If you can monetize the benefits of what diversity and inclusion brings to the organization, you’ll see that change.

For example, say your firm has 75,000 employees, 50 percent of whom are women and/or non-white people, and a 3 percent average turnover rate but a 3.6 percent turnover rate for women and/or non-white people. If it costs $10,000 to replace an employee, then closing that turnover gap will save $2,250,000.

What hasn’t been possible—until now—is to strongly connect the results of diversity management and inclusion to areas we can measure, such as turnover or failure for some groups to thrive equally in talent development.

I think the key is “engagement,” which is a measurement of a person’s feeling of inclusion in an organization and which drives the quality of overall human-capital output. Further, engagement can go beyond human-capital factors to business subjects on a range as wide as accidents on factory floors to quality of innovation.

We’ve invested in SAS software this year and now have the computing power to correlate our engagement survey to our benchmarking survey, which allows us to then make exacting, precise recommendations for best practices going forward. Our engagement survey carefully introduces questions about race, orientation, age and gender to avoid decreased performance, as described by Dr. Claude Steele as “stereotype threat.” This is especially important for majority inclusion and for companies that may not enjoy a great diversity reputation internally.

Moreover, using our shortened 50-field benchmarking survey, we can benchmark several divisions within your company and give each an individual assessment on their relationships with people, as well as individual suggested next steps for diversity-management implementation. This can tie back to accountability for results to the local leader and give that person the exact tools they need to close gaps and move everyone forward in their engagement and feeling of inclusion.

DiversityInc is unique in its ability to do this; we have data on diversity management and outcome from hundreds of companies, and with our computing abilities, we can make specific suggestions tied to actual performance as correlated to other companies. We can project your potential return and we can help you put an actual dollar value on what success will look like.

Take these scenarios, for example:

• Your women employees are disengaged to the point of filing a lawsuit, which can mean a loss of real money and damage to the company’s reputation. Our engagement survey will identify that problem and the benchmarking survey will provide correlations to the best-practice solutions other companies have used.
• After investing heavily in recruiting and training Black, Latino and Asian execs, the percentage of retention among these groups remains low. Our engagement survey will uncover the cause and degree of their disengagement, and the benchmarking survey will show you what proven best practices and goals will stop that regrettable loss.

When the benefits of diversity management can specifically be tied back to bottom-line benefits, in the absence of emotion and in the sunlight of comparisons with other companies’ accomplishments, the benefits of a strong diversity-and-inclusion program become quite clear—and it can be monetized. I’ve staffed up on our consulting practice, and we are ready to put a detailed analysis together for you. Please contact me directly for more information.

–Luke Visconti

The post Monetizing Diversity Efforts: How Inclusion Can Be Quantified appeared first on DiversityInc.

Diversity-management case studies provide companies with insights into their competitors’ strategies. There is always volatility on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list as the competitive set increases and improves in diversity management—and, simultaneously, as other companies lessen their commitment. When there is a major swing of more than 10 spots, it is usually attributable to a significant change in circumstances (e.g., a merger or a new CEO) or to a dramatic improvement or reduction in tracking or implementation of initiatives.

Consider these facts:

• 20 companies moved up this year; 24 declined
• 3 companies moved on to the list from DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies list
• 2 companies made the list for the first time; 1 was participating for the first time

With competition increasing (participation, including the number of companies that completed the entire survey, is up 11 percent), our questions evolve each year to reflect cutting-edge diversity-management techniques and metrics to evaluate them. For example, this year we put more emphasis on resource-group and mentoring participation and the concurrent results demonstrated by the demographics of the top three levels of the organization. Watch our diversity web seminar on resource groups and our diversity web seminar on mentoring for best practices in these areas.

Here are case studies of four companies in two industries: consumer-packaged goods and financial services. In each industry, we look at one company that went up significantly and one that declined.

Case Study No. 1: Consumer-Packaged-Goods Company That Rose

Contributing factors:

• Visible CEO support; accountability for results
• Dramatically improved metrics/tracking
• Increased utilization of resource groups

Company A is a large, decentralized global consumer-packaged-goods business, with a wide variety of products and customers. The company has been on the DiversityInc Top 50 list multiple times but has had trouble moving into the upper echelon.

