Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk With BBR Companies

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by onpay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today, I’m Atlanta Business Radio is an old friend, Bonnie Buell Rusike with BBR Companies. Welcome, Bonnie.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:00:44] Hey, thank you, Lee. Good to see you. Well, or here you at least.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:48] Well, it’s great to catch up with you. Tell us what’s new at BBR companies.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:00:54] Yeah. So as you know, I am have been doing marketing for professional services firms now for about 12 years, believe it or not. And one of the things that I kind of goal I set for myself was every year I wanted to learn something new, take a course of some sort or something just to kind of keep abreast of what’s going on in the world. And just a little bit over a year ago, I decided that for 20 20, I wanted that to be getting certified in diversity, equity and inclusion consulting. So I jumped in with both feet and went through the Cornell program and got that certification back in November. So in addition to the marketing stuff I’m doing, I’m also adding in some diversity, equity and inclusion, training and consulting and working with clients and other firms out there to help them set goals, meet goals, create programs, whatever it is that they want to do, to try and make their workplace more diverse and more inclusive.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:07] So now how did D.I become such a priority for you? What attracted you to choosing that to learn more and get certified in?

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:02:17] Well, you know, it’s always been something that I’ve I’ve felt was an important thing and part of. That’s just, I guess, the way I was raised in the part of Atlanta I live in and just being in Atlanta itself. I’ve always felt like, you know, my life was richer when it was when I was surrounded by people that weren’t necessarily exactly like me. And so, you know, I think a lot of us were hit by the murder of George Floyd and went, Wow, this is kind of definitely something. It was a turning point, I think, for society. And it kind of made me say, You know what? This is something I kind of want to pursue. And if I can do something to make the world a little bit better place, then I should do so.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] Now, were you seeing your clients or the people in the professional services industry? Was it kind of a hot button issue for them as well? Were they saying, You know what, we’ve got to lean into this a little more. We got to pay more attention to this. Maybe there are some unconscious bias or subconscious bias happening in our firm that we should kind of look at.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:03:25] Yeah, I mean, there was some certainly the clients that I tend to work with, which are, you know, professional services, accountants, attorneys, I.T. and others tend to be probably a little more conservative in nature than some other types of businesses. But they did recognize that there are opportunities to grow and expand and create workplaces, like I say, that are much more inclusive. And, you know, inclusive workplaces tend to keep employees to and with, you know, a shortage of particularly accountants out there. You know, there’s a battle hiring battle going on right now for just trying people trying to fill spots. So, you know, those that tend to be more open minded in their hiring practices and actually how they’re running, their firms are going to be more appealing, particularly to millennial generation and even Gen X now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:31] What did you learn when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workforce, did you? Are there stats? Is there research that says, you know what? This is more than just kind of a a nice to have or something that we can, you know, put a certificate in the corner of our website. But there’s really a business reason that companies should look more at being more diverse and more inclusive. Are there stats that back that up or is this something that just sounds good and feels good?

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:05:03] No, and I thought you might ask about that, because this is something I get asked a lot. And there are stats and I’m going to read them to you just to make sure I get them right. Having more diverse, inclusive, equitable, just more open minded workplaces. One encourages greater creativity, innovation and growth because diverse firms are 70 percent likelier to capture a new market and forty five percent more likely to report increased market share year after year. So definitely, you’re going to have much more likelihood of entering new markets and expanding the services you offer to. It increases employee engagement, mentioned millennials before. Eighty three percent of millennials report being actively engaged when they believe their organization fosters an inclusive workplace culture. Three. It supports better decision making teams that are inclusive make better decisions up to eighty seven percent of the time, which is pretty darn amazing if you ask me to more better financial performance that definitely interests the accountants. Ethnically diverse companies are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry median, so they’re going to make more money than their competitors. Gender diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to outperform their competitors, and companies with more diverse leadership report 19 percent higher revenues. And finally, it attracts talent. Sixty seven percent of job seekers in all ages via diverse workplace as an important factor when evaluating companies and considering job offers. So not only is it, it’s a good thing to do. We want to be, you know, human beings that are supportive and inclusive of others and get to hear different viewpoints. There’s some really solid business and financial reasons behind moving toward a more diverse and equitable and inclusive workplace.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:30] So now when you’re working with your clients and educating them about this new offering, what does that conversation look like and how do you implement maybe some baby steps to get them thinking about how to improve their own firm?

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:07:44] You know, it’s it’s all about baby steps. Know it’s not one of those kind of things where you’re going to flip a switch and everything is going. Everybody is going to be happy and everything’s going to be wonderful. I think one of the best places to start is to figure out where your business is in terms of DIY. And generally the best way to do that is to have an external resource. I can do this. There’s plenty of other people out there, too, that surveys your employees. And the reason I say an external resource is you want to make it in a way, do the survey in a way that people feel like they can be completely honest and safe in being honest. We all H.R. and all of our companies is a wonderful resource, but people sometimes just still don’t feel comfortable sharing their honest opinion. And so gathering that information, which typically what it’ll do, is it’ll uncover some areas that your employees see that need to be addressed and then also looking at best practices at businesses like yours or even others across the country or in Atlanta or wherever you’re located to kind of see how do you measure up against those other companies? How are you competing against them for employees or best places to work and those types of things? And then typically, with all of that information, what you can do is create a training program.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:09:22] A lot of businesses are actually smaller. Businesses are creating internal committees or councils that are dedicated to this larger companies or even in some cases, hiring somebody full time to be the in-charge of the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives so that it’s weaved into everything that the company does and truly becomes a part of their culture. You know that that to me, is kind of some of the best places to start. I’ve also done some trainings for people, for things as simple as, you know, defining the terms that are used when people are talking. About D-I, not just diversity, equity, inclusion, but, you know, terms like microaggressions or unconscious bias, and there’s a lot of words that are thrown around and it helps just to understand what each of them means. And you know, I’ve also done a good deal of unconscious bias training because that’s kind of one of the places to start is by looking inside of ourselves. And we all have unconscious biases. It’s just it’s in everything that we do. And, you know, it’s all the media that we consume, how we were raised. So many different things create these. And just learning how to recognize it and overcome it in our own personal lives has a big impact on not just us, but on the businesses that we work for.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:52] Now, when you’re talking about something like unconscious bias, some people can get defensive about things like that since it’s unconscious. How do you kind of are you first working with leadership to, you know, they have to have kind of the. They have to have the belief and vulnerability to even have this conversation with you, so kudos to you for being able to do that, but is it something that you work with the leader first to kind of work through it with the leader and then it gets kind of disseminated throughout the rest of the staff? Or does it go, you know, do you start kind of at the bottom and then work your way up?

