DEI at HSS

Our mission statement reads, in part: “We are a team of professionals, committed to and strengthened by the quality of our people”. To us, this includes taking responsibility for building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for our team.  Diversity of backgrounds leads to diversity of thought, which creates an environment of advanced critical thinking where everyone has a voice, and knows their perspective is respected. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion also adds value to the services we provide our clients.

How our DEI commitment adds value to our clients:

We believe that a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in our practice is essential to good client service.  Equity among both employees and clients ensures that everyone involved with the project is operating from a place of mutual respect and that they feel comfortable sharing their unique voices. Inclusion creates an environment of collaboration where individual team members can share ideas and experiences with other team members to help us better serve our clients and our community.

We believe the very cross-cultural representation in our client base provides an opportunity for us to see firsthand other perspectives and experiences and grow from those encounters.  Being open to new perspectives and ideas is essential to adding value and ingenuity to the services we provide our clients.  We recognize this, and it drives our commitment to our DEI initiatives, including additional formal training on the subject.

How our DEI commitment makes HSS a great place to work:

In Hoffman, Stewart and Schmidt’s 40 years of service, the world has changed significantly. Societal changes encourage our firm to reassess its policies and ensure we remain truly equitable to our current and future employees.  Our goal has always been to employ professionals with passion for our industry, which includes employing people of different ages, genders, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and the LGBTQIA+ community. We promote equal opportunities for all, we value diversity of our people in an inclusive team environment, and hold ourselves accountable to the high standard of action.  Through continual assessment and improvement of equitable and inclusive practices, we’ve seen increasing diversity in our firm’s management and team. We understand that continual improvement is essential in pursuing and maintaining equity.