The pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is front and center for successful organizations worldwide. The World at Work Trends in DEI Practices and Policies survey found that 83% of organizations acted on DEI initiatives in 2021. For these companies, employees are more than resources or commodities. Their people are valued as a key differentiator.

How companies approach their DEI goals and strategies has changed over time. Initially, it was about the acknowledgment of inequities and compliance when warranted. Gradually, companies are seeing the business value in quality DEI programs and the return on investment when employees are valued as more than a resource.

Achieving meaningful and sustainable change demands an impact- and data-driven approach. Using a holistic approach to DEI, Mercer helps clients consider many different dynamics to meet the needs of a global workforce that’s ethnically, economically, generationally, educationally, and cognitively diverse.

Organizations should embed an evidence-based holistic DEI approach across every company facet. This approach should include internal strategies and external ones — working with stakeholders, such as consumers, suppliers, governments, and communities — to encompass the business imperative of creating a more open, diverse, and inclusive society.

The ideal DEI solution may seem daunting, and current efforts may seem incredibly slow and unproductive. But, like all projects, establishing an effective DEI program can be broken down into manageable milestones. Mercer helps clients narrow the gap between ideals and reality while accelerating the DEI journey with holistic and evidence-based roadmaps.

Can we get there from here?

Like most HR endeavors, companies must first understand where they are today as it relates to their desired DEI goals.

Recently, a global manufacturing company started its DEI planning. By leveraging Mercer's DEI surveys, normative benchmarks, and expert advisors, the client could get their DEI program into operation faster. The resulting DEI program will improve the employee experience for everyone through consistent organization-wide opportunity areas related to DEI policies, specifically promotion opportunity, favoritism, and fair compensation.

Global manufacturing company
DEI Goals: Obtain data-based information on global workforce composition and identify DEI sentiments across various demographic groups.
Approach: Leverage Mercer DEI surveys and normative benchmarks to design a global survey that collects detailed demographic information. By addressing the variance from benchmarks, provide consistent opportunity areas related to DEI policies across the organization, specifically around promotion, favoritism, and fair compensation.
Outcomes: Designed a 3-year DEI roadmap with action plans. Additional diagnostic interventions are under consideration around internal labor market analysis, pay analysis, and digital focus groups.

DEI measurements that matter

Perhaps your company already has DEI programs in place but wants to maximize the policy impact. Are your company policies in alignment with your culture?

While managing DEI can appear straightforward, many clients find it’s more complex and nuanced than originally anticipated. Simply throwing up a company-wide DEI dashboard with statistics may be a start, but it often does not capture the whole story. As this midsized financial company learned with external rating scores, measuring the wrong metric can lead to a false sense of security.

Mercer engagement surveys revealed a more accurate picture. Contrary to previous accolades, the favorability scores varied substantially by sexual orientation, disability status, and race/ethnicity. Analyses found that scores from female employees in director and above positions were significantly less favorable than those of their male counterparts; this was particularly true for black females. Misaligned DEI initiatives waste time and money and fosters distrust in other company reports.

Midsized finance company
DEI Goals: Implement a more effective DEI program to enact change in the organization.
Approach: Design a comprehensive analytics approach to perform a deep dive across all diversity groups along several constructs directly and indirectly associated with DEI.
Outcomes: Mercer identified a gap between what is said versus what is done and created an actionable plan to counteract this environment. Repeated DEI analysis on survey results showed improvements. The company continues to work with Mercer along this journey of improvement.

DEI improves employee experience

DEI program benefits are a valuable tool that employers should invest in to get right. When a thorough DEI study is conducted and analyzed, the results can lead to many positive improvements.

In partnership with Qualtrics, Mercer conducted a candidate experience survey for a large e-commerce company that elevated the employee experience to a new level. As a company that values its employees as the core to their ability to dominate the market, this e-commerce company had a working program that compiled information from various platforms, including Google Forms, Survey Monkey, and other third-party vendors, which resulted in fragmented data. By consolidating the entire employee experience (beginning with candidates), their team has democratized their data from pre-boarding and onboarding, ensuring positive candidate experiences and leading to better recruitment.

By consolidating the entire employee experience (beginning with candidates), their team has democratized their data from pre-boarding and onboarding, ensuring positive candidate experiences and leading to better recruitment.

Large e-commerce company
DEI Goals: Implement a more effective DEI program to enact change in the organization.
Approach: Understanding that a rejected candidate who had a negative experience is more likely to be vocal, which could be a considerable setback and make recruiting more time-consuming and costly, create robust and meaningful employee listening programs that provide a unique perspective on the candidate experience.
Outcome: Documented that 92% of employees say the organization is a great place to work, and 95% would strongly endorse the company to friends and family as a great place to work.

Building a diverse workforce and inclusive culture at Mercer

Suggesting company-wide change can be easier when talking about someone else, but Mercer believes that DEI progress should also demonstrate that its own employee advancements translate into business improvements. By respecting, valuing, and leveraging all aspects of diversity, Mercer drives more significant innovation and offers a competitive advantage that differentiates our client teams, products, services, and solutions.

Building a diverse workforce and inclusive culture

Mercer
DEI Goals: Leaders drive DEI movement, which allow effective people managers to fully leverage talent resources and increase diverse representation in key roles, retain talent at key inflection points, diversify client and project teams, and increase belonging through expanded Business Resource Groups participation.
Approach: Establish a multi-faceted approach of listening, learning, leadership accountability, and advocacy.

Listening

• Use listening sessions and survey data to drive actions and gather feedback
• Foster local dialogues focused on gender and race/ethnicity, LGBTQ+, and other diversity dimensions to increase awareness and understanding of differences
• Establish diversity advisory councils at the enterprise and local levels to guide actions with local leaders

Learning

• Deepen understanding of differences and address bias through training for all colleagues in unconscious bias and mandatory training for managers
• Use best practice enablement tools (i.e., playbook, faqs, scripts, discussion guides)
• Launch Business Resource Groups programs and events to create a culture of belonging and to share perspectives

Leadership accountability

• increase representation in key roles and on client teams through hiring, development, and promotion
• Create visible DEI goals around hiring, advancement, and retention where results impact leader pay and performance
• Continue to assess and address pay equity and eliminate bias in talent/performance reviews, hiring, promotions, and staffing client teams.
• Ensure diverse slates and interview teams, including a structured interview process, to de-bias sourcing and hiring processes

Advocacy

• Continue global mentoring and sponsoring programs
• Enhanced local mentoring and sponsoring for women and Black colleagues
• Remove bias from business practices and policies
• Promote external advocacy
• Conduct enterprise leadership development programs for diverse colleagues

Outcome: Progress is being measured and reported using score cards (by leader and geography), G+ representation (for overall, hiring, promotion, and retention), representation in key roles (manager and revenue producer), 100% diverse major bid teams, listening sessions and surveys, pay equity, certifications, and recognitions/awards.

Mercer’s DEI benchmark is the most comprehensive database globally

Benchmarking allows organizations to identify strengths and opportunities for growth in their DEI strategy. Similar to compensation and healthcare, company policies and culture are a part of talent recruitment and retention. Mercer’s DEI benchmarking can measure how your organization’s policies and practices compare to the global, regional, and industry survey results through data from approximately 1,200 companies across 54 countries.

We have the expertise to recognize and navigate your company’s DEI strategy. Let us help you. Contact us at surveys@mercer.com or 855-286-5302 today!