Successful Strategies for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: A conversation with Patrice L. Harris, Director of DEI at CareSource

When it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion strategies, some organizations have been cultivating programs for years, while others are just getting started. CareSource, a nationally recognized, nonprofit managed care organization serving over 2 million members, is an excellent example of an organization with a more mature DEI program. Not only do they have an incredibly dedicated team that is focused on DEI, but they have also created a microsite within their career site that focuses on these initiatives and demonstrates their commitment. NAS recently spoke with Patrice L. Harris, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at CareSource, to discuss the company’s approach to DEI and their successful initiatives, as well as the advice and lessons Patrice would share with those who are looking to build a sustainable and effective DEI strategy for their own organization.

The importance of diversity, equity and inclusion

NAS: We’re excited to have this opportunity to talk to you about what CareSource is doing around diversity, equity and inclusion. A lot of our clients ask about this topic and many of them are still growing their programs, while your organization already has a strong program. So, I think it’s interesting to hear how you’ve tackled this within your organization. Can you start by giving us an overview of DEI at CareSource? We’d love to hear how you approach these topics, as well as why it’s so important to the organization.

Patrice: Thank you very much for allowing me to share our perspective on DEI. For us, DEI is the internal work we do with our employees. Our approach is different in the sense that our DEI strategy is rooted in our mission. All the things we do internally are for the purpose of building an employee culture of inclusion and belonging so we can collectively benefit our members.

Our DEI strategy sits on three pillars: workforce, workplace and community. We start with the basic demographics of our workforce. Who are we? Are we hiring, promoting and retaining diverse talent at every level of our organization? Then, we focus on the workplace. Do we have the kind of inclusive, psychologically safe environment that empowers every person to come in and have a sense of belonging so they can contribute in a way that’s meaningful?

At the end of the day, we’re striving to ensure we’re the kind of company that truly supports our member community. We have over two million members across nine states and we’re growing. And we don’t view them as customers – we view them as members of the CareSource family. Our mission is to make a lasting difference in our members’ lives by improving their health and wellbeing. Beyond an insurance payer, we see ourselves as a company that offers benefits, products and services that are bias free, culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate. To do that, our approach to DEI has had to be more proactive versus reactive.

NAS: How do you start to build that culture?

Patrice: One of the things we try to do is elevate our cultural competence and our ability to interact with people who are different than ourselves. As we gain the commitment of 5,000+ culturally competent leaders and individuals, we create culturally competent teams and ultimately an organization that is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of our diverse members. We never lose sight of that.

Diversity, equity and inclusion belongs to everyone

NAS: Having been with CareSource for several years, how have you seen the commitment to DEI grow and change, and what have been some important milestones?

Patrice: My role was the first of its kind at CareSource; I have been here for four years. Prior to my joining CareSource, like many organizations we had an equity council in place, several Employee Resource Groups and some training within our learning platform. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, the organization brought in consultants to do some listening tours to really find out how people were feeling. What were their perspectives and what did they want from CareSource?

Since my arrival, we have maintained the desire to hear from our employees – to truly understand their perspectives. We now implement several employee surveys that allow us to dissect the results and data by demographics. What are women saying? What are men saying? What are the different races and ethnicities saying? What are employees with disabilities or those who belong to the LGBTQIA+ community saying? What are our veterans and military folks saying? Over these last four years, we have definitely grown and matured in this space. And I think a lot of it has to do with our continued desire to hear what our employees want.

For example, we were providing mandatory DEI training every quarter. Well, in our Great Place to Work^® survey, some of the employees felt like we were pushing them too far, too fast. After listening to what our employees were saying about how much content they can digest and apply, we adjusted our training strategy, timing and course requirements.

Also in the past four years, our ERGs have grown from four to ten. More and more employees are engaging with our ERGs, our DEI team has grown, and we have a heightened focus on becoming a model employer for people with disabilities.

NAS: What are some of the ways that you communicate DEI initiatives with your employee population?

Patrice: DEI is baked into everything at CareSource. It belongs to every single employee, and we make sure that happens from the beginning. It starts within the first 7-10 days for new hires. They go through DEI training, including understanding and mitigating bias. We articulate our competencies, one of which is creating an inclusive environment.

We include measurement of this in our annual performance reviews to demonstrate our belief in those behaviors. I also partner with each HR functional leader to advance DEI, for example, and they have a maturity assessment that is unique to their area. We review and complete the assessment twice a year and identify steps, tasks, projects and initiatives they can implement to mature their functional area towards sustainability.

Letting employees drive Employee Resource Groups

NAS: You’ve said that your number of resource groups has gone from four to ten, with a large number of employees involved, which is amazing. Tell us a little bit about that effort, how it’s taken off and how employees have embraced it.

Patrice: It’s a part of our DNA – we truly believe that DEI belongs to everyone. The ERGs are CareSource ambassadors for the different groups and demographics within our employee population. Their job is to build community, help strengthen psychological safety and cultivate a sense of belonging. They go out into the communities we serve and represent CareSource, but they are also tasked with coming back and educating us on their specific communities and lived experiences. For example, we won’t launch any diversity topics without the ERGs reviewing and approving the content, because they are our cultural experts.

