An Effective Diversity Equity and Inclusion Statement A diversity, equity, and inclusion statement is an effective way for your company to demonstrate its dedication to creating an inclusive workplace for its employees and make clear exactly what this commitment entails for them.
Your DEI statement should tie back into your larger mission, vision and values while outlining specific steps you intend to take towards meeting those goals.
Share Your Vision
An effective diversity equity and inclusion statement can serve to demonstrate your company’s dedication to creating an inclusive workplace, helping your company attract and retain talent from various backgrounds while improving your ability to compete effectively in the market.
As part of your Diversity & Inclusion (DEI) statement, ensure it reflects your company’s core values and mission. Otherwise, any efforts at creating an inclusive workplace could backfire and fail completely.
As part of your employer branding strategy, it is also necessary to incorporate a DEI statement into your overall employer branding plan. This can be accomplished by linking it directly to either your About Us page or standalone links on your website.
Your website visitors should easily be able to locate the full DEI statement and gain an understanding of your goals for DEI work, while simultaneously showing potential clients and consumers your progress in this area.
An effective DEI statement should include positive language that provides direction for readers. Doing this sets an example for how your company plans to create a more diverse workforce, making your company stand out among similar ones who may not be as committed.
DEI statements should include data such as the percentage of women or people of color in leadership positions or information about gender pay gaps, as well as actions your company is taking to address diversity and inclusion issues such as hiring programs to support women in the workplace.
An important benefit of including this data is showing your commitment to DEI initiatives, and encouraging other companies to do the same.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion statements (DEI statements) can be an effective tool in building trust among stakeholders, shareholders, customers, employees and other key constituents of your business. Unfortunately though, creating one can be daunting task and here are some tips on creating one that works effectively while inspiring those most important to your enterprise:
Share Your Commitment
An effective diversity equity and inclusion statement is a crucial tool for holding yourself accountable to creating an inclusive culture within your company and community, and recruiting and retaining talent through showing that efforts have been taken towards building more inclusive environments.
McKinsey & Company research from 2020 indicates that companies which prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) tend to outshone those that don’t take these initiatives into consideration as DEI fosters an atmosphere where employees feel comfortable being themselves and sharing their unique viewpoints.
Effective diversity statements include a commitment to DEI that links it back to the organization’s mission and values. Furthermore, these statements offer tangible examples of how their mission is being put into action such as links to resource groups or programs that have altered how business is done.
Lay suggests including success stories and statistics to showcase your progress so far, such as number of women in leadership roles or gender pay gap statistics or any specific initiatives you’re proud to support in writing your DEI statement.
An effective diversity and inclusion statement includes using positive, inclusive language that demonstrates care for those working within your company, according to Lay. This language must reflect your company culture and staff members while showing that you value all those working for you, she notes.
Include photos that highlight the diversity of your team when promoting DEI initiatives; this helps build personal connections and will give your DEI campaign greater reach.
If you’re promoting a female employee to senior management, make sure you use an image that represents her as equal. Consider using one featuring her with another coworker who looks similar, or an image from within their family that depicts this individual.
No matter if you are an employer new or old, it is essential to remember that everyone encounters challenges at their jobs – both internal and external. By welcoming a diverse and inclusive workforce into your team, embracing diversity can help overcome these hurdles while building stronger, more unified teams as well as increasing productivity, creativity and innovation which is integral to business success.
Share Your Actions
As more individuals understand the value of diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) in business, they’re pushing corporate leaders to take immediate steps toward meeting its goals. Executives should make it their top priority to communicate their vision, commitment and action plans that support DEI in their organizations.
Diverse workforces and inclusive workplaces both foster greater employee engagement, leading to greater productivity, creativity, and innovation. Therefore, it is imperative for companies to not only implement diversity initiatives but also foster a culture which supports these values.
Inclusion refers to creating an inclusive workplace in which all employees feel free to express themselves authentically, treating all people equally regardless of background or culture.
Engaging in open and honest dialogue about diversity, equity and inclusion is critical. Doing so allows individuals to identify their own biases in the workplace as well as gain more knowledge on different social identities that might influence interactions with one another.
To promote more inclusive workplace environments, implement pronoun-friendly language in internal communications and encourage trans and non-binary staff members to use preferred gender variant pronouns when speaking and writing about themselves. This will make employees feel more at ease identifying with their gender/gender-variant identities while strengthening your company’s status as an employer of choice.
Leaders should make an effort to become acquainted with the history and culture of local African, Latino/Hispanic, Asian, Arab and Native American communities as well as develop relationships with community leaders in their area. Doing this will give leaders a deeper understanding of issues faced by these groups as well as how they could support efforts within your organization to advance diversity, equity and inclusion.
Leaders must also prioritize increasing the diversity in senior leadership positions, as well as diversifying their executive teams. Studies have indicated that organizations with diverse teams tend to outperform those without.
Share Your Data
Diversity Equity and Inclusion statements provide businesses with an excellent way of sharing their stance on DEI in an honest and transparent manner, as well as showing they’re actively striving to promote diversity and inclusivity within their workplace.
Before creating a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement (DEI statement), take some time to think about what DEI means to you personally. Consider your frame of reference, what actions have been taken previously and your plans for the future, along with reflecting upon why diversity matters to you and why diversity should be prioritized in society.
Your goal should be to craft an executive summary that encapsulates your brand while remaining digestible for potential candidates. However, too much detail may become overwhelming and incomprehensible – leading them straight off track and away from actionable steps.
Once your basic statement is in place, it can be shared with both your team and website visitors. Simply include a link in your About Us section or create a standalone page and make sure it’s search engine-indexable so it will be visible for anyone searching online for you.
One step you can take to demonstrate that your business is committed to DEI is by including data on current diversity and inclusion efforts. This will provide tangible proof of your commitment, while making sure your statement accurately represents the efforts undertaken by your team.
As an example, you could include information regarding the gender pay gap and statistics about how many women or people of color hold leadership roles in organizations. You could also showcase any outreach efforts or initiatives designed to promote diversity within workplaces.
Implement a data-driven solution to demonstrate your company’s dedication to DEI by gathering and analyzing candidate data – this way you’ll have visibility into your recruitment pipeline while acting upon DEI values. When gathering and analyzing candidate information, you’ll gain visibility into which recruiting sources produce the most diverse slates; which demographics tend to apply most easily; how much diversity has already been reached so far and where you stand as far as DEI efforts go.