Start with your core values. These values should guide your DEI goals which you can then track on your report. For instance, maybe you want to highlight your year-over-year progress for race, ethnicity, and gender diversity. Or, maybe you want to focus on ensuring there are minorities in every level of your organization. Is your C-Suite diverse? Or, are only your entry level employees made up of a wide range of people? These are key goals to track that should correlate with your core values.
What is not tracked and measured, gets lost and forgotten. Understand the diversity, equity, and inclusion gaps in your organization. Dive into the policies, practices, and behaviors and more importantly stay connected to the teams across the organization by listening to their DEI pain points. Prioritize short-term wins and long-term actions. You want to demonstrate to your teams that they were heard and there are long-term actions that will require more energy and resources. These prioritized items become your actions to report out internally and externally. These prioritized actions also align to a broader DEI strategy, purpose, and accountability to build sustainable momentum. Simone Sloan
Some organizations put in the work to ensure their DEI Program is the DNA of their organization. Their efforts pay off in a profitable and humanitarian way. People want to work for authentic organizations that align with their values. But, sadly, there are organizations only checking off the boxes. What\'s the difference? Organizations who make DNA the fabric of their organizations do several things: 1.) They aren\'t afraid to assess their culture, openly discuss their blind spots, and most importantly do something to change the narrative. 2.) They align their DEI initiatives with organizational goals. Metrics create accountability. If an organization is unwilling to take this step, they are likely not serious about DEI. 3.) They execute. There is so much talking about DEI. But, organizations committed to doing the work make DNA the fabric of their organizations and form initiatives that bring about change. If your organization takes these steps, the sky is the limit!
Go beyond quantitative and qualitative data to increase the value of the report. Executives outside of the field often struggle to connect DEI to the "big picture". DEI Leaders have an opportunity to facilitate and usher in that clarity with patience and effective "E-speak" by linking DEI progress, or a lack thereof, to overall business objectives. One example is to present the report findings by identifying the subsequent impact on ROI and P/L for specific and strategic goals associated with the following: Productivity Process Improvement Technology and Innovation Service/Product Creation and Enhancement Employee Recruitment and Retention Corporate Social Responsibility Business Development Senior-level executives who engage, respect, and value the DEI Leader as a business partner and peer are essential to securing data and additional information to support this approach.
The journey to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive - or human-centered - company culture happens over many years. Along the way, you'll have successes and you'll have misses. You'll make strategic decisions to focus on your annual priorities which means some potential focus areas won't receive attention in your first year, or your second year, or maybe even your third year. That's okay. When sharing your annual DEI report, be clear about your priorities with detail how you have, or have not, moved the needle on those priorities. Celebrate your successes and the actions behind you've taken to deliver on your commitment to DEI. Be open about your areas of opportunity, where you can do better, and share how you've learned from your misses. This balanced, transparent, and honest approach to your messaging will contribute to reaching your community in a trusted, authentic, and meaningful way.
It is critical to approach your DE&I strategy as you would any other business initiative with planning, training, and metrics at all levels. The leadership team must communicate, lead by example, and allocate resources to the strategy. Your line-level managers and supervisors must be given tools, training, and expectations, including Key Performance Indicators with DE&I goals. To create a culture of inclusion and belonging, your employees will need transparent communication about the goals and progress of your DE&I strategy. If you are transparent about your goals and progress, it will keep the entire organization moving forward instead of diversity backlash when not meeting expectations.
It is essential to include quantitative data in DEI reporting. Qualitative data brings the human experience and perspective of the DEI initiatives and strategies. It is an opportunity to ask open-ended questions and collect data that measures employees\' feelings and attitudes. It is a great way to measure inclusion. It also provides content specific to the organization and industry when reporting and writing articles.
The best advice I can give for when you are creating a DEI progress report for a business, is keep your goals small and attainable. Build in incremental steps, resisting the urge affect sweeping change. DEI can challenge people's ingrained world views, so baby steps are usually the best way to build a progress report. Many HR leaders can immediately see the benefits of the DEI program they want to create. However, the employees in a company spend their days focused on any number of other things. Add to that the DEI progress report is going to affect change in the business, and anytime changes happen, humans can tend to feel threatened. Building incrementally through small, attainable goals is a solid way to achieve the ultimate goal of a DEI program. Slowly integrating policies and practices goes a long way in softening the shifts away from well intentioned, but ultimately harmful, traditions. Please let me know if you have any questions!
A DEI progress report is great, and can be an amazing opportunity to show how far your business has come. But the work doesn't stop there! Making sure to include actionable next steps towards the end of your report will show that your business is actually committed to DEI in the longterm.
