Design & Diversity: An IIDA Industry Roundtable

Diversity can be seen through many lenses, and in order to understand the full picture, it’s critical that we examine every lens of the issue. Diversity is without question a huge part of our nation’s current conversation. Our country continues to become more diverse, and yet the fabric of many parts of our lives stubbornly remains isolated or engaged in adverse ways.

IIDA dedicated its 2016 IIDA Industry Roundtable to the topic of Design and Diversity, and it couldn’t come at a better time. It’s crucial that we solve the diversity puzzle; the benefits of a more diverse community on all levels of life are too good to ignore.

At the roundtable, 30 design industry leaders formed the inaugural IIDA Diversity Council, a group focused solely on bringing more diversity to the design industries. And the workplace is perhaps the place where diversity can make the biggest, most tangible difference. Included in the IIDA’s 2016 Industry Roundtable report, titled, “Diversity and Design: Why Gender, Equity, and Multidisciplinary Thinking are Essential to Business,” consider the following:

>A 0% to 30% increase in a company’s share of female leaders correlates to a 15% rise in profitability, according to a study released in February by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and EY (the artist formerly known as Ernst & Young).

>The Center for Talent Innovation developed a “diversity dividend” showing that publicly traded organizations with a combination of diversity traits both inherent (racial, gender, etc.) and acquired (cultural fluency, generational savvy) were 70% more likely to capture a new market, and 45% more likely to improve market share.

>Research conducted by the nonprofit Catalyst found that companies with more female board members outperform their male-dominated counterparts by 53% on return on equity, 42% on return on sales, and 66% on return on invested capital.

 

We Are Not As Diverse As We Think We Are

For all of the benefits of achieving a more diverse workforce, the design industry has its work cut out. The IIDA industry report gathered a few interesting statistics. According to a 2013 study conducted by Interior Design magazine, the profession is one of the least racially diverse professions, with a big gender imbalance. 69% of the 87,000 practitioners in the U.S. are women, yet female design firm leadership is only 25%. Architecture ranks as the fifth least diverse profession, and according to a Forbes study on diversity, the construction industry was the third-lowest scorer.

According to 2015 data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, designers of all genres are 3.5% Black, 6.9% Asian, 12.3% Latino, and 54.9% women. On the other side of the coin, architecture is 77% White, 7.6% Asian, 5.8% Black, 5.7% Hispanic, and 25.7% women. Roundtable participant Gabrielle Bullock noted that less than 20% of African-American architects are female:

“There are 347 total. We just passed the 2,000 mark of African-American licensed architects.”

This means that only 17% of licensed black architects are female – a minority within a minority. Despite these numbers, the roundtable participants revealed a potentially important key to understanding the diversity problem: we think we are more diverse than we actually are. Each roundtable participant filled out a questionnaire in advance of the event to document their opinions about and experiences with workplace diversity.

“One question posed was: Design is considered one of the least diverse professions. Do you agree? Interestingly, responses indicated that many design industry insiders do not consider the field lacking in diversity.”

The roundtable report found a disparity between reality and perception about diversity in the design industry – “between hard fact and subjective impression.” And it also discovered a few potential reasons behind this disparity: we are not short in diversity of thought, diversity of skills, diversity of ages, and open-minded thinking.

“The design industry is rich in what’s called cognitive diversity – meaning a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives – and populated with people who think differently,” noted the report. “And, as our organizations become more multidisciplinary, our teams are increasingly diverse with respect to expertise.”

The Many Faces of Diversity

The word diversity embodies many varied qualities, but can also be misconstrued as one big “issue” – often centering on race and gender. And diversity is a highly personal topic that everyone interprets a bit differently. But, on a concrete level, diversity traits can be divided into two camps, and it can be useful to focus on these two camps in our thinking about diversity:

>Inherent Diversity: traits we were born with, such as gender and race

>Acquired Diversity: characteristics that are shaped by our life experience, such as workstyle and worldview

“Studies reveal that organizations are at their best, operating at maximum creativity and critical thinking, when they have both types of diversity in their ranks,” noted the IIDA roundtable report. “One or the other is not good enough.”

“Complicating our pursuit of a varied staff makeup, acquired attributes can be difficult to discern accurately during a traditional interview. It may be obvious to determine a job candidate’s race or gender, but figuring out what type of thinker they are will involve a protracted interview process.”

The roundtable also shed light on the fact that we need to be as pluralistic as the communities we serve. If we are not as diverse as the people we are creating spaces for, a gap in understanding forms, and the work will suffer accordingly.

Beyond design’s end users and clients, the design profession’s talent pipeline is also more diverse than the profession itself. A huge opportunity awaits, for design leaders who are eager to embrace the next generations of designers – from not-yet licensed architects and college students to younger generation students in K-12.

