Diversifying Your Workforce:

Can you guess why top-tier companies place such a high emphasis on diversity? At the core of any successful business is a workforce that mirrors the world around it.

Not only do diverse companies create empowering and creative environments for their teams, but data consistently shows that companies with diverse workforces are 35% more likely to financially outperform their peers.

Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requires intentionality and thoughtful strategies. This includes understanding the current makeup of your workforce, the demographic characteristics of your talent pool, the communities in which you serve and are located, and your target customers.

It also involves scrutinizing your sourcing strategies, leadership support, internal and external communications, and the overall work environment to identify and dismantle any barriers that hinder inclusivity.

In this first part of our four-part series on DEI, we aim to guide employers through the nuances of establishing, assessing, and refining DEI strategies to build a more vibrant, diverse, and innovative workforce. We’ll examine how to effectively assess various facets of your organization and what actionable steps can be taken based on your findings.

With guidance and tactical advice from a former VP of Talent Acquisition, we’ll help you not only understand the “why” but also the “how” of building a workforce that mirrors the diverse world we live in.

What is a diverse workforce?

Diversity in the workplace is important to the demographics of the communities and customers a company serves, but it extends beyond that. By fostering a culture where every individual feels valued and respected, companies enhance customer relations and deepen their community connections.

Having a diverse range of perspectives in the workplace is key for any company looking to stand out on the global stage. When people from different backgrounds come together to share their unique experiences and viewpoints, it sparks innovation and supercharges creative problem-solving.

The value of diversity is further underscored by the positive perception of DEI initiatives among employees. According to a Forbes article on the 2024 DEI outlook, DEI investment is on the rise, expected to double by 2026 due to investor demands, legislative pressures, and a new generation of workers for whom DEI is essential.

Statistical evidence supports the business case for diversity. Companies with diverse teams often report better financial performance, with profits significantly above their industry averages. These companies benefit from a broader applicant pool, improved employee morale, and enhanced overall performance—which fosters long-term business sustainability and growth.

Beyond the business benefits, promoting diversity advances social responsibility, and ethical leadership as well as an acknowledgement and respect for the diversity of the communities in which they live and serve. Leaders committed to DEI inspire others and drive meaningful change, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive society.

By embracing diverse teams, businesses not only achieve better outcomes but also build a legacy of inclusivity and integrity that reaches beyond the corporate world into the wider community

When we talk about a diverse workforce, we’re really looking at the full spectrum of what makes each of us unique.

This includes not just the basics like race, gender, and age, but also extends to sexual orientation, religion, educational backgrounds, marital status, socioeconomic status, size, veteran status, political affiliation, and disabilities.

“A diverse workforce is one that employs people of different cultural backgrounds, ages, races, genders, disabilities, religions, sexual orientations, marital & socioeconomic status and levels of professional experience & education.” -Indeed, 2023

So why does this matter for your organization?

Companies that genuinely celebrate diversity are often the ones solving problems faster and innovating quicker because they reflect the diverse world around us.

Let’s break down diversity into two categories: inherent and acquired.

Inherent diversity involves traits you’re born with, such as your ethnicity or gender. Acquired diversity, on the other hand, includes traits you pick up through life experiences, like your personal values, educational background, or professional expertise. The real magic unfolds when these two types of diversity blend, enriching discussions with a wide array of perspectives and ideas.

How can you tell if your workplace is genuinely diverse? True diversity is reflected in the spread of representation across various roles and levels within a company—and importantly, in how these diverse voices are woven into the fabric of decision-making.

Creating and nurturing a diverse workforce is a continuous journey that involves understanding, commitment, and intentional actions from every level of an organization. When done right, it helps businesses thrive in a competitive global market.

Why is diversity important to business?

Diversity in the workplace is important to the demographics of the communities and customers a company serves, but it extends beyond that. By fostering a culture where every individual feels valued and respected, companies enhance customer relations and deepen their community connections.

Having a diverse range of perspectives in the workplace is key for any company looking to stand out on the global stage. When people from different backgrounds come together to share their unique experiences and viewpoints, it sparks innovation and supercharges creative problem-solving.

The value of diversity is further underscored by the positive perception of DEI initiatives among employees. According to a Forbes article on the 2024 DEI outlook, DEI investment is on the rise, expected to double by 2026 due to investor demands, legislative pressures, and a new generation of workers for whom DEI is essential.

Statistical evidence supports the business case for diversity. Companies with diverse teams often report better financial performance, with profits significantly above their industry averages. These companies benefit from a broader applicant pool, improved employee morale, and enhanced overall performance—which fosters long-term business sustainability and growth.

