The adoption of a best practice D&I strategy provides an employer with the tools necessary to exploit the link between diversity and outstanding commercial performance.
Adopting a best practice Diversity strategy starts with developing a thorough understanding of what ‘best practice’ means in this context. It also means creating useable benchmarks and targets to ensure that performance against this strategy can be appropriately measured.
This can be challenging. There is no industry standard for appropriate D&I targets across different sectors or geographies and employers need to create D&I targets appropriate to their environment. For this reason, establishing ‘best practice’ often requires some interpretation.
A useful starting point is to create a list of aspirational employers (both within and outside of your sector). Analyse their recruitment literature, their company websites, press releases and other media. Look at the communication from their Chairman & CEO, their advertisements, and imagery in annual reports and websites and understand how they engage with protected communities.
Highlight novel or innovative concepts that they are using to drive the diversity agenda. Where selected organisations have published D&I goals and timetables, review how the organisation is performing against these goals.
By building a list of the measures each selected organisation is employing to attract and retain workers with protected characteristics, it is possible to create an understanding of what best practice behaviours really look like.
To read more about how to improve Diversity and Inclusivity in your organisation download this report.
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