Diversity efforts to hire a more inclusive pool of talented workers have yielded some success. As noted by a recent Bloomberg article, promises made by nearly all S&P 100 companies in 2020 to hire more people of color actually came to pass. In 2021, these companies increased their workforces by 323,094 jobs. Of these new roles, just 6% went to white workers. The remaining 94% were split among Asian (22%), Black (23%), Hispanic (40%), and other communities (8%). But those gains didn’t hold through the end of 2022.
The challenge? Diversity hiring is only the first step to a culturally competent and equitable workplace. For all staff to feel valued, companies must implement robust diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies that go beyond talent acquisition to expose — and begin to eliminate — systemic issues that continue to negatively impact people of color.
In this article, we'll break down some of the current challenges in DEI and examine four components of an effective strategy to help foster true workplace equity.
Challenges in Delivering on DEI
While hiring trends in 2021 showed a significant uptick in diversity, the numbers also tell another story: According to EEO-1 report data obtained and analyzed by Bloomberg, Hispanic and Black hires significantly outpaced new white employees in roles such as laborers and service workers, but white staff outpaced all, but Asian employees, in new professional roles. Executive hires in 2021, meanwhile, saw 1,130 jobs go to white workers compared to 462 roles for Black executives and just 278 for Hispanic staff. In other words, while recent efforts have changed workforce diversity, people of color are disproportionately recruited for lower-paying roles with limited opportunities for promotion.
Pay equity also persists. As found by Forbes, many Black professionals aren't paid as much as their white counterparts, even when they have similar (or more) training and experience. In one notable case, best-selling author Luvvie Ajayi was asked to speak at a conference but was told there was no budget to pay speakers. She then learned that a white male counterpart had been offered his requested speaker’s fee.
In addition, there's a worrying shift away from business support for internal DEI initiatives. According to a recent LinkedIn study, while C-suite hirings of Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) rose 168.9% from 2019 to 2022, this role experienced negative growth of 4.5% in 2022. Declining corporate interest and political backlash against DEI initiatives have led to funding cuts. As a result, many DEI programs have shrunk or been eliminated entirely.
Four Components of an Effective DEI Strategy
For companies to deliver on their promises and drive real change in the workplace, hiring efforts alone won’t cut it. Instead, they must take a comprehensive approach that includes four key components:
1) Create an Accountability Plan
Many companies struggle with putting DEI initiatives into practice and measuring progress. Success comes when the goals are a core part of the business, not a side project.
An accountability plan helps keep DEI efforts on track. Putting priorities, policies, and procedures in writing, both internally and externally, ensures that executives are held accountable by employees, shareholders, and consumers. Accountability plans also provide a path for turning assurances into action. By laying out both DEI goals and the steps required to achieve these goals, companies are better prepared to navigate evolving expectations.
2) Focus on What Staff are Saying
Communication is critical in any DEI effort. The caveat? It's a two-way street. While executives making the move to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion are happy to talk to employees about their efforts, C-suite members are often less willing to sit down and listen to staff needs and concerns.
To identify and fully understand the needs of employees, businesses must facilitate informal listening sessions. These "local table" discussions don't include upper management. Instead, they're an opportunity for staff to voice their ideas and provide feedback without worrying about C-suite members taking over the meeting. Insights gathered from these sessions help inform more comprehensive DEI efforts.
3) Implement Unconscious Bias Training
You can't fix what you don't know. Making staff, managers, and executives aware of assumptions, beliefs, or social stereotypes that they may hold about certain groups of people is imperative. Unconscious (or implicit) bias takes many forms. It can show up in hiring decisions that are unintentionally skewed by candidates' names or background information, or it can emerge as reduced chances for staff of color to achieve promotion or advancement.
Ichor works with companies to identify areas of potential bias and create training plans to help change behaviors. It’s worth noting these trainings aren't a one-off effort: they must take place as part of a meaningful long-term program to reduce implicit bias actions.
4) Foster Equal Opportunity and Promotion
Pay is one key component of equity — if white staff are paid more than their Black, Hispanic, and Asian counterparts with the same skills and experience, equity is impossible. Other components include opportunities for promotions and raises that take personal circumstances into consideration. For example, a better understanding of socioeconomic status and how it differs across geographic areas means that equity isn't a one-size-fits-all effort. DEI initiatives that are tailored to these nuances ensure every person gets what they need to succeed.
Bridging the Gap
If companies want to cultivate true workplace equity for the long term, they must go beyond diversity and inclusion. It starts with a recognition that DEI isn't a point-in-time solution but rather an ongoing effort. By creating fairness in career and promotion opportunities, listening (and responding) to direct staff feedback, ensuring all staff receive unconscious bias training, and codifying the outcomes of these efforts in accountability plans, businesses are better positioned to deliver on their DEI promises.
Bridging the gap will not only ensure that equity is baked into company culture, but that it prioritizes opportunity and growth and is associated with the company brand. See how Ichor can help.