Diversity & Inclusion 2022: What companies are doing and what's working

Recently we conducted a survey to understand how companies are fostering diversity and inclusion and the impacts these efforts have had. Below are the summarized findings paired with additional insights.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion has been a hot topic for businesses, particularly since the events of 2020. It’s now been two years since the majority of companies have increased their investment in DEI initiatives. We recently sent out a survey to our wide network with open ended questions to understand what companies have been doing, what’s working, and what their biggest challenges have been.

Jump to a section:
Q1: What are some of the things your company is doing now to foster diversity & inclusion in your workplace?
Q2: What diversity & inclusion programs or policies exist in your hiring process?
Q3: Who at your company is involved in the creation and implementation of diversity & inclusion programs?
Q4: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while implementing a diversity & inclusion program?
Q5: How are you seeing your diversity & inclusion efforts and programs driving business results?
Q6: How are you seeing diversity & inclusion efforts impacting your work culture?
Our take

Q1: What are some of the things your company is doing now to foster diversity & inclusion in your workplace?

Training & Resources

The most popular answer was investment in educational activities such as mandatory trainings or workshops around diversity, equity and inclusion - held by internal staff or outside experts. Some companies said they only have initial trainings (i.e. at the start of a hire) while others stated they had ongoing training.

Measurement Surveys

More and more companies are trying to measure the success of diversity efforts and seeking feedback from their staff. Respondents mentioned that they are conducting surveys to gain feedback from their own staff about their current state and impact from initiatives.

“[We] have an annual survey to staff gauging our efforts and self-identifying the diverse workplace. This DEI committee presents to senior management twice a year.”
- Marcel Labbe, VP People & Culture, DAC Group

Flexible Work Options

Work flexibility as a benefit and culture continues to gain momentum. Some respondents mentioned providing flexible work models to support parents and help new mothers re-enter the workforce.

Q2: What diversity & inclusion programs or policies exist in your hiring process?

Diverse Hiring Panels

Several companies stated that they’ve started mandating diverse hiring panels. Diverse hiring panels can help ensure there are a multitude of perspectives and backgrounds at the table when hiring to improve decision making.

Blind Hiring

We were happy to see a few respondents mention they started blind hiring. Blind hiring can reduce bias during the resume selection stage of the hiring process.

What is blind hiring? Names, educational institutions, addresses and graduation years can all allude to someone’s gender identity, age, race or religion. Blind hiring is the process of removing any identifiable characteristics from a resume that are not related to the job role or work experience needed.

What We Didn’t See

A large amount of respondents said there were no DEI initiatives at the hiring level or that their companies “encouraged diversity” but without any hiring policies or initiatives in place past that encouragement. We believe diversity begins with the people you hire - and there is definitely room for progress in this area.

Q3: Who at your company is involved in the creation and implementation of diversity & inclusion programs?

Human Resources (HR)

Overwhelmingly, respondents said HR was involved in the creation and implementation of DEI initiatives. Makes perfect sense - no surprise here.

DEI Committees

We’re starting to see more companies mention that they’ve created dedicated DEI committees. Committees can be an excellent way to foster participation and visibility from all ranks of staff, verses limiting it to HR or a couple of leaders.

Outside Experts

Some companies hired DEI consultants to audit programs, recommend changes and train staff. In the upcoming question about challenges, many respondents voiced that getting employees up to speed educationally was slowing down actual implementation. Hiring a DEI consultant can help inject new perspective and expertise immediately to jumpstart initiatives.

What we didn’t see

We were surprised to find very few respondents mentioned leadership outside of HR.

Hiring managers play the largest role in selecting new employees and then integrating those employees within the organization. Meanwhile CXOs and VPs hold the purse strings to fund new initiatives. In our opinion, it’s hard to imagine sustainable DEI progress without strong buy-in and participation from these levels of leadership.

Q4: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced while implementing a diversity & inclusion program?

Steep Learning Curve

DEI is a complex topic that’s heavily nuanced. Companies want to create change, but first need to ensure leaders and staff are trained in order to spot issues and act effectively. Many companies voiced that progress was not where they wanted it to be today because employees have been going through a learning period.

