Diversity up, Inclusion down – Business Impact & Solution

Let’s start with an existential question – why do we even exist as human beings?

An ultimate accomplishment is to have complete and unhindered self-expression. For most of humanity, this happens best in the context of love, respect and belonging since it makes us feel safe and courageous. We also know that the opposite of courage is not fear, it is conformity. And conformity suppresses creativity and self expression.

Honest D&I is an organization’s way of saying “I love you and I respect you” and leaders have the highest leverage and impact of anyone. For some time this has been a space where the answer to the question of being a company that believes in and practices D&I was “we think so”. It does not have to be that way anymore. People Analytics and in particular ONA (organization network analysis) is a tool companies can use effectively, at a relatively low cost in relation to ROI, to visualize, measure and constantly make increments. We will get to this a little later.

Diversity Doesn’t Stick Without Inclusion

As per HBR, “Diversity” and “Inclusion” are so often lumped together that they’re assumed to be the same thing. But that’s just not the case. I”‹n the context of the workplace, diversity equals representation. Without inclusion, however, the crucial connections that attract diverse talent, encourage their participation, foster innovation, and lead to business growth won’t happen. Numerous studies”‹ show that diversity alone doesn’t drive inclusion. In fact, without inclusion there’s often a diversity backlash.

As noted diversity advocate ”‹VernÄ Myers”‹ puts it, “”‹ Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.”

McKinsey has been researching this domain for numerous years. The findings below emerge from their largest data set so far, encompassing 15 countries and more than 1,000 large companies. They have incorporated a “social listening” analysis of employee sentiment in online reviews and their findings highlight that companies should pay much greater attention to inclusion, even when they are relatively diverse.

Diversity – Key Takeaways:

Likelihood of outperformance continues to be higher for diversity in ethnicity than for gender – a substantial differential likelihood of outperformance””48 percent””separates the most from the least gender-diverse companies.
The greater the representation of women, the higher the likelihood of outperformance; Companies with more than 30 percent women executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage ranged from 10 to 30,

companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability
despite the awareness, there is a widening gap between D&I leaders and companies that have yet to embrace diversity; the representation of ethnic-minorities on UK and US executive teams stood at only 13 percent in 2019, up from just 7 percent in 2014
In 2019, fourth-quartile companies for gender diversity on executive teams were 19 percent more likely than companies in the other three quartiles to underperform on profitability””up from 15 percent in 2017 and 9 percent in 2015.

Diversity without inclusion is a story of missed opportunities. Here are some key takeaways from McKinsey’s outside-in research using “social listening,” focusing on sentiment in employee reviews of their employers posted on US-based online platforms. While this approach is indicative, rather than conclusive, it could provide a more candid read on inclusion than internal employee-satisfaction surveys do

Inclusion – Key Takeaways:

While overall sentiment on diversity was 52 percent positive and 31 percent negative, sentiment on inclusion was markedly worse, at only 29 percent positive and 61 percent negative.
For the three indicators of inclusion””equality, openness, and belonging”” their research found particularly high levels of negative sentiment about equality and fairness of opportunity.
Negative sentiment about equality ranged from 63 to 80 percent across the industries analyzed. Negative sentiment about openness ranged from 38 to 56 percent
Belonging elicited overall positive sentiment, but from a relatively small number of mentions.

HBR research finds that employees with inclusive managers are 1.3 times more likely to feel that their innovative potential is unlocked. And therefore employees who are able to bring their whole selves to work (i.e. who feel included) are 42% less likely to say they intend to leave their job within a year.

Societal Context

Let’s zoom out for a second into a wider societal context. Over 9 million people in the UK ”“ almost a fifth of the population ”“ say they are always or often lonely. The Brits may not be the only ones feeling this way. The overuse of technology is a cause of depression, social anxiety and a lack of meaningful connections. And if we add to this lack of feeling included at work, what kind of a society will we end up creating? This impacts everyone – our own partners, kids, parents. With only a handful of aware individuals (leadership), a world of good can be created in society.

Not only it D&I is right from a humane perspective, but data not only suggests that it makes a good deal of business sense; organizations with the D&I”‹ esprit de corps’”‹ position themselves for business success by attracting the right kind of talent and making them feel like they are in the right place. This spurs safety, feeling cared for and as a result the release of the creative genie out of the bottle for out of the box thinking, non-conformist thinking and exemplary performance. The stats are above to make the business case.

