Interview: Colleen Mitchell

Colleen Mitchell graduated from the Orfalea College of Business with a concentration in finance. With experience in operations, she found a position at Amazon five years ago as an operations manager. Over the last three years, however, Mitchell moved into human resources to lead diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for Amazon’s Global Customer Fulfillment division, which is comprised of more than 700,000 employees in more than 20 countries, working to ensure the brown boxes with the smiles on them make it to your front door. “I like to say I pivoted from fulfillment to work that is fulfilling,” Mitchell says.

She became involved with OCOB’s DEI efforts as a guest speaker for the Women in Business (WIB) Defining Her Future conference in the fall of 2020 and at WIB’s DEI-specific conference, Breaking Down Barriers. She came back again virtually later in the year to participate in a panel on DEI. She also sits on OCOB’s DEI Advisory Council, which brings executives from the industry together to help guide the college’s policies and efforts.

Her reasons for participating are simple. “Cal Poly needs it,” Mitchell says. “Of the California state schools, Cal Poly has the lowest diversity representation. As graduates, especially of OCOB, you have to intentionally immerse yourself into DEI because you’ll probably work for a company that has more diverse representation than the university you are attending. I love my experience at Cal Poly and the model of Learn by Doing. It just needs a little DEI help.”

We sat down with Mitchell on Zoom to discuss how Cal Poly students and alumni can lean into DEI and make lasting change on campus and in their careers.

What does DEI mean to you as a concept?

To me, DEI at its essence is representing the best of who we should be as people, who we should be as companies and who we should be as institutions. It means we’re representative of our customers and our communities, that we have equitable processes for all to succeed and foster inclusive environments where we feel comfortable to be who we are.

How would you encourage Cal Poly and OCOB, student clubs, individual faculty, staff and students, plus any other members of the Cal Poly community, to think about DEI and solidify their own definitions of DEI?

When I think about the “D,” the “E,” the “I,” I always separate them out in my mind. In regards to a corporate structure, the “D” in diversity, for me, stands for recruiting. What are the active efforts we’re taking to increase the diverse representation of employees or students? The “E” means equitable processes. In a corporate environment, that means I’m inspecting our promotions process and dwell times in roles to ensure they are equitable across all employees. In a college setting, it would be equitable grading standards, graduation rates, etcetera. These things you can’t solve for as students. But, at the university, students can be thinking about what equity looks like, for example, in clubs. What is the club application process? Who decides how leaders are selected? Is the process fair and equitable? For the “I,” inclusion, I think that’s where students can take action all the time. Especially at a place like Cal Poly. You aren’t the admissions department, or the professor grading tests, but you are students who actively co-create an inclusive or exclusive culture at Cal Poly. You can think, “In my role as a student or as an employee, what change can I affect through my actions?” You can totally impact the “I” space around inclusion and help foster an environment where everyone feels included. I would also worry less about the definition of DEI and more about the actions you can take to advance DEI in your own space.

To me DEI at its essence is representing the best of who we should be as people, who we should be as companies and who we should be as institutions. It means we’re representative of our customers and our communities, that we have equitable processes for all to succeed and foster inclusive environments where we feel comfortable to be who we are.

Can you tell me a little bit about the progress you are seeing in OCOB? What do you think the next steps for the college should be, and how do you think it’s doing so far?

I haven’t been involved very long, so I can only speak to the short time that I’ve been involved. I think there are individuals at Cal Poly who are working very hard on DEI efforts. My concern is that these passionate, hard-working folks are singing to the choir. If there is no way to hold faculty and staff accountable to achieving DEI outcomes, very little will change. So, the next step for OCOB would be to input some accountability mechanisms for faculty and staff around the DEI goals and plan, versus optional involvement.

We talk a lot at Cal Poly about how to take what happens on campus or what we learn in our classrooms and how to apply it to industry. How do you integrate DEI in a company? How do we move past these opening stages into something that lasts?

I’ve talked about it in OCOB as operationalizing DEI, but it needs to go beyond referring to “inclusive leadership” as a separate thing. Right now, the “I,” or inclusion, still sits apart from the criteria for doing your job as a good operational leader. So, for example, if you’re in operations, you’re responsible for KPIs such as safety, quality and throughput, and DEI outcomes need to be included in your KPIs. Although I may not be “passionate” about quality, as an operations leader I’m held responsible for quality at my site, I’m held responsible for safety. The same emphasis needs to be placed on DEI regardless of passion or interest in the topic. It needs to be embedded and operationalized. And with regard to OCOB, I think the course work for students should be evaluated against the question of how well we’re equipping graduates as leaders and team members to be successful in diverse multicultural companies. What are the projects and course work we are assigning them as inputs to this?

As an operations leader, I’m held responsible for quality at my site, I’m held responsible for safety. The same emphasis needs to be placed on DEI regardless of passion or interest in the topic. It needs to be embedded and operationalized.

Is that something that you think businesses will start implementing? Saying, in addition to your stats class, you need to take a leadership or a DEI class? Is that something we’re seeing or needs to still happen?

Yes, it’s here. When graduates apply for jobs, they’re going to be asked for examples of ways they have sought out different perspectives on projects, or what DEI means to them, or a time they advocated for more fairness, equity or inclusion. Companies are working hard to foster inclusive workplaces and are looking for new hires who possess a culture of awareness and of inclusion as well. As a student, to gain this experience and provide real life examples, DEI experience should be considered when evaluating internships, volunteering opportunities and class projects.

What is a current gap or challenge you’re seeing in creating more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces?

I would say one of the headwinds we’re facing, because I’m in customer fulfillment, is women wanting to come into operational roles. What we’ve found during COVID is that many people love the work-from-home option. The flexibility of working from home is important, but because we run operations that require humans onsite that can also mean a 24-hour operation with night shifts. I was reading the McKinsey Women in the Workplace report, and the reality is that COVID is disproportionately impacting women in so many ways, and women are leaving the workforce at alarming rates. If you’re a woman who’s also a mother, you’re running two shifts. You’re working full time and then after work you may be taking care of kids or others. So it’s two shifts for women: one paid and one unpaid. As a start, we are ensuring we have equitable shift allocations in operations for women along with inclusive work environments, and we are also exploring ways we can support women more.

This work requires all of us to show up. Just because DEI is in my title, I’m not an expert. I am learning all the time, I make mistakes and I say the wrong thing too, sometimes! Creating more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces will require all of us holding ourselves and our companies accountable.

How should students approach interviewing and asking about or negotiating for DEI at a company? And how can employers be transparent and support this, since it can sometimes be a critique of their company?

First, I think you should be confident in interviewing the company to see if they are the right fit, so they are not just interviewing you. I think companies should always be asked tough DEI questions because themes surface and we know where we are doing well and where we need to improve. The difference between a critique and question is how it’s worded. Things you should consider are: Do you think the company’s values are aligned with your own? How do you know if they have an inclusive environment where you would feel comfortable showing up as your full self? Are you able to speak with affinity or employee relation group members to ask them about their personal experience? It is totally reasonable to ask tough, intelligent questions of a prospective employer that are not off putting to interviewers.

What would you say to alumni of Cal Poly about DEI in the workplace?

I would say that we’re all in this together. This work requires all of us to show up. Just because DEI is in my title, I’m not an expert. I am learning all the time, I make mistakes and I say the wrong thing too, sometimes! Creating more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces will require all of us holding ourselves and our companies accountable for achieving real DEI outcomes.