Preparing Employers for What’s Ahead with Edgility Consulting’s Allison Wyatt
About This Episode
Imagine this: a workplace where every decision is transparent, every policy is fair, and every employee feels like they belong. Sounds utopian, doesn’t it? Yet, this isn’t a fiction—it’s a framework, one that Allison Wyatt is helping organizations build. This week, Carrie sits down with Allison for a journey through the mechanics of equity in the workplace, and the surprising ways clarity, consistency, and inclusion can shape not just organizations, but entire sectors.
Allison is co-founder of Edgility Consulting and has spent years unraveling what makes workplaces thrive, and what makes them falter. Her findings? They’re as provocative as they are practical. From the hidden power dynamics of HR to the unspoken biases baked into holiday calendars, Allison reveals what most leaders miss: that equity is a disciplined practice requiring honesty, humility, and a willingness to embrace complexity.
Carrie and Allison explore the emotional glue that holds employees to an organization—and the bug repellent that drives them away. Why do compensation policies, even when competitive, often leave staff feeling dissatisfied? How can leaders balance the chaos of today’s world with the need for stability? And what happens when you bring faith into the diversity, equity, and inclusion conversation?
So join us this week as Carrie and Allison unpack the hidden architecture of equitable workplaces. Whether you’re a CEO, an HR manager, or simply someone who cares about building better organizations, this conversation is important. Because in a world of uncertainty, one truth remains: when you prioritize clarity, fairness, and belonging, you don’t just improve your workplace—you transform it.
This episode is sponsored by Edgility Consulting. Learn more about their incredible work in team development, compensation planning, and beyond at EdgilityConsulting.com.
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Speaker 1:
Breaking news.
Speaker 2:
Breaking news.
Speaker 3:
It's the year of the chat box.
Speaker 4:
The latest setback for climate action.
Speaker 5:
The latest Supreme Court ruling [inaudible 00:00:05].
Speaker 1:
In the latest Supreme Court ruling, the court is set to redefine.
Allison Wyatt:
I think one thing we find that organizations don't always do a great job of is, for example, if they have something that they view as not being a strength, they don't always own that, and they're not always honest about it. The biggest word I would say to take away from this is honesty, honesty, honesty. There's a lot of constraints on organizations right now. People get that. People understand financial constraints, but being honest builds trust. Figure out what you can offer, and really emphasize that, but be really clear about what you can't, and you really want to make sure you're not making promises that you can't keep.
Carrie Fox:
Hi there, and welcome to the Mission Forward Podcast. I'm Carrie Fox, your host, and CEO of Mission Partners, a social impact communications firm, and certified B Corporation. And thank you for tuning in to today's fantastic episode. That is the voice of Allison Wyatt, today's guest, and a fantastic expert on all things HR, and employee management. And as we've been checking in with our clients, we are hearing time, and again, most organizations are one in the midst of year-end reviews. They are determining, and finalizing 2025 budgets. They are plotting strategies for the year ahead. And all of that is in addition to navigating how best to balance the demands of their employees with the demands of their business. So, that realistic planning for what the year ahead can bring, even knowing that there are uncertainties ahead, and doing that while still centering equity, and inclusion, centering fair pay, centering benefits that work for everyone.
These are issues that our listeners care deeply about, but can also feel particularly difficult when business resources are tight. So, we have asked a former guest to come back on today, Allison Wyatt, co-founder, and managing partner of Agility Consulting. You might remember Allison from a fantastic conversation we had a while back about fair pay, and today we're going to be talking a little bit more about some new trend analysis, and this fantastic diagnostic tool that they have built about understanding some trends across what companies are doing, how equitable they are, what's working, and what's not, and what you want to be thinking about in the year ahead. So, let me pause again, and just remind you all if you don't remember Agility Consulting, we are big fans of their work. They are a compensation, and talent management firm that partners with clients to build intentional equity. So, we are thrilled to have talked with Allison once, and talking with her again today. Allison, thanks for coming back on the show.
Allison Wyatt:
It's my pleasure, Carrie. Thank you for having me.
Carrie Fox:
Can we just start at the top? You have done this really interesting analysis, this trend analysis, and I'd love you to just tell us all a little more about it.
Allison Wyatt:
Yeah, I'd love to just share more about this project that we've embarked on. So, we have essentially this tool that we use at the beginning of all of our consulting engagements to learn about what's happening at the organization that we're working with before we dive in, and start developing solutions, do some discovery, and it looks at a couple of different things. It looks at staff engagement, but then it also looks at sort of the total value proposition, in terms of how people feel about working in that organization. What is the glue that's keeping them there? And I always say, "What is the bug repellent that might cause them to leave?" And how is that different depending on how you identify as an employee, your race, your gender, your tenure with the organization, your management level. We can look at all of those different factors.
