Did you know diverse companies have twice as high cash flow per worker?

While companies are progressing on diversity, inclusion, and equity, there’s still a need for inclusive workplaces. These workplaces can combat inequality and increase engagement levels.

As a business leader, now is the time to understand core DEI tips and principles. These principles help create workplaces where everyone feels welcomed, respected, and valued. They highlight that everyone has different perspectives and backgrounds that we should celebrate.

There are several things you can do to promote DEI. These tasks include creating a clear vision and strategy and advocating for DEI. Keep reading for tips that can guide you through this process.

Impactful Goals to Set for a DEI Strategy

Setting goals is an essential part of any DEI strategy. Goals provide a roadmap for your organization’s DEI efforts. They can also help you track your progress over time.

With clearly set goals, you can hold yourself accountable. So it’s easy to stay on track and ensure that you are making progress. You can also use them to motivate your team to participate in DEI efforts.

One of the goals should be to cover your workforce diversity. It should help you increase the number of women, people of color, or people with disabilities. Also, focus it on members of other underrepresented groups in your workforce.

You should aim toward creating a more equitable workplace. To do this, ensure everyone in your organization has the same opportunities. Remember to address unconscious bias and discrimination in the workplace.

While promoting an inclusive culture, take an all-rounded approach. Create a workplace that values and respects everyone, regardless of your employees’ backgrounds. You may also offer training on DEI to employees.

Measure your progress on your DEI goals at every step to reduce turnover. This way, you can track your progress and identify areas to improve. Here are some additional tips for setting impactful DEI goals:

• Ensure your goals are specific, achievable, measurable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART)
• Involve employees in the goal-setting process to address their needs
• Set realistic goals (those that aren’t too ambitious or too easy to achieve)

DEI Tips to Implement in Your Industry and Community

A DEI strategy can help your company attract and retain top talent. It can also improve employee engagement and satisfaction while boosting creativity and innovation. If you are looking to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace, here are tips to guide you:

Connect DEI with Your Company’s Mission, Vision, and Values

Ensure your DEI strategy aligns with your company’s vision, mission, and values. Doing this helps ensure that it is a priority. You’ll have it integrated into all aspects of your company’s culture.

Communicate your DEI strategy to your employees and stakeholders. Do this to ensure that everyone understands the importance of DEI. They should be willing to help you achieve your DEI goals.

As you measure your progress, see if the DEI strategy aligns with your values. Look at what is working and what is not. You can use this information to make adjustments to your strategy as needed.

Start from the Top Down

Involve your company’s leadership team in the DEI strategy. You should let them know what it entails and how they’ll benefit. Ensure they’re willing to allocate resources to DEI initiatives and champion DEI throughout the company.

Create a culture of inclusion and belonging. With this culture, everyone in the company needs to feel like you value and respect them. That is regardless of their background.

You should also hold everyone accountable for upholding DEI values. Start with the CEO and also consider the front-line employees. Ensure there’s a chain of command in executing the DEI strategy for accountability.

Recruit Talent Through Diverse Sources

Use multiple recruiting channels to reach a diverse pool of candidates. The channels can include online job boards, employee referrals, and networking events. They can help you create an inclusive work environment.

Target your recruiting efforts to diverse audiences. You can reach out to minority-owned businesses or attend diversity conferences. Partnering with diversity organizations or alum groups can also help.

While doing this, note that diversity is not just about improving your company. It’s also about creating a more just and equitable world. With a diverse workforce, you can break down barriers and create a more level work environment for everyone.

During the hiring process, focus on inclusivity. Ensure that the process is free of bias. You can use objective criteria to assess candidates and avoid unconscious bias.

Offer unconscious bias training to your hiring managers and recruiters. With this training, they understand their own biases. As a result, they’ll avoid making unfair or discriminatory decisions.

Compensate Employees Fairly and Be Transparent About Wages

You should set transparent salary ranges for all positions. These salary ranges should help ensure that employees get fair wages. They shouldn’t discriminate on gender, race, or other factors.

Regular pay reviews can help you confirm if your employees get fair wages. Use them to determine if the wages are below or above the required limits. Make changes where necessary if there’s any inequality.

Provide opportunities for employees to discuss their salaries with their managers. This way, employees can negotiate fair pay. But they need to be comfortable discussing it with their managers.

Build a DEI Program With Training, Mentorship, and Employee Resource Groups

Offer training on DEI to your employees regardless of their job duties. The training should help them understand the importance of DEI. It should also make them more aware of their own biases.

Create special employee resource groups (ERGs) for underrepresented groups. ERGs offer a safe space for employees to discuss their experiences. Underrepresented groups can use them to advocate for change.

Lastly, offer mentorship opportunities for employees from underrepresented groups. Mentorship can help them develop their skills. It also provides plenty of opportunities to advance their careers.

Mistakes To Avoid With Your Dei Strategy

Companies make mistakes with DEI initiatives due to various reasons. Most of them need a clearer understanding of what DEI is and why it is important. They make decisions that don’t align with their DEI goals.

Some companies are yet to commit to DEI fully. They half-heartedly implement DEI initiatives, which are less likely to be successful. DEI initiatives can be expensive and time-consuming for businesses with tight budgets.

