Anti-Racism, Implicit Bias, Diversity And Inclusion Programs: 
Culture Development Strategies, Team Conversations, and Workforce Systems for Improved Employee Equity

Some of our program options include:

What elements should be included in a comprehensive workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion program?

From diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism training and educational opportunities, to affinity and employee resource groups, to HR policies and recruiting practices, to management behaviors and organizational values, an effective program has many facets and no magic formulas.

However, there are 10 key elements that we recommend: 

1. Develop a mentoring program, paying close attention to the need for top-down sponsorship and diverseness across age, sexual orientation, race, religion, gender, and other various identities.
2. Establish a diversity-focused recruiting plan including the use of hiring technology to increase fairness. 
3. Facilitate awareness and buy-in via unconscious bias, antiracism, and inclusion training. 
4. Review and fine tune your discrimination and harassment policies. 
5. Inspect and improve your complaint systems. 
6. Foster diversified business networks and cross-company networking by establishing ERGs (employee resource groups). 
7. Appoint diversity and Inclusivity manager(s). 
8. Create a safe space for race and diversity conversations, facilitated by an experienced expert. 
9. Inspire culture change via top-down support and executive sponsorship of diversity resolutions and inclusion values.
10. Commit to continuous improvement. DEI program results require flexibility, adaptability, resilience, and persistence.

What are the success metrics employers use to measure the effectiveness of their diversity and inclusion trainings?

The two primary categories for measuring D&I program effectiveness are demographic representation and equity in the workplace, and the stakeholder (employee, customer, vendor, community) experience.

“ Representation is a measure of diversity; the employee experience is a measure of inclusion.”  
- Steven Huang, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Culture Amp

The key measurements* for measuring the progress and effectiveness of your diversity and inclusion program fall into two categories: 

1. Demographic representation and equity This includes compositional data (race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, etc.) segmented by roles to assess and evaluate: 
   • Promotions, hiring, exiting, and terminations
   • Pay data and pay gaps

2. The employee, vendor, community, and customer experience. This includes collecting and tracking internal and external complaints of discrimination, bias, or harassment. Additionally, it’s critical to measure managers’ responses to complaints as well as employee experience related to the confirmation or contradiction of organizational inclusion and fairness. 

*Consult an HR compliance expert for proper data collection requirements.

What’s the business case for establishing diversity and inclusion trainings and for setting diversity, inclusion, and equity in the workplace goals?

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent rulings determined that discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, religion, disability, national origin, pregnancy (and eventually sexual orientation) is illegal in the American workplace. However, there are even more compelling business reasons to invest in Diversity and Inclusion programs, training, and culture change initiatives.

In addition to the ethical, moral, and compliance case for DEI, there is bottom-line impact that also makes the business case for your diversity and inclusion programs: 

• Companies with above-average diversity yield 19% more innovation revenue. (Boston Resource Group survey 2017) 
• Companies in the top 25% for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.” - (McKinsey, 2015, Diversity Matters Report) 
• “Companies with at least one female board member had a return on equity of 14.1 percent over the past nine years, greater than the 11.2 percent for those without any women. The stock valuations are also higher for gender diverse boards versus all-male ones.” - Credit Suisse
• “In the United States, there is a linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance: for every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rise 0.8 percent.” (McKinsey, 2015, Diversity Matters Report)
• Diversity matters to your pipeline: The post-Millennial generation is the most diverse in history (Pew Research Center); And, only 56% of the 87 million millennials in the country are white, as compared to 72% of the 76 million members of the baby boomer generation. (CNN Money)
  
• “Employees of firms with 2-D diversity [inherent traits and acquired experience] are 45 percent more likely to report a growth in market share over the previous year and 70 percent more likely to report that the firm captured a new market.” - (Harvard Business Review) 
• Diverse and inclusive work forces demonstrate 1.12x more discretionary effort, 1.19x greater intent to stay, 1.57x more collaboration among teams, and 1.42x greater team commitment. (Corporate Executive Board) 
• More than 50% of current employees want their workplace to do more to increase diversity and inclusion, and 67% of job seekers consider workplace diversity an important factor when considering a job. (Glassdoor) 

This is not an exhaustive list of measurable statistics that make the case for diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism programs in the workplace. An organization that taps into just one of these improved business results can pay for their initiatives and then some.

Diversity programs enable companies to mitigate litigation expenses, improve its employer brand, attract quality talent, outperform competitors, and increase profitability.