A Better Chance
- Francisco Tezén, CEO of A Better Chance, is using DEI as a gateway to tackle other workplace issues.
- Tezén said he believes the best way to approach DEI is as a startup cost baked into the bottom line.
- This story is part of "What's Next?," a series where we ask CEOs of prominent companies across industries about how rapidly evolving trends influence their approach to leadership.
In the past year, debates between managers and employees about contentious workplace trends jump-started by the pandemic in 2020 have raged throughout corporate America. These trends — from remote work and quiet quitting to the Great Resignation and demands for better work-life balance — capture the shifting priorities and new boundaries younger generations maturing in their careers seek to establish.
These trends were the focus of Insider's "What's Next?" series, where we interviewed CEOs from a wide range of industries to see how they're factoring them into business decisions. One CEO we interviewed thinks the trends all come back to one central issue: diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Curiosity about employee perspectives sets the stage for a responsive office
Francisco Tezén is the CEO of A Better Chance, a nonprofit that recruits and places young people of color in prestigious schools across the country. The organization says it's dedicated to closing the diversity gap in high-performing primary and secondary schools.
Though its clientele consists mostly of schools, parents, and children, Tezén said the group's New York office has weathered the same disruptions to office culture and employee morale as other white-collar businesses. Tezén acknowledged that CEOs across sectors face the same challenges, particularly the new expectations for workplace flexibility.
"Our greatest asset is our people," Tezén said. "So I think it's vitally important that we are responsive, that we don't rest on the laurels of 'this is the way it's always been done' or because a generation went through certain kinds of experiences that automatically means that successor generations have to follow suit."
Tezén said he and his management team had been using skip-level meetings and informal workshops to "tap into the zeitgeist" and understand what their employees need from the office.
"We just have to be a little bit more inquisitive, I think, to better understand the perspective of the next generation of the workforce who are going to be our future leaders," he said. Tezén added that he's hopeful this will create space for people in the office who may not otherwise be heard by senior management.
When asked about the role of the office in this evolving corporate landscape, Tezén said that while he thinks it plays an essential role in encouraging collaboration, coaching, and building strong social bonds, he's taking a less dogmatic approach.
"I refuse to believe in and buy into false binaries," he said. "At the same time, we have to recognize that by virtue of technology, by virtue of what we've experienced the last three years, how people bring their full work selves into the office looks different. There are things we're learning about wellness, about mental health, about balance and our true integration between work and personal life that's really invaluable that this new reality makes possible."
DEI should be integrated into the fabric of the business
Tezén said his organization's focusing on how DEI values could influence the rest of the business rather than thinking of it as a strategy running parallel to the office culture.
"Our DEI and justice and belonging strategy is really integral to who we are and the work that we do," he said. "The lack of an integrated approach means that it can be something that is isolated, that is easy to go away, that has no heft behind it."
Tezén said he likes to think of DEI like any other part of the business: a necessary investment that needs metrics for success, including ways to keep the company accountable, honest, and transparent about the strategy's progress.
"It's not a discrete, separate DEI roadmap," he said. "It's about fundamentally who you are, what you do, and what you value, and then to what extent are you willing to marshal and make investments that are long-standing in the same ways that if you're launching products or you're launching services there are startup costs that you're not expecting to recoup immediately."