And then finally we look at what we call our pillars of equity, which is really testing whether, or not your talent practices are communicated transparently applied with fairness, and consistency, and designed in an inclusive fashion. So, this report that we just compiled for the first time ever is essentially a roll up of all those individual organization level reports so that we for the first time are looking sector wide in the social impact space to see trends around those three specific areas so that we can get some insight into what are most organizations doing really well, and where are organizations in general struggling.
Carrie Fox:
I would love you to share a little bit about the good news, and the not so good news about what you found. So, how do you see companies addressing the issues you just mentioned, how to keep them here, and happy how to continue to be the glue versus the bug repellent?
Allison Wyatt:
In general, staff are feeling really, really positively about the impact of the work their organization has regardless of mission area, regardless of size, and in general, they're feeling really positively about their relationships with their colleagues. So, they have good connections with the people they work with, they feel really good about the impact that their work is having. Where things start to fall apart more is on how kind of accessible, transparent, and clear their career path is in this space. That's the open question that people are asking, "Where do I go from here, and how do I get there?" So, career growth, professional development, getting consistent coaching, and feedback, those are areas that start where things start to break down a little bit more. And total rewards is also in that bucket. Now, one of the things that we find when we do these studies is that doesn't necessarily mean that people are not happy with the amount of pay they're getting.
Sometimes it's just that they don't understand how compensation decisions are made. There's no transparency, or they hear about all of these special things that are happening for specific individuals in the organization, and they don't know why. It seems like lots of exceptions are being made. So, sometimes it's a problem with the program, and how competitive it is, and sometimes it's just a problem with how it's being administered. So, those are kind of the two main challenge areas. I will say, too, that organizational leadership came up in this study, and my hunch is that that really is due to the fact that communication, and transparency comes from the top. And so staff are really craving that from their leaders. They're really craving that, those guiding parameters consistency, and clarity, and just better communication in general. And so I think those things get wrapped up together to a large extent.
Carrie Fox:
Okay, cool. So, I want to ask you then about those leaders. You go in, and you do this analysis as a baseline, and then you're identifying some items that need some support. And what I hear you saying is that there's some trends, you're identifying the same things over, and over again. How responsive are the executives to then take action on the growth areas that you're identifying?
Allison Wyatt:
Really responsive, I would say. I mean the organizations that are engaging in this work really want to do right by their people, and I think that a lot of times there are consistent challenges the organizations face. There's a reason why they may not be delivering on these specific areas. I think that the biggest thing is, honestly, one of the reasons why I founded Agility with my partner Christina is that the HR functions, and most of these organizations are extremely bootstrapped. And they don't have the internal capacity to have an expert in compensation, and an L&D director, and somebody overseeing talent acquisition. Oftentimes it's one person, or maybe it's not even a director of talent, maybe it's the chief operating officer whose job encompasses talent. And so one thing that I would say is that there's just not a lot of capacity on these teams to take a step back, and think really strategically about their HR function, and that the opportunity we give them is to get this data, and then spend three, or four months working with us to do exactly that.
I think the other thing is that there's certainly, because you're smushing multiple functions together typically in an HR function because of that bootstrapping nature, again, HR is a really broad field. And so sometimes the people leading those functions have good generalist understandings of a talent function, but they don't have deep specific content knowledge about each specific area within that. And so a lot of times it's just that there were unanswered questions that they haven't been able to have the appropriate thought partner to answer so that they can clarify, codify, communicate it, and then apply it equitably. So, I think a lot of times it's just giving organizations that support to answer those questions. They're hungry to do it, but they need support and help.
Carrie Fox:
So, I want to go back to that best practice because what I see often in a lot of the organizations we work with is they have someone who by default is their HR manager, but not by trade is their HR manager. So, they're figuring it out as they go along. And it seems like HR is becoming a lot more complicated, so understanding it at depth really matters. And yet some of those same organizations will say, "Sure, we'd love to have an HR department. We don't have the resources to do it." So, I want you to really reinforce that. To me that feels like a short-term need we're solving for the resources we have today. But what if, what if we don't have the best in terms of the HR, what could happen? So, I'd love you either to talk about that, what happens when these elements aren't in place, or talk about what it looks like as kind of a best practice in an ideal situation.