Beyond the business benefits, promoting diversity advances social responsibility, and ethical leadership as well as an acknowledgement and respect for the diversity of the communities in which they live and serve. Leaders committed to DEI inspire others and drive meaningful change, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive society.

By embracing diverse teams, businesses not only achieve better outcomes but also build a legacy of inclusivity and integrity that reaches beyond the corporate world into the wider community.

Assessing diversity in your organization

Let's say you've decided that your organization needs some help prioritizing diversity, or you'd like to ensure you're reaching a pool of candidates that reflects your community—where do you start? Step one, before you make any changes, is to understand your current workforce. Really do a deep dive to understand the demographics of your current employees. 

This is a crucial first step to understanding where you are today on your DEI journey and help you best determine your goals and initiatives. This process offers a clear picture of your team and how it aligns with the communities where your business operates, your customer base, and even the broader job market.

Start by comparing the demographics of your employees to those of your target customers, the communities surrounding your physical locations, and your current pool of job applicants. Also, look at the broader U.S. census data to see how your team stacks up against national averages. This comparison is key to spotting disparities or gaps that might exist in your workforce's diversity.

Focus on essential metrics like ratios—this could include the proportion of different ethnicities, genders, ages, and other relevant demographic factors across various levels within your company, from entry-level positions right up to your top leadership.

Transparency in how you report these demographics is incredibly important. When you share the results openly with your stakeholders—including your employees, customers, and the broader public—it builds trust and accountability, and encourages an open conversation about how your company can continue to improve and evolve its DEI efforts.

What is the public perception of your organization’s DEI commitment?

How your employees and the public perceive your organization’s commitment to DEI can significantly influence your reputation and employer brand.

The alignment between your actions and the messages you communicate, both explicitly and implicitly, forms the backbone of this perception.

Here are some key areas to explore:

• Begin by taking a look at the diversity statement in your recruitment advertising and on your career site, along with the internal communications you share with your team. Consistency is key here—ensure that your public declarations match your actual practices and genuinely reflect your dedication to fostering a diverse workplace.
• Examine the imagery used in your recruitment materials, marketing efforts, and on your digital platforms. Are the visuals representative of the diversity within your current team and the diversity you aim to achieve? Effective use of diverse imagery can powerfully reinforce your inclusivity message.
• Review your policies and procedures to confirm they support a diverse workforce effectively. Consider practices like:
  • offering medical benefits for domestic partners
  • covering costs for background checks to facilitate more inclusive hiring
  • providing floating holidays for cultural observance
  • enabling flexible work options, and
  • promoting career advancement through tuition reimbursement and internal recruitment programs

To gauge external perceptions of your DEI commitment, you can monitor feedback across social media, employer review sites, surveying current employees and direct community interactions. This feedback is a goldmine of insights, revealing how outsiders view your DEI efforts and highlighting potential areas for enhancement.

Finally, the role of employer branding cannot be overstated in reflecting your DEI values. A strong employer brand that consistently demonstrates these values can attract candidates who prioritize working in an inclusive and diverse environment.

By proactively managing and enhancing how your DEI commitment is perceived, you can strengthen your employer brand and foster trust that resonates with both internal and external stakeholders.

Have you created unintended barriers to people applying?

When your goal is to attract a diverse array of candidates, it’s essential to consider any potential barriers that might prevent talented individuals from applying.

Identifying and addressing these barriers can significantly widen your talent pool and ensure equity in your recruiting process.

One key area to evaluate is the accessibility of your application process. For many candidates, especially those in lower socioeconomic brackets, access to a computer may be limited. Ensuring that your application process is mobile-friendly is crucial since many individuals rely on their smartphones for internet access. A mobile-optimized application can make the difference between a candidate being able to apply or not.

Beyond digital accessibility, consider the formats of your application. Providing alternatives to online applications, such as paper forms or the option to apply via phone, can help reach candidates who may not have access to any digital devices. This approach shows a commitment to inclusivity and ensures you're not missing out on potential applicants due to technological limitations.

Another common barrier is the requirement for a resume. Not all candidates may have the means or knowledge to create a professional resume. This requirement can deter skilled individuals who might excel in the role but are unable to submit the standard paperwork. Consider allowing candidates to apply with simplified forms, or provide links to free resources where they can get help crafting a resume.

Additionally, the location of recruitment events can influence who is able to attend. Ensuring that these events are accessible by public transportation as well as wheelchair accessible can increase the diversity of attendees. It’s also worth considering virtual recruitment events, which can be accessed by a broader audience and can help reduce physical and logistical barriers.