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:11:33] You know, I think my experience has told me that unless an initiative like this is supported from the top, it’s not going to work. So, you know, and a lot of the businesses I work with have partner groups that manage them. And you may not have the absolute complete support of every partner within the organization, but you certainly need to have some that feel like this is important enough to put, you know, resources behind and to incorporate it into your culture. But you’re right, a lot of people, you know, one, we don’t think that we’re biased. You know, nobody wants to think that way. And most of us in our day to day lives really don’t feel like we are so well.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:21] I can make an argument. I can make an argument that the most biased person doesn’t think they’re biased, even if facts say otherwise, because they think they’re seeing the world in the right way. I mean, to them, it’s crystal clear and obvious.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:12:36] Yeah, and that’s that’s the biggest challenge that you know you kind of deal with in some ways is that, you know, it’s difficult to see that sort of thing about yourself. And, you know, but until you do, you’re not going to understand it in others and you’re not going to understand the impact it has on decisions that you make and you have to keep in mind. And I’ve done so much reading on this. It’s fascinating to me that that part of our brain, where our unconscious bias is live is actually in the in the amygdala, which is the same area where our fight or flight responses live. So it’s not something that we really think about. If you’re walking down, taking a hike and you see a big, scary snake, you know you’re not thinking about, well, what should I do? You don’t sit there and ponder and process. You either pick up a big stick or you run, you know, so it’s the same type of processing of information that happens within us, you know, for unconscious bias. So it’s it’s very difficult to kind of take a look at that and think about how it is that you approach things. And you know, when was the first time you had a female doctor or a person of color as a doctor in your life? You know, and that’s kind of and that’s just one example of many. But you know, that feeds how you see people in positions of leadership. I mean, I know from my perspective, you know, I didn’t have a doctor of color until I was probably well into my thirties, you know, so that you have to kind of think about that. And how do you view the people in your life and in positions of power? And how do we learn to kind of adjust that thinking a little bit so that we can see others that may not look like what we’re used to and even ourselves in those roles?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:45] Yeah. And I think it really that kind of unconscious bias really comes into play like in terms of recruiting new employees, like if historically you’ve always recruited from a certain group, maybe it was a fraternity or an athlete or certain groups of people were typically who you were looking at to hire, then they’re going to almost by definition, all have that in common. So you’re missing out on the rest of the planet who doesn’t participate in whatever that activity that you had deemed as the place where our employees come from. So it’s just a matter of sometimes just kind of going outside of your comfort zone and go, Hey, why don’t we do this experiment with this other group and see how that plays out? And just I find that when you look at things in terms of experiments, then it’s OK to fail and it’s OK. Do you understand that you’re trying something new and sometimes it’s easier to to do something that’s called an experiment than it is to make a policy change?

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:15:46] I think you’re right. And you know that that actually reminds me of a conversation I had with a actually, it was an accounting firm and this was many. This was over a decade ago, and they were actually wondering, you know, why do we not have any, you know, black applicants for jobs? Or Why do you know they’re just not finding us? And you know? Ask the question, I’m like, well, where do you go to recruiting fairs? And it was they went to the schools that the partners had graduated from, so they went to University of Georgia. They went to the University of Alabama. They went, you know, places that they were familiar with. And I said, we have some of the best HBCUs in the city of Atlanta that have really tremendous accounting programs. Let’s go to those fairs too, right? And I’m not saying don’t go to the others, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:16:37] Include that in there. And it’s ironically, is that the campus of those are probably a lot closer to where they are than the campus of University of Georgia.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:16:45] Very true. And but you also have to keep in mind, too, and I want to comment on what you said about an experiment. I think that’s that’s a really interesting way to look at things. But one thing you kind of have to be careful of, too, is, you know, you can’t judge an entire group of people based on the performance or activities or how well one person works out. And I think that happens a lot of times, too, where you’ll judge you have your first. I’m just going to say gay hire, and it just didn’t work out to be a good fit for the firm. Well, one, what did you do to make that person feel included at the firm? Was it actually not that person as much as the culture of the firm itself? And to that one person, does it represent the entire gay population? So you have to be really careful not to extrapolate and make assumptions and just write off an entire group of people based on what one how well one person works out, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:50] So now, if somebody wants to kind of learn more about this side of your practice, what is the best way to find you?

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:17:59] Well, you can find me. My website is BBR Companies. There’s a page on there all about the D.I services, and I love talking about this topic, as you can tell. So you can email me at Bonni, at BBR Consult CEO Insult or, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, I’m out there. Just my name is so unique, but if you do a search for me, you will find many ways to find me.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:36] That’s a that’s a good branding tip, right? There you go. Well, Bonnie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Bonnie Buol Ruszcyk: [00:18:47] Thank you so much. It’s great talking to you, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:50] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.