Allison Wyatt:
Well, and let's be honest, these elements are likely not coming into place anytime soon, right? I've been doing this work for 20 years now, working with hundreds of organizations around the country, and this has been an ongoing challenge. And so I think that that's the reality that we need to plan to address for leaders in that situation if this is your first at bat, and if you're figuring it out as you go, this is a perfect area to get coaching, and thought partnership. And I think that is one of the advantages to a coach, or a consultant is they have that breadth of experience. They've seen different strategies, applied a hundred, 200 different ways, and can tell you what works, what doesn't, what are the trade-offs, what are the things you need to be thinking about, and prepared for as opposed to just learning as you go?
Because the stakes high when you're experimenting with your talent function, these are people, and most of the things that you are experimenting with, people have extremely strong feelings about their compensation, their career growth, their PD investment, the quality of management training that their managers get, which is basically their day-to-day support they're receiving. We're not talking about implementing a new accounting system, and sort of learning it as we go. This is complex work. And so I think that if you haven't had that breadth of experience, having some thought partnership is really, really helpful in that situation. My belief, and one of the core values we have at Agility is that we knew from the get-go that in order for us to have impact at scale, we couldn't just be coaching one leader at a time.
We had to be building their capacity as we did the work with them. So, I think that's the other thing is if you are in that type of a role, and you're looking for help, find a partner that's going to train you in the process, and don't try to outsource it, because you learn a lot, and you understand it more intimately, if you've played a role in the design process, and there's a lot of good options, there's fellowships, there's so many different ways that you can sort of get that thought partnership, and insights. But I think that's the thing I would say is don't shy away from it. Lean into learning that function, and really digging into the work.
Carrie Fox:
So, at the top, you talked about some of the things you learned as the baseline of this research, and you uncovered some really interesting insights about inclusion, and belonging in the workplace. And I'm thinking about all of the organizations who unfortunately have let go of their formal DEI, director, or chief diversity officer, and yet the organization still must be thinking about how do we create an environment that's going to work for everyone, and that's across gender, that's across race, that's across even faith, you've started to learn about the importance of ensuring that there is a space that can work for all backgrounds. So, I'd love you to talk about that a little bit, how businesses can engage more broadly with increasingly diverse workforces.
Allison Wyatt:
Absolutely. DEIB can never be one person's responsibility. It always has to be an organization-wide effort. And so these are things that whether you have a chief level person in that role, or not, you should be doing. I want to take a moment, and talk really just specifically about the question around faith, because I think that over the past four to five years, and even before that, there's been a lot of focus on race, and gender, and how those factors intersect with our experience in the workforce. And a lot of our DEIB initiatives has been centered around navigating these lines of difference in the workplace, lots of conversations, and book clubs, and training, and facilitated workshops, which is phenomenal. It's been a huge, huge positive trend over the last several years. What we haven't heard be part of that work is religion by, and large.
And so honestly, that finding in the study shouldn't come as a surprise to us. And I think that one of the things I would say is that we need to make these conversations part of our broader work around DEIB, so whatever you're doing, if it's doing trainings, doing dialogue, doing book clubs, whatever that looks like in your organization, if you're just talking about race, and gender, I would say now is the time to add religion to the mix. I think particularly in the midst of the conflicts that we're seeing around the globe, these are obviously going to impact people from different religious backgrounds differently. The same way that acts of racial hate in the US can impact people from different racial backgrounds differently. So, the first step is actually quite simple. It's like just don't leave it out included in the conversation. Because I do think that the really positive thing we've seen over the past several years is that when we found that when we put intent, and focus on these topics, people feel heard, people feel included, and respected, right?
Because they are, they're being listened to, and we're working through these tensions, or at least we're beginning, and we're getting better, we're making progress. So, that's, I would say just something I think every most organizations that I know need to think about in terms of getting started with your more generalized DEIB work, I think, in any effort like that, we want to start with listening. That's why we do a survey. We do focus groups, we do interviews to really understand where these problems exist in your organization, where do they need to be addressed? If you haven't already done that, if you haven't gotten feedback from your staff, then that's where you start. And then you can engage your team in reflecting on what you learn, and starting to brainstorm ideas, and capture suggestions, and do some formalized action planning in a really inclusive way where you're sort of letting people be a part of co-creating what those solutions look like in your organization.
Carrie Fox:
So, let's play that out with a couple examples. And what I'm thinking about as I hear you speak, is a lot of the norms that exist in businesses that by default may show a bias for one thing, or another. It's been years since we talked about taking a Christmas break. We take a winter break. So, simple adjustments to language, but also understanding that many people who have different religions have fasting days, have so many different holidays that exist, and perhaps it's a little more about acknowledging, recognizing, respecting that there are many different ways that people practice their religion, and faith doesn't mean a company needs to be religious. In fact, that is not what you're saying at all. But creating space to acknowledge, and respect is what I hear you saying.
