Interview with Jabu Dayton, CPO at Energy Impact Partners

Catherine: The tech industry, as well as the energy industry, remains predominantly white male. That’s the latest statistic from SEIA and the Solar Foundation. It is 24% female in the energy industry and the clean energy industry. Can you provide some examples from the companies you’ve worked with in which you’ve seen that diversity has actually proved a strategic advantage?

Jabu: Yeah, I am typically not drawn to companies that lack an understanding about why this is really vital and critical to their business. But I have had occasions where companies have not pursued it with intention and focus and drive. And they typically tend to have a more difficult time getting themselves out of tricky situations, and these can just be day to day situations of like, “hey, we’ve got some resistance in this particular area. How do we get through it?” And yet, my companies that do have folks that are from all different walks of lives and backgrounds, whether that’s class or education or age, typically can solve almost anything that comes up in a way that’s creative and serves the company. And often have a greater sense of what’s efficient and productive. That’s something you often don’t see in homogenous groups of folks, where there is not that sort of outside opinion or idea or creativity. I can’t think of any specific examples because there’s so many, where it’s a positive value add. I think it can be as simple as unintentionally missing things, a lot of it is unintentional. If you don’t have friends that are African-American, which I forget the statistic, but most white folks don’t have close friends that are African-Americans, then you may not know how to speak to that customer. So, putting dollars to that experience might be a vital piece of what your work needs to contain. So how do you access that? If it’s not a team member, do you have the resources to reach outside of your network to find those folks?

Catherine: I think it’s interesting, what you said about the dollars to access that, because a lot of people look at DNI as a cost to business, HR as a cost to business, I’m marketing to attract these people as a cost to your business, but there’s so much data out there that talks about how it’s not just a feel good issue. It’s bottom line, companies are more profitable when they are diverse, it’s really that simple. 

Jabu: Yeah, it is that simple. And we need to remember that white people actually don’t want to work in all white companies either. It’s not just that you’re being gracious and allowing people to come in and work with you. But it’s also that you’re providing a workplace that everyone can benefit from. So if you have someone on your team that has skill sets that you don’t have, you are thereby learning from them as well, and adding to your own personal value and brand. I think we forget about that and we think of it from the entry point but we want to create something that’s interesting and vibrant for everyone and retain some once they come in. That includes everybody. 

Catherine: What is your biggest piece of advice for organizations looking to get started with DNI?

Jabu: That’s an excellent question! There are so many amazing providers doing this work right now. I would say, obviously, that DNI starts at recruiting, so really looking at your recruiting team and assessing whether they have inclusion and diversity hiring skill sets. So if your recruiter is just reaching out to a certain subset of folks, you’re going to get a certain pool to hire and interview from. So you may have to find recruiters who specialize in this type of work and/or you really need to push your recruiters to bring you the results that you hope to see. Sometimes that means developing frameworks around – listen, if we are interviewing 5 candidates, one of those has to be someone who has a different gender, has a different ethnicity, or lifestyle, or disability, or different age. There’s so many things, right? So, again, you can’t sit there and hope that folks are going to be attracted. Your website has to reflect it. Your marketing has to reflect it. There is a dollar cost to that. Either you are going to, as a CEO and founder, you’re going to pursue this and do it actively ahead of this trend, or you’re going to wait until you don’t really have a choice. And I would much rather be on the leading edge of anything that’s coming up. I think that doing now is still the leading edge, people shouldn’t feel embarrassed that they haven’t been able to achieve these goals before. 

Catherine: Seeking a leading edge, I just want to give a quick shout out to Adam James, the staff at Energy Impact Partners who introduced us, because he is the prime example of somebody that is in the energy industry, and he is only from the energy industry, his whole background, that recognizes the importance of bringing people in from different industries. He went and sought you out to help with the industry within the RE.

Jabu: Yes, Adam is an example of a visionary and someone who’s really passionate about this work and dedicated to it through action. So, if you think of me as an example that, we were not in each other’s networks at all, and he did reach out to me and supported me and has made sure that my entry into this space has been as graceful as I would allow it to be. He’s an incredible ally. 

Catherine: Yeah, he really is. I want to talk, a couple more questions, about something that’s come up recently in my recruiting, that I want to get your thoughts on and I want people to know about. And that’s the salary history ban. The salary history banning in California, in New York, and I’m sure it’s also true in Massachusetts, Massachusetts is always right there with us. So tell us a little bit about the salary history ban and why it’s important. 

Jabu: Mm-hmm. So California and New York are the states that are very protective of employees overall, and so companies that are based in those states really need to be cognizant of the laws that they have there and have an HR person or recruiter who also knows how to navigate that. What this means is that you can’t ask people what their previous salaries were. And that’s a pretty typical question for a lot of folks who have been out in the workforce for a while. So these are some of the habits that we need to develop as a professional. We really can’t ask any questions of our candidates and applicants that indicate, really anything like where they live, any association that might allow you to put them in a category to be discriminated against, so protected class. Women are protected as a protected class. As we looked at some of the salary differentials between women and men, one of the things that was decided was that by sharing your salary history, you would allow allude to the obvious fact that you were paid, sometimes 84 cents less to the dollar than most men are paid, and that would then lead them to offer you less, and continue the cycle of not paying people equitably. So it is another law that’s put in place to protect the employee and it’s going to go without a hitch, for the most part, in California. And I think it’s probably one of those things that we’ll see go through most states, fairly quickly, negotiating for people who are from underrepresented backgrounds, it’s always though, so you need to make sure that you are optimizing to get the best salary possible and this is one of the ways you can do that. 

Catherine: Yeah, I have to admit, I was at first a little dubious about it because, as a recruiter, you want as much information as possible, so as soon as you don’t have the salary of the candidate, then the employer becomes more ambiguous about what they want to offer. But I have to admit, I’ve gotten on board because there’s been quite a few women that have gotten pretty substantial pay increases, who tell me after the fact, and I’ve been so happy for them because they’ve been paid on their merit, on the global that’s been advertised, and they were super vulnerable, and that’s what they should have been paid. They should get the right value for their money. I’m on board now. 

Jabu: Yeah, the first tech start-up that I worked at paid me a salary that I know, now, was completely ridiculous. But I was coming to it from Washington State and it was my first time in California, and I had no idea A) how to negotiate, how to talk to that process, or that there was a process, so I just accepted the first thing that they offered, so that’s no one’s fault but my own. But as we try to take care of our candidates and applicants as they are coming in, trying to offer them as much protection from making those kinds of mistakes that can set them back for decades, these aren’t small things. 

Catherine: I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for your time on this sunny afternoon. Best of luck in renewable energy. I hope we treat you well. 

Jabu: Thank you, yeah! Thank you for having me. I appreciate your time. Thank you, they are.