As talent places greater focus on company culture and businesses realize the critical business importance of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), business leaders are looking for ways to measure their progress. Effectively closing gaps can help promote an inclusive culture, drive engagement, and accelerate performance. However, without truly understanding their starting point, businesses risk employing DE&I strategies that fail to affect tangible change. The key to building an impactful strategy is rooting it in data and leveraging digital tools to uncover and apply tailored workforce insights.
See More: 4 Ways To Optimize Your Global Hiring Strategy for DEI Success
Understanding and Applying DE&I Data
Regardless of company size or structure, DE&I is a priority for everyone. An effective DE&I strategy should start at the top with setting measurable goals and assigning accountability to meet them. Goals should be meaningful, purpose-driven, and captured in writing for employees and clients to understand what your business stands for when it comes to DE&I.
Data is key to understanding how diverse and equitable your business truly is. Does your leadership reflect the diversity of the rest of your business? What termination reasons are affecting diversity the most? Do you have standard pay ranges or guidelines for each position to ensure fairness in pay?
Once you have the data to these questions, you can better identify the gaps you’ll need to close and tailor your DE&I strategy to achieve that aim. Comparing progress against an established maturity model can help inform strategy further. For example, many businesses are utilizing ADP’s diversity maturity model to understand their current DE&I efforts in comparison, helping them identify what programs, policies and practices are in place to support diversity initiatives and which need to evolve. The assessmentOpens a new window helps identify what may be adversely impacting results and determine what priorities and strategic objectives businesses might need to address. Businesses that want to move the needle must start by acknowledging gaps and turning awareness into action. Once you have clearly defined goals backed by workforce data, you can build your strategy.
With many businesses, large and small, struggling to find talent, organizations are digitizing to keep their operations running smoothly. As digitalization increases, there will be a greater need for a digital infrastructure that accounts for how business processes like recruiting, compensation, and more can impact DE&I. For example, technology can help reduce bias in job postings, remove identification details from your candidates’ resumes, and provide pay equity benchmarking data to help you identify and close compensation gaps.
See More: How Real-Time Data Analytics Can Increase DEI Success
Inclusivity as a Key Recruiting and Hiring Theme
In a tight talent market, businesses are focusing on employees’ priorities, one of which is a strong sense of connection. As businesses work to foster cultures of inclusion where everyone feels welcome and celebrated for their unique contributions, they’ll want to effectively communicate their purpose. Candidates want to know the core values of your business, what you stand for, and how you’re giving back to the community. Make this a priority and communicate your efforts and the progress you’ve made against your goals.
Another key consideration is ensuring your job descriptions are inclusive. Recruiters will need to focus on reducing unconscious bias in the hiring process and tap into expertise to build programs that support underrepresented groups.
As businesses look to evolve in the year ahead, talent will remain a critical focus. An effective and measurable DE&I program is essential in recruiting, retaining and developing a competitive workforce and fueling creativity and innovation.
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