Lucy Hur talks about Slalom’s commitment to Inclusion & Diversity and her vision to continuously foster a sense of belonging for Slalom employees.

You’ve had an impressive background and career. What made you decide to join Slalom?

I always want to work at a strong company with a values-driven culture. What drove me to Slalom was the mission and vision. While I was going through the interview process, I was very impressed by how consistent people speak about Slalom value, especially around celebrating authenticity. People are encouraged to bring their true and whole selves to work. I am having a blast being here.

What is Slalom’s take on diversity and inclusion (D&I)?

At Slalom, it is inclusion and diversity (I&D). It is intentional as we focus on inclusion for all. We want each person to feel they belong. I&D is not just about gender or ethnicity; it is about celebrating people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Slalom aspires to be a multi-generational company. We welcome all generations. We value early-career talents and plan to triple the number of new analysts next year. We embrace veterans. We embrace working moms.

Slalom puts clients at the center. Each market is unique and serves a diverse portfolio of clients. I have been traveling to different markets to hear from Slalom local leaders about what their clients look like. Then we can ask ourselves how well we are mirroring our community and set up a recruiting strategy accordingly.

In addition, Slalom’s belief in I&D reflects on the office setup. Despite the fact that each office has a unique identity and a local touch, they are all very open and modern. This is a reflection of how we work. We encourage people to have open conversations and build team rapport.

Slalom is in a unique position. We think I&D broadly. We hire people with empathy and compassion.

What are some of the challenges you are facing?

People analytics:

Our org data is not the cleanest. We currently do one-off reporting that requires a lot of data manipulation. It is challenging to grow and scale. I would like to have people dashboards at my finger tips with data points such as headcount, attrition and diverse representation, to understand trends and patterns. I want to be able to derive insights on hiring targets and predict behavior that leads to attrition. Right now, we aren’t there yet.

Workforce:

We are a local model consulting firm, so enforcing consistency is challenging. Some markets are there in terms of gender parity or ethnicity standpoint, but others are not there yet. To ensure our people are in line with the market and community, we have work to do. We are motivated to develop diverse pipelines through emphasizing diversity in sourcing activities. Then we can make the best decisions from there.

Where does Slalom aspire to be in the next three years?

It is important for us to promote leaders who believe in diversity. Leaders are role models; we seek to nurture an inclusive and respectful workplace from the top on down. We are committed to set the tone for what we believe as a company with our actions. Eventually, I&D becomes natural. Every voice is heard. We no longer need to emphasize the importance of inclusion. We no longer need to look at the data for validation. We simply are.