Do you know what stage your company’s diversity and inclusion (D&I) program is at and how you can move past your current obstacles toward organizational success?
Through our research on diversity and inclusion, we've discovered that a lack of diversity benchmarks is the leading issue for these programs. Measurement is a critical component to leveraging D&I as a strategic asset. Typically, an organization’s diversity program matures through four different stages of development: ¬ Undeveloped, Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced/Vanguard.
Learn more about how organizations are leveraging measurement to enhance their diversity program and better align with organizational goals.
In this session, attendees will learn:
• To define or better interpret your company’s diversity program
• Identify the challenges to progress and develop an action plan, depending on the stage.
• Different measurement techniques that can help support communication and ROI calculations.
Speaker: Bruce Kile, Senior Vice President of Workforce Compliance and Diversity, PeopleFluent
In 2008, Randy Corporation published “Managing Diversity in Corporate America” which addressed the concern of many top corporations within the United States regarding how to manage diversity. The authors developed a model to determine whether diversity-friendly corporations stand out from other companies by analyzing the strategies pursued by 14 large U.S. companies recognized for their diversity or human resource (HR) achievements. And they compared a number of characteristics of the best diversity companies and best HR companies and other companies using quantitative and qualitative methods. The results of their model was that firms recognized for diversity indeed are different in their core set of motives and practices than other companies. There are many benefits to both employer and employee when a company embraces workforce diversity. It not only improves a company’s bottom line and creates a healthier work environment, but it also leads to greater employee job satisfaction.
In the 2015 Strategic Diversity Measurement survey, PeopleFluent Research Institute and Human Capital Media have identified several trends regarding the organizational Diversity and Inclusion function. Companies of all sizes experience challenges regarding a lack of accepted diversity benchmarks, although those with an advanced D&I function report fewer challenges. Measuring as many metrics as possible is an essential part of any diversity strategy. Vendors can assist organizations at all maturity stages, from crafting a new strategy to improving an existing one.
Goal: Obtain intelligence about strategic diversity measurement through a custom survey sent to 25K diversity & inclusion leaders at manager level and above.
We inquired into: Are you setting targets? what do they measure? What metrics are being used to measure success? How is the D&I function using metrics to make the case for a culture change?
Scope: The service is a custom research survey of 25K diversity & talent management leaders. The mailing list for the survey will be sourced through Human Capital Media, Talent Management and Diversity Executive magazines. We wanted to dive further into how organizations are moving beyond just representational demographics into more of a strategic realm. We are so excited to share Key findings with you today. Julia, I think this is a good segueway into the dynamics of diversity as a business driver and what we’ve learned about how companies are progressing from the compliance to D&I realm.
Julia start here. . . .
When determining the effects of diversity and inclusion, or D&I, it is important to realize that this must move beyond compliance-based representational demographics and move into the strategic realm. By aligning diversity goals with enterprise goals, your organization can better make the case for its diversity programs.
***AA hire females at a 50% rate
***anything beyond female, minority, etc. ---- diversity goal is about a job title / department; cstmr sat surveys
---give example of ea.
Q: can you give an example of a difference between a compliance based & diversity goal??
Companies want to be more strategic and add value through D&I but often have trouble getting started
What are we going to measure?
Why should we measure anything?
The issue is not that companies do not want diversity programs. Rather they want to be more strategic and add value through D&I but often have trouble knowing how or where to get started. Questions such as “what are we going to measure?” and “why should we measure anything?” are important to answer before proceeding to next steps.
Once an organization identifies its basic measurement goals, its D&I function must then go further and answer broader questions.
In the 2015 strategic diversity measurement survey, Human Capital Media Advisory Group, the research arm of Talent Management magazine, in partnership with PeopleFLuent Research Institute, set out to answer these questions and explore the stages of strategic diversity measurement.
What exactly does strategic diversity look like?
What metrics do organizations track?
What should organizations do with gathered information?
What does accountability look like in the diversity area?
The survey also captured the maturity of the organization.
23% identified as being “undeveloped” which means little has been done to integrate diversity goals with organizational goals
23% identified as being in the beginning stage of organizational maturity and have made some efforts in using D&I as a public relations function and are thinking about how diversity helps to position the organization as an employer of choice
30% are at the intermediate stage of organizational maturity and have deployed several different diversity and inclusion initiatives piecemeal, and have a plan for aligning diversity initiatives with organizational goals
And finally, 24% identify as being at the advanced organizational maturity stage. The D&I strategy at the organization is well aligned with the organizational goals and needs. The diversity and inclusion efforts are strategic and planned. And diversity metrics are being traced and annual goals for improvement are being set.
Tomorrow, Oct. 14, PeopleFluent will be holding a webinar in which we will be going into detail regarding the four stages of development that a company can be experiencing with regards to its D&I program (undeveloped, beginning, intermediate, and advanced)
A well developed D&I strateey should first identify strategic goals that align with organizational outcomes. According to the survey, respondents reported the following three top D&I strategic goals
There are many challenges to improving the D&I function. The most common challenges that organizations face include lack of accepted benchmarks for diversity and inclusion, lack of budget, and difficulty working cross functionally.
Respondents also equally cited lack of resources and difficulty demonstrating the impact of previous efforts as top 5 challenges in accomplishing their diversity goals.
A quick definition of each stage
The primary goals of each stage and how those change over time
How challenges develop and can be overcome
How measurement techniques can help support communication and ROI calculations
And more!