In addition to our initial groups, we’ve added a multi-generational employee group and groups that advocate for mental health and people with disabilities. And just from a practical standpoint, our robust participation comes from word of mouth. A lot of our employees participate in more than one ERG.

I am often asked, “how did you start the ERGs?” We don’t start them. They are employee-led. If the employees don’t want an ERG, we don’t have one. We have been blessed because our people were interested and wanted to build these small communities. The process requires 10-15 like-minded individuals that want to link arms and start an ERG before we give them approval. They’re given two executive sponsors from our VP to C-suite level ranks to provide advocacy, guidance, direction and coaching.

We offer ERG group leaders the same resources we would give any leaders across this organization. That includes time within their workday to focus on ERG projects, initiatives, campaigns and events. We’re launching leadership development for them, because another goal is to create pipelines and talent pools of leaders from these individuals. They also have the ability to award points to their support teams and ERG members to keep them engaged. These points can be redeemed for purchases in our employee store as an acknowledgement of doing a great job meeting a specific ERG goal.

We advertise their events on our intranet, which is our primary form of corporate communication. Every ERG has its own home page on our intranet. We have a cultural celebration calendar that we highlight every month, with a plethora of holidays recognition and celebrations. We also advertise coinciding ERGs events on this calendar.

Diversity, equity and inclusion’s importance for recruiting

NAS: We’ve been talking a lot about DEI efforts and their importance for internally engaging employees. What do you think about its impact on recruiting and bringing new talent?

Patrice: I think it is wildly important. We have learned that younger generations specifically are looking for companies who are highlighting DEI.

NAS: Part of your effort to communicate to candidates outside the organization is the DEI microsite we’ve built on the career site, which is much more robust than what most organizations offer. I wanted to talk a little bit about your vision for that and why you thought it was important to provide so much transparency and information.

Patrice: The first step in the employee life cycle is attraction. We want to set the tone and ensure people understand our approach to DEI so there are no surprises. To make sure, from the very beginning, future potential employees understand us, want to be a part of our culture and can see that we are doing all of this for our team and, ultimately, our members. I go back and look at the content on our career site periodically and challenge myself to make sure our message is coming through.

NAS: We’ve just added a new page about disability inclusion to the CareSource career site, which is another evolution of your efforts. Why was that important to bring into the mix?

Patrice: It is extremely important for a couple of reasons. A few years ago, we established a relationship with The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement, supporting a grant for businesses to be more inclusive of persons with disabilities. At the same time, our CEO, Erhardt Preitauer, expressed a desire for us to really become an employer of choice for persons with disabilities. We knew that to successfully recruit and retain persons with disabilities, we would need a culture that’s going to maintain and support these new hires.

So, we came up with a plan to support three objectives. The first was to build a sustainable disability inclusion culture. The second is to attract, grow and retain employees with disabilities at every level. And the third is to establish CareSource as an industry leader in disability inclusion. We established our national Disability Inclusion Advisory Board and involved individuals across this organization with the lived experience and professional expertise to unpack our strategy, guide us and challenge us. Since we’ve started, we’ve won a couple of awards in this area, but we still have a lot of road to travel, as our mission for this work is to promote disabilities as a positive and natural part of our employment experience.

Building a sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion strategy

NAS: Here is my last question. If you were talking to a colleague who was with an organization that was at an earlier stage of their DEI journey, what kind of advice would you give them on how to get some traction and momentum going?

Patrice: This is one of my favorite questions. There are a few things that I would say, and I’m going to give them to you in three categories. One is approach, one is strategy and the third relates to metric and outcomes.

First, link your approach to your mission. Anchor your DEI strategy to your organization’s mission so it’s not just bolted on, but thoroughly baked in. Also, cast a very wide net for diversity – don’t just focus on gender, race and ethnicity.

Next is strategy. Slow and steady wins the race. Think “crawl, walk, run.”

You cannot force an organization to make heavy changes quickly. That’s not how change management works. A typical DEI department can be one or two people. If you’ve got three people, you’re cooking with grease. Create the competencies. Work with your equity council and HR functional areas, and make sure the DEI strategy belongs to everyone. This way, the burden of progress doesn’t rest on the DEI team or even just HR.

And lastly, I would say to look at metrics and outcomes. We sometimes will say “here’s our demographics.” Like you’re just counting male, female, Black or Hispanic employees. You have to go much bigger than that. Partner with your analytics team to implement an effective data strategy that is multifaceted. And don’t measure anything that can’t be turned into an action plan. For everything we measure, we are looking for the opportunity to put a plan of action in place. What’s the point of measuring and capturing metrics if you’re not going to do something with the results?

Finally, as a bonus, whatever it is you’re going to build, build it so that it points towards sustainability. That’s the goal. The vision has to be bigger than any one person, and it has to be able to survive beyond current leadership. Prioritize progress over perfection. We know that slow and steady wins the race, but we are constantly moving and improving our DEI goals, strategies and efforts.

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