“The future of interior design will be much more colorful: Of the 10,000 students enrolled in NASAD-accredited interior design and interior architecture programs, minority percentages have in every case doubled over the last 15 years…and a recent survey of AIA associate members – the not-yet-licensed architects who represent the future of the field – identified as 36% female, 8% Hispanic, and 6% Black.

At the K-12 level, minority kids and their families don’t know enough about their career options in design and architecture fields, and the roundtable seeks to close this gap.

Why is diversity in the workplace so difficult to achieve, though? The roundtable report keys into a great insight:

“Diversity doesn’t come naturally…It may be the state of the world, but it’s not the default mode of most industries or offices. There are numerous reasons for this.”

Roundtable participants clarified the issue:

“A profession is by definition kind of the opposite of diversity: When you select something you love doing daily, that selection itself says a lot about you,” said Doug Shapiro of OFS Brands. “Inside every profession, you tend to see similar people.”

And, as Gensler’s Jim Williamson noted, design is a risk-adverse industry. “Our fees and compensation – versus the scale of specification of goods and materials – does not allow us to take risks with new ideas and design solutions. The client must not only buy into the new idea, but also assume the risk associated with implementing it and living with it long term. This goes against the grain of diverse thinking.”

The role geography plays in the diversity challenge is also significant:

“For manufacturers, location often works against diversity, too. Many are headquartered in semirural areas that are not exactly hotbeds of multiculturalism: Western Michigan; East Greenville, Pennsylvania; Muscatine, Iowa. ‘The regional cultural surroundings and ethnicity makes it hard to find candidates [in the local talent pool] to fill a mold or requirement,’ said NELSON’s Scott Hierlinger.”

A Roadmap for the Future

So how do all of these things fit together? Diversity is a difficult challenge to solve, but certainly something we must focus on to strengthen our industry. To that end, the IIDA Diversity Council outlined a strategic roadmap for the future – a way to achieve more diversity in the profession. Below, find abstract versions of the nine actions the IIDA Diversity Council hopes to set in motion:

1. Initiate discussions about race. “Smart companies deal with [race] head on,” said financier, philanthropist and TED Talker Mellody Hobson. “The subject matter can be hard, awkward, and uncomfortable. We should learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Race enters every equation. If we are uncomfortable talking about it, we’ll never get to a solution.”
2. Define diversity for your organization. Every individual has his or her own definition of diversity, inclusion, and engagement. Thus, it’s vital that firms establish their own definition.
3. Create and enforce a diversity agenda. “The worst thing is to have a policy that sits in a drawer and doesn’t impact the corporate culture,” said Gabrielle Bullock, director of global diversity at Perkins+Will.
4. Make the pie bigger. If we cast the net wider, we will attract better and more diverse talent simultaneously. “Have a pool of candidates that generally reflects the population,” said Gabrielle Bullock, Perkins+Will. “I’m not saying split the pie differently; just make it a bigger pie.” Reach out to organizations and groups of people who don’t look like you, such as the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), to cultivate those relationships.
5. Be inclusive. Hiring a diverse team is not enough. For diversity to succeed, all employees need to feel safe, comfortable, and encouraged by managers and colleagues alike. A generally tolerant, liberal attitude is not the same thing as deliberately going the extra mile to ensure workers of all stripes feel at home. “You can hire whomever you want, but if you don’t make them feel welcome, they’re gone,” said Jeffrey Gay, architecture and design representative at Herman Miller.
6. Go beyond the poster. Use marketing efforts to signal that you support and embrace diversity. “It’s not about pedigree or what college you went to,” said Primo Orpilla, principal at Studio O+A, of his firm’s quirky website bios. “It’s about having the right people and celebrating the collective.”
7. Look for opportunities to move the agenda forward. For companies not located in diverse communities, “Find other avenues for change,” suggested Shauna Stallworth, principal at Luhf Branded Environments. “Reach beyond what’s immediate and look forward to opportunities where you can make a change – even if it’s to invest in a coffee shop in your town. That’s where growth happens.”
8. Act locally. Support programs and initiatives in your community that serve underprivileged populations, in order to build awareness of what design is, and show that it’s in fact a viable career path.
9. Share the best practices and successes with colleagues. Organize discussions and ensure an investment in future diversity by arranging training for everyone from leadership to firm newcomers and human resources departments.

Diversity Intention Statement to transform its thought-provoking discussion into a full-scale movement within the design industry. To view the full IIDA 2016 Design & Diversity Industry Roundtable report, and to read the Diversity Intention Statement, visit Design & Diversity.

To underestimate the advantages of pursuing more diversity would be a huge oversight for any company or organization that intends to have a successful future. There is much room for improvement in diversity in every facet of the design industry. We encourage our readers to think deeply about their company or organization’s diversity strengths and weaknesses, and about how they might form new pathways to diversity. And do check out the full IIDA Design and Diversity report – it’s a great read!