This year, the company made significant strides for three reasons: It reassessed the manner in which it tracked key diversity-management metrics of mentoring and resource-group participation, multicultural philanthropy and first promotions into management; it better assessed and communicated the CEO’s deep commitment to diversity; and the racial/gender diversity at the top three levels of the company improved.

IT STARTS AT THE TOP

The CEO has been a vocal proponent of diversity for years, but much of what he said and did wasn’t captured or directly connected to diversity management. In the past two years, the company’s leaders have become much more cognizant of the need to link their leader’s support more visibly, both internally and externally. He talks frequently about the nexus of diversity and global innovation, and this of late has become a hallmark of the company’s messaging. This essential point is also now included in the company’s simple and direct mission statement.

The CEO of this company is on the board of three multicultural nonprofits, and almost a third of the executives in the top two levels of the organization also sit on boards of multicultural nonprofits. In addition, this CEO meets with resource-group members at least quarterly. This CEO chairs the diversity council and holds senior executives directly responsible for results, with a significant portion of their bonus linked to diversity metrics. The council also sets company-wide goals, which are also linked to executive compensation.

In addition, this company has a very diverse board of directors, with good female representation as well as representation from Blacks, Latinos and Asians. As it seeks to understand the complex U.S. and global marketplaces, these strategic leaders from diverse backgrounds are even more crucial.

The representation in the top three levels of the organization has increased in both gender and racial/ethnic diversity in the past two years, showing that the talent-development and engagement efforts are paying off.

DOESN’T COUNT IF IT ISN’T TRACKED

This company demonstrates one of the clearest cases we’ve ever seen of an organization doing great work that no one was properly tracking in a consistent manner. The resource groups, which are used for recruitment, talent development and leadership training, have been instrumental in driving new business ideas for products directly relevant to underrepresented groups. However, until our discussions with the company this year, it did not institute a means of assessing how many employees were actually members of each group. Without the metrics to understand its participation and the result on engagement, retention and promotions, the company was not fully able to make the case to senior management for increased support for these groups. Watch our diversity web seminar on diversity metrics for best practices in tracking diversity goals.

Secondly, the company until this year was unable to measure its level of management participation in formal, cross-cultural mentoring. Many companies, especially larger ones, tell us they can’t track mentoring because they have so many kinds and so much “informal mentoring.” We ask them to measure participation of formal mentoring because that can be directly linked to business results.

Thirdly, the company had never been able to track the percentage of its philanthropic donations allocated to multicultural charities, which actually exceed the industry average by more than 15 percent. With new tracking tools in place, Company A was able to connect the dots both in our survey and publicly, telling communities exactly how much it supports them and raising loyalty of current and future employees, as well as consumers.

Recommendations for this company:

• Use resource groups to improve promotions into first management jobs. The company has improved its tracking of this key metric but still has some gaps for which resource groups can help identify reasons why people from underrepresented groups don’t seek to move into management.
• Use resource groups more formally for market research. This company surveys employees often about consumer trends/products but has never taken advantage of the formal groups to seek innovative marketplace solutions. Now that group membership is being tracked, the groups can contribute more directly to field work.
• Link mentee promotions to mentor compensation. Now that the company has a handle on who is in mentoring relationships, the next step is to tie mentee success to the mentor’s performance evaluation.

Case Study No. 2: Consumer-Packaged-Goods Company That Fell

Contributing factors:

• Top level all-white
• Lower percentage of resource-group participation
• Lower percentage of mentoring participation
• CEO doesn’t chair diversity council

Company B has been a mainstay in the DiversityInc Top 50 but has not dedicated the resources its competitors have to internal development and community outreach. The consumer-packaged-goods industry is one of the two most competitive industries we see for talent from underrepresented groups and, correspondingly, for multicultural customers. (The other industry is consulting.)

This company fell off the list because of several factors we put increased emphasis on that directly correlate to measurable results: resource-group participation, mentoring participation and demographics of senior executives.

