Diversity metrics are vital to improving diversity-council effectiveness. It’s challenging to hit a bull’s-eye if you don’t have a target in sight. Similarly, your diversity council can only be successful if there are defined goals and diversity metrics to achieve. These diversity metrics can be demographic, but improvement goals also can deal with areas such as procurement, diversity training, participation in resource groups and mentoring.

In the 2,687-word Effective Diversity Councils: A DiversityInc Roundtable article, Jennifer Christie, chief diversity officer and vice president of executive recruitment at American Express (No. 14 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50); Raymond Arroyo, chief diversity officer, Aetna (No. 24); and Kathy Hannan, national managing partner, diversity and corporate social responsibility, KPMG (No. 22), discuss the best practices of effective diversity councils and how diversity metrics play a pivotal role in diversity management.

Among the best practices, readers will learn:

• The different types of diversity-council structures and how diversity metrics and goals are developed
• How involved the CEO should be in diversity-council initiatives and why visibility is a key component for success
• Why 60 percent of DiversityInc Top 50 companies link compensation to diversity goals and what pushback and challenges are common when instituting this practice
• Why resource-group leaders should be included on the council in rotational roles

Additionally, watch the diversity web seminar on diversity councils for a comprehensive presentation of diversity-council best practices from IBM (No. 17) and jcpenney (No. 35).