1M in nonprofit leaders of color who are on the front lines advancing racial equity with youth and domestic violence survivors every day.
What is your advice to other leaders about how to keep the conversation around DE&I alive in a productive way?
DE&I can be an anxious topic for many – especially given all the current events of our nation and world–so it’s imperative to make sure these conversations are genuine and productive. One way to do this is to make sure everyone is on the same page with terminology. At Allstate, we had discussions across the enterprise to listen, learn, better understand, and agree on key terms.
To tie this all together and achieve change together, it’s necessary to create authentic connections and clearly define targets for success, so everyone understands what we are trying to accomplish. Our workforce is diverse with unique experiences, so we should engage employees and learn from them, making IDE everyone’s responsibility.
Do you have any initiatives or areas you plan to focus on in the coming years?
Allstate is dedicated to our north star goal of being the differentiated leader in DE&I by eliminating inequities in our business practices, culture, and communities for all.
We’ve created four pillars to focus our IDE work: Business Practices, Culture, People and Community. We’re integrating IDE into how we do business and building accountability and clear goals for departments and leaders. This means building DE&I into core operating practices, monitoring progress through monthly scorecards, enabling our Employee Resource Groups to align efforts to imperatives like supplier diversity spend and community development initiatives, and helping leaders pull the thread of equity through their department policies, processes, and decision-making.
“DE&I can be an anxious topic for many–especially given all the current events of our nation and world–so it’s imperative to make sure these conversations are genuine and productive.”
We’re building a diverse staff to match or exceed the market, being transparent with diversity data, exploring new ways to penetrate more diverse media markets, and considering our reputation within historically marginalized populations.
We’re not going to do this alone – we’re engaging consumers along the way. We want Allstate to be a leader, convener and enabler of social mobility, creating an inclusive economy and addressing wealth disparities in the US. We hold ourselves accountable to moving society forward in addressing any barriers–using our good hands to empower a more equitable future.
What are the core values that influence your decision making?
I’ve always had a strong sense of right and wrong, justice and fairness. I was that kid who challenged my parents about what I thought was unfair treatment — even if I knew that challenge would get me in trouble! I just always wanted to understand the reason behind my parents’ or authorities’ decisions. That curiosity is also part of my decision-making process.
My parents are immigrants from the Philippines – the way my siblings and I were raised has shaped my purpose and how I work. When I was little, I realized early on that I was different from everyone else in my school and around my neighborhood. I knew I didn’t fit in.
While being different stayed with me all through high school and into college, it turned into a sense of advocacy for others.
As I became more comfortable in my own skin, I also discovered my drive to support others, make real and systemic change and eventually confidently focus my work on IDE. I’m really driven to make decisions that not only positively impact and influence others, but also creates legacies of change that will make tomorrow better than today.
If The HR Digest readers would like to get involved in advocating for more women and minorities in the boardroom, what do you recommend they do?
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are a great place to grow and improve cultural competency skills and to learn how to advocate for others. At Allstate, we encourage our employees to join ERGs for networking and professional development purposes, and to engage with a population that may be different than their own. You don’t have to share lived experiences to participate in a certain ERG. By engaging, you learn about those different from you, become vulnerable, open to feeling uncomfortable, transparent about what you could change about yourself, and eventually understand how to advocate for others.
Also, consider how your team is aligned to goals of having more female, racial and ethnic diversity in leadership positions. Does the talent in your own function mirror the diversity you wish to see leading the company? Model the behavior you want to see by challenging hiring processes, mitigating bias in decision-making and implementing changes that would better support diverse and quality talent in leadership roles.
The word ally is a verb, and to be a real change agent, you must engage. Stepping out of your comfort zone can be scary, but that’s how the best learning and longest lasting change occurs.