🔒The search for sustainable change: Worcester is close to filling its long-vacant DEI role, which was restructured in hopes of creating stability

The City of Worcester’s chief diversity officer position has been vacant for nearly two and a half years, a timeframe longer than any individual has held the role since its creation in 2016.

In fact, the longest any of the City’s three former CDO’s stayed in the position was two years and two months, and all previous CDOs have kept tight-lipped regarding their experiences in the role, rarely speaking with the press, if ever.

Still, a new candidate may soon be filling the open C-suite position under its new title of chief equity officer, as Worcester Assistant City Manager Hung Nguyen said he expects the position will be filled within the next couple of months.

Following a declined offer in January, Nguyen said the City’s search for a chief equity officer is far along. The City’s internal human resources department has been reviewing applications from across the country with input from organizations including Black Families Together, a Worcester-based collaborative group aimed at addressing systemic and institutional racism within the community.

For a city as large and diverse as Worcester, filling the city’s vacant position is a critical endeavor, said Jessica Pepple, chief diversity and culture officer at RFK Community Alliance in Lancaster.

“We need to recognize that with diversity comes diverse perspectives. And with diverse perspectives, people may not have the bandwidth to understand those perspectives, those different lived experiences, and the different forms of oppressions. That’s a lot. It’s continuous, and it’s ongoing,” Pepple said.

Of the three former Worcester CDO’s, Malika Carter and Stephanie Williams declined to comment for this story. Suja Chacko could not be reached.

A structural shift

Renaming the former chief diversity officer position to chief equity officer, a change announced in 2023, was a decision made to more effectively communicate the principle objective of the role, said Nguyen.

“We felt that word equity is a lot more appropriate here. It's a lot more meaningful to what we're trying to really do, as opposed to having somebody who just is solely focused on diversity,” he said. “We wanted to make it a point that, ‘No, this person's a lot more than just diversity and somebody who is the champion of fairness and our processes.’”

The executive title shift came in tandem with an overall reorganization of the City’s Executive Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, an effort spearheaded by City Manager Eric Batista to lay down the structure to best ensure the success of the fourth incoming executive. Batista said in September 2022 he did not want to hire for the position until the changes were in place.

The new chief equity officer will oversee eight fellow department members as the City’s divisions of human rights; investigations; and training and development have been ushered under the EODEI.

“As opposed to having somebody come in and again say ‘Hey, good luck. You have to look at all these policies, you have to do training and development, you have to investigate, and, by the way, you don't have an office. You don’t have any kind of staff. You would have to figure that out too.’ We wanted to make sure that we built the foundation first, and that takes a lot of time,” said Nguyen.

‘Buy-in from the top down’

The high turnover in the former chief diversity officer position was somewhat related to the individuals in those roles, but the City needed to restructure the role in order to set the new hire up for success, said Worcester City Councilor Khrystian King.

“You have to have a system in place that's really willing to do the work to change,” King said. “There has to be a buy-in from the top down … I think those folks had an opportunity to assess whether or not we as a city government [were] ready for the level of change necessary; and I don't think that we were, but I'm looking forward to us continuing to grow.”

King and Black Families Together had originally urged Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty and former City Manager Edward Augustus to elevate the city’s former CDO role to a cabinet-level position and increase compensation. Though their efforts were initially rebuffed, they were in the end successful on both counts before Williams, the most-recent person to serve as CDO, entered the position.

The chief equity officer job listing on MassHire’s website includes a yearly salary range from $130,000-$140,000, a stark increase from 2020 when Williams earned $92,160 in gross pay, making her the lowest-paid City cabinet member by more than $15,000 that year.

No quick fix

When Williams resigned as chief diversity officer in 2022, her resignation letter said diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the city government were considered an extracurricular activity and needed more support.

With any organization, achieving lasting DEI change takes commitment throughout the entire culture, said Adriana Vaccaro, CEO and founder of Culture Redesigned, a Worcester-based workplace culture consulting firm.

“Equity, inclusion, diversity, that is a part of every single department. We're looking at how do we change the fabric of every area of the City so that collectively, we create more equity. And I think that is not an easy job,” Vaccaro said.

Even with the City on the verge of a potential new hire, King said filling the position is not a simple panacea for the DEI issues facing the municipality.

“It's not a position that's going to cure everything, but it is a position that can help us functionally, as a government, as an employer and as we provisionally engage with the public per our policies. So we want to make sure that those policies are where they need to be,” he said.

While the person who fills this role is working to fulfill their obligations, the nature of the role itself can shine a spotlight on the individual doing the work everyone may not always be in favor of, Pepple said.

“When you only have one person leading equity, that person becomes a target, and it's easier to knock out one person than an entire department,” she said.

Achieving high-minded goals

The City’s new chief equity officer will focus on key initiatives including diversifying the city government workforce, evaluating and addressing pay equitability among staff, and ensuring the efficacy of the department’s investigations processes, said Nguyen.

For a role fulfilling such heavy-lifts, the City's hiring committee should select a candidate for the role who has a data-driven approach to equity, said Vaccaro.

“Data tells a story, and I think we can always say that we are an inclusive workplace, we're working on equity. But then when we look at the data, is the data really demonstrating those statements?” she said. “I would love to see how they create a plan, build trust, and then periodically share results that are not just statements but results that come accompanied with some data, so that we can celebrate small improvements; and small improvements over time create really great change.”

Expecting a big plan right out the gate is not realistic, Pepple said. For change to be sustainable, it must be slow and steady, and the new chief equity officer is going to be learning on the job.

“It’s like you're building and flying a plane at the same time,” Pepple said.

Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries.