Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Work

For many, the murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020 shed a bright light on racial tensions in the United States and made the reality of systemic racism too blatant to ignore. That summer we experienced protests and civil unrest at a scale not seen since the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Floyd’s death sparked a political and cultural backlash that poured fuel on an already raging fire. Shockwaves of pain, anger, despair, and frustration were felt throughout the United States, and the world. And rightly so.

Social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter have pushed race, equity, and justice to the forefront of conversations nationwide, and many individuals, communities, and even the private sector are now seeking to drive change. Activist employees, particularly Gen Z and younger Millennial workers, challenged their leaders to take a stand on these issues and speak out. For many companies this was a call for self-reflection and action. They began to consider how they are contributing to ongoing social inequities, and how company culture and demographics are reinforcing systemic oppression.

Becoming a DE&I Workplace

Companies can help shift the current economy to one that’s more inclusive by making opportunities more accessible to people of traditionally oppressed groups. Economic inclusivity is an essential step toward a more equitable society - and it’s also good for companies. In addition to being the right thing to do, building a diverse workforce improves the employee experience, increases engagement, and strengthens company performance. Diverse organizations more accurately reflect reality, as they are more representative of the communities they engage with. This can benefit your company by bringing a richer slate of viewpoints, perspectives, and experiences to the team, which in turn helps you better serve your customers.

Defining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Workplace

Before examining what it means to put diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) into practice, let’s take a moment to define these terms:

Diversity in the context of work refers to the demographic mix of people within an organization. It goes beyond race or ethnicity to include gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, socioeconomic status, and religious or spiritual beliefs, to name a few.

Inclusion refers to the environment within an organization. An inclusive workplace is one in which diverse individuals feel truly welcome, valued, and able to bring their full selves to work.

Equity is about ensuring that processes and programs in the workplace are just, fair, and impartial. An equitable workplace creates the conditions that allow for all its employees to reach their full potential. To create these conditions, companies must take into account the unique circumstances of individuals and recognize that everyone has different barriers, advantages, resources, and opportunities.

While these terms are interconnected, they are far from interchangeable. Putting each into practice requires different efforts and initiatives, and embedding these practices into your company culture will take sustained focus and dedication. While implementing DE&I can feel intimidating, especially at first, it doesn’t have to be. You’re investing in the future of your organization by building a healthy and engaging work culture and becoming more innovative, resilient, and adaptable. A healthy work culture is built on trust, but that doesn’t happen overnight — it’s nurtured over time. It starts with examining things as they are, owning the truth that there is much room for change, and building a collective strategy for transformation. 

You can take on this work internally, or you can hire outside experts. An experienced DE&I consultant can provide support throughout the process, and might get more accurate and impartial insights. Most consultants in this space can provide any level of support you need, from conducting audits and assessments to developing strategies for increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion within your company.

Company Assessment

Start by examining how diverse your workforce is right now. You’ll want to assess your organization as a whole, from top to bottom. Many companies are extremely homogeneous. Understanding where you are today will help you identify the changes you’d like to make. 

In addition to the demographic makeup of your company, assess the degree to which people feel safe and free to be themselves. This is the essence of inclusion. Avoid making assumptions about how your employees perceive and experience their workplace. Instead, consider using anonymous surveys to gather candid feedback and gain a deeper understanding of how your employees feel your company is doing.

You’ll also want to examine your company’s compensation structures. Identify and address any pay gaps between individuals who share similar roles. Review your history of promotions, pay increases, and bonuses, and also assess who has been granted access to opportunities for advancement. Are these rewards and opportunities equitably distributed throughout your company? Or, is it possible that biases are impacting outcomes?

Stating Your Commitment

Your company’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion should be declared in a DE&I statement. After assessing your current reality, be transparent about your findings and share them with the entire team. Invite employees from all levels to participate in developing a consensus on what your DE&I vision looks like before drafting your statement. It’s critical for voices and perspectives from every level of the organization to be heard.

Your statement will be unique to your company based on what your team decides to prioritize and work toward. When it comes to drafting your statement, here are a few questions to consider:

• What does your company mean by diversity?

