D&I Metrics: 5 Tips to Measure and Track Inclusion
By: The Diversio Team
Tags: Data Analysis, Diversity, Diversity And Inclusion, Inclusion, Equality

Whether you’re just starting to invest in D&I, or have ongoing efforts already in place, gauging your progress is an essential part of making progress. Many of the barriers to diversity and inclusion stem from unconscious biases, and as a result, it can be difficult to determine if the changes you’re making to your workplace are really impactful. Regularly checking in can help save time, money, and resources by allowing you to more accurately identify problem areas and ensure efforts are being directed to high priority areas. Conducting initial analyses is also key to targeting challenges and integrating the right solutions.

1. Determine What to Measure

Every business comes with unique challenges and strategies. To that end, inequities also vary vastly by region and industry. You may be focusing on anything from improving employee retention, diverse hiring, or inclusive policies, along with a host of other Inclusion Pain Points in between. All of these come with different goals, so when looking for effective metrics you need to know what they are. You may be interested in tracking the financial return of investing in D&I strategies, changes in the representation of diverse employees, or retention of talent. Revisiting the initial reasons behind the strategies you’ve been implementing is the first step to seeing if they’re working.

As an example, one significant inclusion challenge in the private equity industry is the lack of support policies in place for new mothers. This has been found to deter women from careers in PE, causing a stark gender imbalance. If a private equity firm hoping to improve this has put new maternity policies in place, an effective way to measure progress might be to track employment with parental status, or female hires over time, to see if the change has actually improved retention or onboarding of female employees. By contrast, tracking something like ethnic minority hires would not be a good reflection of the effectiveness of the new policies.

2. Find Trends Within Different Groups

Break down your analysis to look at various levels, departments, and traditionally marginalized groups. Looking at your company as a whole can yield misleading insights; it’s necessary to separate groups and look at the discrepancy between the minority and majority groups to get an accurate picture of how your company is doing and pinpoint problemsareas. Consider the following exhibit:

If we took an average of all employees surveyed, the percentage of those who feel supported by their manager would be above 80%. Keep in mind the distribution of diverse employees is likely to have more Caucasians and males, so their average response would hold more weight than the responses of black women, to name an example. The results would suggest some room for improvement, a generally good response. In this situation; however, the results would fail to show how one particular group feels significantly less supported, and should therefore be a target for future D&I efforts.

Breaking the collected data down will reveal exactly which groups and areas in your company need the most attention, and can help isolate the potential sources of inequity. Some other things to consider: What groups are advancing the fastest? Are bonuses, benefits and opportunities being awarded to all team members fairly? Do promotion and recruitment candidates have an even distribution of minorities?

3. Leverage Data Technology for Metrics, Insight, and Strategic Recommendations

Knowing what to look for and where to find it is a great start, but there’s the matter of how that often holds businesses back. D&I is a complex and evolving space that can feel overwhelming and intangible — how can one begin to measure it? Without unique expertise, analyzing inclusion is tricky and many companies simply don’t have the resources to collect necessary information internally. This is where external resources can be especially helpful. There are tools developed by teams dedicated to improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace, which make use of advanced data analytics and even artificial intelligence.