Hire For Class Diversity Because It's Worth It
My experience growing up in the working class gave me both a unique view of the professional spaces I was entering and a unique set of skills to navigate them. This was absolutely a boon for both my employers and myself. I have not had the pleasure of working with many people with my shared experience, but in the instances I have it was very affirming and rewarding.
Ensuring your team has a range of people from different class backgrounds can be tricky because understanding class is tricky and we don’t talk about it very often, but hiring for class diversity is worth it. It probably doesn’t need to be said but I will say it anyway; All of the other people you are looking to hire to give you a well-rounded team also exist in the working class. If you make it a point to attract hire and retain people from a variety of class backgrounds, you will find yourself hiring, attracting, and retaining people of the global majority, people with disabilities, veterans, women, and LGBTQIA+ folx too. When leaders build teams that include broad diversity that is supported and affirmed by the organization (instead of forced into assimilation), these teams will hold both range and depth that result in awesome innovation and creativity.
For many reasons, we don’t all have aligned definitions of class segmentations. There are internalized and externalized biases and preferences that make the taxonomy of people into classes extremely subjective. Whatever way you think of or how you define different classes is fine. I have no argument with you and finding broad social alignment on that topic is not what I am trying to accomplish. In this piece, I will use the definitions that speak to my understanding. The below definitions are a bit over-simplistic but will do for this conversation.
Owning class - Provides the capital investments that support industry and receives the maximum percentage of benefit from the returns on that investment
Working class - Provides the labor that transforms capital investment into profit and ultimately wealth in exchange for wages
Middle class - A subset of the working class that manages the labor and capital on behalf of the owning class in exchange for wages and in some cases a share of profit from capital investments made by the owning class
Poverty class - A subset of the working class that does not have access to adequate wages for a myriad of different reasons
Before going on, there are a few important things to note. Most people, in my experience, have combined identities when it comes to class. The owning class and the middle class typically have access to higher education and other resources that prepare them for professional white-collar spaces. The working class and poverty classes have theoretical access to higher education and other resources that prepare them for professional spaces, but the resources are neither evenly distributed nor easily acquired. This means that people from different class backgrounds often show up very differently and not only have different perspectives and different skills, but frequently they have a very fresh view on traditional social infrastructure. They also, very likely have had to survive a number of challenges that were designed to test their intellect, grit, flexibility, resourcefulness, and stamina to get to be in the same room with people who could simply afford to be there.
Many of us that grew up with a distant view of middle-class values and academic norms, struggle to know how to sell ourselves with confidence. Myself, I have always been kind of lousy at introducing myself and writing resumes. I suspect that my peers that grew up in the middle class do not labor over such things. I usually interview well, but to be honest, I am definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. My working-class communication style can be really offputting to some. I periodically meet people that deeply dislike my casual candor. Wild, right? it surprises me too, but the struggle is real. When it happens, it is incredibly uncomfortable for all involved.
I have also noticed that lots of us that are raised in the working class struggle under the weight of excess humility. Because of this, we frequently don’t raise our hands to signal our capabilities or accomplishments. That difference can cause us to get passed over for internships, jobs, or assignments and that is really a missed opportunity for everyone involved. The other side of that pattern is that we can volunteer for absolutely everything and run ourselves ragged. Skillful managers will notice these patterns.
Everyone arrives at the same party (or office) in different ways. For me, my decision to enter the middle class was very deliberate. When I got here, I found it mentally and emotionally exhausting but also exhilarating. I was suddenly invited to explore and solve problems. Whereas before, I was encouraged to accept what I could not change and punch the clock. I spend a lot more time worrying about how to say things so that people can understand them. I also spend way more hours outside of work doing work without getting paid than I would like to admit. The waitress version of myself thinks this is total madness.
Before I get into the value that raised-poor and raised working-class people bring to an organization, I want to briefly appreciate the middle class. I am currently living squarely in the middle class and I mostly love it. I have had many great allies from the middle class in my life and without them, I never would have made it to or through college. Similarly, I don’t think I would have succeeded as well as I did in my career without these incredible friends. Folks who grew up middle-class are often the ones who know what to do, what to say, what to wear, where to sit, what fork to use, what wine to order, and many other things that were just not a part of my cultural training. I have a ton of gratitude for these people and their experience that they shared with me. These people are also an important part of a healthy team and I would never suggest otherwise.
