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06-11-2024QUEER 50


INDEED’S LAFAWN DAVIS IS CLEAR-EYED ABOUT THE POTENTIAL (AND RISK) OF WORKPLACE
AI

From implementing responsible AI to removing hiring barriers and surveying 20
million employees about well-being, Indeed’s chief people and sustainability
officer is building a world of work that we all want to live in.

[Photo: Mike Coppola/Getty Images for 2023 Tribeca Festival]

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BY Kathleen Davis4 minute read

LaFawn Davis is an optimist, which might be surprising for someone who has spent
nearly two decades doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work. But she’s a
realist, too. Of the backlash DEI and ESG programs are receiving she says, “I do
believe it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

As Indeed’s chief people and sustainability officer, Davis’s purview is
wide-ranging and touches on some of the most important issues for both society
and individuals: sustainability, diversity, inclusion and belonging, social
impact, inclusive hiring, and AI ethics.

This was Indeed’s first year involved with the World Happiness Report, the
world’s largest study on happiness in the workplace. “We have 220 million data
points and counting, which is over 20 million people who have answered surveys
on what work happiness means,” says Davis, who sits on the board of the World
Wellbeing Movement, a nonprofit coalition of business leaders and academics.
“Things like flexibility and trust and having a sense of purpose and a sense of
belonging.”

Indeed partnered with Oxford University to analyze their data to create a Work
Wellbeing Score, which job seekers can view for thousands of companies on
Indeed. Indeed also recognized the top 20 companies with the highest work
well-being with their first-ever “Better Work Awards.”

“Our hope is that we’re able to use our massive amount of data to actually
create change,” she says. The goal is to use the information to help companies
understand what’s most important to their employees. It’s a retention tool too,
Davis says. Employees will stay longer and give more effort, she says, “if they
feel like they have psychological safety and a sense of purpose and all of those
tangible things that we now know give people a sense of well-being at work.”

With the use of AI, Davis too is both a realist and an optimist. “If we are only
consumers of AI, we have a really real risk of AI perpetuating the same human
biases that exist today—and worse at scale,” she says.

As a nod to how the company views the role of AI in the very human world of
hiring—and how important that responsibility is—Indeed has changed the name of
its AI framework from “AI ethics” to “Responsible AI.” (“AI ethics” implies a
world of compliance with standards, Davis says.)

“We want to innovate fast,” she says. “We want to do things as quickly as the
landscape is shaping up, but we have to do that in a way that is actually going
to be helpful for society.” To that end, Indeed has introduced its four
responsible AI principles. 

The cornerstone of Indeed’s AI work is to make products that are human-centric,
says Davis. “Hiring will always be a fundamentally human process,” she says.
“What we’re hoping is that AI and automation just helps to make things faster
and fairer by removing some of the decision-making that needs to happen so that
humans can focus on the things that matter.”

One of Indeed’s AI products for job seekers is its career services center, where
individuals can enter a job title and practice answering job-specific interview
questions generated by AI.




The work of expanding opportunity is not only core to Indeed’s mission, it’s a
personal cause for Davis, who doesn’t have a college degree. “I always tease
people at my company: ‘You would have missed out on amazingness if you didn’t
hire me because I didn’t have a college degree,” she says. “I’m absolutely
skilled, but I’m not skilled through traditional means.”

Over the past year, the platform has leaned into building opportunities for
those who have nontraditional backgrounds. Indeed recently joined the Tear the
Paper Ceiling coalition, along with other companies including Google, IBM, and
LinkedIn, to help expand their work in skills-first hiring. “As we go into the
future, and especially as we look at AI and automation, we really need to look
at what the hiring process is doing to screen those people out,” says Davis.

“We want to make sure that our platform works for everyone, no matter what your
barrier,” she says. She views Indeed more as a matching platform. For example,
Indeed touts that they have helped 3.9 million job seekers facing barriers—like
a lack of a college degree, having a criminal record, or facing bias due to age,
ethnicity, or disability—get hired between 2021 and 2023.

Davis wants to create opportunity within Indeed, as well. This past year, Indeed
introduced BOOST, a paid internal technical apprenticeship program, in which
current employees in nontechnical roles can gain the experience to become
software engineers at Indeed. The first cohort started in spring 2024. 

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Perhaps the area where Davis is the most clear-eyed on the challenges ahead is
the DEI backlash at both companies and universities. The end of affirmative
action has had a snowball effect, she says, “removing DEI programs from
everything.” 

“There is definitely a population in the U.S. that is against anything that
shifts the power dynamic,” she says. “They’re coming for the schools. They’re
going to come for companies and anything else that would help to write that
power dynamic.”

Yet despite this hostile landscape, the cutting of DEI programs at companies,
Davis remains optimistic. Indeed in doubling down on its commitments to DEI and
ESG, and she’s seen other leaders do the same. “We’ll be able to show good
financial implications for the companies that actually lean into those things
that matter to humans.” 

And even though she expects a tough period ahead, “I think on the other side is
so much goodness that it will help to reverse some of what we’re seeing right
now.”

Recognize your brand’s excellence by applying to this year’s Brands That Matter
Awards before the extended deadline, June 14.

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleen Davis is Deputy Editor at FastCompany.com, Supervising Editor of Fast
Company podcasts, and Host of The New Way We Work podcast. She frequently covers
topics including Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, gender equity, education,
economic inequality, remote work, and the future of work. More

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EXPLORE TOPICS

 * indeed
 * queer 50 2024

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