Amazon Freight employee spotlight: DEI expert Erika Jennings

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an important topic for every workplace. Whether you’re new to the subject or have been celebrating DEI wins for years, there are always opportunities to grow your impact. How far that impact extends hinges on the internal initiatives, recruitment efforts, and external relationships—like your freight logistics or shipping partner—that you pursue.

At Amazon Freight, we embrace DEI in the workplace. A key champion for this change is Erika Jennings, Principal DEI Program Manager for the Amazon Transportation Services Product and Technology team. To learn about Erika’s day-to-day work, we sat down for a question-and-answer session.

I am the Principal DEI Program Manager for Amazon Transportation Services, and I’ve been in this role since July of 2022. I support about 3,800 people around the globe and am responsible for delivering on our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging strategy—as well as executing programs to help achieve our DEI goals.

 For me, thinking about why I do this work is really important. My “why” has a lot to do with the change I want to see in the world. I consider myself an expert in championing for other people. As a Black woman, it’s certainly been a journey in terms of the trials and tribulations that I’ve had to overcome. And so, having an opportunity to support others and integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion into everyday work is a mission that I take very seriously.
 

 One of the things I’m most proud of is our Executive Sponsorship Program. Like a lot of other large companies, we see talent of our marginalized or underrepresented groups under index in promotions and higher performance ratings, and generally they often feel that they are having a different experience than their counterparts.

This Executive Sponsorship Program aligns some of our Black talent, Latino talent, and women, in both tech and non-tech roles, with sponsors at director and above levels. It’s small right now, but it’s taking mentorship to that next level by giving employees direct access to executives who will invest in them and help propel them through their careers.

 Part of my job is to regularly collect feedback from employees, which I then use to help design new programming. We have listening sessions where I gather people together and get a pulse on how they feel about particular topics, what they want to see from a programming standpoint, or any gaps they see in our organization.

These listening sessions have been extremely helpful in uncovering some common themes that transcend race, gender, background, and religion. I compile the information to plan our new programs and initiatives. These qualitative insights and anecdotes, in addition to the quantitative DEI data, tell a story that helps get leaders onboard with supporting the execution and launch of programming.

 There’s so much data that tells us how diversity is better for your bottom line. Studies have shown that diverse companies perform better and that a DEI commitment helps recruit and retain employees. For example, McKinsey & Company reports that companies with diverse leadership teams are associated with higher financial returns—regardless of industry, region, stakeholder expectations, and ambitions. As a result, the business case for gender diversity on executive teams has more than doubled in the past 10 years.

With effective DEI initiatives, shippers can create a greater sense of belonging throughout their organization. When people enter these spaces and feel a level of inclusion and belonging, they want to engage – and then they want to stay. So, I think the more you can understand why and how diversity matters in your organization, the better your business, and the world, will be.

Want to read more on promoting DEI within your organization? Check out our post on DEI best practices for shippers to explore some practical first steps.