Trying To Do Too Much Too Fast

Since 2020 employees, customers and investors have all put increasing pressure on companies to prioritize and show progress on DEI initiatives. While this has been an incredible push that companies needed, it seems that in some cases this pressure may have led to companies biting off more than they could chew at once.

Several respondents noted that there were many great ideas shared during brainstorms and large roadmaps were created. The outcome, however, has been a backlog of activities. Part of this backlog might be contributed to the next challenge.

Words Without Resources

Many respondents noted that while DEI is constantly encouraged vocally at their companies, the actions that follow indicate that DEI is not a core goal. To put it plainly, respondents said that the resources (i.e. people, time and funding) needed to fulfill on DEI initiatives is not being provided.

“Leadership provides lip service, [but] initiatives are not funded. [There are] no accountable KPIs, no programs - just small initiatives.“
- Anonymous Respondent

Ongoing Skepticism

It appears from survey responses that there is still skepticism from leadership (cited primarily white men) on whether DEI should be a priority within the company. This reduces the amount of buy-in for DEI initiatives and also could contribute to throttled resources.

Q5: How are you seeing your diversity & inclusion efforts and programs driving business results?

Faster Hiring

The respondents whose companies had mandatory DEI training said they’ve seen improvement in hiring speed, as now hiring pools have expanded allowing them to explore more qualified talent.

“The hiring loop is smaller because we're seeing more candidates.”
- Christina Walkinshaw, Senior Director, Agile Program Management at Publicis Sapient

Respondents also noted that as their company’s level of diversity increased, so too did the diversity of their candidate applicants. The implication here is that job seekers are looking at your company’s staff profile before applying.

Better Products

Many companies noted that DEI initiatives have made employees more comfortable to share ideas which has led to more robust discussions and well rounded solutions and products.

Additionally, some respondents said there is now better representation of their customer base within their in-house teams, which is helping them to develop products that resonate better with their target audience.

Increased Employee Satisfaction

While the majority of companies stated they’re still working on measuring their DEI efforts, several of them said they saw their DEI initiatives had a notable impact on employee satisfaction surveys. This is an excellent leading indicator given that studies have shown that employee satisfaction closely correlates to improved retention and productivity.

Q6: How are you seeing diversity & inclusion efforts impacting your work culture?

Voices Being Heard

Overwhelmingly, companies echoed that DEI initiatives created an environment where employees feel more comfortable voicing their ideas. Not only can this lead to increases in innovation, but it let’s employees know that their voice is welcomed and valued.

Making Room For Self-Improvement

When companies call out their own areas for improvement and show employees they’re striving for change, it creates a foundation for employees to participate in that change. Another theme we saw is that employees felt more comfortable speaking up when something went against the values of DEI.

“Employees are learning. [They are] being more comfortable addressing situations and also more human.”
- Eve Rémillard-Larose, Managing Partner at Sid Lee

Our take

Research overwhelming shows that diversity is linked to positive business performance. This includes diversity across race, gender, and age - as well as experience and skillsets. We know that having diverse teams - with different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives - leads to more creative and innovative solutions. As we live in a digital world of ongoing change, businesses are being forced to innovate at exceptional pace and are beginning to recognize the value diversity brings to growing their business.

Outside of the learning curve - one of the biggest hurdles to moving the DEI needle is that the people already in job positions (particularly leadership positions) are not looking to replace themselves. This means that every net new job opening and replacement hire is critical to the future diversity of your teams. While many respondents in the survey cited DEI efforts related to existing employees, we didn’t hear as many responses on activities related to hiring. We believe this is an area of opportunity and importance.

Lastly, DEI needs to be a leadership priority. Companies are not achieving diversity if it’s only at the lower levels of the company - companies need diverse and inclusive leaders. It goes without saying that unconscious bias at the leadership level has scalable impacts. Diverse voices and experiences in the boardrooms are critical. Committees are exceptional at giving a voice at all levels and providing more perspective. However without leadership buy-in, that voice may not have the authority necessary to actualize initiatives.

Overall, we were thrilled to see so many companies had DEI programs and are seeing progress over the past few years. We’ll only get better by learning from our own successes and challenges. Thanks again to everyone who participated.

At Ari Agency, we’re committed to helping organizations find their greatest hires - which frequently means finding candidates of diverse background and experience who can inject new perspectives into your organization. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you improve your talent acquisition strategies and find your next all-star.