Making DEI Foundational: Q&A With Valencia Seals of Ahold's Retail Business Services

Creating a culture of equity, belonging and meaningful opportunity for all employees requires that a company understand what diversity, equity and inclusion isn't, suggests Valencia Seals, DEI manager for Ahold Delhaize's Retail Business Services company.

"I think sometimes organizations sometimes look at DE&I as an initiative or an assignment, a checkmark," says Seals, who took on the DEI lead role for Retail Business Services, Ahold's company providing analytics and guidance to the multinational grocer's U.S. brands, last August. At Retail Business Services, she says, "DE&I isn’t a separate initiative; it’s infused into everything that we do."

On March 24, Retail Business Services formally announced the creation of a diversity, equity and inclusion council that is "charged with driving awareness, adoption and acceleration of the company’s DE&I strategy." In an interview with WGB, Seals talked about the evolution of DEI within Ahold's business services company and why intentionality and intersectionality are core to creating a culture where all employees feel valued and have meaningful opportunities to grow. 

Christine LaFave Grace: What were some of your priorities in taking on the DEI lead role at Retail Business Services? What opportunities did you see for further growth?

Valencia Seals: In 2020, I actually led our Black associates—we thought through some changes we thought we could see happen here at Retail Business Services, and we just came together and shared some ideas with our president, who loved the ideas and that actually helped us form our Black business resource group. So that was my first step in the DEI space. I love this space and planned to get into this area, and I was so excited to be able to lead us in DEI [as of] August.

Starting out, thinking about Edge, our Black business resource group—we didn’t have much insight into what we were doing as an organization, except what we knew from our news and internal communications channels. It seemed like we were doing great things, but we thought, “Well, you know what, we’ve got some ideas.” We think we need a diversity council, [for example]. And now that I’m in the role, it’s amazing because we did need a diversity council. My predecessor had thought through this as well, and we were aligned. There’s nothing like coming into a role where it was almost prepared for you. Leadership had thought through this, also, and I was able to bring it to life.

At Retail Business Services, what I love most about working here is our culture. Even as a lay associate outside of our DE&I space, I loved our culture. So now, coming into this role, I’m really excited to help our goals come alive and take shape. And I know my fellow Black associates are very excited, and they’re great partners as we embark on this journey together.

What are some of the things you’re really excited about in the coming year?

Let’s start with in August, when I started in this role, my two No. 1 goals were to launch our DE&I council and to also relaunch our business resource groups.

The DE&I council is going to be led by our president, Roger Wheeler, and it truly will be a diverse group of associates to drive awareness, alignment, adoption and acceleration of the RBS (Retail Business Services) diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. Our goal, truly, is having a place where all of our associates feel like they belong.

That’s the first thing. The second thing I’m very excited about is the relaunch of our business resource groups. When I started in August, we did quite a bit of work around our business resource groups, reinvigorating them, and we relaunched in October. Between October and January, we were ramping up, getting ready, writing processes—we were building a bridge as we were crossing it. But now we’re ready to go. Our business resource groups are homed in on four pillars: community engagement, diffusion of culture, personal and professional development, and insights and innovation. So what I’m looking forward to in this year is partnering with our business resource groups to truly create robust business resource groups, have them truly engaged with their executive sponsors, and introducing them in an in-depth way to where they work and how they can make a difference.

Also, we have made a huge investment in our business resource group chairs. We have created a professional development program for them—it’s a 24-month program. All of this in just a few months; I’m so proud of us as an organization. We partnered with our learning and development team to put together a nice, robust training program to help our chairs maximize their potential here at Retail Business Services.

What types of things will signal success to you? What will you look at and say, "This is it; this is what we envisioned this looking like"?

I think the first thing that I would say is—annually we do our associate engagement survey, and I think the scores will show us. We’re already doing pretty good, but that will show if we’re making progress. But I would say there are other ways—it’s when we’re working together as a team. DE&I isn’t a separate initiative; it’s infused into everything that we do. So when there’s a true immersion there and we’re all really feeling good and we can have these robust conversations, that will signal success for me.