NO REPRESENTATION, NO PROGRESS

This company is all white in the top level (CEOs and direct reports). The next two levels of management have some racial/ethnic diversity but considerably less than the other CPGs on the list. Five years ago, all of Company B’s competitors had pretty much the same white top demographics, but the top CPGs have instituted formal, cross-cultural mentoring, resource-group leader training and mandating diversity in their succession planning, resulting in increased diversity at the top levels.

Our research has shown that increased management participation in mentoring is the most significant factor in driving diversity to the top of the organization. We have been told repeatedly by people from underrepresented groups (and organizational research supports this) that the personal relationship, especially with senior executives, provides invaluable guidance to the corporate culture and individual plans for success. The data directly shows that when the percentage of managers in mentoring rises, racial/ethnic/gender representation in the top levels goes up. Company B does have a formal mentoring program, but the percentage of managers involved dropped significantly this year.

This company also lacks the accountability for results that we see in several of its industry competitors, especially in recent years. Almost all of the top CPG companies on the DiversityInc Top 50 list have their CEO chairing the executive diversity council, and they increasingly link executive compensation to company-wide goals that the council sets. Often, those goals are tied to increasing representational diversity, especially at the top levels. For more on top-level commitment and accountability, read CEO Commitment: Why Visibility & Accountability Matter.

At Company B, the diversity council is chaired by the head of diversity, who is only at the director level. The council does not link executive compensation to its goals.

INVESTING IN MARKETPLACE CONNECTIONS

For consumer-facing companies, understanding an increasingly multicultural marketplace is vital to sustainable business success, especially when it comes to product development and placement. While all of the other leading CPG companies have multicultural-marketing departments, this company does not.

Increasingly, top CPGs use their resource groups for market research and to take advantage of diverse views to create innovative solutions to reaching customers. Company B’s percentage of employees participating in its resource groups is one-third of what it was last year, while its competitors have dramatically increased their percentages. Our data shows direct correlations between resource-group participation and human-capital results, with companies with lower participation having less diversity in promotions into management, promotions within management, and demographics of the senior levels of management. For innovative diversity solutions, watch our diversity web seminar on innovation and watch the presentations from DiversityInc’s first Innovation Fest!.

In addition, the company has a very low percentage of supplier-diversity spend with businesses owned by Blacks, Latinos, Asians, American Indians, women, LGBT people and people with disabilities. Even in an industry not known for its high supplier diversity, this company’s supplier diversity is significantly lower, indicating it is not reaching vendors and community leaders of underrepresented groups.

When looking at this company’s philanthropy to multicultural organizations, it appears to be on par with the other top CPGs. However, this company has less than half the amount of top-tier executives (levels 1–3) sitting on boards of multicultural nonprofits as the average of the top CPGs. So the donations are the same, but the actual involvement, which builds relationships and community support, is much lower.

Recommendations for this company:

• Change diversity-council model to one chaired by CEO, with all direct reports involved. Have council set company-wide human-capital goals linked to senior executive compensation.
• Aggressively increase participation in and utilization of resource groups. Document benefits of taking on leadership roles (increased engagement, promotion). Offer groups recognition/rewards for customer-based solutions, including finding diverse suppliers.
• Connect participation in cross-cultural mentoring to compensation/performance reviews. Increase emphasis on networking, sponsorship and access to senior leaders for high potentials from underrepresented groups.

Case Study No. 3: Financial-Services Company That Rose

Contributing factors:

• Increased accountability (linking bonus to diversity goals)
• Ability to track, report mentoring
• Heightened emphasis on resource groups

Company C has an extremely committed CEO. He chairs the executive diversity council, which meets monthly. This CEO has increased philanthropic efforts to underrepresented communities and has been very visible in his public support of diversity management.

This company has been on the DiversityInc Top 50 list frequently but was not able to break out of the middle of the pack until this year. The difference is its increased ability to hold its executives accountable and to track and improve key best practices, especially mentoring. Read Ask DiversityInc: How Resource Groups, Mentoring and Accountability Drive Engagement for more on the benefits of mentoring.

