The Importance of Recording Your Diversity Initiatives?
The government has recently published a voluntary reporting framework for businesses that aim to drive culture change towards an inclusive society.
But why does it matter?
Understanding the make-up of your workforce is a way to increase the transparency of your organisation and its diversity and inclusion efforts, by highlighting key areas that need improvement, whilst acknowledging those that are beneficial.
As many organisations continue to implement diversity and inclusion strategies, it becomes even more important to emphasise the benefits of reporting and recording your initiatives in order to make genuine, long-lasting change.
It eliminates ‘benchmarking’
Creating a diversity initiative is great, but it is only a first step, and without adequate follow-up, will remain a superficial and short-term measure.
Part of the issue lies with the fact that organisations are addressing symptoms, rather than looking for the root of the problem – something which reporting and recording can address.
Many initiatives rely on tick-boxing exercises, by which an organisation can look and see they have a certain gap in a demographic and merely seek to quickly rectify it through their hiring process.
This benchmarking simply creates unrepresentative, short-lived figures that help nobody and completely avoid addressing the disparity or why it exists in the first place.
To execute the best diversity and inclusion strategy, genuine cultural change is required, which also requires an organisation to measure the success and effectiveness of their initiatives in order for them to have an impact.
It’s part of a wider strategy
Many businesses make the mistake of viewing diversity and inclusion as simply a solitary aspect of a business.
As diversity can be so impactful towards an organisation and their ability to innovate, it should be viewed as an integrated part of a business, which therefore means it needs embedding.
As with most organisational processes and strategies, this means that diversity strategies need to be measured and reported in order to ascertain the success, in the same way that every other vital area of an organisation is measured.
After all, how can you figure out if a diversity strategy has contributed towards engagement, therefore informing your hiring process, if you don’t measure it?
Making reporting and recording a part of your wider business strategy ensures that it will remain a priority.
It promotes cultural change
A key issue facing any and all diversity and inclusion initiatives is that it can often be focused on a small section of the workforce, rather than the organisation at large.
Given the power structure of an organisation, change is more effective and supported when it begins with upper management and leaders.
This applies to all types of diversity and inclusion: gender, race, mental health, disability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
Forbes magazine found that 42% of people base their feelings about a company on their perception of the company’s CSR, and additionally, a major long-term study found that companies that had the best corporate cultures grew 682% in revenue.
By voluntarily reporting information around diversity, a company is setting an industry standard that promotes transparency, which is a cultural shift that benefits employers and employees.
It acknowledges differences positively
No employee wants to feel as though they are present to tick a box, which is what can happen if diversity isn’t embedded into the culture of an organisation on a continual basis.
Given that the workforce is soon to be made up of a millennial majority, a generation which is 16% more diverse than baby boomers, recording initiatives is a way to keep up with the changing workforce and acknowledge its diversity.
When considering the cost of poor mental health to UK employers is £45 billion per year, accounting for absenteeism, presenteeism and turnover costs4, yet there is a return of £5 for every £1 invested into employee mental health, measuring what works and what doesn’t can quite literally be the difference between profit and loss.
Additionally, a clear commitment to diversity promotes an open culture around all types of diversity and inclusion, which in turn can make employees feel valued, and have a knock-on effect on retention.
It helps the hiring process
You want to increase your talent pool and increase the number of talented candidates you have access to, which is exactly what a strong diversity initiative can provide.
In essence, it’s a twofold benefit – by promoting inclusive and diverse recruitment practices, you access a wider talent pool that is more representative, whilst also attracting candidates due to having a culture of equality in your organisation.
As an example of the skills that a wider talent pool can result in, disabled employees can increase innovation, productivity, and contribute to a better work environment5.
Other under-represented groups such as veterans can also bring a host of necessary skills to an organisation, with 90% of organisations saying veterans were strong in communication, team-working, picking up specialist knowledge, and problem solving6 – all skills that are in high demand.
At a time when there are high vacancies but difficulties finding ideal candidates, reporting on your diversity and inclusion initiatives could be the lifeline for your hiring and retention strategy.
Data is objective
Something that can stall an organisation’s ability to adequately assess all types of progress is the subjective nature of ‘in the moment’ evaluations when no data has been recorded and analysed.
This can be the case when measuring the ability of an employee, including their professional ability and acquired skills, shouldn’t be a subjective process, but it tends to be due to the tendency to view an employee’s potential as being high if there is a personal relationship involved.
This also applies to internal progress – monitoring all diversity-related data means that you can objectively track your progress in building a diverse environment, and better understand your employees.
These changes include fewer sickness absences, less workplace stress-related issues, and higher engagement, productivity, and retention, all of which can be measured by data.
You want to understand the dynamic of your workforce, and primarily, how to improve it, which is exactly what recording and reporting on diversity initiatives can assist with.
Our society is made up of people from a variety of backgrounds, with a variety of lived experiences and skillsets, and our workforce should also reflect that – it begins with employers taking important steps to encourage transparency.