As I am from South Africa we called D&I transformation and there was a lot of things that in the 10 years I was working in South Africa that I have learned. But one thing always got me in all of this was was the question correct and are we tracking the right things. In my point of view there is 5 points that should be considered to address D&I:
VALUES
For me one of the key metrics and understanding about people are their value system tree. This is a key measure to see how a team will interact and also a company as a whole. This is not the values that the company promote but the actual values that every person have, what they see as important. There are in most psychology papers four (4) Categories of a Personal Value System
- Personal Values - Personal values are those traits we see as worth aspiring to, and that define our character.
- Spiritual Values - The values that connect us to a higher power and give us a sense of purpose beyond our material existence.
- Family Values - To love and care for those we are close to; our children, our parents, other family members, and our friends.
- Career Values - The best use and expression of our talents and skills for the purposes of contributing to society and for monetary compensation.
- They can be personal, held by an individual and applicable only to an individual, or they can be communal or societal, defined by and applying to a community or society. Communal value systems may be legal codes or take on the force of law in many societies.
- They can be internally consistent, where the broader ideological values derive logically as natural consequences of the particulars of fundamental ethical values, and where values do not contradict each other, or they can be inconsistent. Although ideally a value system ought to be consistent, quite often this is not the case in practice. Note that valuing the consistency of a value system is itself a sort of 'meta-value' that could be present or absent in a given value system.
- They can be idealized value systems (ideal representations of an individual's or group's value prioritization) or realized value systems (how such a value system is manifested in reality, in the actions and decisions of the individual or group). Idealized value systems tend to be absolute, in that they are codified as a strict set of proscriptions on behavior, while realized value systems contain conditional exceptions that are rules to resolve collisions between values in practical circumstances.
To illustrate what I mean the impact of values on teams and companies I did my own value test at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/personality/values-profile Free / $8.90 USD for full report and then also use https://personalvalu.es/ (https://personalvalu.es/personal-values-list) and the following was my results in short.
#1 ACCOUNTABILITY ( responsibility, dependability )
#2 FINANCIAL STABILITY (stable income, financial freedom)
#3 CREATIVITY (imagination, inventiveness)
#4 LOYALTY (faithfulness)
#5 HONESTY (sincerity, frankness)
From the psychology today my other values senses are:
Dominant Values — values you consider very important
- Theoretical Values: People with theoretical values regard logical thought and the pursuit of knowledge very highly. They respect the value of education, both formal and informal, and believe in learning for the sake of learning. They don't make decisions based on a set ideology; rather, they try to base your opinions, beliefs, and decisions on "truth". Rather than listening and blindly following what others are saying, people with theoretical values make their own choices based on all the information available to them. This translates to a very deliberate, logical way of thinking. They want to understand how things in the world work, and are not afraid to ask why something is the way it is.
- Realistic Values
- Aesthetic Values
Influencing Values — those that you consider moderately important
- Social Values
- Traditional Values
- Political Values
Minor Values — values that you consider least important
#1 REPUTATION
#2 RESPECT
#3 CREATIVITY
#4 POPULARITY
#5 EQUALITY
Metric for diversity can be as follows:
Goal setting theory (Locke and Latham) posits that motivation and task performance are positively correlated with setting specific and measurable goals. To elicit a behavioral change, people must have a clear idea of what is expected from them. Goals help individuals to focus their efforts in a particular direction. Well-defined and measurable goals are particularly important in diversity and inclusion because, as noted at the beginning of the article, without goals, our automatic and hidden tendencies that preference some over others would easily override our conscious intentions to be fair. That is not to suggest goal setting is easy, however. Setting diversity targets and goals is difficult and needs to be done with caution. Goals should be ambitious enough to encourage effort and commitment but realistic enough so as not to trigger negative emotions such as resistance or fear. When setting goals, consideration must be given to barriers that can be addressed in the short-term and those that will take longer to dismantle.