By systematically reviewing and adapting your application and recruitment processes, you can remove hurdles that may unintentionally exclude talented individuals from diverse backgrounds. This not only enhances the diversity of your applicant pool but also demonstrates your organization’s dedication to a truly inclusive hiring practice and understanding that candidates may need and like to connect in different ways with you.

Are your position requirements overstated or too stringent for the role?

To create a truly inclusive hiring process, it’s essential to evaluate the requirements in your job descriptions.

Often, excessively stringent or overly specific criteria can inadvertently exclude highly capable candidates who might not meet every traditional requirement but possess the potential to excel in that role.

Consider focusing on essential and transferrable skills and experiences rather than just credentials. For instance, instead of requiring specific degrees, assess whether the skills obtained from those degrees can be gained through alternative means such as on the job training. This approach opens up opportunities for candidates who may have acquired similar skills through non-traditional education paths, work experience, or self-taught endeavors.

Here are some strategies to align your job descriptions more closely with the core competencies needed for the role:

• Simplify requirements: List only the essential skills necessary for the job, and be open to how these can be demonstrated beyond formal education or standard industry certifications.
• Value soft skills: Emphasize attributes like adaptability, communication, and teamwork, which are often just as critical to job performance as technical skills.
• Broaden your sources for candidates: Actively recruit interns and employees from diverse educational backgrounds, including community colleges and technical schools, and partner with institutions known for their diverse student bodies.

In addition to these strategies, evaluate how you engage with potential candidates:

• Community engagement: Do you partner with agencies that serve underserved communities? This not only broadens your talent pool but also enhances your company's community presence and reputation.
• Diversity-focused recruitment: Do you participate in job fairs with a diversity focus and post job openings on diversity-related job boards and professional organizations? This signals your commitment to diversity and inclusion.

It’s important to note that your internal practices also can support diverse hiring, such as:

• Employee growth: Have formal programs in place that support employee growth, such as education reimbursement, internal first consideration for openings, on-the-job training, and leadership development. These programs show a commitment to employee advancement regardless of their background.
• Recruiter training: Ensure that your recruiters are trained or certified in diversity sourcing strategies. This training can greatly influence how they identify, approach, and evaluate candidates.
• Partnerships with minority-owned search firms: Collaborate with search and staffing firms that are not only minority-owned but are also certified in diversity sourcing strategies.

By reevaluating your position requirements and aligning your recruitment strategies with inclusive practices, you create opportunities for a broader array of talented individuals to join and thrive within your organization. This not only helps fill the talent pipeline with diverse candidates but also contributes to a more inclusive and dynamic workplace culture.

Are your candidate sourcing strategies appropriately targeted?

To ensure your organization effectively taps into diverse talent pools, it’s important to evaluate and refine your sourcing strategies regularly. This involves not only where you look for candidates but also how you engage with potential talent.

A great place to start is by assessing your current partnerships and recruitment activities:

• Educational partnerships: Do you actively recruit and host interns from colleges and universities known for their diverse student bodies? These institutions can be a rich source of talented candidates who might bring fresh perspectives and ideas.
• Community engagement: Have you strengthened ties with agencies that serve underserved communities? These partnerships can help you reach candidates who might not be accessible through traditional recruitment channels.
• Focused job fairs: Do you participate in local and regional job fairs with a diversity focus? These events are pivotal in connecting with candidates from various backgrounds and can enhance your visibility as an inclusive employer.

Some other things to consider—do your internal policies support your employees in ways that make sourcing new talent easier? Evaluate if you have formalized programs that support employee growth through:

• education reimbursement
• on the job training
• priority consideration for new roles before recruiting externally
• skills training with a local technical school or community college
• leadership development programs

Finally, make sure your partnerships with search firms or agencies enhance your sourcing strategy. Partner with search and staffing firms that are not only minority-owned but also specialize in diversity sourcing strategies. These firms often have deeper insights and networks within diverse communities, providing you with access to a broader and more varied candidate pool.

Does your culture support inclusion and belonging?

Creating a workplace culture that supports inclusion and belonging is the foundation for maintaining a diverse workforce.

Assessing how inclusive your organizational culture is can help you understand the current state and identify areas for improvement.

The first step is the simplest—start by surveying your employees about their perceptions of the workplace. Focus on:

• Diversity of the workforce: Do employees feel the company truly represents a wide array of backgrounds?
• Leadership’s commitment: Is there a belief among employees that leadership genuinely prioritizes diversity?
• Work environment: How inclusive and welcoming does the environment feel to everyone, regardless of background?
• Support for career growth: Do employees feel they have equal access to opportunities for advancement?

These surveys can provide critical insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your company’s inclusivity efforts.

