4 Reasons Why Diversity Initiatives At Your Company Aren’t Making A Difference

Written by: Ammara Qaisar

Since the late 1980s, the issues that came with having a homogenous workforce led many companies to adopt programs that would make their workforce more diverse, and therefore, more innovative and creative.

Two decades and several research studies later, it is now widely known that diversity affects the general productivity and efficiency of the workforce, a fact that the 2018 McKinsey report, “Delivering through Diversity” attests to.

To reap the benefits of personnel heterogeneity/diverse workforce, huge investments (Intel invested $300 million dollars in 2015) are often made towards Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives. However, a lot of these initiatives fail to bring about change.

This article looks at plausible reasons for the failure of D&I programs. It also explores where the solutions may lie through examples of efforts made by Intel and Merrill Lynch to be more inclusive.

1) Confusing Diversity With Inclusion

Diversity hiring often emphasizes on numbers without necessarily focusing on the mechanisms needed to make workplaces inclusive. While it allows people of diverse identities and backgrounds to get through the door, it does not do much to make sure that they stay, resulting in widespread retention difficulties. Without proper support structures in place, people are bound to experience feelings of alienation and exclusion that lead them to leave the company after a period of time.

Besides, and more often than not, leadership remains intact as diversity programs are neither long term nor holistic in their approach. They do not offer adequate help or opportunities for folks from minority or disadvantaged backgrounds to scale within the organization.

According to Egon Zehnder’s Global Board Diversity Tracker 2020, an average board in corporate India has 11 people of which only 1.9 are women. While among Muslims, who are 14% of the population, only more than 2% are senior executives in BSE500 companies.

The lack of women and minorities among senior management keeps the concentration of power from changing, as attempts are mostly made to make the existing leadership more receptive rather than diversifying it.

How Intel Improved Their Diversity Indicators

Intel’s example is revealing in this regard. The tech giant was one of the first of its kind to invest heavily in addressing racial and gender inequality. Yet, it struggled to make continuous and significant progress toward a more diverse workforce due to the problem of retention.

In 2016, with the aim of addressing retention issues, Intel launched ‘Warmline‘, a confidential online hotline. This provided employees with real-time assistance and helped in bringing to focus the causes that undermine workplace inclusivity.

The move proved beneficial in addressing the issue as Intel’s retention statistics shot up. More than 8 in 10 people who filed complaints were still at the company, as of a report in 2019. Between 2016 and 2019, Warmline had received 20,000 complaints.

They’re also planning to launch an ‘Executive Warmline’ for leaders who are directors and above, as it continues to work on retaining women and underrepresented minority groups. Recently, the company also pledged to increase women in technical roles to 40% by 2030. It’s also aiming to double the number of women and underrepresented minority groups in senior leadership positions.

The company is developing a ‘Global Inclusion Index‘ for and with the tech industry. The point of the index would be to share unified D&I goals and metrics publicly, as data transparency is core to its assessment of progress.

2) Disconnect From The Company’s Overall Growth

The biggest mistake that companies frequently make is relegating D&I to an HR concern, assuming it to be unimpactful to the company’s growth as a whole. As it is not considered a business priority, being on the periphery of affairs, D&I programs remain cut-off from larger, better funded opportunities for growth. This severely limits the opportunities that are made available through D&I programs. Without inter-departmental collaboration D&I cannot become a company-wide priority and provide the company the benefits of having a diverse workforce.

How Merrill Lynch Turned Things Around

For instance, the global success of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s (MLWM) internal diversity statistics from the last several years show positive trends and have come about by holding all levels of leadership accountable for change. In 2018, 21% of MLWM’s advisors in the U.S. were women, having increased by 17% compared to five years ago.

Merrill Lynch currently has the most diverse class of advisors in its training program in its history, which has nearly 30% women and more than one-third people of color. That said, there was also a lawsuit filed on the grounds of gender discrimination against MLWM in 2013. The lawsuit ended on a 39-million-dollar settlement.

One of most important efforts by MLWM towards D&I has been the creation and implementation of several advisory councils and events for ensuring that the right strategy, programs, and processes are in place to support and sustain the growth and success of diverse talent.

In 2014, MLWM formed a Black/African American Leadership Council (B/AALC), chaired, and sponsored by members of the business’ senior leadership team and includes B/AA advisors. In 2017, MLWM also formed the ‘Merrill Executive Council for Diversity & Inclusion’, chaired by and composed of members of the business’ senior leadership team. The key deliverables of the Council include four focus areas – hiring/ representation, engagement/inclusiveness, diverse financial advisor performance, and communications.

3) Wrong Assessment Of The Problem

Miscalculation of the issue often causes companies to solve for the wrong things. Instead of giving sufficient time and resources to understand why workplaces are not as inclusive and diverse as they were thought to be, seeking swift assessment and solutions leads to a superficial understanding of the problem. The solutions may work well for a little while, but their short-sightedness soon catches up with them.

For instance, to boost diversity a company may hire a number of people from certain underrepresented communities. Yet, if the company fails to acknowledge and understand the different contexts and viewpoints that they bring, the new hires may not feel a sense of belongingness towards the company and lose job-satisfaction causing their performance to suffer. In this case, the problem is not the number but the company culture, and it cannot be solved by hiring more minorities.

4) Onus To Change On The Employee And Not The Company

A lot of the time companies actively contribute to maintaining the status quo. This often leads them to expect that the employees targeted by D&I initiatives will change to fit the company culture rather than seeing if it is the company culture that needs changing to include them.

If people are expected to assimilate once they are in, the whole purpose of hiring them for the diversity they bring is defeated. As a result, they disappear in the system.

Reluctance to change company culture also causes structural issues to persist, making it hard to retain employees who can make bring new things to the table and contribute to the company’s growth. This may also reflect poorly on the company’s ability to keep up with the times.

Initiatives aimed at diversity and inclusion should seek to provide employees the space to grow and make them feel valued and included. Companies have to make conscious efforts to adopt inclusive systems. Regularly revisiting and assessing D&I programs is necessary for any substantial, long-term changes.

About the author: Ammara is a second year student at the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, majoring in Sociology and minoring in Journalism. 

Ungender Insights is the product of our learning from advisory work at Ungender. Our team specializes in advising workplaces on workplace diversity and inclusion. Write to us at contact@ungender.in to understand how we can partner with your organization to build a more inclusive workplace.