Podcast: How to empower Diversity and Inclusion through Internal Comms

Jonathan Davies
24 mins read

Table of Contents

Managing diverse talents, driving organizational change, supporting and including communities worldwide and in the workplace – SAP SuccessFactors’ head of Global Field Communications Tyrone Webb Jr. is here today to tell us all about it!

The Internal Communications Podcast - Episode 15 from Happeo on Vimeo

Jonathan Davies: Alright, welcome! We're here. We're back with another episode of the Internal Communications podcast.
Today I have a very special guest – Tyrone Webb Jr., who works at SAP SuccessFactors and does Internal Comms there, but also wears the hats of Diversity and Inclusion.

Tyrone Webb Jr.: Good day, everybody. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for having me. I'm excited to be here, it’s an exciting day. So, what do I do at SAP? I do quite a lot now, but to narrow it down: one, I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I relocated here eight years ago for SAP and I had various different roles.

Bringing Diversity and Inclusion to the workplace

As well as within SAP SuccessFactors, I am the Diversity and Inclusion ambassador, where I am working to bring change to the business on how we can diversify of color, of gender, LGBT, you name it. Veterans. Everyone is included within Diversity and Inclusion.

Jonathan Davies: That's an amazing and kind of intimidating task list right there, which is really cool.

Tyrone Webb Jr.: I've been at SAP for eight years. When I first started, there was always a diversity goal each year. In a corporation there's always changes. Leaders change all the time. Sometimes they stay, sometimes they don't. But with each leader, there's always been a progression with diversity because in tech…

Creating awareness on D&I

I started writing a lot more on LinkedIn. It was something that I've done before in the past, or usually around events or just regular blogs, but this year I wrote an open letter on what it was like to be Black and gay in America.

Jonathan Davies: Because language is obviously a very big thing within Diversity and Inclusion, and inclusive language I found is something people need to learn about.

Tyrone Webb Jr.: When I spoke up to my president, she was very open. We have a very open president… How do we speak to the allies? How do we speak to the trans community? I'm able to go in and really take care of those languages and those language barriers that some of the leaders might have.

Managing diverse talent

Jonathan Davies: I think that internship program is an amazing initiative and a great example of implementing a more diverse and inclusive workspace.

Tyrone Webb Jr.: Will they be in the communications? No. Yes and no. Each intern is going to report into someone that reports into the president. My manager who runs communications is one of those people.

Managing D&I as Internal Communicators

Jonathan Davies: I will also differ. How do you balance having the workload of communications, specifically executive communications, and then also activities within enriching Diversity and Inclusion within SAP?

Tyrone Webb Jr.: Really, really strong organizational skills. Look, you can't do everything. You're one person and… you really have to know yourself and say “No” when you have too much and be able to speak up.

Jonathan Davies: I also think that for the listeners out there that maybe don't right now have the capacity to bring on a lot of interns, something like a D&I ambassadorship program, that you and I could help because essentially you're hopefully recruiting really passionate people?

Tyrone Webb Jr.: That's exactly what we're doing with the council. We have a council. We actually made a call for people that want to join the council. We're asking them to come to the table, to the call next week, with ideas that we can execute on right away in their regions and territory.

Jonathan Davies: When it comes to those priorities, you've managed to get D&I on the agenda even further than I think. Do you think that you have a lot of buy in first off to put D&I high in your list of priorities?

Tyrone Webb Jr.: I would say SAP is a different company because D&I has always been a priority. It's always been part of the strategy… You have to be strategic and you have to be smart about when to speak up, how to speak up, and you have to come to the table with your facts and be ready to deliver.

Jonathan Davies: Thank you Tyrone! This was amazing! I'll be sure to have you back sometime.