Paylocity Appoints Tauhidah Shakir as Chief Diversity Officer
Leading HCM provider expands diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts
Paylocity, a leading provider of cloud-based HR and payroll software solutions, announced the appointment of Tauhidah Shakir as Vice President of Human Resources, Chief Diversity Officer. The company also announced its renewed commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs that are focused on education & awareness, conscious products, company representation, advocacy & support, fairness & equity and community action.
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Shakir brings more than 20 years of experience in providing strategic HR support, developing DEI programs and coaching leaders. Previous to Paylocity, Shakir was the CEO of The Conxsis Group and served in HR leadership roles at organizations like Echo Global Logistics, Ulta Beauty and Fossil Group. With an extensive background in helping organizations build more diverse and equitable workplaces, Shakir – who is the company’s first Chief Diversity Officer – is responsible for leading Paylocity’s HR function with an inclusive lens while developing strategies and programs that enhance DEI.
“I’m passionate about cultivating a workplace where employees can bring their whole selves to work and feel safe, valued, and respected. Paylocity’s company values align with mine, and together we deeply believe differences of experience and perspective make us stronger,” said Shakir. “I’m thrilled and honored for the opportunity to create positive employee experiences rooted in DEI at Paylocity.”
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With Shakir at the helm, Paylocity’s DEI program has been enhanced to focus on:
- Education & awareness – Paylocity is invested in educating its employees and the community about what racism looks like, how biases come about and what it must do to directly affect positive change. The company continues to develop original learning content on these topics, which is available to employees and clients. Paylocity incorporated diversity and unconscious bias training into its internal continued learning program, and all employees will complete the training by the end of the year. To heighten awareness around human rights and social justice issues, Paylocity hosts forums and dedicates episodes of its PCTY Talks podcast to discussing important topics like the Black Lives Matter movement. Paylocity will continue these efforts through focus groups, leveraging its employee resource groups (ERGs) and enlisting the help of outside experts.
- Conscious products – Paylocity has updated its product roadmap to prioritize features that make it easier to track, measure, and improve diversity. Survey templates that help give all employees a voice and compensation tools that help drive pay equity are a few examples. To help clients improve their own DEI efforts, Paylocity created resources that showcase how the platform can be used to foster change.
- Company representation – Paylocity is committed to ensuring more Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), and other underrepresented minority groups are part of its daily decision-making body, senior management and corporate board. In March, Paylocity added to the diversity on its Board of Directors, and the board is currently just under one-half underrepresented minorities or female. Paylocity also enhanced the transparency of its DEI efforts by publicly sharing annual data on its workforce makeup. Attracting, hiring, and retaining more diverse candidates will continue to be a primary focus for Paylocity.
- Advocacy & support – Paylocity understands that underrepresented minority groups face unique challenges and that it takes all of us working together to resolve them. Paylocity focused first on the individual by rolling out training and resources for mental well-being and resiliency for its employees. From there, Paylocity formed three new ERGs to ensure alignment between its business and diversity strategies and to raise awareness related to the issues facing our underrepresented minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ communities. In addition to hiring Shakir, Paylocity created a new Diversity Leadership Council to partner with ERG leaders and executive sponsors to influence change through education and advocacy.
- Fairness & equity – Paylocity conducted a pay equity study for 2017-2019 with a multiple regression analysis. The results continue to show that Paylocity does not have any statistical difference in pay practices among employees based on race or gender. To ensure equity for performance expectations, opportunities for promotion and recognition, Paylocity rolled out a competency model to describe what’s expected at each level of the organization. The company is also creating a supplier diversity program so its vendors and supplier companies better reflect the diversity of its customers and growing employee population.
- Community action – Paylocity is committed to making a positive community impact. Its employees have donated thousands of hours in support of more than 40 organizations, including $330,000 raised between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020. In effort to help community organizers address racial inequalities facing underrepresented minority groups, Paylocity plans to continue partnering with its local communities to support their programs, especially those that target underrepresented minorities.
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