Allison Wyatt:
Exactly. And I think creating space to allow for your staff from all different religious backgrounds to feel safe, bringing their whole authentic selves to work, and also to feel supported in taking the time off they need. So, we see a lot of organizations doing things like floating religious holidays, and things like that to try to be more inclusive, and certainly not just assuming that the sort of dominant cultural holidays that exist cover the basis essentially.
Carrie Fox:
I want to go back to one other thing that you found in terms of the good news. So, I love that your study uncovered that people feel most positive about their work, their organization's doing, the impact they're making, the people that they work with. To me, that signals that there's a lot working. Are you seeing anything in that about how organizations have changed, how they talk about their purpose, and their impact that is now reflected in people seeing, and feeling that? Or is it more that employees are just coming naturally into the workforce, new generations of employees are coming into the workforce with that as their default?
Allison Wyatt:
Well, we've definitely seen this new generation of workers coming into the workforce right now. They're placing an emphasis on impact, and social impact specifically. So, whether they work in the social impact space, or for Netflix, or Google, or wherever they are, that is important to this generation. And so that's actually a competitive advantage for the social impact space, because that that's the bread, and butter of what we do every day. And so I think that what we are finding organizations are doing a good job of is articulating their theory of change, their mission, their vision, and delivering on those services in a way that employees can connect the dots, and see a connection between the day-to-day work they're doing, and the impact they're making regardless of whether they're working at a food bank, or a college access programming organization, or something related to the environment.
We're seeing that very much across the board. I think the other thing we're seeing organizations be more savvy about lately is measuring impact, and demonstrating impact in both quantitative ways, but also a lot of our clients will do things like showcase stories of impact at their staff retreats, and celebrate things that they've achieved, and accomplished. Specific examples, overarching big wins, things like that. So, there seems to be a lot more emphasis on telling those stories, making sure that there's really exciting ways of communicating the work they're doing, and the difference it's making to their people.
Carrie Fox:
All right, we're coming to the end. I've got two more questions for you. So, first I want to go back to where we started. I mentioned how to balance the challenges of the workplace while still centering equity, and agility has this terrific pillars of equity framework. You train leaders on how to apply equity in the workforce, and that's clarity, and transparency, fairness, and consistency, inclusion, and belonging. Tell us a little more about those pillars of equity, and why they are all, it's not just about one of them working, but why they're all so important to getting an organization to be a best-in-class organization.
Allison Wyatt:
Clarity, and transparency is the foundation because knowledge is power. Making sure that everybody understands your talent programs, and policies is just step one. So, critical, because you can't use a benefit that you don't know exists, right? You can't achieve a bar for success if you don't know where that is. You can't strive for a promotion if you don't know what it takes to get there. That just becomes happenstance, and that's very frustrating to people. My experience is that this is what frustrates staff the most. Clarity is actually good for employers, too. I think people hear this, and think, "Oh, I can understand why that's good for employees", but I actually think it's really good for employers too because what it forces an employer do is be really disciplined, and actually put in the time, and energy to make sure you understand your policies, and your programs to make sure they're aligned with what you're trying to achieve.
Because you can't communicate something you don't understand, and it just reduces frustration, and HR issues. So, you're getting less of that to deal with. In some cases, it also makes sure you get credit for great things you have available, you wouldn't believe how often. We go in, and we see this amazing promotion policy, and then we go, and talk to staff, and they're really frustrated with the fact that they don't have a clear promotion policy. And we're like, wait a second, you have a great program. You need to tell people about it. So, that's I think just the one foundational piece. And this is totally free. You can be clear for free. That lends itself to then making an organization feel accountable for being fair, and consistent. Because once you've been clear about a program, and you understand it, now you're actually incentivized to be consistent in applying it.
Because if you aren't, people know that, and you're going to get less requests for exceptions because now your managers understand it, and everybody understands it. So, nobody feels like I better be the squeaky wheel because if I don't ask, I'm not going to get it right. And so you take on the responsibility as an organization, as an organization of making sure that you are making those programs accessible in a fair way as opposed to putting that burden on your staff. That builds trust, it builds credibility, and it just helps staff feel safe that they know about everything. They can take advantage of it. They don't have to go, and try to figure out the secret formula. And then the last piece is about inclusion, and belonging. And this is really about how you even design your programs in the first place. This is about making sure that your programs work for everyone, not just the dominant demographic group.
