You want to create a more inclusive workplace. How can you measure your progress?

I have found success reframing SMART goals to SMARTIE goals — adding inclusive and equitable. By integrating these principles into our goal setting, whether for DEI goals or otherwise, they become a default practice for mindful decision making.

Analyze the diversity of your applicant pool and new hires across different positions and departments. Monitor metrics like source of hire, interview participation rates by diverse groups, and offer acceptance rates.

Part of defining goals is also evaluating the why! What do you want the intervention to do for you? Are there specific sub-cultural practices you want to alter and then focus on how realistic your goals should be and make them into manageable chunks for assessment purpose.

I would even go further in saying before you define your goals, what is the strategic objective. A strategic goal should be poignant. Create an inclusive culture that successfully impacts environmental, societal and governance across the organisation. Organisations should continue to focus on the importance of ESG and the facets that fall into these areas. Creating an inclusive culture is ongoing, it’s not a short-term solution and by having accurate goals, tracking methods and performance reviews, only then will a business truly be able to define its level of success in goal setting.

Fostering positive work place culture requires us to move away from a transactional approach to a humanistic approach. The more we continue to focus on what we can achieve by doing x y z the less space it gives for everyone to say what is needed when it comes to effective, smart goals setting across all levels of a company.

It is critical to understand the level of data you collect as well. Inclusion can be measured at the individual level (do I feel included by my leader?), at the team level (do I feel included in this team) and the organisational level (do I feel included in this organisation?). Organisations that truly prioritise inclusion will collect data at all of these levels

A study referenced in Bob Sutton’s book ‘friction-fixer’ states that “when you ask who has experienced exclusion, bullying or harassment- nearly 50% of people will say yes. However if you ask who has participated in such behavior you won’t get 1%.” DEI metrics need to build a holistic image based from multiple data sources, including empirical data identifying patterns. Finally always add humans in the loop.

To be inclusive, there's one key thing to consider here: Find representation that resembles the workplace, in all the qualitative data collection you do. The data can become the downfall if you take it strictly amongst the majority group.

A holistic approach for data collection and analysis gives a better and more insightful picture. Data, people and community. I think the last approach, community, has not been very well implemented, yet it has lots of potential for organizations to get true insight into communication, collaboration and engagement patterns.

Great comment from Professor Rebecca Jones. Particularly considering the role of power in D&I. Team level measurements will address situations of in-group and out-group formation which is great but it will not take into consideration hierarchical incidents of bullying, harassment and discrimination for example which are still so common in the workplace. Minoritised groups are at greater risk of this type of oppression and extreme exclusion situations!

In analyzing the data, seek to identify successful stories and celebrate them. Beyond this it might be helpful to also understand personality types or orientation that might undermine intervention efforts as a basis to apply relevant remedial mechanisms. Ensure objectivity in the process of data analysis in order to gain richer perspectives of workplace resilient culture.

When considering inclusion, it is critical to analyse data in relation to the demographic profile of employees. This is because the experience of inclusion for the ‘majority’ of employees may not reflect the experience of inclusion for minoritised employees

Frequently, I observe organizations dedicating resources to gather and analyze data but falling short in translating those insights into actionable steps. To prevent workplace initiatives from being seen as mere performance, it is crucial to formulate an implementation plan that acts as a roadmap for attaining goal. This can be achieved by putting key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure that actionable and measurable steps are in place to ensure workplace inclusivity.

Often times, folx are asked to participate in surveys that assess satisfaction and climate but have no idea what happens after they participate. Providing routine updates to community members on progress as well as implemented actions foster transparency and also provide visual representation of efforts. Remembering that storytelling should be more than words, sometimes people need to actually see what we’ve done in other ways.

Acredito que um ponto fundamental na etapa de implanta??o de a??es é a comunica??o frequente e horizontal com todos os públicos da organiza??o. Toda a??o deve ser vir acompanhada de a??es de comunica??o que visam n?o somente informar as pessoas sobre o que se trata, mas também para criar espa?os de fala para que essas pessoas possam expressar a sua opini?o e o seu ponto de vista. Essa é uma forma excelente de fazer com que os grupos interajam entre si e com os projetos de inclus?o, e que se sintam ouvidos e representados.

In fostering a more inclusive workplace, measuring progress is key to ensuring effectiveness. Utilize key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge your performance against set goals, using tools like surveys and feedback forms to collect insights from employees and customers. Employ strategic analyses such as SWOT and root cause analyses to identify influencing factors and areas for improvement. Regularly monitor and review these metrics to adapt strategies as needed. This commitment to continuous evaluation ensures that diversity and inclusion efforts lead to meaningful and lasting change within the workplace.

If you want to know if your workplace is inclusive, ask your diverse employees. Listen to those that are impacted, and go with a curious heart- if people tell you something, believe their experience…

Achieving true inclusion is much broader than identifying specific groups and making efforts to specifically acknowledge and include those groups. It's about learning to disabuse ourselves of all of the cultural and societal norms that our minds rely on to create shortcuts so that we can quickly make sense of social interactions and categorize people. Understanding that is the first step to creating a truly inclusive environment and avoiding the pitfalls of tokenization, which is where most efforts at inclusion unfortunately end up.