Boosting bottom M line with diversity
The youth training organization Hi5 and its young founder are making some of the Netherlands’ biggest firms take notice
She is trusted by the Netherlands’ biggest corporations. She has street cred with its disaffected, marginalized youth. She leads an anti-racism group endorsed by the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.
And Hi5, the youth training organization she founded, has the policy wonks at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development taking notice. All this, in just five years. All the brainchild of a then-22-year-old.
It all started with Dionne Abdoelhafiezkhan trying to prove her father wrong.
For years he had told her, “Dionne, don’t nag about discrimination. Discrimination is not taking place within the Netherlands.”
Her father was an immigrant from Surinam of Persian heritage. He had risen from one of Rotterdam’s toughest neighbourhoods to become a corporate executive.
The pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps story was his, not Dionne’s, however. As a student at the HES Rotterdam School of Business, Dionne was having trouble finding an internship.
“I wrote 38 application letters to companies and all of them were rejected,” she recalls. “I was like, that’s not possible. I had really good grades. . . All my other colleague students who were native Dutch got internships very easily.
“So I changed my last name to a Dutch name and sent my resume and application letter to all the same companies. From each company I got an answer to come and do a job interview. From two really, really big companies I even got offered a contract without (them) even talking to me.” IT MADE Abdoelhafiezkhan angry. She asked her mother what to do.
“Dionne, if you’re playing a tennis game would you bring your tennis racquet or would you bring a hockey stick?” her mom asked.
“What a stupid example, of course I’m going to bring my tennis racquet.”
“OK,” continued her mother, “because then you can win the game. If you want to change the system you need to know the rules of the system, what’s behind the system, what drives companies.” “I was like, OK, what can I do?” “You’re smart enough, just figure it out yourself.” Abdoelhafiezkhan devised an experiment. With the help of friends, she sent out more than 1,500 job applications using the same cover letter and resume. “The only things that we changed were our economic parameters: zip codes, last name, religion, age, gender.”
The results were sh to Abdoelhafiezkha strong bias based on and zip code. They took her findin Suddenly, “the med it,” Abdoelhafiezkhan yes. Now something w And then the next day about it anymore.” “Nothing is going to b
But then Abdoelh bered what her mo came up with anoth ment. She had frien wealthy, would-be c eign backgrounds. T Holland’s biggest co them business. Whe banks, they asked fo they phoned manufa place large orders. As one after another, Di ed every conversation
Using her father’s n the directors of 10 o come to a party at the
“I showed them how missed out because
hocking — though not an. They showed a n nationality, gender ngs to the press. ia were talking about n recalls. “I was like, was going to change. y nobody was talking ” Dionne thought, be changed.” hafiezkhan rememother had said. She her guerrilla experinds pose as young, customers with forThey phoned 40 of orporations, offering en they approached or large loans. When acturers, they tried to s they were rebuffed, ionne’s team recordn. network, she invited of the companies to e family home. w much money they e their organization was not handling (the calls) correctly.” Suddenly she had their attention. And she seized the moment. She founded Hi5.
Its mission was to bridge the gap between employers and young job seekers, especially those from minority backgrounds. It would build the business case for diverse hiring. At the same time, it would prepare migrant youth to take advantage of these new opportunities through training and support networks.
Hi5’s training academy boasts a job placement rate of 86 per cent for at-risk youth, compared to a 17-per-cent rate for government-funded programs.
FIVE YEARS ON, Hi5’s influence among youth is growing. It has partnered with community organizers and star athletes to reach out to the poorest neighbourhoods. It attracts youth with a radio program on Fun-X, a hip Dutch music station. It publishes a monthly magazine with an online version in six languages.
Hi5 preaches self-reliance. Abdoelhafiezkhan’s mantra is “you can’t determine where you are from. You can determine where you are heading to.”
The organization has never asked for government money. Instead, it has won the backing of three corporate giants — global employment agency Ranstad, Dutch bank ABN AMROand Achmea, an insurance company.
Hi5’s pitch to business has never been, do this out of the goodness of your heart. Rather, Hi5 makes the case that diverse hiring and tapping the youth market is good for the bottom line.
In effect, Dionne Abdoelhafiezkhan is has done what her mother told her. She’s mastered the rules of the game and turned them to her advantage.