Comcast’s Dalila Wilson-Scott talks diversity, inclusion and philanthropy in workplaces of any size

Comcast Corp. has 189,000 employees, and Dalila Wilson-Scott wants to hear from all of them.

Wilson-Scott joined Comcast as the head of its charitable giving operation in 2016, and in 2020 she was promoted to chief diversity officer, while continuing to lead its philanthropic efforts. She took on that role months after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests around the country and a larger conversation around racial injustice in the United States. Many companies announced new DEI efforts at the time and invested in hiring DEI leaders.

Comcast, in June 2020, committed $100 million to fighting injustice and inequality: $75 million in cash and $25 million worth of media to amplify multicultural content and make space for discussion of societal issues related to race. Internally, the company continued toward its goals for representation of women and people of color at all levels of the organization — it still has a ways to go, in the leadership ranks especially, but its tracking and publishing its progress over time.

Transparency about the status of those efforts, and tracking results, is key to making meaningful change in DEI, Wilson-Scott said in a recent interview. She sat down with The Inquirer to discuss how Comcast has continued its work to make internet access and digital skills more equitable across communities, and how that has tied into DEI work internally. While few local employers have the same breadth of resources that Comcast has, she acknowledged, they can still make use of the same ideas.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

• Q: You oversee diversity, equity and inclusion at Comcast. What do each of those words mean to you, particularly in the workplace setting?

A: Everybody is using those words today — diversity, equity and inclusion — but for many of us it’s the way we’ve always interacted in the world. So I love that more people are prescribing meaning to each of those words.

Diversity for most people is just sort of a baseline case of representation. More people from various backgrounds need to be at the table. Equity is recognizing that everybody’s not at the same starting place. And inclusion is what we all want an environment to feel like, right? Where I’m not having to guess whether I’m invited, not invited as a token invite, etc.

• Q: Comcast has clear numerical goals for representation in hiring — to have 50% women and 33% people of color at every level. Do you have any advice for other business leaders on using this data and these kinds of goals effectively? How do you ensure that you’re not creating a quota system?

A: Number one: don’t be paralyzed. Doing nothing is the worst thing you can do.

(Secondly), it’s about activities versus outcomes. Anybody can come in and do a speaker series, host conversations, provide training, etc. But you have to really set outcomes, so you can measure where you’re trying to grow. So if it’s about representation, I need to be looking at new hires, promotions, when people are leaving the company, what’s keeping people here, and look at that across a variety of communities.

And then I need to validate that data with some actual conversation [by asking people] “Was that your experience?” or “Do you feel like you can get to the next level? What do you feel like is your barrier?” and addressing that issue with leaders. That burden shouldn’t fall on the member of the underrepresented community. It has to fall on leadership, and not just the C-suite.

• Q: What about people outside of leadership? What is your advice for them?

A: The way it happens here is a lot through our ERGs (employee resource groups). Regardless of where you sit in a company, everybody is in a position to be a leader, and I think a company really has to communicate that and show people the way to do that. We have over 30,000 ERG members here. And they do a lot of work outside their day jobs to make sure there’s programming to raise issues, to ask the questions.

We have a rotating employee advisory council of 24 employees from all levels across the company, from frontline to leadership, and they come together in these groups to talk about, “here is something that we would really like to work on.” Projects get slated and then they’re given the resources.

To think that DEI belongs to the DEI team and solely to the DEI team is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. You’ve got to hear from all voices, and you have to make sure that you’re creating an environment where all voices feel like their opinions are going to be valued and you’re going to follow up on those actions.

We do a big learning day here, a DE & I Day every year. It’s coming up for us on April 26. We actually make sure our frontline staff can participate by adjusting the schedule across the entire company so that they can be there for that lesson. We follow up with very specific training guidelines and ways for them to engage in positive behaviors that represent our DEI values.

You have to make sure everybody has an entry point because inclusion will never become a reality if we think it belongs to just leadership. It’s something that everybody is accountable for. I think what we always try to strive for is making sure we’re creating an environment where people feel like they can raise when they’re not feeling included and it’s going to be addressed and also raise what’s really working well and we want to see more of that.

• Q: We’ve recently seen hiring slow for DEI roles, and some companies even laying off entire DEI teams — less than three years after many companies looked to expand those teams in the midst of Black Lives Matter protests. What do you think about this?

A: I can speak to where we are. In June 2020 we made a $100 million commitment (to fight injustice and inequality). That commitment is completely fulfilled (through cash contributions to organizations working on digital equity, as well as other Comcast programs). Having that commitment gave a very clear signal internally and externally that this was important to us. It was time-limited. We had very specific goals attached to those four areas and we were able to fulfill those. So many things were seeded with that $100 million that have grown to be even larger commitments across the country and company for us, which is pretty impressive. I’m excited that it laid the ground for our larger billion-dollar commitment to digital equity.

So for us, my team (is about) three times larger than it was just three years ago. We’re producing more training and education, whether it’s for our leadership or our employee base. We’re making sure the ERGs have additional resources. Even in that first year there was an extra $500,000 just to support the ERGs. So we feel like now is the time we continue to really commit and double down on these issues, not pull back because we know it’s important to our employees.

The fact of the matter is if you’re not addressing your employees’ concerns, you can forget about your business objectives.

• Q: Comcast obviously has enormous influence and resources to create DEI initiatives. What advice do you have for smaller companies that don’t have the same resources?

A: I go to the three Ps (of people, procurement and philanthropy).

(People:) How do I think about hiring? How am I treating the people that I work with? What behaviors am I doing every single day? That’s something regardless of size that I can attack.

Procurement: everybody is buying services regardless of how big your businesses are from someone. Am I thinking about diversifying that pipeline? Am I taking the extra effort to see whether there are other small businesses I could be supporting?

(Philanthropy:) From a community perspective, anything from volunteering, to thinking about what your employees want to get behind and creating that platform for them, is a great way to start. We’re here in Philadelphia. We know we have high poverty rates here. We also have so many great things about our city. Are we educating our employees about what’s happening here and how they can get involved? I think making that easy for people and making it part of just the community and culture — that it’s the expectation as opposed to something that you can only do outside of work — regardless of the size of business you are, you can make clear that it’s important to you.