'A paradigm shift': Companies wrestle with implementing diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives, while others grow with the change
For some companies, creating and adjusting policies to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion can be easy. For others, it can be stressful.
Workers continue to look hard at their employers to see whether their policies address social inequities.
“It’s not a mystery. Your employees, your investors, your stakeholders, your consumers, they’re all part of society. They’re all part of the community. And so it’s not a mystery that this conversation is happening,” said Roy Weathers, vice chair of policy and societal engagement at PwC, a business consulting firm that is part of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited.
Weathers also leads a coalition known as CEO Action for Racial Equity as part of his duties with PwC. The organization describes itself as "a coalition of talent from 125-plus companies advancing public policies and corporate engagement, addressing societal challenges and driving change."
Companies can and should be driving change, Weathers said.
“Our employees, our community believe that the corporate community should be engaged in driving change,” Weathers said. “The community believes that the corporate community will drive more change than our government officials at times.”
Weathers spoke at the DEI Summit in June, hosted by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. Dozens of area businesses attended.
Weathers told the crowd that CEOs are concerned about how to navigate social issues and business.
“There’s been a paradigm shift in this country about the expectations of the corporate community to get engaged, to do what you’re doing (attending the summit), to have a voice. Never underestimate that,” Weathers said. “Your employees care, your investors care, your stakeholders care, your boards care.”
In a survey of nearly 260 area businesses by human resources organization MRA, 9% of the businesses say they have DEI embedded in their culture and 14% have a formal DEI initiative in place.
However, 42% have not implemented any sort of DEI initiatives.
Lisa Pook, MRA’s organization development director and DEI initiatives leader, said businesses that do DEI well have a “recognition that it's ongoing work.”
“It’s not ‘check the box and we’re done,’ ” Pook said. “The other part is really acknowledging and working the diversity part of it and the inclusion part of it. Not only having the differences there but making sure that the people who bring all this diversity or bring their differences are able to do their best work, to fully participate, to be part of your organization.”
Pook said leadership must take an active role in implementing DEI policies and helping workers feel like someone is listening to them.
“You can have all the diversity that you want but if people don’t feel that they’re valued, that they get to make the contributions they need to make, that inclusion part of it, then they’re probably not going to stick around,” Pook said.
To learn what matters to employees, Pook said businesses could conduct surveys and focus groups to determine the best way to move forward.
Businesses that jump ahead and implement policies and practices without attempting to reach out to their employees tend to have the worst DEI outcomes, Pook said.
“If it becomes a task rather than a planful journey, then there are missteps and people lose interest and it loses credibility,” Pook said.
'Work within the culture'
Goodwill Industries is one of the companies that is lauded for its DEI initiatives.
Angela Adams, chief communications and diversity officer for Goodwill Industries of SE Wisconsin and Metro Chicago, spoke on a panel during the DEI Summit about how the company believes if there is adoption of a philosophy at the top it will affect the other positions and departments below it.
“What we began to do at the top of the organization, to create that psychological space, is to go into the community, have our executive team meetings in the community with our community partners,” Adams said. “And we began to understand the people we were trying to serve in a very intimate way.”
Adams also encouraged businesses to make partnerships to work with their employees to help them grow as people and professionals.
Pook said change in workplace culture can be difficult but "it’s a starting point” to improve a company's performance.
“Companies are recognizing that diversity, that’s a broad label,” Pook said, adding there are differences beyond race and ethnicity that can play a role. “Differences bring strength to the workplace and the companies that learn and make their cultures and environment supportive and value those differences, those are the ones that are seeing successes.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Companies wrestle with implementing diversity, inclusion initiatives
