Page 8 - Mobility Management, January/February 2021

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Numotion CEO Pens White Paper
clinics. They may say, ‘You really fell short on this particular message; it seemed tone-deaf relative to this other issue.’”
Numotion’s leadership team began meeting daily
as the pandemic was starting in March, and still meets weekly. “We provide updates, we’ll get feedback on what their teams are concerned about, what they are frustrated with,” Swinford said. “In the summer, we started talking about going back to school, and employees having a lot of anxiety about ‘How are we going to deal with homeschooling?’ or ‘I’m going to have to take my children to school and I’m working from home, so are we flexible from an hours perspective?’ Of course we are. All our flexibility has come from listening and getting input from employees. The key is number one, they’re able to voice those concerns. And number two, we take action when we hear those issues. When we take actions that are connected with the feedback they’re providing, they know we care enough to take the actions, and we’re going to continue to do so as they highlight issues.”
As the pandemic took hold, Numotion’s pulse surveys continued, and the company hosted virtual happy hours to keep colleagues connected. Numotion’s Women’s Network hosted video conferences with tips from parents across
the country who shared what was and wasn’t working with their homeschooling efforts. Numotion gave employees two additional floating holidays in an attempt to ease the stress.
Then George Floyd died, and so many people found themselves soul searching.
“We’d been talking about diversity, whether it’s race or gender or sexual orientation or people with disabilities, and we’ve been making a lot of progress,” Swinford said. “But when the Black Lives Matter movement started, largely on the heels of the George Floyd killing, it was that weekend I was texting my HR leader, Adam Holton, and I said, ‘We need to do something. We need to do something big and very visible, and we need to do it as soon as possible. Because this is on every employee’s mind, especially our African-American employees, and we have a huge African-American employee popula- tion. So that’s what led to the video. Literally within the same week [of] that killing, we had our first video panel discussion with African-American leaders.
“It’s hard to explain the vulnerability, the raw, real passion and transparency and willingness of people to go out on a limb and talk about racism and talk about the challenges of being African-American within society, within corporate America, within Numotion.”
The first video quickly led to a second one on current events from a law enforcement perspective.
“We got feedback from the initial video [from] people who were former law enforcement officials or married to
8 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2021 | MOBILITY MANAGEMENT
law enforcement officials who felt like, ‘Is the company picking sides? Is the company picking the side of Black Lives Matter?’, which inherently must mean we’re anti-po- lice or anti-law enforcement,” Swinford explained. “And
it doesn’t mean that at all. You can be supportive of law enforcement and those who protect and serve and do so valiantly and with integrity. Those who do not, need to be held accountable. You can be very much for law enforcement, and you can be very much for equality and diversity and be anti-racist at the same time.”
Numotion filmed multiple Diversity & Inclusion panels, featuring Swinford and other Numotion employees in a Q&A format. The first video was on Race Inclusion. The second was on Law Enforcement Experience. Another video discussed Bias.
“I just facilitated the calls,” Swinford said. “It was the honesty and the incredible vulnerability of the leaders we pulled onto these video conference sessions that really brought them to a level that was just unbelievable.”
He acknowledged that some employees weren’t sure pursuing these conversations was the right move.
“That’s always been one of my preferences from a leadership standpoint,” Swinford said of his tendency to bring difficult issues out into the open. “Not everybody has that as a priority from a leadership standpoint,
and I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. But I’ve always preferred to confront conflict head on.
“Early on, I received feedback from some of our leaders: ‘I don’t think we should be jumping into the discussions around racism and law enforcement. This
is a very volatile and emotional topic.’ I said, ‘I know it
is, and it’s volatile and emotional for every one of our employees. It’s real, and it’s here, and that’s why we should talk about it.’ Not talking about it probably speaks more volumes than talking about it.
“I saw a quote that resonated with me after George Floyd’s killing: ‘Are you not racist or are you openly and vocally anti-racist?’ Because there is a huge difference, to say, ‘Well, I’m not racist, so this is not my issue’ versus ‘Are you openly and vocally anti-racist?’ Depending
on how you answer the latter part really changes your perspective in terms of as a leader, what you should be doing, how you should be addressing these issues.”
Speaking the Truth
The videos were shared with Numotion employees, along with Numotion board members, the company’s owners, and a select group of CEOs, several who, Swinford said, later decided to conduct panel discussions of their own.
“Many employees shared comments on how they not only watched it themselves, but watched it with their significant
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