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Key Diversity And Inclusion Metrics

By Tom Stroud on 19.02.2021

Diversity & Inclusion | 3 Min Read

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have been a de rigour subject in HR for several years. Still, recent political and cultural changes, coupled with the negative impact of the pandemic on minority groups, has heightened the pressure on employers to raise their DEI game.

Many companies, nevertheless, consider business fundamentals as optional when it comes to DEI, and most are only just beginning to apply detailed discipline to those frameworks. But once a robust strategy is in place, what should be monitored and how? The vast majority of businesses measure their diversity, equality and inclusion efforts with metrics like employee productivity, morale and turnover. There are, however, many other factors to consider, some of which are listed here;

Retention

Measuring and identifying groups of employees dissatisfied with their jobs and less committed to the company can help identify those who are more likely to choose to leave or be pushed out of the company. This can be assessed by dividing the number of employees who left the company over a specific period into voluntary and involuntary.

Representation

True diversity can only be achieved by segmenting the workforce and ensuring it's representative at all levels of the business. By examining how many staff sit within monitored sets compared with either company, job market or industry benchmarks, underrepresented groups will be discovered.

Employer Brand

Comparing the quality and strength of your employer brand across different minority clusters will help you spot any hiring roadblocks, if there are any. Good employer branding helps reduce staff turnover but can also decrease the cost per hire, time to hire and increase the number of qualified applicants.

Recruitment & Selection

Tracking the number of applicants or appointments from particular groups, compared with applicants who are not within those groups, is an effective way to identify barriers to entry for certain people, any pipeline issues, and any potentially biased or narrow recruitment methods.

Promotion & Development

Monitoring promotions and developing individuals from specified sections, and comparing them to staff promotions not within those sections will help uncover bias in assessment and selection. Examining the time it takes for those people to progress compared with others will indicate performance versus potential bias that may favour particular groups.

Pay & Benefits

Examine financial and non-financial rewards earned by monitored group members compared to non-monitored groups. This will highlight any bias in compensation and reward schemes against factors such as gender, rank and function.

Employee Engagement

Monitoring engagement scores will decide whether certain minority groups are dissatisfied or less engaged than others. If there is a significant difference in scores, it could be a sign of bias and practices that favour one group of employees over another.

Return on Investment (ROI)

The final and perhaps most crucial requirement for most businesses is the ability to demonstrate that your DEI strategy delivers a tangible return. Your company may measure this in terms of economic or non-economic gains, but either way, having metrics in place will help you track how successful your efforts are in achieving your objectives.

However, the metrics you choose to measure ROI depend on the DEI strategy's core objective in the first place. In most cases, the calculations consist of three primary elements; current situation, future state & cost of change.

For example, the first stage may be to calculate the current cost of advertising vacant roles, screening, assessing and interviewing candidates. Next, calculate these costs after the initiative is in place. For example, if it has lowered the time spent by recruiters and hiring managers interviewing, this increases productivity.

Finally, look at the costs of getting from where the business is at present to where it will be in the future. Typically, this investment is a combination of resources and time.

Presented together, your ROI should show your investment (the cost of change) compared with the expected return (current costs minus future costs). It may look something like this;

"We will save more than £320,000 per year with a £170,000 investment over one year, half of which will be an employment budget of two FTEs to perform the work."

Ultimately, diversity, equality, and inclusion metrics exist to improve the business by allowing every employee to feel safe, secure, and free to be themselves, regardless of their background. Choosing the right metrics is an art, not a science, and there is no universal solution for all. Even so, managing the process dynamically and enabling it to evolve will ensure it's as productive as possible.