Assess your company culture and recognize the numbers to focus on when incorporating the DEI progress. When we implemented the DEI progress in our company, we used metrics, milestones, and benchmarking to align this initiative with our objectives. It's necessary to take this action to avoid division and make the process a success. My best advice is to ensure that standards allow equal pay and promotion while incorporating diverse staffing.
Build your DEI report around diversity and inclusivity data to illustrate it well. Let the statistics do the talking to maintain an objective tone across the document. Load your report with valuable and comprehensive data. DEI is a very nuanced and delicate topic to discuss, which is why it is important to carefully curate your DEI report card. Gather the necessary statistics on gender identity, race, ethnicity, disability, socioeconomic status, and veteran status, among others. Make sure that you do not omit any marginalized sector in your company because that will be largely ironic to your report.
The ‘social media out' percentage is one emerging DEI metric that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion arising from the recent two-year pandemic crisis. It measures how many employees shout out their preferred sexuality, religion, or other DEI-related preference through Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Include relevant findings about the impact of the prolonged community lockdowns and massive shift from office-based to remote or hybrid work settings on this emerging metric. The same DEI concept applies to other similar crises in the future.
Partner with organizations that have successful DEI efforts in the past years. That way, you will be exposed to their practices and learn methods you can apply when creating your own report. It also allows you to get insights that will help you effectively use the data you gather from your employees, which can positively contribute to molding a culture where DEI is among the top priorities. Suppose none of the businesses in your locality has a proven record of effective DEI reports. In that case, you can look up the steps done by huge organizations like Coca-Cola, which considers diversity and inclusion as an integral part of their organization. Coca-Cola has a Diversity Speaker Series where they invite DEI experts to promote awareness to their employees and encourage them to be more open and comfortable in their own skin. These examples can give you a solid inspiration regarding some steps you should try to make your report more meaningful and progressive.
DEI progress reports must always be transparent. After all, achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion is an ongoing process that needs continual improvement. Only with total transparency can the program's progress be accurately tracked. Not to mention, being transparent with your DEI progress report will highlight any unknown and unconscious biases that hinder advancement, as well as emphasize repetitive practices that promote the exclusion of the “different” or “unfit" which makes your DEI program ineffective. With transparency can the organization truly hold itself accountable for the headway and setbacks it's making. This enables HR teams and employers to fully leverage their reports as learning tools that help the business actually become diverse, equitable, and inclusive as the workforce, the time, and the law rightfully demand.
Start by assessing the culture. Recognize that DEI activities go beyond just paying attention to the numbers. Every DEI project should start with a culture assessment of the company. Match DEI Projects With Organizational Objectives Align the objectives of the organization's DEI activities with measurements, benchmarks, and milestones. Ensure that a senior executive in charge of the program's execution and success is responsible for reporting, overseeing, and owning the program's progress. Consider unknown variables The basis for building an accepting atmosphere where variety can flourish is the capacity to measure, visualize, and optimise those.
Connect the metrics to your first line of DEI implementation - your line leaders. Even an accurate and thorough DEI report is useless if you can’t connect the results to the team members that will use them to influence their practices. A Chief Diversity Officer or DEI Director need to share the reported results with the line leaders that actually make the promotion, deployment, and hiring decisions so they can work together to improve DEI in the workplace.
I think if you want to stand out with your report or show that you really stand behind your values, you must make it specific. Be specific about your goals, and actions, how will you meet them, what steps exactly have you taken already, and what would you do in the future. I think that’s important because that's what makes your report believable, otherwise, it’s just for checking the box.
The best piece of advice for creating a DEI progress report for business is to DEI data-gathering. Companies usually understand that to make progress against goals, they require to accumulate DEI-related data. The 83% of Culture Amp’s surveyed companies reported that they’re accumulating data, as permitted by the local laws. But few companies are amassing data beyond those related to visible traits of identity, for example, race or ethnicity, age, and gender identity. And, when they’re gathering more robust data, they are failing to share it with the key stakeholders in their companies.
Hold quarterly meetings with your employees. Most DEI progress reports are data-driven, and analysis heavy, and though that’s helpful, you cannot forget that the most relevant progress report is going to come directly from your employees. Hold quarterly meetings where your employees share their thoughts and experiences with DEI progress at the company. Then use their feedback to implement immediate change where it’s needed. When you’re creating a progress report, go directly to the people with whom it concerns and ask them how they think progress is going.
Try to focus on the macro more than the micro. Promoting diversity in the workplace comes down to fostering a community of inclusion above all else. There are so many factors that could be included in a DEI progress report, but not all areas will produce an equal impact. Regardless of what factors are included, the most important thing to remember is that any type of change takes time. If you want to improve any metric, you must first measure it and constantly evaluate your progress.