In addition, conduct an analysis of your turnover rates by position, demographics, and tenure. This data can reveal patterns that may suggest further analysis is needed to determine the cause and if there are barriers to belonging within your organization.

Extend your assessment externally by conducting surveys with community members and customers regarding their perceptions of your company's commitment to DEI. This outside perspective can validate internal findings and highlight the public’s view of your organizational values in action.

Take a macro-level look at your work environment. Do you have a DEI committee? Is there an executive sponsor for the committee? Are the recommendations of the committee supported by leadership, implemented and communicated to employees? Does your committee reflect diversity in position, gender, race and national origin, age, and religion?

By actively assessing and improving your workplace’s inclusivity and culture, you can ensure that all employees feel a sense of belonging and are motivated to contribute their unique perspectives and skills.

This holistic approach helps to create a sustainable and supportive environment that benefits both the employees and the organization as a whole.

Have you provided training?

It’s essential to provide comprehensive training for hiring managers, leaders, recruiters, and other key personnel to ensure your workforce initiatives are effective and your organizational culture supports DEI at every level.

Start with formal DEI training for your hiring managers, leaders, and recruiters. This training should cover:

• Implicit bias: Teach the concept of implicit bias, how it affects decision-making, and strategies to mitigate its impact in the hiring process and day-to-day interactions.
• Creating an inclusive environment: Equip your staff with the tools and knowledge to foster an environment where all employees feel they belong and can thrive. This includes understanding different cultural norms and providing support for diverse needs.

In addition to general DEI training, it's crucial to provide specialized interview training that covers:

• Legal and illegal questions: Ensure that everyone involved in the hiring process understands what can and cannot be legally asked in an interview to protect candidates and the company.
• Consistency in questioning: Train interviewers to ask all candidates the same set of questions. This standardization helps reduce bias and ensures a fair evaluation process based on relevant skills and experiences.
• Handling sensitive situations: Prepare your interviewers to handle situations where a candidate might disclose personal information, such as a disability or religious practices that affect their availability. Interviewers should know how to respond respectfully and how to focus on the candidate’s qualifications and the requirements of the job.
• Behavior-based interviewing: Implement behavior-based interviewing techniques that focus on assessing a candidate's past experiences and behaviors as indicators of their future performance. This type of interviewing is particularly effective in evaluating competencies and potential in a non-discriminatory manner.

It’s important to remember that training should not be a one-time event. Offer ongoing training sessions to refresh and update your team’s skills as new challenges and opportunities in DEI arise. Regular updates and continuous learning opportunities reinforce the importance of DEI initiatives and keep these crucial issues at the forefront of your organization's practices.

By providing thorough and thoughtful training, you equip your team with the necessary skills to support a diverse workforce.

Reporting your findings

To maintain accountability, encourage continuous improvement, and encourage transparency, it’s important to present your assessment findings to the DEI committee, senior leadership, and the Board of Directors. This ensures that key stakeholders are informed and involved in setting strategic goals.

Next, establish clear priorities based on these insights, focusing on enhancing hiring practices, building an inclusive culture, and improving retention rates among diverse groups. Develop a DEI dashboard to track these goals regularly, which will help keep DEI initiatives at the forefront of organizational strategy.

Publicly communicate your goals and the progress made both internally and externally. This not only demonstrates a transparent commitment to DEI but also helps build trust and encourages a culture of accountability and improvement. Acknowledge areas where progress is still needed, and invite feedback to help address these gaps.

End with a call to action, encouraging everyone within and connected to the organization to contribute to these efforts. Whether by applying, recommending talent, or participating in DEI initiatives, this collective engagement will help drive the necessary changes to foster a truly inclusive workplace.

In summary

Before diving in to creating a DEI strategy, it’s crucial to have a clear picture of who makes up your team, who’s applying for positions, who your customers are, and the characteristics of the community around you.

Take a close look at how your organization communicates internally and externally. Are these communications supportive of an inclusive and welcoming environment? It's also important to gauge the level of commitment from senior leadership towards diversifying the workforce. Insights from these evaluations are essential for shaping a practical and effective diversity strategy.

Keep the lines of communication open with senior leaders, HR, the Board of Directors, community leaders, and the DEI Committee. Reporting back and collaborating with these groups is key to developing and implementing plans that not only attract but also support a diverse range of employees.

Understanding these elements helps identify gaps and potential obstacles that could hinder your efforts to source, hire, and retain diverse employees while also giving you data to assist you in developing informed and realistic goals and objectives around DEII for your organization.

Stay tuned for our next article, where we’ll explore elements of a successful plan to diversify your workforce. We’ll explore actionable strategies that can help transform these insights into impactful practices.

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