A Roadmap to DEI
A Primer to Diversity and Inclusion
Guest Post By Dr. Deepika Andavarapu, Founder and CEO of DEEP Consultants
Studies from Harvard Business Review, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, and Clear Company show diversity has strong correlations with organizational performance. Diversity is not just a good thing to do, there is a strong business case for it.
Diversity of workforce by itself can backfire unless there are intentional efforts to create an inclusive culture within an organization. This article lays out why diversity and inclusion are important for organizations and provides resources to help your organization start its D&I journey.
Diversified Communities Value Equity-Focused Organizations
One of the most compelling reasons to diversify your organization is the changing demographic landscape of our region. Hamilton County’s population — like the rest of the country — has steadily grown more diverse over the past few decades. A 2018 report from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation shows that the county’s Black, Latino, Asian, and multiracial populations continue to grow. By 2040, these communities of color will collectively be the majority.
Changing demographics are important to pay attention to since they reflect who will become your future consumers, clients, and business partners. If your organization doesn’t cater to people of color, it might no longer be relevant. Advancing equity — just and fair inclusion — is both the right thing to do and critical to ensuring your organizations economic future.
D&I Grows Company Profits
Another compelling reason to incorporate D&I into your organization’s culture, is the simple fact that diverse organizations are more profitable than their peers.
Studies conducted by McKinsey & Company show that organizations with race or ethnic diversity have a 36% higher likelihood of financially outperforming less diverse companies. Interestingly, the greater the representation, the higher the likelihood of outperformance. Companies with more than 30% women executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage ranged from 10-30.
Inclusive Cultures Improve Quality and Employee Satisfaction
In addition to the financial outcomes, studies from Harvard have shown that diverse teams lead to higher quality work, better decision-making, greater team satisfaction and more equality — but only under certain circumstances.
Diversity by itself will not produce results. Having people from various identity groups, “at the table” is no guarantee that anything will get better. If the organization doesn’t have an inclusive culture, diversity can often backfire and increase tensions and conflict.
So, what is an Inclusive Culture? Inclusive cultures rely on an approach known as the learning and effectiveness paradigm. It is a culture where organizations tap into team members’ identity-related knowledge and experiences as a resource for learning how the organization could better perform its core work.
Research shows that when companies take this approach, their teams are more effective than either homogenous teams or diverse teams that don’t learn from their members’ differences.
Organizations that respect the individual identities of its team members send the message that varied points of view are valued and need not be suppressed for the sake of group cohesion. This attitude encourages employees to rethink how work gets done and how to best achieve their goals.
At DEEP Consultants we help organizations on their DEI journey from conducting Equity Audits to creating Equity Action Plans. We conduct organizational assessments using tools like employee surveys, interviews, and policy assessments to evaluate organizations from an equity perspective. We then provide customized policy recommendations that acknowledge and respond to the differences in employee experiences and disrupt the bias in workplace systems. Some of these initial assessments start for as little as $5,000. If you are interested, please reach out to Deepika Andavarapu, Ph.D. to get started on your equity journey.