DIRECT LINK TO COMPENSATION

Although the executive diversity council at this company is very active (and consists of the CEO and direct reports), the company has had difficulty in the past extrapolating how much of senior-executive compensation is actually linked to direct diversity-management results.

This year, the company put in place practices that enabled it to directly measure and reward the senior executives on the council based on individual factors, including sponsorship of a resource group, being a cross-cultural mentor and serving on the board of a multicultural nonprofit, as well as increased diversity in retention, engagement, promotion and procurement in the executive’s area of responsibility.

Company C now has measurable goals directly tied to diversity results at roughly the same average as the DiversityInc Top 50 of 12.2 percent. The bonus plan was approved by the board of directors, and the CEO is signing off on each executive’s diversity bonus. The CEO includes both the quantitative goals stated above as well as a qualitative assessment of the executive’s performance championing diversity throughout the organization.

The company is seeing specific results in its human-capital demographics. While its board and senior management have had relatively good representational diversity, diversity by race/ethnicity and gender in the two levels below the CEO and direct reports in first promotions into management has improved year to year. Relative to its industry, which has racial/ethnic gaps at the top on average, this company has significantly improved its competitive position.

WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE

Company C is a large financial-services company, with business units across the United States and globally. The company has a variety of mentoring programs in place, some formal and some informal. These include group mentoring, reverse mentoring, on-boarding mentoring for new hires, peer mentoring and external mentoring. Until the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 survey, this company had repeatedly said it was unable to measure the percentage of managers in its formal mentoring program and the percentage in cross-cultural relationships.

DiversityInc has increased the weighting of these percentages in the past two years because of the direct correlation to improved diversity in human-capital results, especially in management levels. Understanding that, and the importance of tracking these results as well as the long-term successes of mentoring in terms of engagement, retention and promotions, Company C determined a year ago that it should implement a better tracking system. The results? The company now reports that at least 30 percent of its managers are involved in the formal mentoring program, which compares with 39.7 percent of the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 average. Company C believes the actual average across the entire organization will be higher next year as it more effectively collates its mentoring efforts. Read Mentoring Roundtable: How Mentoring Improves Retention, Engagement & Promotions for best practices in mentoring.

The company has also followed best practices established in our benchmarking practice to ascertain how to count resource-group membership and has doubled the percentage of employees who participate in those groups. Like many ethical companies, it was being overly conservative in its initial findings, and without a benchmark, it did not know what the standard was. It has been leveraging the ability to properly assess participation to garner more resources for the groups from senior management.

Recommendations for this company:

• Do not give 100 percent of eligible executives the diversity bonus. A bonus that everyone gets in full (as they did this year) doesn’t have credibility. The bonus should be awarded on a curve.
• Increase metrics to assess resource-group success. Although the company has increased its metrics on resource groups, it still lacks a consistent method of measuring promotions of those in groups versus those not, as well as membership in more than one group.
• Use groups to provide training/on-boarding for new employees. Company C does not have specific training to acclimate new hires, especially from underrepresented communities. Resource groups are critical in improving retention/engagement of new hires, our data shows.

Case Study No. 4: Financial-Services Company That Fell

Contributing factors:

• Lack of diversity at top
• No longer links bonuses to diversity goals
• No cross-cultural mentoring emphasis

Also a long-time member of the DiversityInc Top 50, Company D is a financial-services company that has been directly impacted by the economic and reputational turmoil occurring in its industry since the housing-boom bust of 2008. The company has undergone several organizational shifts and layoffs, but the diversity leadership has remained constant. However, this year, we note a drop in several key indicators, including linking executive compensation to diversity and senior-leadership demographics.

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

For a company that has been in the public eye for its lack of accountability during the financial crisis, the decision to no longer link executive compensation to diversity results is surprising. Still, that’s what company D did between the 2011 survey and the 2012 survey.

Although the company continues to have an executive diversity council chaired by its CEO, it does not have the council set organization-wide diversity goals or hold the council executives responsible for reaching those goals—which 86 percent of the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 companies do. As this company has reorganized in general, its efforts to pay bonuses at all have been jeopardized. But companies with deep commitments to diversity see this as crucial. Sodexo, for example, which has been in the top two in the DiversityInc Top 50 for the past three years, has a fund set aside for diversity bonuses that is the only one that is paid regardless of the financial performance of the company. And Sodexo links 25 percent of executive compensation of its senior leaders to diversity goals.

