Supporting the Black Community: MassMutual’s Black Strategic Initiative
Challenge
Over the last decade, MassMutual has developed and evolved a long-term diversity and inclusion strategy that supports Black and African American employees. While our society has taken small steps toward improvement, we still have much more to do in terms of recognizing and dismantling systemic racism. MassMutual is taking bold steps to ensure we continue to engage and develop Black and African American talent and support the community.
Actions
For the past 5 years, we’ve invested in an immersive learning experience around systemic privilege for our leaders, laying the foundation for us to have candid conversations around systemic racism. We built on this work, bringing education to all employees through a systemic racism learning pathway and a speaker series featuring renowned experts Mary-Frances Winters, Dr. Ibram Kendi and Dr. Robin DiAngelo. Our Black and African American Business Resource Group (Passages) led company-wide virtual Brave Space conversations, where Black employees shared their stories and experiences with racism and discussed allyship.
We have begun working on a long-term strategy that will address four main areas of focus:
Education – Addresses racial inequalities and the achievement gap through school/college partnerships, training, and career initiatives.
Equitable Justice – Foster intentional relationships with external organizations to advocate for racial equality and justice.
Enterprise Equity & Opportunity – Increasing Black-employee representation at all levels at MassMutual.
Economic Empowerment – Address the racial wealth gap and income disparities by providing access to capital and resources to Black-owned businesses.
Outcomes
Through this work, we seek to engage and support our African American and Black employees leading to greater levels of retention and representation. By working with our external partners, we seek to address income disparities, racial equity and justice, and overall education and training. MassMutual has taken a leading role in governing the CEO Action for Racial Equity with Pia Flanagan, Chief of Staff to the CEO, acting as the Chief Operating Officer for the committee. In addition, five MassMutual associates have signed on as CEO Action for Racial Equity fellows.
Contact
Christopher Lizotte
Quote
Diversity and inclusion are long-standing, non-negotiable priorities at MassMutual. We are investing in our own workforce, continuing to build our cultural competence and joining with other organizations to advocate for racial equality and justice as well as address critical gaps created by systemic racism. We’re proud to take the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge and to help advance this important movement to create more inclusive workplaces for all.