DEI progress comes to life in pay, career and benefits

01

Know the diversity of your workforce and use data to inform strategies

Conduct diversity workforce analytics to answer foundational questions: Are underrepresented talent (e.g., women, disabled, Black and African American, veterans) proportionately becoming candidates, interviewed and hired than highly represented talent (e.g., men, white employees)? Do your employee groups help in equitably growing their careers, promotion and related pay raises?

Then work to understand the “why” behind your data and how your current state compares to your overarching DEI and talent strategy and goals. Ask critical questions such as, where have we achieved equity across employees, where are there gaps or opportunities and what is the business risk of not acting.

02

Use employee listening tools

Get a clear understanding of your workforce by going straight to the source. Ask them what they want, what they need and their experiences. If you haven’t already implemented a self-ID program (e.g., gender, race, LGBT+, disability, caregiver), establish one. That will make it possible to get different employee groups’ views.

Use different tools such as annual surveys and employee pulse surveys to continuously listen to your employees and get critical insights to inform your approach, leverage diversity or self-ID flags to understand similarities and differences across the workforce. These tools can help you to determine whether:

• Those who identify as caregivers need greater flexibility in where and when they work
• There are parts of the business where women feel overlooked for development opportunities (and why?)
• There are employees who are worried they will be left behind (e.g., ranging from underrepresented to historically represented)
• Employees know how to make the most out of their benefits to enable them to take care of themselves and save for the future (e.g., build long term savings)

03

Engage and train your managers

The relationship between employee and manager can influence equity, making manager engagement and training critical. Managers can impact how an employee feels about career growth and development, career opportunities to consider, resources available to them as well as their sense of belonging and connectedness to the organization.

(Source: WTW 2023 Pay Transparency Survey).

Managers may have been promoted based on their business acumen, not their people skills. Foundational trainings of how to manage employees, create safety and trust are a start. Understanding bias and supporting a culture of inclusion is the next step to help ensure that employees from different backgrounds and range of needs are heard and seen in the organization, enabling them to thrive in the workplace. An example recognizing both visible and invisible disabilities and the importance of open and trusting dialog of working environment needs, performance management and career growth without bias.

A manager playbook or guide can help ensure that people managers have the right skills and resources to support all employees. Employee resources groups (ERGs) can provide important insight around the diversity of employee perspectives and experiences that managers need to consider and how. It is also important to keep managers engaged and supported.

Optimize work models

Organizations should review and confirm that work models support the business and employees’ diverse and changing needs. For example, flexible working hours may improve career equity for caregivers of children and elderly loved ones. Remote work may provide greater support and productivity for employees with disabilities. Without various work models, key talent could be reduced or eliminated from your workforce.

(Source: In the pursuit of career equity, you need a career framework).

For some, optimizing work models may include structural changes like implementing hybrid work, job sharing, or flexible schedules, such as flextime or compressed work weeks. Also consider operational changes such as updating policy language for greater clarity in how managers and leaders can implement work models within their roles and teams.

Communicate and engage with employees

Don’t underestimate the importance of how you communicate with all employees, and consider multiple approaches to reach different groups and bring equity to life. Fully use the insights gained from employee listening and manager engagement as well as from collaboration with your employee resource groups (ERGs). Such knowledge can help you determine the best way to communicate total rewards to your employees and how you will advance equity in careers, pay and benefits. Analyze the efficacy of communication methods to strengthen your messaging and ensure that your employees are aware of how they can contact you with questions or concerns.

(Source: WTW 2023 Pay Transparency Survey)