I wrote a pretty long story about my career, and in it, I mentioned that I was a first-generation college grad and I didn’t graduate college until I was 29. I really kept this on the down-low for a while. The truth is that I always felt like an imposter. I wasn’t proud of my school or the fact that it took me so long to graduate. I wasn’t in a sorority (this is really a thing in the South) and I had no real training when it came to networking. I didn’t know how to negotiate my salary either. I really just felt lucky for every job I ever had.
I am not sure, but I think my lack of socialization and status might have been the key to my success. I was reflecting on this recently and I noticed something new. I was taught in the working class to identify with the collective. That means that I learned how to see to it that whatever group I was a part of was moving together. Growing up, this value was effortlessly taught to me by every relative of my large extended family. It was like growing up in a colony of ants. I bring this sensibility to my work and I recognize this in other people with a similar upbringing.
When I first started to enter middle-class spaces, I noticed that there would be these moments in meetings that were like intellectual pile-ups. It felt like that game where everyone slaps their hands in a big pile and tries to make sure their hand is on top. As I became more native to middle-class spaces in and out of work, I noticed how important it was for people to speak even if they had nothing new to add. People in these spaces know that they have to prove their intellectual value.
I now know this is the expectation for me in many of these spaces. Fortunately, I have learned how to walk in both of these worlds well enough to show my mind without betraying my early lessons about generosity and the focus on the collective.
When I was the CEO at Job Portraits, there were three people that grew up in the working class. The business benefited greatly from their perspective, but their presence was so critical to me. I could just see my own wisdom when I was around them. I have been a knowledge worker for a long time and I have strategies for remembering my relevance but some days it is a heavier lift than others. When I am around people who have arrived at their careers the way I did and fought for their minds the way I did, we have mutual respect for our shared experience. I can ask them to do anything without hesitation and I know that they will figure it out.
This is obviously not universally true, but many of us who were raised in working-class families listen differently. I will do my best to explain this. From the outside, it looks like people who have been raised to be successful in the middle class are trained to look for clues and queues that provide opportunities to engage and share their thoughts. This is an important and valuable part of intentionally raising future leaders. I definitely do this with my 12-year-old. Some people are taught this along with the skills to empathize and these are some of the best humans and employees. I did not receive this kind of coaching as a young person.
People like me, who were raised without this training have to feel into conversations a little differently. I think we sense opportunities to make an impact which is really different than knowing when to speak. This way of operating necessarily requires more data collecting and storing which is both a blessing and a curse. It can sometimes take some time for us to arrive at our thoughts, but when we form our ideas, opinions, and hypothesis, we really understand them. This is a huge benefit to anyone. This means that we are constantly looking for opportunities to make an impact and we often find them by traveling unexpected paths.
People raised in the working class often have a ton of range. This is credited to a couple of things. The first is the quantity and diversity of jobs we are likely to have had. Also, remember all of that data collection and storage? We often have answers to questions nobody has asked yet. This allows us to say add so much information that could have gotten lost to the cause of efficiency. We are so great at creating context and filling it with wisdom and heart. Who doesn’t need that?
Another appreciation I have for working-class colleagues is that they have busted their asses to be where they are. If you as a manager, leader, or co-worker can see that game and meet it, they will super-charge your organization with a contagious work ethic.
Last week I spoke to all three of my former working-class employees who were having their own version of a confidence crisis. They did not use the words “confidence crisis”, but I recognized it in each of them in different ways. I cannot overstate the brilliance of these people (all women) and how much I count them as a part of my success. It makes me so frustrated to catch these glimpses of self-doubt and even more frustrated to identify with it.
This reminds me of one last appreciation of my raised working-class team members. We know how to hype each other up. We see each other and we support each other. Every team can benefit from this skill.
So, if you have raised working-class people, first-gen college grads, and people without a college degree in your org, congratulations, are they set up to succeed? Is there a safe way to self-identify? Can they find each other? Are you able to lean into their strengths and insights or are they tucking them away to assimilate?