April is Diversity month! Let’s start by saying we believe every month should be diversity month. There’s never a better time to celebrate the many backgrounds, cultures, and experiences that contribute to an organization than the here and now. With April celebrating diversity, it’s a good time to ask, have you done a Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion pulse check recently?
Many organizations believe that improving diversity numbers alone will correct the imbalance that workforces see. This is a big mistake! Diversity only measures the composition of your organization. Equity determines how fair your organization treats its diverse people, and inclusion measures how people of various diversities feel valued as participants in your organization. You must have strategies for all three in place to make significant strides in your organization’s people health.
A Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion pulse check is an essential method of determining where you currently stand. We wish it were as easy as counting heartbeats!
The following ten questions were sourced from Basic Diversity, a full-service cultural diversity training and consulting firm. They ask you to consider the following survey questions:
Do our demographics look like America? If not, do we have a plan in place to make the necessary adjustments?
Would the supervisors, managers, and executives of my organization feel comfortable in an environment where they were not a member of the majority group? And while in that environment, would they be perceived as “sincere” or “genuine” by the racial minorities and women present?
If a negative diversity related (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc…) incident occurred, would our supervisors, managers, and executives be equipped with the skills to diffuse or handle the situation?
When highly qualified prospective applicants of diverse backgrounds look at my organization do they see evidence to indicate that they can logically expect to ascend to the levels of leadership that their abilities should afford them if they perform well?
Are there certain departments within our organization that appear to be off limits to certain groups of people?
Is the turnover rate at every level equitable across demographic groups; or is the turnover rate for people of diverse backgrounds significantly higher than that of our employees in the majority group?
Do minority group members truly feel as free to be risk takers as the majority group members? Or do they feel that they will be judged by a different standard if they fail?
Do the people who ascend to the highest levels of management within my organization tend to be a fairly homogenous group?
Do our organizational demographics reflect that of our client base?
Can I say with confidence that the average female or person of color would probably feel more comfortable, welcome, and affirmed working for my organization versus my competitor’s organization?
So, did you take it? Are you happy with your answers? If some of your responses leave you feeling, queasy, then you know it is time for a change. Optimum can help support one big piece of that change: recruitment and retention of resources from diverse backgrounds.
The Optimum CareerPath program is a targeted recruiting, training, and placement program focused on identifying and training high aptitude, early career employees. These employees are then placed with our healthcare clients to help fill their teams with diverse, high-potential, budget-friendly talent. Speak to your sales rep today to learn how CareerPath can improve the diversity, equity, and inclusion landscape at your organization.
