What is the Rooney Rule? Here are the pros and cons of the popular diversity initiative.

The push to diversify corporate America and the tech industry has come in fits and starts. For example, big companies like Google and Facebook began publishing their demographic information years ago in a gesture of accountability. And yet the most recent version of the influential Atlassian report found that progress toward workplace diversity may actually be trending in the wrong direction.

While 80% of employees say their employer’s diversity and inclusion initiatives are important, Atlassian found that actual participation in these efforts declined across the board since last year. Predictably, less than a third of underrepresented groups say they feel like they belong.

One tactic companies are increasingly looking to is the so-called Rooney Rule. Named for former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, the rule required NFL teams to interview at least one person of color for head coaching positions. The rule later expanded to general manager positions, the New Yorker reported. Rooney’s hometown of Pittsburgh also recently adopted a version of the rule, according to CityLab, with the hopes of bringing people of diverse backgrounds into city government leadership positions.

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About the Author: DrStefanieKJohnson

Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Management at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a Ph.D. from Rice University and is particularly interested in the effects of unconscious biases in the evaluation of women and minorities, with the goal of finding ways to mitigate those biases. Dr. Johnson brings bias to light with an engaging and humorous approach to advanced scientific research, which has earned her numerous accolades and invitations to present her work at meetings around the world, including the White House for a 2016 summit on diversity in corporate America on National Equal Pay Day, and the 2016 Harvard Negotiation and Leadership Conference. She has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Applied Psychology and The Academy of Management Journal. She has extensive consulting experience and has created and delivered leadership-development training with an emphasis on evidence-based practice. In recognition of her unique research, Dr. Johnson has been awarded nearly three million dollars in external funding to study leadership and create leadership development programs aimed at increasing safety. Media outlets featuring her work include: The Economist, Newsweek, Time, and CNN. Stefanie lives in the Boulder Bubble in Colorado with her Biology Professor husband, two young kiddos, and two old kitties.