Awareness that company diversity is fundamental to a businesses’ success has spread across various U.S. businesses and industries. The effective implementation of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives has meant operating from a more complete Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) framework.
Part of being a diverse company is making a concerted effort to implement DEI initiatives in a timely manner with immediate, tangible results. Diversio is here to break down what doing diversity right looks like and which companies are promoting a company culture of diversity exceptionally well.
What does doing diversity right look like?
Diversity requires taking action. It involves acknowledging that a diverse workforce includes people of different races, genders, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, sexualities, abilities, and other socially ascribed attributes. And the need for diversity must be recognized at all levels, across all company departments.
What counts as a diverse company?
A diverse company is an organization that actively includes and values employees from a wide range of backgrounds and characteristics. This includes differences in race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion, cultural background, and socioeconomic status. A diverse company promotes inclusivity and equality, ensuring that all employees have equal opportunities for growth and contribution.
Diversity alone is not enough
However, doing diversity right means acknowledging that the presence of diversity, in and of itself, isn’t enough. Equity and inclusion initiatives tell companies what to do to make their diverse workforce feel seen and heard. Doing diversity right means identifying pain points supported by structures that strongly cater towards dominant group members, and working to change them. This creates a workspace that values safety and belongingness for marginalized groups of people who have traditionally been unable to easily find a seat at the table. Effective DEI management requires tools that offer real-time engagement data and deep, actionable insights. Without these, companies often struggle to navigate the complexities of DEI initiatives effectively.
Top diverse companies and how they promote DEI
Companies that are effectively implementing D&I initiatives make a proactive, conscientious effort to level the playing field. They focus on the inequitable experiences of marginalized workforce group members and implement solution-based strategies to achieve better social justice in the workplace. These are a few of our top picks for businesses that promote company diversity well:
- Fidelity. Fidelity’s Diversity and Inclusion report states “we believe that building and sustaining [company diversity] culture is both the right thing to do and a business imperative.” They have pledged to be transparent about their initiatives to increase diversity and ensure inclusion with a focus on highlighting the experiences of female, Black, and Latinx associates. Fidelity supports underrepresented students in local communities in an educational capacity. They have a designated DEI task force to track the progress of DEI initiatives.
- Honda. For decades, Honda has supported D&I initiatives across all levels of the company. In 2007, they established the Honda Office of Inclusion & Diversity to maximize the strength of diversity and create more inclusivity within Honda. In the past year, they have improved their HR hiring and promotion processes by ensuring that their workforce reflects all of society. They house dialogues around the experiences of BIPOC with social justice initiatives drawn from critical race resources. They have created social justice task forces. They actively boycott and condemn racially-charged hate speech on social media platforms. Honda goes beyond their current workforce to support the education efforts of their future workforce by supporting STEM and STEAM education initiatives. Honda’s efforts to increase inclusion within their North American supplier network has led to an increase in annual purchases from women and minority-owned businesses to over $3.2 billion annually. We at Diversio are proud to highlight these attributes, as Honda uses Diversio’s data-driven insights to inform their diversity and inclusion efforts.
- Sodexo. Sodexo’s approach to Diversity & Inclusion includes implementing a hiring strategy that promotes gender balance at all company levels. Women in the workplace jumped from 17% in 2009 to its current status of 55%. 58% of the members on the board of directors are female and the company runs 14 Gender Balance Networks worldwide. Actively striving towards greater gender balance in their organization has led to an increase in employee engagement by 4%, an increase in gross profits by 23%, and the strengthening of their brand image by 5 percentage points.
- Viacom CBS. Viacom and CBS merged in 2019. By the end of 2020, the company decided to emphasize its commitment to improving diversity and inclusion, on and off the camera. Viacom CBS’s global head of inclusion is helping Viacom CBS to be successful in its DEI initiatives by promoting a culture that’s diverse, inclusive, and that actually creates a sense of belonging. They have launched a website outlining their commitment to explicit DEI initiatives. They offer a mentorship program that seeks to open doors for women and black, indigenous, and people of color. They are analyzing the makeup of their workforce and working towards better representation across all departments and levels. As a Diversio client, Viacomb CBS has access to AI-powered survey results and DEI initiatives tailored to their own specific needs.
- Johnson & Johnson. Their initiatives are led by a Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer and are overseen by the executive committee and board of directors, ensuring top-level accountability. J&J has set measurable goals to increase the representation of women and historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups in leadership roles. Through the “Our Race to Health Equity” initiative, they aim to eliminate health inequities for people of color in the U.S. The company supports Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that provide platforms for underrepresented groups to connect and influence policies. Inclusive hiring practices and partnerships with diverse recruitment organizations help mitigate unconscious bias and promote diversity. Mandatory DEI training, development programs for underrepresented groups, and a robust Supplier Diversity Program are key components of their strategy. They ensure transparency by publishing annual DEI reports and making DEI data publicly available.
What does a good diversity training program look like?
A good diversity training program provides a solutions-based, data-driven strategy that makes the experiences of marginalized workforce populations in a workplace visible. You should receive meaningful feedback on how to elevate your business by effectively implementing DEI initiatives immediately. Your training program should provide you with solutions based on the experiences of your work population while drawing from successful strategies implemented across similar industries.
Good diversity training promotes safety and belongingness. Marginalized employees across a range of intersectional backgrounds should feel empowered to participate within a company. They should feel that their ideas are valued, feel safe from harassment and aggressions, and have equal access to opportunities like promotions and mentorship. A good diversity training program should also challenge dominant group members — particularly in leadership — to analyze implicit biases and other problematic thought or behavior patterns.
How can Diversio help?
A good diversity training program goes beyond recognizing the need for the presence of company diversity. It should provide clear, easy-to-implement solutions that address barriers at the individual, structural, and systemic level to create an effective DEI framework.
Diversio’s solutions-based diversity training method uses an anonymous survey linked to six KPIs that takes employees four minutes to complete and about two weeks to process using language-intelligent technology. Our unique, AI-powered analytics simplifies the process of collecting qualitative data and translates it into quantitative measures that can be tracked over time.
Our services feature an easy-to-navigate dashboard of recommendations that can be implemented immediately in alignment with our follow-up training and certification programs. Reach out to us to find out more about how our people intelligence platform helps companies of all sizes measure, track, and improve diversity and inclusion to drive meaningful change. You can also request a demo to learn more.