But Company D is not connecting compensation and diversity goals, and its top level of management (CEO and direct reports), which was all white last year but was almost half female, this year continues to be all white and is 10 percent less female. The next two levels of the organization also have little racial/ethnic diversity, a trend that seems to be getting more pronounced in the last three years. Read our Report on Executive Compensation.

MORE CULTURAL COMPETENCY: INTERNAL & EXTERNAL

Company D has been in the public eye for lending practices to lower-income consumers, many of whom are Black and Latino. Yet Company D does not have diversity prominently on its corporate homepage (unlike 82 percent of the DiversityInc Top 50 companies), and it has a lack of cultural-competency training for its mentors, mentees and executive diversity-council members. For best practices in training, read Diversity Training Goes Way Beyond Compliance.

The mentoring connection would be a crucial way for this company to increase its representation at the top. However, only 5 percent of its managers participate in mentoring, it does not have a cross-cultural component, and it has no formal evaluation or metrics associated with mentoring. By contrast, an average of 39.7 percent of DiversityInc Top 50 managers are in formal mentoring, 96 percent have a cross-cultural component and 84 percent have formal evaluations and metrics. All of those have increased significantly over the past six years.

The lack of formal cultural-competence awareness spills over into other areas directly impacting customer relationships. Company D has a very low multicultural-marketing budget—more than 20 percent lower than other companies in its industry, including Company C. A review of its recent public statements shows few mentions of diversity, while its closest competitor, another company in the DiversityInc Top 50, has increasingly tied its business results to diversity in its public messaging.

Company D’s decline on the DiversityInc Top 50 list is a direct result of its leaders’ decision to be less accountable for direct diversity results and to fail to emphasize the connection between diversity management and its increasingly multicultural consumer base.

• Reinstitute direct link between compensation and diversity goals. If no bonuses are paid, make the compensation part of executive evaluations and salaries.
• Include mandatory cultural-competence training for all mentors/mentees, executive-council members and anyone hiring or evaluating managers.
• Work with corporate communications and marketing to include diversity in business messages and to make the importance more prominent on homepage and in social media.

For information on the DiversityInc Top 50 companies, visit www.DiversityInc.com/top50.

–Barbara Frankel

The post Diversity-Management Case Studies Reveal Why Companies Rise & Fall in the DiversityInc Top 50 appeared first on DiversityInc.

Question: I hear a lot these days that diversity is not just about diversity in ethnicity and gender. It is also, to a great extent, about diversity of thoughts. I agree with that. My question is: How do we measure success in diversity of thoughts? A company can hire only white men below 40 and claim total diversity in thought.

My concern is that focus on diversity of thought may derail the need for increasing diversity in terms of ethnicity and gender. That, in my opinion, does greatly contribute to diversity of thought.

Do you consider diversity of thought in your ranking of the DiversityInc Top 50?

Answer: You’re right; these days, “diversity of thought” is a big topic in diversity management. I also think you’re right in that diversity of thought can be disconnected from diversity as defined by race, gender, orientation, disability and/or age.

In my observation, the dominant or “majority” culture is defined by superior access to the governmental process, access to education and access to capital. In our country, this has been sharply defined by white, Christian, heterosexual men with no disabilities. Despite the Voting Rights Act (access to the governmental process), Civil Rights Act (access to education), the Community Reinvestment Act (access to capital) and the Americans with Disabilities Act, we see a constant battle for the majority-culture-dominated state and federal legislatures to pass retrograde action. Examples are:

• Voter photo-ID laws (passed inGeorgiawhile simultaneously shutting down motor-vehicle offices in poor areas, preventing people from getting a photo ID)
• Societal acceptance of the absolute failure of the majority of public schools that serve the poor
• The subprime crisis, which created record gaps in household wealth between white households and Black and Latino households (a theft of wealth that is unprecedented, yet no major perpetrator is in prison)
• College-educated people with disabilities having the highest unemployment rate

In practically all American organizations, the dominant culture is readily apparent. When I am invited to speak at a corporation that is just starting out in diversity management, I often create a presentation slide that has photos of the people listed as senior executives and/or on the board—disproportionately white men. The visual makes an impression with the audience every time. I make the point that there are probably no overt bigots, sexists or homophobes, but their culture produced a certain outcome that valued conformity over quality.

