How to prevent your DEI efforts from losing steam

Diversity and inclusion can no longer be an afterthought for organizations, but moving those initiatives forward requires long-term work in rebuilding company culture from the ground up.

Since last summer’s reckoning around race in America, corporations across all industries have pledged action — from recruiting and hiring efforts to changes to workplace training and culture. Ninety-one percent of employers have active DEI programs, and job postings for DEI leadership roles have skyrocketed, according to a report by the Josh Bersin Academy, an HR analytics firm.

However, employers are struggling to push past surface-level efforts like anti-bias training or hiring quotas in order to make true progress and attract Black and BIPOC talent, says Daniel Oppong, founder of the Courage Collective, a DEI consultancy firm. Those tactics can actually have the opposite effect on corporate diversity and make a company’s culture even less appealing.

Read more: Why Black employees aren't comfortable asking for mental health support

“Just because you have a diverse demographic does not mean that they actually feel included,” Oppong says. “Representation matters and creating points of access for underrepresented identity groups is important. But if you only think about getting them in the door, as opposed to what their experience is like once they get here, they're not going to stay.”

Instead, employers need to think about the full life cycle of the employee experience and make changes to their company values, practices and policies. The best and most successful organizations are willing to adapt and grow.

Daniel Oppong, founder of the Courage Collective

“To have a static idea of the culture you’re trying to create doesn’t lend itself to continued evolution and growth,” Oppong says. “Think about the whole employee journey and the whole employee life cycle and how they can be seen through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Read more: PwC is tackling workplace equity by uplifting Black, Latinx students

The Courage Collective works with employers on these efforts to help them rethink diversity and inclusion as a long-term, sustainable effort. The firm consults on pre-employment processes like ensuring job postings and an organization's website offer clues into their inclusive policies. They also provide training and development beyond once-yearly courses.

“For me, if I'm a black man and I'm looking at your company's website, do I see anyone who looks like me in a position of leadership? And if not, is that going to inspire me to want to pursue an opportunity at the company?” Oppong says. “We will take organizations through a learning series and what tends to happen is people really have an appetite. And when you create an intentional space for people to process their experience as a human and with race and gender and identity, it's really meaningful for people.”

These continuous efforts will help organizations reap the financial and cultural benefits of diverse and equitable workplaces: inclusive companies are 120% more likely to hit their financial goals, and see 1.4 times-higher revenue than less diverse companies, according to Gartner research.

While it’s tempting to put diversity and inclusion efforts to the side after a yearly anti-bias training or other employer-mandated programs, these “one-and-done” efforts will never be enough to create an inclusive space where all employees can succeed, Oppong says. Instead, employers should be future-focused and look inwardly at their culture and then outward at who is best suited to help them get there.

“An ideal workplace is one where when we say, bring your whole self to work, that actually means something,” he says. “Employers need to put their money where their mouth is and hire experts who can actually help them on the journey. Take an honest assessment of where you are and what you don't know, and then find partners who can help you grow.”