A quick definition of each stage
The primary goals of each stage and how those change over time
How challenges develop and can be overcome
How measurement techniques can help support communication and ROI calculations
And more!
Crafting a strategic measurement plan that addresses these organizational goals is a good first step to creating a diversity strategy. Organizations realize that the best place to start is with a plan. 62% of survey respondents have such a plan in place or have begun to implement one
After crafting a diversity mission statement and identifying goals that funnel from the top to the bottom of the organization, stakeholders should start to compare the current and desired state as it relates to diversity and inclusion.
36% of companies use D&I consultants or vendors. However, by examining the numbers by organizational maturity, a more interesting picture emerges about which organizations use vendors and why. Vendor usage doubles from the undeveloped to the intermediate stage, to 48% of organizations from 21 percent.
Question I can pose to JM on this slide:
**what are your thoughts on using a vendor or managing in-house?
When examining organizations with advanced D&I functions, several trends emerge. Advanced organizations are more likely to have in-house experts for D&I measurement analysis, track workforce demographics through integrated HR systems, and employ vendors to help identify areas of improvement in their D&I strategy. Advanced organizations are also more likely to use incentives for D&I goal accountability and are more likely to have used metrics to make the case for culture change. Two metrics often used by advanced organizations are goal attainment on D&I recruiting and retention.
As the diversity function matures, companies do more to ensure their diversity goals align with organizational goals. Tracking workforce demographics means there are data sets on hand to make the business case for diversity. Offering incentives helps hold accountability for D&I programs, giving stakeholders a reason to ensure program success. By having easy access to measurement experts, organizations can better identify the metrics to track that are best suited to their goals. Tracking a wide range of metrics is an effective practice of advanced D&I functions; the increase in measurement from an undeveloped to an advanced organization is profound. By employing in-house measurement experts and vendors to identify areas of opportunity, organizations are better positioned to customize their diversity strategy to fit their needs.
Clearly defined, focused diversity strategy can help improve an organization’s bottom line, attract top talent and retain high-potential employees
Organizations with mature diversity functions follow a similar set of effective practices to make the business case for diversity programs
By measuring as many metrics as possible, using an integrated HR system to track demographics and using vendors strategically, organization cans successfully make the case of culture change
Accountability is also important and the most successful companies tie incentives to the completion of D&I goals
Through data tracking and analysis, organizations will see a more diverse workforce at their company, which can lead to innovation and increased employee engagement
There is a quote by John E. Jones: What gets measured gets done. What gets measured and fed back gets done well. What gets rewarded gets repeated. I want to leave you with some steps to proactively measuring diversity for success.
Effective organizations track more, measure more and reward more.
Organizations with an advanced diversity function are more likely to track a wide variety of workforce demographics and use incentives for D&I accountability. Advanced organizations have successfully used D&I metrics to make the business case for culture change.
Many organizations are also clearly spending a lot of resources on HR Systems that track workforce demographics. Organizations spend a lot of money buying tracking software for “diversity” and often can’t say why they bought it, what they’re looking for, what they’ll do if they discover a problem. It’s like they’re looking for problems or opportunities, but aren’t sure how to identify them if they see them. They want to be more strategic and add value, but often have trouble even identifying where their risks are. What does Strategic Diversity Measurement look like?
Understand the maturity level of your existing D&I program---Due Diligence: Understand the current state of your D&I; Define the future state of your D&I Depending on your position whether undeveloped, beginner, intermediate or advanced/vanguard, you will have a sense of the level of priority given to establishing goals and measuring for diversity.
Identify those diversity metrics that effect change within talent management --- As a best practice, we are focused on helping organizations gather and use metrics that address the full aspect of human capital management --- you should be able to draw on data that reflects your representation, talent acquisition, talent management and development and retention. Leveraging such metrics can help you more efficiently analyze your D&I, any gaps that may exist and ultimately progress.
Identify the right internal and external resources to efficiently produce results---Those of you on this call and many of your peers clearly see the strategic business value of D&I. A critical component of measurement is ensuring that you have the right expertise and tools in place to efficiently produce the information. This element connects back to the first tip of understanding your maturity level and then identifying what is needed to get your measurement component fully contributing and then what resources are available to manage that piece. Based on our findings, which Julia touched on, those in the undeveloped and beginner phases may leverage outside partners to support crafting the diversity strategy. Those within intermediate and advanced and vanguard may be more likely to leverage an outside resource or partner to help them identify areas of opportunity within their current program. PeopleFluent helps many companies with measuring for diversity
Share meaningful insight to further D&I initiative—While this is not necessarily the tactical aspect of the act of measuring, if you have gone through the effort and work of establishing goals, understanding the current state of D&I and defining where you want to be, putting the plan in place to measure diversity, to continue to close this loop, you need to have a way to communicate the insight to continue momentum of your program. From work we have done with various companies, the specific diversity reports we develop for our clients to share with the appropriate business managers or executives is key in driving the D&I initiative. The right scorecards can deliver a comprehensive view of progress and risks.
Leverage metrics to engage workforce---The more understanding you have of the diversity related decisions being made, the more developed of an action plan you can execute to drive D&I. You can institute the right type of management or employee training. You can help drive a desired culture by empowering your workforce with specific activities like employee resource groups
A clearly defined, focused diversity strategy can help an organization improve its bottom line, attract top talent and retain high-potential employees. We want to help leaders like you better utilize data tracking and analysis to ignite a more diverse workforce at their company, which can lead to innovation and increased employee engagement.