Unless you can tell me how white men are so magical that they’re superior to everyone else (and genetic research shows that there is no scientific rationale for “race”), then it’s impossible to think that the most talented people are running corporate America, the federal, state and local governments, religion and charity. The most basic cut—college education—shows that an equal number of men and women in the workforce have bachelor’s degrees. Women outpaced men in four-year degree achievement in the late 1980s. There is now an eight-point difference between four-year degree attainment between women and men, yet women have far fewer corporate positions of power (by any measurement) and still earn 23 percent less than men.

In corporate America, there are differences in diversity we can absolutely measure—race, gender and age—because that data is required to be collected by the federal government. We cannot make absolute measurement-driven comparisons of differences that are voluntarily disclosed, such as orientation and disability—but they are just as important in my mind. In the differences we can measure, we can see that there are discrepancies in talent development across gender and race, with the DiversityInc Top 50 companies having made far more progress than the average Fortune 500 company.

I find it impossible to believe that an organization can have optimum diversity of thought while maintaining segregated talent development.

But there is an opportunity for any organization wishing to develop diversity of thought as they ramp up diversity of those factors we can measure. White men are diverse too. But the dominant culture, regardless of who it is or where it is, is driven to value conformity. The whitest management group in the country has white men who have differences in their perspective that derive from their personal history—growing up poor, wealthy, rural, city, large family, single parent—whatever the differences, they drive a different way to approach problems and opportunities. Being nimble in the marketplace demands opening the aperture for ideas. The primary factors of diversity management—mentoring, resource groups, diversity councils—can be adapted for utilization with any company, but often we see only non-white people and/or women being called “diverse,” and “inclusion” ends up being a segregated channel for everyone who isn’t a white man to discuss among themselves. Big mistake.

I don’t think it’s possible to measure diversity of thought between disparate organizations. We can measure equitable talent development, supplier diversity, philanthropic spend, success of resource groups and mentoring, though—and that’s exactly what we do in the DiversityInc Top 50 process.

We can also have companies tell us about how they’ve harnessed diversity of thought—and that’s exactly what we’ve done with this issue of DiversityInc magazine. You can witness this live at our Innovation Fest! this September.

The post Ask the White Guy: Can You Measure Diversity of Thought and Innovation? appeared first on DiversityInc.

I was invited to speak at Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, a division of WellPoint, No. 34 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. After I spoke, their President and CEO Mark Wagar talked about his business, specifically about the company’s customers and employees, and consistently and emotionally used the words “us,” “our” and “we.” There was no mention of “those people” or “them.” Mr. Wagar sees people as his brothers and sisters. Watch Wagar’s keynote at our DiversityInc Top 50 event.

He also spoke, with deep respect, of his community’s diversity and the need to focus on it—in the context of service.

Earlier in the year, I was invited to speak to the Wells Fargo Advisors (whose parent company, Wells Fargo & Co., is No. 33 in the DiversityInc Top 50). Their president and CEO, Danny Ludeman, closed out the event. Speaking to the audience of roughly 200 senior leaders, he asked how many of the (mostly white) men had attended an resource-group meeting; about one-third of the hands went up. Mr. Ludeman said: “The next time we meet, it had better be all of you.”

Point made. I’ll bet it will be.

Ten years ago, I did not see the consistency of switched-on leadership that I see today. More than half of Fortune 500 companies had no diversity efforts; today, I’d estimate that more than half do (even if a significant number of those company’s diversity efforts are little more than having tacos in the cafeteria on May 5).

Recently, I was asked an interesting question. A senior executive of a firm at the top of our list asked me if I felt that the questions we ask on our survey end up directing the reality we measure. In other words, if we focus on management techniques like mentoring and employee-resource groups, isn’t that what we end up seeing in our numbers?