None of the values fall into this category
Now from the above lets say my manager has the same aligned values and a college that is senior has values as follows:
#2 RESPECT
#3 CREATIVITY
#4 POPULARITY
#5 EQUALITY
I added equality as you will see in a moment what that means in practice. Because my leader and I have aligned values we will understand each other and will have less conflict, in this sense I will feel that my leader understands me and that I am included in the team. Also my leader will feel that I am loyal to him as this is a value we share. Now as for my co-worker what do you think will happen in team settings if we don't agree with them or show that they are wrong in how they think? Because reputation is a high value for them they will feel direct conflict in an open forum makes them look stupid and harms the popularity they have with people, while my values are taking accountability for my actions and thoughts I don't really care what people think about me that much as I like to search for the truth even if that means I am wrong or I might hurt some ones feelings. Also my co-worker might feel I don't respect him as I always in conflict debate with him as I might feel that because he does not debate with me he is not really respecting me as I like to seek the truth by talking. Now if we do a survey based on this the results might look bad as one feels part of the team while the other does not because none understands how they values are structured. This cause great tension in organisations. As if the values of the company does not align practically with people then we might feel the people in the organisation are not keeping with the values. As a organisational value might be "treat people with respect" for me if people does not take responsibility for their actions and I must hold them to it as they must hold me accountable for mine we do not treat people with respect. While my co-worker feels that conflict can damage reputation of the individual, same value, different implementation.
As for equality there are 2 schools... first equality of outcome and the second equality of opportunity. These implemented practically can cause lots of arguments with people yet they are the same values and if some does not have this as their high value list they might even understand how people want to be equal while everyone should be different and thus that makes people in practice unequal in perspective. Not everyone can be a master chef, even if they try and thus they are not equal to any master chefs, but they are painters and thus the master chef cannot compete with them there. Our job is to understand these values and track people alignment with them, the more values are aligned the more people feel included.
Other interesting value site :https://www.valuescentre.com/tools-assessments/pva/
QUESTIONS
The next phase is the question that can be asked, this is what most companies do to see their D&I, but this is also where most companies fail in implementing change tracking. Like illustrated before without understanding values questions like "I feel I belong in my company" does not show any tracking capabilities as people with different values will not align. What if we use the questions:
- I feel that I can practice my values everyday in my company?
- I understand what my values and the company values are aligned with?
- What of the following company values resonates the most with you?
Even questions like what statements align with the company values are more insightful than the question I feel I belong. Not everyone should feel they belong in companies and companies should inspire them to find a company that would make them feel they belong, this is where initial interviews are critical to see if an potential employee will be able to feel they belong. This is nothing to do with diversity but everything with inclusion. Diversity is a easy tracker, but alignment is very hard. And inclusion should be the first priority to get the right people in, then diversity becomes an easy conversation and also career aspirations. Also most of the questions are very vague and does leave too much room for misinterpretation. Like "the leaders of the company is doing a good job in..." what leaders? the top management that I never met? or the boss that works with me every day or even his manager? Everyone will answer differently in their state of mind an thus give bad or good feedback to the wrong tier of leadership.
This bring me to the last point in questions section.. the state of mind of the participant. If you don't take the emotional state of someone in these questions they might skew the results. If I had a bad day at home and someone said something at work that triggers me I might answer very negative the questions while if a week later everything is resolved and I feel better the answers might be a lot more positive. As a company make sure that you know the state of each and have follow-up questions to see if there was change in the same answer. Someone with depression might not feel they belong, this is nothing to do with the company or the team and everything with the person's state of mind. (People with depression should be helped, but it takes more energy from people to make them feel included at work as their life is impacted differently)
MEASUREMENTS / METRICS
If you cannot measure it you cannot change or track progress, after understanding the values and questions we need to understand the metrics that we will use to track and see if the measures will work.
Metric for diversity can be as follows:
- Employees overall, by function, seniority and tenure (cut by demographics)
- Employment status (i.e., full-time, part-time, contractor) (cut by demographics)
- Management and leadership (cut by demographics)
- Salary (cut by demographics) – Raises and bonuses (cut by demographics)
- Board of directors (cut by demographics)
- Candidate pools and hiring funnels, by role (cut by demographics)
- Voluntary and involuntary attrition rates (cut by demographics)
- Promotion rates (cut by demographics)
- Formal and informal complaints (cut by demographics) – Complaint resolution status (cut by demographics)
For the inclusion the metrics are a bit harder to measure, but as discussed this is where the values and questions play very important part. An organisation’s diversity and inclusion metrics should serve three purposes: diagnose risk areas and opportunities, track the progress of initiatives, calculate return on investment. Some important metrics can be :
- Retention: Comparing average tenure for employees from monitored groups to average tenure across the workforce or average tenure of members of the dominant group.
