In a world where diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) are business imperatives, reporting and compliance just don’t cut it. Meaningful insights that inform purposeful actions are what organizations need to move forward.
To achieve that, we must consider the entire organization—all people. Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work® has said that “Every place is a great place to work for some people … life at the top is good … but what about everybody else?” It’s important to provide every employee equal opportunity to thrive.
Echoing this sentiment, Brian Reaves, chief belonging, diversity, and equity officer at UKG regularly points out that in our world of about 8 billion people, there is equity of talent but not equity of opportunity.
As we start 2023, let’s explore what it really takes to create an inclusive workplace culture.
Creating an inclusive workplace culture
Leaders are familiar with the cyclical notion that great workplaces attract great people, great people who are engaged and feel valued do great work, resulting in happy customers and a healthy bottom line.
It may seem as though the ingredients of an inclusive culture are “soft” aspects—trust, engagement, happiness, satisfaction—and are hard to measure. Commonly, data-backed initiatives as well as ones that inform an organization’s bottom line are more successfully accepted and implemented. As the saying goes, what get measured gets done.
But how do we get there? How can we quantify culture? These are some of the challenges that UKG is focused on solving to support businesses and their people
If someone is filling out a survey, which is giving you a gift, what are you going to do with that gift?
Data-driven decision making for DEI&B
Many organizations are sitting on a gold mine of untapped information that can help inform some of their biggest initiatives. Which is why the UKG ethos of “our purpose is people” and the commitment from Great Place To Work® to build a better world by helping every single organization become a great place to work for all, is such a game-changing combination for the HR industry.
One example of how we’re applying our research and development efforts to the DEI&B space is with our UKG Great Place To Work ® Hub. We recently introduced this industry-first solution that combines decades of Great Place To Work® benchmarks and Trust IndexTM survey results with UKG Pro HCM data to unlock the true drivers of engagement and performance. Proprietary Great Place To Work® data and insights will surface areas for equitable opportunities for all people, including intersectionality of age, gender, ethnicity, and location to achieve DEI&B company goals and enhance hiring, development, promotion, payroll, and scheduling practices.
As Bush says, “If someone is filling out a survey, which is giving you a gift, what are you going to do with that gift?”
Leveraging a tool to crunch the numbers and present findings through easy-to-read graphs, charts, and visualizations related to your specific DEI&B goals and benchmarks can be a key differentiator to move your initiatives forward. Furthermore, it can also identify leadership and employee experience strengths and areas of improvement—all through the eyes of your people.
HR teams have taken a hard look at how to improve employee attraction and attrition, but a staggering 39% of global job seekers have turned down a job opportunity due to perceived lack of inclusion, and employees are 47% more likely to stay if they perceive their company is inclusive.
To combat this, leaders must have access to tool that can compare the unique employee experiences of their team against a combination of internal and external benchmarks and lean on data-science calculations that summarize complex insights in a simple way so they can identify outliers as well as drill into specific areas of opportunity.
Employees are 47% more likely to stay if they perceive their company is inclusive.
DEI&B for your people
Employees are looking for more opportunity to grow, find purpose, and feel a sense of belonging at work. With these new-found insights, leaders can identify opportunity and growth for all employees in a balanced and fair way, while empowering managers to make informed decisions on “what to do next” for their teams.
Three-quarters (76%) of employees say they have increased expectations for how their company supports them and 70% are rethinking the qualities they look for in an employer. With ever-changing employee expectations, and uncertain economic outlooks, leaders can feel content in these data-backed insights to continue to build an inclusive workplace—leading to a stronger sense of belonging, better team collaboration, improved innovation, and increased financial performance. They can also take comfort in knowing that advanced analytics can formulate predictions based on millions of data points to help anticipate where things are going and future challenges.
Keep to the mission
As the largest software company, operating under the ethos of “our purpose is people,” we know that when all individuals are respected, all voices are heard, and all employees have the support and resources necessary to succeed, individuals, companies, and communities thrive. We’re committed to this notion, not only through creating awareness and advocacy, but also through our technology platform.
Our work continues as we champion a culture of trust, equity, and belonging for all our customers. We’ve established a strong foundation for our company’s DEI&B vision and are now bringing our people-driven purpose and thought leadership, with the UKG Great Place to Work® Hub the latest example of our efforts.