Using Organization Network Analysis for insights into D&I to track and report progress

For some time this has been a space where the answer to the question of being a company that believes in and practices D&I was “we think so”. With Organization Network Analysis (ONA), it does not have to be that way anymore! ONA can be used not only to measure diversity but also to measure network activity and analyze the immersion of different employees across the organization

With ONA, you can map and analyze patterns of interaction across relationship networks of every employee, so Diversity & Inclusion leaders can understand where differences exist in specific groups of employee’s networks in different hierarchies.

Even relatively diverse companies face significant challenges in creating work environments characterized by inclusive leadership and accountability among managers, equality and fairness of opportunity, and openness and freedom from bias and discrimination. However with the right tools, technology and data, you can measure the impact of your various D&I initiatives and make required improvements on an objective basis.

Puneet Sachdev is International Director, Human Capital at The Singularity Lab. The Singularity Lab is an integrated human capital consultancy, helping technology companies achieve exponential results by attracting and retaining top talent and creating high performing inclusive cultures based on data, design and technology. Learn more about our”‹ ”‹ONA solution”‹ for D&I.

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Designing your Employee Experience

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Blog written by Puneet Sachdev, Human Capital Expert from Singularity Labs

These days everything needs to have an X’ in it, isn’t it, especially in the tech world! Not too long ago, you would have struggled to find too many words starting with the letter X’.Today, we see X pinned to any number of products and expressions as a sign of some undefined cachet!

EX in one word – Empathy

EX in one sentence – It is wider than employee engagement, it covers a wide range of activities that influence your employee’s perceptions of your company”“good or bad.

Airbnb

As the ex-Head of Employee Experience for Airbnb, it is Mark Levy who defined the expression ’employee experience’ and gave currency to the way we tend to emulate it today. He questioned “If Airbnb had a Customer Experience Group, why not create an Employee Experience Group?” And the rest is history! Mark has a background in Service Design that posits empathy and experimentation to arrive at innovative solutions. This was one of the key lenses that drove the employee experience philosophy. The internal experience of the employee will have a direct knock-on effect on the customer experience.

The context today

The Millennial mindset is permeating the entire workforce. As this latest generation has established itself in the workforce, its expectations for workforce flexibility, use of mobile tools and enhanced performance feedback have spread to other generations.

Employees are approaching the workplace as consumers. Individuals want the same experiences in the workplace that they have as consumers, such as having the use of simple, intuitive technology, the ability to rate and share opinions about products and services, and direct access to decision makers.

Today, the research has found that a number of factors shape employee experience, including: the formation and development of work-based connections and relationships, the design and ongoing use of employees’ physical work environments, and the tools and social platforms employees use to accomplish work-related activities

The components of an employee’s experience

Physical – the interaction employees have with their physical environment. The workspace they find themselves in and how inspiring that is. The design of the workplace can impact mental states.
Emotional – the interaction that employees have in the workplace setting and social settings with their colleagues, their line managers and the leadership. Feeling a sense of belonging within a community, being taken care of and respected are all important factors.
Mental – the quality of work, the mental stimulation, the flexibility to create and the caliber of peers makes up the mental component.

Eventually it will all have an emotional impact, we are talking about an experience’ after all. The actions you as an organization will take (or not take) will vote for one or the other – we value and respect you or we do not.

The aspects to consider in developing the employee experience

Employer Value Proposition (EVP) – Let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start, when you sing you begin with Do Re Mi and when you EX you begin with EVP!

The first expressions of employee experience begin when you define your Culture DNA – the vision / purpose, mission and values, values in particular as they set the tone for internal interactions. The employer value proposition is your people’ promise, and this shapes the employee experience your organization will deliver to your people. It is a key reason why you will attract the right people into your organization in the first place and will be the standard by which your employees and prospects will evaluate you as a leadership team and as an organization. You can read articles I have written about EVP here

On-Boarding – On-boarding is a high leverage opportunity to culturally integrate employees and set the standard for the employee experience new joiners will have. Making the new hires feel welcome and prepared for their jobs will create a lasting impression in their hearts and minds and setting them and the organization up for success. Organization’s with a robust onboarding process experience 62% greater new hire productivity, along with 50% greater new hire retention.

