Companies across the U.S. have renewed and increased their focus on diversity, equity and inclusion since the events of racial unrest in 2020, but have those efforts had an impact? Dice’s latest research says no.
In 2022, significantly fewer tech professionals were impressed with their company’s response to anti-racist and gender diversity, equity and inclusion movements than in 2021. In Dice’s latest survey, we also found that more tech professionals experienced discrimination in 2022 than did in 2021.
The numbers are disheartening and that’s all the more reason to continue down the path, and in some cases consider doubling down on efforts.
Continuing to focus on DEIB and listening to employees’ feedback is critical to your success as an employer. More than half of tech professionals say it’s important to them that their company makes changes to policies in response to racial and gender diversity, equity and inclusion movements.
Add to that the 52% of tech professionals who said they are likely to switch employers in the next year and it’s imperative to put organizational focus on this factor if there is any hope of keeping attrition low.
While the go-to response has been internal company-wide trainings (only 12% of HR professionals said their company has not offered DEI-related trainings since 2020), that’s clearly not enough. More than half (51%) of tech professionals said it is important to them that a company make changes to support racial and gender diversity, equity and inclusion. If your organization stopped at trainings and there haven’t been any policy changes since 2020, that would be a great place to start.
Here are some other changes you can consider as you continue to advocate for and support DEIB initiatives in your organization:
Ask the Right Questions and Listen
There is a disconnect between how HR professionals feel about current DEIB efforts and how tech professionals feel about them: 68% of HR professionals were impressed with their company’s actions toward racial diversity, equity and inclusion compared to just 36% of tech professionals who were impressed. Most companies have their employees complete engagement surveys... but fail to implement initiatives that tackle the problems illuminated by those surveys. Instead, study the data and allocate time for focus groups to troubleshoot feasible, meaningful solutions. Transparency is key to understanding the gaps in your DEIB approach.
Outsource DEIB Support
Making your senior talent acquisition specialist do double duty as the DEIB program manager, handling all things DEIB for the company while still serving as a TA specialist, isn’t an effective DEIB practice. Stop taxing individuals who have expressed an interest in DEIB by overloading them with this work. There are a variety of ways to outsource support to help you build an effective strategy for implementing DEIB right.
Be Committed to DEIB Through Accountability
Commitment is more than words or even taking action to launch a program. It’s also about holding yourself and others accountable. Be committed to making leaders responsible and ensuring there is a protected grievance process in place to mitigate discrimination, hate and injustices that happen in the workplace but go unaddressed.
More professionals realize that performative DEIB tactics don’t translate into actual impact, and they’ll leave a company that doesn’t truly embrace and practice effective DEIB. Fewer workers (especially younger ones) are willing to spend years in a toxic environment that’s not serving their needs. That gives companies a choice: engage in impactful DEIB... or pay the extravagant costs of high turnover as their revenue-critical talent walks out the door.
Shallow DEIB efforts not only hinder retention and hiring of top diverse talent, but harm the ability to reach consumers. Managers and tech professionals know that when you have a diverse team actively working on a project, the resulting product is stronger and appeals to more groups. In addition, consumers are paying more attention to which companies have strong DEIB practices. From a branding and practical standpoint, DEIB is critical to retaining and growing a customer base over the long term.