And so you need to be designing by including people in that process. You need to be also assessing over time does this still, because things are changing all the time. We did a survey recently, and found that 50% of LGBTQ plus professionals said that their mental health has been affected by recent anti-LGBTQ plus legislation, and 35% are looking for their company to provide additional mental health services. So, you might've surveyed your staff population three years ago, and they felt like your mental health offerings were totally adequate, but guess what? The world has changed, and now all of a sudden that demographic group may feel underserved. And so you have to continue to look at this by demographic group over time if you're really serious about keeping up with the shifting needs of this shifting chaotic world we live in. So, that's kind of, I think, what inclusion, and belonging means is it's giving people a voice in the design, but also in monitoring over time how it's working for them.
Carrie Fox:
So, I just want to reinforce that it's the consistency that third pillar, it's consistency in terms of how you communicate, but it's also consistency in terms of how you listen, and how important that is to then what you do with what you hear, right?
Allison Wyatt:
Exactly. And I think that's the other thing that you have to remember is if you ask, you have to do something with it. You always want to share back what you heard, what you learned, and be able to take some actions to address those challenges. Because that's another thing that just really frustrates people is when you don't sort of talk about what you're doing with the information you gather.
Carrie Fox:
Right. Hence transparency. So, clarity, transparency, fairness, consistency, inclusion, and belonging. All matter, and all have to be prioritized. So, all right, so we're coming to the end. We are also coming to the end of this year. So, as you are looking ahead, you're thinking about what you are hearing from your clients, and community, what should workplace managers, and business leaders be doing proactively to support their workforces coming into a new year?
Allison Wyatt:
So, I'm going to share two thoughts on this. The first is really simple, and that is that there's just a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. And I think anything that employers can do to just offer steadiness, clarity, predictability is going to help lighten the mental load. Just being a force of stability in very chaotic times will be helpful to staff. And I think if we delve a little bit more deeply into that, because I'm a talent expert, so I always look at things from a talent lens. I think one thing we find that organizations don't always do a great job of is, for example, if they have something that they view as not being a strength, they don't always own that, and they're not always honest about it. And I think that the biggest word I would say to take away from this is honesty, honesty, honesty.
There's a lot of constraints on organizations right now. People get that. People understand financial constraints, but being honest builds trust. If you say nothing at all, then what happens is people fill in the blanks, and all sorts of perceptions can take root. And so I think being really honest about what you can offer, and what you can't is important. I mean, that's why we do this survey that looks at the total value proposition, even if we're just looking at an organization's compensation program, because maybe staff in an organization get the opportunity to work with incredibly high profile projects that give them access to a really powerful, valuable network, and maybe they get lots of flexibility. So, even though they're not paid above market, that's valuable in the organization. And so I think you need to figure that out, do the work, figure out what you can offer, and really emphasize that, but be really clear about what you can't, and you'd want to make sure you're not making promises that you can't keep.
I think that I see a lot of organizations fall into the trap of saying, "Oh, we really prioritize people's growth, and development", but the reality is they're a really small organization, and most of their staff are going to come for two to three years, get really exceptional experience, and then move on to go to something else. And that's okay, except if you haven't been clear about that, and you've set the expectation that something else is going to happen, because now people feel like you misled them, and guess what you did. So, honesty, honesty, honesty is the best policy. And I think that people respect, and understand that even the best companies with all the resources in the world can't be 100% on every single aspect of their value proposition. So, that's kind of, I think, what I would encourage every organization to do is figure that out.
Carrie Fox:
Well, you're ending where I love, which is really about proactive communication. So, thinking intentionally about what you have to say, what you need to say, what you need your employees to hear, communicating it clearly, and being honest along the way. So, Allison, I love our conversation so much. You are such a wealth of knowledge, and insight, and I would reinforce to folks who are listening that if you are determining how to navigate your way into the new year, and you could use some support from someone like Allison, I employ you to call her. There will be details in the show notes about how to get in touch with Agility Consulting. And of course if you need help with your communications along the way, we'll always be here for you. So, thank you all for listening today, and thank you again Allison for a fantastic conversation.
Allison Wyatt:
Thanks so much, Carrie.
Carrie Fox:
And that brings us to the end of this episode of the Mission Forward Podcast. As mission-driven leaders, we know our people are our greatest asset. Certainly we know that at Mission Partners, and we can't move our mission forward without people. Agility Consulting, I've had a chance to get to know them over the course of the past year, and I'm so glad we had time with Allison Today. They are a compass for building equitable organizations where people thrive. Their talent management experts empower you to break free from traditional hiring, compensation, and talent management norms that perpetuate inequality, and prevent you from hiring, and retaining great people. So, put your values to work, act on equity. Visit AgilityConsulting.com to talk to one of their consultants about upgrading your talent system, attract, and retain top talent, and ensure equity at your organization today. Thanks for listening, my friends. Look forward to seeing you next time on the Mission Forward Podcast.
