Sometimes organisations are so keen to start their inclusion journey, that they want to jump right into actions and action plans. However, to be able to do impactful DEI work that is relevant for an organisation and it's business, a well-thought through DEI strategy is essential. How do you build one? What is a good DEI strategy?
There are a few key steps that are important when building a DEI strategy. I will outline those steps here.
Understanding your current state
Understanding of your organisation's current state when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion:
What kind of diversity do you currently have in your workforce?
What kind of employee experience do different demographic groups have?
Are there differences?
This kind of data is usually best gathered in a form of an inclusion survey / inclusion audit (I recommend using the support of an external provider for it).
It is essential to understand that this data must be analysed intersectionally to understand if there are differences in the experience of different groups. Often in personnel surveys we are used to interpreting average scores for various elements, but in inclusion surveys averages don't really tell us anything, simply because the minorities voice drowns in the majority's voice.
Defining your ideal state
Understanding what is your organisation's "Why" for DEI work.
What is it that you are striving for?
What would your organisation look like ideally from the perspective of diversity, equity and inclusion?
Why is this work relevant for us?
Defining your ideal state, or vision, helps you to keep the direction in mind when having to make choices later in the process.
Connecting the dots with the essentials of your organisation
Forming the connections of DEI work and your organisation's business strategy, people strategy and values. This helps you to understand and formulate the relevance of DEI in your specific industry and business. By making sure that the DEI strategy supports your business and people strategy, you will make sure that it does not remain as an unconnected initiative or a separate project, but the business value is clear.
Creating your goals
The purpose of goals is to be an indicator for how you are progressing towards your ideal state. You can use the same goal setting framework as your organisation normally uses, whether it is KPIs, OKRs or something else. The key here is to mindfully use all the data you have so far:
Current state analysis - where are we now?
Ideal state - where do we want to go?
Relevance - how is this work connected to our business and people?
Now, based on these datapoints, start formulating the measurable goals that will help you to track your progress. Ideally you come up with goals that support each other. In the goal setting phase you typically have to make some choices: for example, you may choose certain demographic groups you want to focus on, if your datapoints indicate that way.
Creating an action plan
This is finally when we get to the "How" part. Your goals should be a clear indicator for what you want to achieve. Now you can create an action plan to help you get there. This is where you will have individual projects, actions, initiatives. As long as you create the actions based on your newly set goals, you can always be certain that every single action that you do, is directly supporting your organisation's wider strategy and values.
Conclusion
With the help of these five steps you can create an impactful DEI strategy:
Current state analysis - understand where your organisation is now
Define your ideal state - clarify, what you want to achieve with this work
Connect to business - ensure that DEI supports organisation's strategy
Clear goals - set measurable and relevant goals
Action plan - define concrete actions that help you reach your goals
Based on my experience, these are the key elements you should consider when creating a business-relevant, impactful DEI / inclusion strategy. By following these steps you will ensure that your DEI strategy is relevant to your organisation, its business and its people, and you can easily track your progress.
If you are working on your DEI strategy and feel that you could benefit from having conversations with an outsider who has expertise and experience of this, I would love to help you through my DEI mentoring.
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