No doubt there is a trailing effect of those questions on decisions being made by companies just starting out on the path of managing diversity, but there’s a definite path.

The DiversityInc Top 50 survey has evolved over the past 12 years, but it is an evolution based on cause and effect. Our ability to measure diversity metrics and outcome as expressed in human capital (there are other measurements of the outcome of corporate culture, but none as accurately and consistently measured by every company as human capital) has allowed us to ask questions about best practices. Given our enormous base of 587 participants, it enables us to see, by correlation, what works.

Management best practices, such as diversity councils, resource groups, structured mentoring, goal-setting and, most importantly,accountability, have statistically valid correlations to equitable outcome in accomplishment.

In other words, we’re not making this stuff up—we’re reporting diversity-metrics-driven results.

Our ability to accumulate the data—and disseminate it through our publication, events and our benchmarking service—has certainly encouraged a direct path to the most rapid improvement for hundreds of companies. In turn, they have asked their suppliers for their diversity questions on RFPs and by tracking Tier II (subcontractor) supplier diversity.

So yes, there is a connection between the questions we ask and the reality we measure, but it is one created by the companies themselves. For example, the percentage of managers in mentoring and people in employee-resource groups has more than doubled in the past five years. Yes, we’re measuring both, but our measurement of those programs wouldn’t continue if there weren’t corresponding benefits.

In my opinion, the most important best practice we measure is the percentage of CEO direct reports’ bonuses that is tied to diversity-management results. This has gone from 5 percent to 12.3 percent in the past five years. It’s not logical to think that this level of reward is because of our competition—it has increased because smart CEOs want to make sure they’re putting the spurs to their diversity efforts.

It is the personal commitment of those at the top of organizations that makes the success or failure of managing diversity.

–Luke Visconti

The post Do Diversity Metrics Hold the Key to Diversity-Management Success? appeared first on DiversityInc.

DiversityInc has been studying companies’ diversity metrics and the four stages of diversity management for more than a decade. Most companies are in the first two stages, with companies that earn spots on the upper portions of The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list in Stage Three. We don’t yet know any companies that are in Stage Four, but a handful of very innovative companies are poised to break through to that stage.

Stage One: Celebration Focused

The company has begun to recognize the value of diversity and begins to have celebrations, such as Black History Month and Cinco de Mayo day in the cafeteria. The danger for these companies is in raising expectations with no corresponding gain in opportunities. They have a high level of regrettable loss (loss of talent, particularly from traditionally underrepresented groups) that could have been developed. They also have increasing difficulty in recruiting people from these groups and all younger people, who want a more inclusive environment, according to Pew Research reports.

Stage Two: Workforce Focused

The company has created a diversity plan—with actions, objectives and milestones. It has begun to show gains in the diversity of its workforce and has implemented resource groups and, often, a structured mentoring program. The company now has a competitive advantage—with talent and reaching customers/clients—over competitors still in Stage One.

Stage Three: Marketplace Focused

The organization has metrics-driven accountability for its diversity-management efforts, often through its executive diversity council. Its human-capital and supplier-diversity metrics are well above average and it assesses and communicates clearly the value diversity management is bringing to the organization. The company exhibits cutting-edge diversity-management initiatives, such as innovative work/life programs that aid in retention and talent development, or clear linking of supplier-diversity efforts to community building. It is outpacing its competitors in reaching and developing talent and creating marketplace solutions. These companies outpace their competitors in raising cultural competency in marketing and sales efforts.

Stage Four: Out-Thinking Competition

These companies leverage diversity management to create, sponsor and nurture innovation. They provide thought-leadership and integrate cultural competency in all they do, from recruiting to customer service.

The post Diversity Metrics Determine the Four Stages of Diversity Management appeared first on DiversityInc.

In DiversityInc’s diversity web seminar on talent development, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Barbara Frankel leads a discussion on the importance of leveraging diversity metrics to drive talent-development programs, in particular those that include formal cross-cultural mentoring.