• What does inclusion mean to your organization?

• How can you nurture equity within your company?

• How do your values inform your commitment to DE&I?

• How does DE&I impact your company’s culture and influence the decisions you make?

• How does it support your vision or mission statement?

Some DE&I statements focus on internal operations, providing pragmatic guidelines for company culture and how they work. Other companies choose a more aspirational approach, describing a future defined by a unified understanding and commitment to a diverse, equitable and inclusive global community. Alternatively, your statement might focus on breaking harmful cycles by design, establishing guidelines that directly challenge models that perpetuate systems of oppression.

Here are two very different examples of DE&I statements:

Uber - “Our mission is to ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion. We see direct parallels between how we ignite opportunity through our company and how we ignite it within our company. But we also know that a solely data-driven approach will never be sufficient, because D&I is more than a box to check or a target to hit. The numbers matter, but they’re only a starting point; a commitment to diversity and inclusion has to run much deeper. That’s why we’ve set an audacious goal: to make Uber the most diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace on the planet. And we’re not just setting high expectations for our own good. We’re aiming sky-high because we know from experience that reducing and eliminating inequity is hard to do if all you shoot for is incremental change.”

Biogen - “To create, nurture and sustain a global, inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our patients and employees.”

Regardless of the approach you take, remember to avoid making the business case within your DE&I statement. While these practices do strengthen performance, this should not be your motivation. No matter what your goals and aspirations are, your statement should reflect a genuine commitment.

Once developed, your DE&I statement should be shared with your entire organization and all other stakeholders. Making your statement public is an important step in holding your company accountable to your commitment. Your statement can change as your organization matures and society evolves, but any changes should involve the same level of participation used to establish your DE&I statement in the first place.

Putting it into Practice

Now that you’re clear on your DE&I goals, it’s time to start the process of implementing them. The first step is to shift your internal practices to support your new commitments. We’ve laid out some areas you can focus on as you make changes. No matter what steps you include in your roadmap for achieving your goals, be sure to dedicate the necessary funding, time, and resources.

Inclusive Decision Making

How does your company make decisions? The traditional top-down decision making approach isn’t the only way to run a business. There are more inclusive models to follow which bring in voices and experiences from all levels of your organization. You can implement a formal democratic model like Holacracy or Sociocracy, or you can create one of your own. If you opt for designing your own approach, aim to flatten the hierarchy and provide employees with more autonomy. Having a hierarchical structure with many levels can actually reduce productivity and kill morale. Employees with more autonomy are generally more satisfied and engaged at work. Whatever model you adopt, make sure to have a strong execution plan to implement it. Big changes can be awkward and slow. Develop healthy communication channels, increase transparency, and provide assurances to your team that you are committed to this new approach.

Policies and Procedures

Do your company’s current policies and procedures reflect your commitment to DE&I? If not, it’s time to review them with your new DE&I objectives in mind. Identify anything that might be in opposition to your goals. For example, does your company still have a dress code? If so, what purpose does it serve? Does it limit anyone’s ability to fully show up as themselves? You’ll want to review every policy and procedure to ensure none of them alienate or discriminate against certain groups. Identify issues and draft necessary changes. Make sure your anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies are clearly stated and express a zero tolerance approach to violations. Create a strategy for sharing and implementing your updated policies. Without an implementation plan, these changes are unlikely to be adopted.

Prioritizing Diversity in Recruiting and Hiring

One of the most important ways to put your DE&I values into practice is through your approach to hiring and growing your team. Unfortunately, this is one area where bias can easily impact outcomes. To avoid this, start by assessing your current hiring practices. Consider every step in the process, from the moment you identify the need for help all the way to the onboarding process.

Job descriptions have a significant influence on who chooses to apply. Consider highlighting your organization’s DE&I commitment when advertising a new position. Look at the language you use to ensure it’s free from unnecessary jargon, understandable regardless of cultural differences, and appropriate for the role. Make sure compensation is fair and transparent, and share the pay range when posting the job opening to help candidates determine if it will meet their financial needs. Finally, examine the requirements you include - are they all really necessary? Statistically, people of diverse backgrounds might be discouraged to apply if they don’t meet all the requirements.