With support from the leadership team, the initiatives will succeed. Tokenism when it comes to DEI is also a challenge. Some companies make superficial changes to their workplace to suggest that they commit to DEI.

But they don’t make any fundamental changes that will impact the experiences of underrepresented groups. They should understand these common mistakes to avoid making them themselves. Here are some of the mistakes to avoid with a DEI strategy in detail:

Not Having a Clear Vision or Strategy

You should have a clear vision for your DEI strategy. You need to state what you want to achieve and your goals. With a clear vision, you can develop a plan to achieve it.

Not Involving Employees

Incorporating employees as active participants in the DEI strategy process is essential because they are the true experts on their own experiences. By involving them, you can ensure the strategy’s comprehensiveness and accuracy, as their insights and perspectives are invaluable in shaping an inclusive and effective approach.

Not Being Data-Driven

Always measure the progress of your DEI initiatives at every level. You get to see what is working and what is not. Use your data to track your progress over time and identify areas of improvement.

Lack of Transparency

Transparency is an integral part of any successful DEI strategy. Be transparent about your DEI goals and metrics. Do this to build trust with your employees and stakeholders.

Not Being Patient

It may take some time to see the results of your DEI strategy. So don’t expect to see business results overnight. Just be consistent, and you will eventually achieve your goals.

Failing to Celebrate Little Milestones

When you achieve your DEI goals, be sure to celebrate your successes. Inform your employees and other stakeholders about the milestones. Sharing this information can help keep your team motivated and engaged.

Measuring Progress on DEI

Measure the progress of your DEI strategy to ensure that your efforts are effective. You can use qualitative measures and cultural audits to do this. Whichever method you use, ensure they can help you get a complete picture of the progress.

Quantitative measures focus on data and statistics. They cover the number of women and people of color in your workforce. Focus them on the percentage of employees who feel the workplace considers their needs and the number of complaints of discrimination.

Qualitative measures focus on employee perceptions and experiences. This can include surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Since they are subjective, they require a lot of time to analyze.

Cultural audits assess the overall culture of your organization. Use them to identify areas where there may be unconscious bias or discrimination. They can involve interviews with employees, focus groups, and reviewing organizational policies/procedures.

Tips for Measuring the Progress of Your DEI Strategy

Before you measure your progress, you need to establish a baseline. The baseline will be a starting point to use to measure your progress. You can collect data on your organization’s DEI before implementing your DEI strategy.

Since not all measures are equal, choose only relevant ones. These measures should reflect your organization’s goals to offer you the information you need to make informed decisions. Some common DEI metrics include:

• Diversity (that covers people that make up an organization)
• Equity (that ensures everyone has the same opportunities)
• Inclusion (that helps create an environment that caters to everyone’s needs)

Data collection through interviews, surveys, or focus groups should be ongoing. With the right data, you can track your progress over time. It’s also easy to identify areas where you need to make improvements.

Once you collect the data, you must analyze it to see how you are doing. Identify areas where you are making progress and areas where you need to improve. You can use data visualization tools to help you analyze your data.

After analyzing the data, take action to address areas where you need to improve. You can make changes to your policies and procedures. The process will also involve training your workers.

Lastly, communicate your progress to your employees and stakeholders. This way, you can keep them engaged in your DEI efforts. You’ll also show your commitment to making progress.

Examples of Successful DEI Initiatives from Other Businesses

Businesses that adopt DEI programs tend to succeed. They have stronger employee morale, improved customer satisfaction, and increased innovation. Examples of these businesses globally include Netflix, Spotify, Microsoft, and Google.

Netflix has several successful DEI initiatives in place. The company is committed to hiring 50% women and underrepresented minorities by 2025. It also has a program that supports women in the workplace.

Spotify has a program called “Spotify for Good” as part of its DEI advocacy. The program supports social justice causes. Its “Spotify Equalizer” program promotes equity and inclusion in the music industry.

Microsoft aims to hire 25% of women in leadership roles by 2025. The company also has a program called “Microsoft Aspire.” Microsoft Aspire supports underrepresented minorities in the tech industry.

Google aims to hire 50% of women and underrepresented minorities by 2025. It also has a program called “Google for Startups” that supports underrepresented entrepreneurs. These are just a few examples of successful DEI initiatives from other businesses.

Many other businesses are doing great work in this area. Check out the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) for more examples. SHRM has a toolkit for creating a more inclusive workplace.

The National Diversity Council (NDC) is also an excellent resource for this information. It maintains resources on DEI, including a guide on measuring DEI progress. On the World Economic Forum (WEF) website, you can find a report on the business cases for DEI.

Looking to Upgrade Your Management Skills?

Based on the DEI tips discussed above, a corporate culture reset can improve employee morale. However, you need a clear DEI vision and strategy to advocate for DEI in your industry and community. You should also train employees and measure progress on DEI.

At NDNU, we believe effective management requires DEIL expertise (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Leadership). Our 100% on-line MA DEIL program builds leaders with DEI expertise, so they can take their organizations to the next level. Check out our MA DEIL program today to get started. MA DEIL – Notre Dame de Namur University (ndnu.edu)