Amy Munichello, director, diversity and inclusiveness center of expertise, Ernst & Young (No. 6 in the DiversityInc Top 50), and Mohit Misra, executive director, talent management, OD, staffing, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (No. 13), provide comprehensive case studies of how their companies increase the representation in their talent pipelines to drive both business results and professional growth.

In this 90-minute web seminar, readers will learn:

• How to measure the success of a cross-cultural mentoring program
• The top four best practices for talent development in resource groups
• Why Ernst & Young takes a global approach to talent and the three key elements that bring its program success
• The impact and challenge of unconscious bias on talent-development goals
• How Novartis makes talent development about more than traditional training programs

Watch diversity web seminar on talent development on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

For more best practices, watch DiversityInc’s other diversity web seminar on talent development with The Coca-Cola Company and CSX (Nos. 46 and 23) and read Networking & Sharing on Resource Groups, Diversity Councils, CEO Commitment, Talent Development, Mentoring.

The post Diversity Web Seminar on Talent Development: How Diversity Metrics Help Improve Diversity at the Top appeared first on DiversityInc.

Lou Miramontes, partner, KPMG (No. 22 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity), Jim Norman, vice president, diversity, Kraft Foods (No. 7), and Nellie Borrero, managing director, global inclusion and diversity, Accenture (No. 12), discuss these issues in our diversity web seminar on diversity metrics/accountability.

Moderated by DiversityInc’s Barbara Frankel, senior vice president and executive editor, these diversity leaders reveal the keys to their diversity-management success through their measurement of diversity metrics and best practices such as resource-group membership, mentoring participation, philanthropy to multicultural organizations, and supplier diversity—and how they link executive compensation to the success of their diversity-metrics scorecards.

The 90-minute diversity web seminar, which is also available as a downloadable PDF, will offer readers comprehensive information in the form of case studies, including:

• Insight into key best practices in diversity management from our exclusive DiversityInc Top 50 data, such as mentoring, philanthropy and metrics measurements
• How KPMG determines its diversity goals and why it takes a layered approach to measurement
• What Kraft Foods’ diversity and inclusion initiatives are and how it uses a diversity-performance factor to hold leaders accountable for results in diversity management
• Why measurement helps Accenture fully utilize its diversity-management initiatives

Borrero says, “Building an inclusive and diverse workplace through a culture of sponsorship and measurement … is a journey.” Make sure your organization is prepared and is measuring the right metrics.

Watch the diversity metrics web seminar on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

The post Diversity Web Seminar on Diversity Metrics: Which Diversity Metrics Are Most Valuable? appeared first on DiversityInc.

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).

The post How Diversity Councils Use Diversity Metrics to Set Goals That Get Results appeared first on DiversityInc.

Lou Miramontes, partner, KPMG (No. 22 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity), Jim Norman, vice president, diversity, Kraft Foods (No. 7), and Nellie Borrero, managing director, global inclusion and diversity, Accenture (No. 12), discuss these issues in our diversity web seminar on metrics/accountability.

Moderated by DiversityInc’s Barbara Frankel, senior vice president and executive editor, these diversity leaders reveal the keys to their diversity-management success through their measurement of best practices such as resource-group membership, mentoring participation, philanthropy to multicultural organizations, and supplier diversity—and how they link executive compensation to the success of their diversity scorecards.

The 90-minute diversity web seminar, which is also available as a downloadable PDF, will offer readers comprehensive information in the form of case studies, including:

• Insight into key best practices in diversity management from our exclusive DiversityInc Top 50 data, such as mentoring, philanthropy and metrics measurements
• How KPMG determines its diversity goals and why it takes a layered approach to measurement
• What Kraft Foods’ diversity and inclusion initiatives are and how it uses a diversity-performance factor to hold leaders accountable for results in diversity management
• Why measurement helps Accenture fully utilize its diversity-management initiatives

Borrero says, “Building an inclusive and diverse workplace through a culture of sponsorship and measurement … is a journey.” Make sure your organization is prepared and is measuring the right metrics.

Watch the diversity metrics web seminar on DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

The post Diversity Web Seminar on Diversity Metrics: Which Are Most Valuable to Diversity Management? appeared first on DiversityInc.