- Recruitment: Comparing the number of applicants for open positions from monitored groups against the potential pool of applicants from monitored groups or labor market representation.
- Employer brand: Compare the quality and strength of your employer brand among different identity groups.
The important factor for metrics is to Establish baseline measures. It is impossible to track progress unless you have a baseline measure. If you have already started your program without taking a baseline measure, however, you can compare your metrics to results reported in other parts of the business or industry benchmarks. For example, let’s say you have implemented blind recruitment in one department of your organisation. Ideally, you will have baseline measures to track the impact of that initiative. For example, comparing the number of applicants from monitored groups that make it to interview stage pre- and post-intervention. However, if you have not tracked those figures before the intervention, you can compare the number of applicants for monitored groups that make it through to interview stage in the department implementing blind recruitment with the number of applicants for monitored groups that make it through to interview stage in departments who have not made any modifications to their recruitment practices. It is also important to ensure impact metrics on your own metrics, so in case of the Technology field if the programmers from university / college has a 20 / 80 ratio it is impossible to obtain 50 / 50 ratio in your department, that is the reality. If you want to change this you will have to work at other levels, else change the expansion metric company wide, is there other departments that has a 80/ 20 ratio... it is not a bad thing if everyone values align and works together for a greater purpose and helps each other as a true community should function. Some things takes more time than others... Rome was not build in a day, but they did start working on constructing it.
Note: on salary scale if you really want to put you money where your mouth is, follow the example of some companies and publish everyone's salary. If you want people to earn the same on the same skill level and experience, this is the way to enforce great career plans for people to earn the same, if person X earn 10 because they have 4 years programming, and 4 other skills, then if Y want the same that is an easy open discussion. In sales if someone work 60 hours a week for 10x and brings in 100x then the same should apply to everyone that are great sales people that can bring in the same amount. Skill training and knowledge sharing should all be helping in this case.
TRACKING
It is important to have a formal plan for measuring your progress—what metrics will be calculated, by whom, and how often? However, merely tracking and reporting diversity and inclusion metrics is not sufficient. The resulting data must also be analysed to assess what is working and what isn’t with the findings used to determine what modifications or additions to the initial action plan are required. It is important to assign responsibility for reporting the findings are well as to define the process for responding to findings. For example, findings are analysed by Human Resources and reported to the Diversity Committee who are tasked with responding to the findings with an action and accountability plan.
Once targets or other goals are set, responsibility for their achievement should be assigned to individuals who are held accountable through scorecards and other performance management tools. Ultimate accountability for diversity and inclusion should be at the level of the CEO and the Board of Directors.
OBJECTIVES / RESULTS
Goal setting theory (Locke and Latham) posits that motivation and task performance are positively correlated with setting specific and measurable goals. To elicit a behavioral change, people must have a clear idea of what is expected from them. Goals help individuals to focus their efforts in a particular direction. Well-defined and measurable goals are particularly important in diversity and inclusion because, as noted at the beginning of the article, without goals, our automatic and hidden tendencies that preference some over others would easily override our conscious intentions to be fair. That is not to suggest goal setting is easy, however. Setting diversity targets and goals is difficult and needs to be done with caution. Goals should be ambitious enough to encourage effort and commitment but realistic enough so as not to trigger negative emotions such as resistance or fear. When setting goals, consideration must be given to barriers that can be addressed in the short-term and those that will take longer to dismantle.
Report results and outline new initiatives. Results of diversity efforts should be transparent internally. This fosters trust and encourages accountability. Sharing results externally can also be valuable for industry bench-marking and strengthening employer brand and an organisation’s reputation in the marketplace. Of course, not all metrics need to be disclosed, and consideration needs to be given to the costs and benefits of disclosure of a particular metric. Organisations should remain alert to the possibility that not disclosing a metric may erode trust more than disclosing a potentially unfavorable metric. Employees sense when an organisation is hiding something. Not coming clean on a poor metric out of concern of employee backlash might do more harm than good. Organisations that have experienced a diversity failure or missed their diversity targets should respond honestly and sincerely, outlining a plan for rectification. Negative messages are best delivered by the CEO. While there is no hard and fast rule on the frequency of reporting diversity and inclusion metrics, ideally diversity reports should be published at least yearly. Thus review metrics regularly
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