There’s just so much—we’re creating it fast and furious because we’re all so passionate in this space.

What is vital in helping to ensure that DEI is truly a foundational part of everything a business does?

I would say truly commitment from all levels throughout the organization—truly realizing that it takes all of us. It’s not a top-down thing; it’s not a bottom-up thing; it truly takes all of us. And also having an actionable and measurable plan.

When you look at other organizations’ work to foster more diverse, equitable and inclusive cultures, what gaps do you see between intention or conception and reality?

That’s a really good question. I think, when I think about Retail Business Services and the journey that we’re on, it’s truly that—a journey. And I think sometimes organizations sometimes look at DE&I as an initiative or an assignment, a checkmark. But for us it’s truly a journey. As the world around us changes, our journey might change a little bit. We want to ensure that this is always a place where our associates feel like they belong, and we’re on a journey to see to it that that happens.

Can you share further details about the 24-month program?

Our program is in three-month buckets, if you will. We’re looking to develop our chairs from a strategic capability standpoint—we want to employ critical thinking, craft realistic plans, embed innovation, inspire collaboration and apply business acumen. Then from a personal capability perspective, we’re looking to cultivate self-awareness, increase confidence, develop executive presence, emotional intelligence and resolve conflict. From a leadership perspective, we’re looking to communicate with clarity, build trust, practice active listening, influence without authority and exchange feedback. It’s going to be a guided program with blended resources—not just training classes but also microlearnings, podcasts, facilitated sessions, experiences, so it really will be a nice robust, program.

How did you come up with this in three months?

I’ve got great partners, and being here for going on eight years, I knew who to talk to, and I knew what we needed when I was in the chair space. I just didn’t know how to recommend these things because prior to this role, this was a space that I wanted to be in. I was networking in this space; I was going to a lot of external programs; I had mentors in this space and was doing a lot of research in addition to going to Cornell for their diversity and inclusion certificate program. I had a lot in my back pocket, so when it was go time, it was go time.

How many business resource groups does Retail Business Services have?

We have 10—and we have “plus allies” in the groups, because we wanted to be intentional about creating belonging in those groups as well. We’re a smaller organization, with just around 2,600 associates, and we wanted our allies to feel like they belong, too.

So we’ve got Balance Allies, which is our caregivers group; Conexion Allies, our Hispanic group; Edge Allies, our Black BRG (business resource group); Elevate Allies, which is our women’s BRG; Heritage Allies, which is our Native American Group; Next, our generations group; Pride Allies, our LGBTQ group; Salute Allies, our veterans group; Thrive Allies, our disabilities group; and Tradition Allies, our Asian-Pacific group.

There’s something for everyone, and it’s beautiful. The work that’s happening in these spaces; I sometimes get overcome with emotion, seeing how excited they all are to really move the needle. It’s amazing to see the work that they’re doing.

What is the structure of how and when you meet?

We’ve got a BRG lead, Carley James, and she reports to me. All of the BRG chairs report up to Carley. That helps provide a little bit of oversight and guidance. We’re truly servant leaders to our BRG chairs, to our BRGs. Our role is truly to remove barriers, empower them, educate, share, anything we can do to ensure their success.

I have a meeting with all of our chairs the first Wednesday of each month, and that’s called our BRG all-hands meeting. We meet for an hour-and-a-half, and we have a pretty set agenda, but that allows us to create intersectionality intentionally, because we are learning together; we are experiencing things together; we are creating one team. We are thinking through as a team, how can we create that intersectionality so it truly represents the world we are living in?  

What additionally are you looking forward to in 2022? 

I’m really excited about in 2022 launching a new forum where we have inclusive conversations. What I will be doing is homing in every three months on some topics for us to really start exploring together as one team. That will really allow us to lay a foundation this year. I believe that it’s important for us to not just to jump into training and respond to things, but more so create an environment where we have true psychological safety where we can truly embrace our differences, and celebrate and value our differences.