Steps to Improve Diversity and Measure the Impact

When introducing a diversity policy into your business you must be accountable. To ensure all employees understand your diversity policy, it must start from the top. As a business you need to provide your employees and hiring managers with information and training on the correct practices and ensure they are in place. This will make sure your employees both understand and comply with your company practices. To put across your ideas, you must do things such as holding meetings to discuss your policy. Provide written content for your employees to take home after the meeting and do this regularly. With more emphasis on your policy you will find that gradually in time your company diversity and inclusion will improve.

After you have made the changes it is vital that you measure the impact this is having on the business and set benchmarks. There are many different ways you can do this. Start by understanding what the current situation is and set a standard. Using tools to measure these things will help you understand what you are doing well and what needs improvement.

Surveys 

Internal surveys are a great way to measure the general feeling towards diversity within your business. Whilst surveys aren’t the most effective way to find out your employee’s opinions, they are both time and cost effective. Using anonymous surveys is a great way of finding honest opinions.

Exit Interviews 

Another great way to analyse your current policy is to conduct exit interviews. When an employee leaves you should create a section in their exit interview all about diversity within your business. Again, as the individual is leaving they will be more likely tell you their honest opinion on company policies and practices.

Data 

You should also take a look at staff retention and turnover. Analyse why people are leaving and what type of people are leaving. If an employee does not feel valued or feel as if the workplace is set up to their needs, they will likely leave. Once you understand if this is due to your diversity policy you can take a look at if there are any ways that you could have prevented them from leaving. Similarly, take your job applications into account. Are your job ads biased to certain gender, age or identity? You may need to take a look at your job adverts to make them more inclusive.

Another way to find out if your policy is improving things is by monitoring complaints of harassment and bullying in the workplace. By monitoring this you can find out if your policy is doing enough to stop incidents from happening. You will also need to monitor your company’s reactions to these situations and what comes from it.