Yai Vargas has made it her mission to make the world a better place by focusing on true inclusivity. More than 15 years ago, she quit her 9-5 job to devote her time to helping companies realize their diversity, equality, and inclusion goals. As a Dominicana, Yai has also made it a mission to build community to help other Latinas. She is the founder of The Latinista, a national organization for Latinas and women of color invested in career and leadership development. Yai shared what she has learned along the way about creating inclusive spaces and what she feels still needs to be done to make our workplace a space we want to give our best and can contribute our culture towards.

C2C: What does Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion mean to you personally, and why are they important?

YV: Having been in the professional Multicultural/DE&I space for 15 years, this term has evolved quite a bit for me. In my corporate experience, I’ve been able to leverage my voice and use DE&I for my career development and internal mobility at organizations. I was never afraid to raise my hand and be what some people would call the outspoken one asking the difficult questions and challenging the status quo in order to create a more inclusive work environment.

I took it as a personal responsibility to get to the front of the room and board and speak up for our representation. This work is important to me because I’ve seen far too many people give so much of themselves to corporations and in return not feel like the organization invested in them, helped them, feel like they belonged, valued or promoted them -  all because they don’t “fit the culture.” I made it my mission to help companies figure this out.

C2C: Tell us about how you have helped companies continue their DE&I objectives, and how can they constantly assure success?

YV: I’ve been working with companies large and small that each have very specific goals and challenges. Some organizations are just beginning their DE&I journey - first analyzing their workforce and understanding not just demographic makeup, but organizational challenges in programming, retention, and inclusion. Assuring success takes leadership alignment and investment. Without the support of the leadership team (and making sure they are present at all training and strategy sessions) it's not possible to see necessary forward change. The organizations that succeed are the ones who have a dedicated team tracking their internal challenges, programs, industry trends, and their progress year after year.

C2C: What do you see being the biggest challenges to ensuring DE&I in workplaces?

YV: The biggest challenge is the fact that when social and racial unrest in our country ensues, most organizations aren’t prepared to take immediate action towards understanding how these occurrences impact their workforce. A lot of organizations don’t feel it’s their place to engage and have a position on these racial and social conversations with their employees. They feel employees should handle these feelings and challenges personally, with their own resources. We have seen how employees have internalized the recent unrest and how they’ve demanded their employers be prepared to support, develop and invest in positive change to do better in their communities. Organizations play a big role in performative allyship and organizational commitment but haven't invested in policy and programming that will actually create change.  

C2C: How can women of color advocate for DE&I in their workplace?

YV: Back in 2012, I founded The Latinista so that they could first understand their professional accomplishments and second, gain clarity on their challenges and opportunities. The resources, tools, information, and community is for the sole purpose of elevating their career and leadership skills. 

One area that’s important to be an advocate in as a WOC, is financial literacy and wellness. Specifically, learning about the Equal Pay Act and getting clear on their organization’s salary transparency stance, understand how they personally can impact policy and how they can begin salary negotiation conversations internally and among their community - all ideally without retaliation from leadership.

C2C: There has been a lot of buzz about inclusivity, how do we ensure this happens in the places we work, and what does it truly mean to be inclusive?

YV: Inclusivity is very similar to representation. If you’re asked to join a meeting or speak on a panel and you look to your left and your right and everyone looks and thinks like you, there’s an opportunity to be an ally.

By raising your hand and giving up your place to make space for those who haven’t been included because they are from an underrepresented group, is what inclusion and proactive allyship look like. Think about the disabled, the veterans, the LGBTQA community and so many others who have historically been left out of the conversation.

C2C: With the recent racial reckoning in the past year, where do you see DE&I efforts going and how will this change our workspaces in the future?

YV: I think the racial unrest that we’ve all seen and have somehow been impacted by has put a focus on organizations that are invested in creating a better work environment. Now that there is more visibility into the actual programs, policies, and resources (or lack thereof) many employees are holding these companies accountable.

Many employees are no longer interested in looking for a job that’s going to help them just gain experience or make ends meet, but rather a mission and a purpose-driven organization that does good for the community and can back it up with a strategy.

C2C: Your one piece of advice to those interested in doing DE&I work during these times?

YV: You can be passionate, interested and a “champion” for diversity, equity & inclusion, but if you can’t show how you’ve researched, created strategies, implemented programs, asked the tough questions, invested time, energy and money into this work, you won’t be able to help others learn how to significantly make an impact on the very necessary changes we all need to see come to fruition.