Value Proposition
For employees who have been taken advantage of by a person in authority, Accountability JEDI is a platform that anonymously curates grassroots experiences into metrics by which to hold colleagues and companies accountable for serving Justice by creating an Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive (JEDI) culture, while maintaining checks for unbiased reporting and security for privacy of contributors.
Inspiration
Founder Natasha Stavros had the experience of working in a toxic work environment, rampant with covert sexism and abelism, unaccepting of neurodiversity and severely lacking emotional and cultural intelligence. It touted itself as inclusive, but subtly imparted a biased view of how to be, while undermining the people that made it great.
When she spoke to former employees, she began to uncover that her feelings of abuse and mistreatment were common. The outward projection of an open, inclusive ethos was a facade.
As a person empowered by a stable career and reputation, she did not fear retaliation and worked the system willing to sacrifice herself in the name of transparency and to protect others. She began to realize that all she was doing to report abuse of power, bias, harassment, and psychological harm, didn’t matter. All of the reporting systems were to the institution, who had teams of lawyers and experts at the ready to ensure the institution could not be held liable. In the process, the company did not technically break the law, but their treatment of her, as a fellow human being, was immoral.
At this point, she realized that to truly serve justice and meet company goals of upholding values of equity, diversity, and inclusion, there needed to be a paradigm shift. Such a shift would rely on a cultural change that reallocates power back to the marginalized and discriminted through grassroots accountability with security and privacy of contributors at the forefront. It is in our collective experience and different ways of knowing that we gain wisdom to change how we operate.
We are in the information age, with the next generation of workforce rejecting employment based on company values. Now is the time to empower people to make informed decisions about who they work for based on verified, but anonymously reported experiences of others.
Problem
At present, there are very few mechanisms to hold people accountable for a more Just, Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive (JEDI) culture. Current mechanisms rely on policy, which is extremely difficult to enforce. In the current work environment, employees report abuse of power to the institution in which they work. The institution, however, is not incentivized to do anything unless there is a legal liability. The burden to prove the injustice then falls on the victim. This burden can exacerbate the harm caused to that person and may ultimately result in acquiescence.
In particular, people in positions of authority are often supported by the institution that has access to more resources to help them navigate the legal system than the employee. This perpetuates abuse and inequity that is unjust and immoral.
Reporting platforms like Glassdoor lack the data analytics and cybersecurity to provide checks that ensure unbiased reporting while maintaining contributors privacy and security first and foremost. Accountability JEDI uses the latest in cybersecurity and data analytics to engineer a system that people can trust.
Vision
What if we lived in a world where people were held accountable to their peers for their actions and inaction to address unjust behavior?
What if companies could hold managers and supervisors accountable for not only meeting company milestones, but for the culture they create?
What if employees could feel empowered to report abuse and be informed about who they work for based on a transparent system?
What do we need from **YOU**?
Accountability JEDI is a startup in its initial stages. We don’t have all the answers. We are looking for a team that can find the answers to make this vision a reality. Let us know if you see a role for yourself based on your skills and expertise.