First Steps for Your DEI Efforts

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) refers to creating and maintaining a workplace environment that values and respects the differences among employees, provides all employees a sense of belonging and promotes equal opportunities for all. While a successful DEI program is a sophisticated endeavor that typically takes years to build, following are five productive places to start your DEI journey:
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1. Recruiting and hiring: A high-impact DEI practice is to implement targeted recruitment and hiring strategies. This may include actively recruiting from underrepresented groups, such as women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community. It might even involve blind hiring practices, which remove identifying information from resumes, to reduce bias in the hiring process.
2. Employee resource groups (ERGs): ERGs can be effective at providing support, resources and a better workplace experience to underrepresented groups of employees. They are typically organized around a particular identity or affinity, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation. They provide a platform for employees to connect with others who share similar experiences and advocate for issues that are important to them.
3. Training and education: Consider providing personal and professional development to employees that helps them understand and appreciate the benefits of diversity and create an inclusive work environment. This can include workshops, seminars and webinars on unconscious bias, cultural sensitivity and microaggressions.
4. Policies and procedures revision: Many existing policies and procedures undermine DEI and, thus, require revisions. This can include updating codes of conduct, anti-discrimination policies and performance evaluations procedures.
5. Metrics and accountability: It’s never too early to establish DEI goals, associated targets and tracking metrics. Common goals include diverse representation at top levels of the organization, diversity of new hires and retention of minority employees.

We hope the above options spur ideas on where to start, or proceed with, your DEI efforts. As always, feel free to contact us for assistance.