Use structured interviews for an equitable approach to applicant review, and design a robust onboarding process to ensure all new employees are set up for success. It’s important to remember that hiring and building a diverse workforce is only effective if also supported by an inclusive work environment. Diversity without inclusion is not progress, it’s tokenism.

Training, Coaching, and Mentoring

Continuing education and employee development is a proven way to strengthen your team and diversify access to opportunities within your organization. Investing in your people in this way is about creating equity and inclusion. Everyone has different experiences and needs, so support should be tailored and specific. Ensure you are selecting or designing training programs with cultural sensitivity. These programs aren’t just about new skills, but also about creating a sense of belonging, developing an employee’s confidence, and navigating the political and cultural aspects of work.

Coaching and mentoring programs are great ways to provide development opportunities as long as they are equitably structured and accessible to all. Coaches and mentors don’t need to be at different hierarchical levels within the organization. Consider establishing a peer-to-peer coaching model. These have proven to be an extremely effective approach. Creating the space for coworkers to hold each other accountable and encourage growth offers both parties the opportunity to develop new skills.

Don’t assume your leaders are already skilled in mentoring others. Mentors and coaches need tools and training in order to know how to do this work most effectively and with cultural competency. Like any skill, this must be learned. To meet DE&I goals, a successful mentor training program must include a focus on mitigating bias and discrimination. Unconscious biases can inadvertently have negative impacts on the way we mentor. One common example of this is how affinity bias can impact who is mentored and how they’re coached - familiarity and similarity should not have influence here.

Promotion & Succession Planning

To be a truly diverse and inclusive workplace, it’s important that the demographics of the highest levels of your organization reflect that commitment. But there’s no need to despair if this isn’t currently the case. You can get there with time and planning. Part of your strategy should include a promotion pipeline that’s accessible to all employees regardless of position. Assess your current practices for promoting people, formalizing anything that’s working well and addressing anything that’s working against your DE&I commitments. Make sure you add measures to prevent affinity bias. Leverage your employee education and development programs to help employees gain the skills and knowledge needed for promotion opportunities.

By designing your promotion strategy with your DE&I goals in mind, you’ll also be laying the groundwork for a strong leadership succession plan. Use the demographic information gathered during your assessment and consider the skills required for certain roles to help inform your approach for developing the future leaders of your organization.

Benefits & Compensation

Building equity within your organization starts with fair compensation. Provide your employees with the pay and benefits they need to support their wellbeing. Review each employee’s pay to ensure that everyone is making a living wage. Address any pay gaps between people in similar positions. Don’t be afraid to tackle major wage disparities between the top and bottom earners. In 2020, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 351-to-1. It’s hard to argue that any CEO’s contribution to an organization justifies such a significant gap. Ask your employees what benefits would help them live a more balanced and healthy life. You might not be able to implement all of these changes right away, but some may be fairly easy to provide now, and you can plan to add more over time. Create incentive programs that are accessible to anyone, like a companywide profit sharing program. By committing to fair compensation, your company will be making a clear statement in support of your DE&I commitments.

Measuring Performance

There’s a saying people often use when talking about measuring progress: “measure what matters”. Identifying key performance indicators, or KPI’s, will enable you to focus on specific variables and measure outcomes with more precision. If you want to become an inclusive organization that celebrates diversity, you must be able to assess your progress. Establishing strong DE&I performance indicators is an important part of this transition process. For example, you might create a survey with quantifiable responses and have your team complete it at regular intervals. Whatever method you choose, be sure to establish open communication channels and opportunities for receiving feedback.

Continuous Improvement

Becoming an inclusive, diverse, and equitable organization is a journey that doesn’t end. Companies need to evolve as our cultural and societal norms change. This work is about fostering an environment of curiosity, humility, accountability, and learning. It’s important to remain open-minded and continue to ask “how can we do better?” Don’t let mistakes or setbacks throw you off course. Learn from them. Stay committed to becoming the diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization you aspire to be.