Nature and Quality of Work – a major component of employee experience is the extent to which individuals feel they can influence their work, build mastery and understand their work’s overall purpose. The sense of self-determination and autonomy. Employees want to know how the work they do fits into the team goals and how they contribute to the organization’s larger mission.

Possession of relevant knowledge or expertise, access to additional information or experts as needed, and availability of timely feedback ”“ either from managers or automated systems””can significantly shape the employee experience. Role specifications, performance management, career development, feedback loops, leadership communication all become key processes here.

Tools and Social Platforms – the design of the physical equipment that houses the software is key. Is it easy to access and use under daily work conditions? Software design can also have a lasting impact on satisfaction and productivity. Is there single sign-on? How may clicks does it take to get to the right screen? Employees expect intuitive and easy to use systems be it for booking leave or collaborating on a project.

Increasingly, companies are using social platforms internally to support organizational innovation, expertise location and knowledge sharing, and to help employees connect to others across in different time zones. These social platforms provide a common environment where employees can find relevant insights and identify hidden pockets of expertise or emerging employee issues. E.g. Slack, Jira etc.

The Environment – experts assert that configuration and design of individual and team workspaces are a critical component of employee experience. Physical workspace design can also impact employee wellness, as properly designed ergonomics can reduce employee stress and limit physical injury.

Social Impact – this is almost becoming a must have’ driven by the Millennial generation, and is a growing factor in considering and continuing work with employers. Not one to be overlooked. Installing ethical business practices and projects to impact the community organizations are a part and providing opportunities for employees to make a contribution impact this aspect. It enhances their sense of purpose and contribution adding to the employee experience they have.

Business Strategy and Culture – an organization must consider each of these facets of employee experience in light of overall business goals and culture. The business goals and objectives of a start-up may be quite different from a multi-national, from a hotel chain. For a hospitality company, the need to provide high-quality guest services may serve as a guiding principle in the design of employee experience; for an oil company, the emphasis may be on occupational safety. Clearly defining these underlying tenets is necessary to designing experiences that not only match the needs of the individual, but are aligned with organizational priorities.

Here is the thing, if you want to deliver world class to your customers, have your employees experience world class internally so they know what it feels like. Then delivering world-class will be the standard.

Your Purpose Partners’ in the delivery of Employee Experience in your organizations

The HR team of course. In addition, enter Line Managers or the people managers as they are being called in many of the growing tech companies we consult with. They have the keys to the organization i.e. manage the workforce, budgets and various other organizational resources. Three key things to bear in mind here:

1) Managers in your organization have an understanding of your employer value proposition, your employee experience philosophy and are empowered for it’s fulfilment.

2) Managers have complete clarity on their role and the expectations and especially in their responsibilities towards their team members. For example how do they best on-board new team members, how do they performance manage, how do they recognize their team etc.

3) Being educated and up-skilled on the different kinds of conversations they will be expected to have with their team and peers e.g. day one conversation, week one conversation, performance conversations etc. Manager conversations and behaviours are a critical factor that creates the experience of the rest of the workforce.

How can you design your Employee Experience:

Use Analytics – tune into the voice of customer’. The customers being your employees. You can turn to traditional HR surveys or any other semi-structured processes you have in place to gather and analyze data.

Create employee personas and map the journey – an employee persona is essentially a semi-fictional representation of a group of employees with similar traits, experiences and behaviors. They’re based on the data and insights you have into the individuals that make up your workforce and brings them to life by building a narrative around them.

Invest in key touch points where employee experience has the greatest impact – you have now created the personas and mapped the journey. Identify the moments that matter most to them through their lifecycle which will cover pre-joining, on-boarding, working as a part of a team, performance, career development, exit. Making changes to employee experience often requires investment. Use the data you have generated to prioritize and guide your decisions. Ask your employees, they will tell you.

Here is a good article by Qualtrics that covers employee personas and journey mapping.

Cross functional EX group – some organizations we have consulted for have used cross-functional employee groups very effectively to stay engaged with employees, to continue to generate insights via face to face conversations and other processes.

The employee experience is holistic. It covers a wide range of activities that influence your employee’s perceptions of your company”“good or bad. Mapping the experience of employees is a challenging task and requires a lot of effort. But the prize is too tempting for you not to care.

Ready or not? Questions worth asking yourself:

How does your current employee experience affect the attraction and retention of critical job roles within your organization?
How could improving your employee experience increase productivity within your organization?
To what extent does your employee experience influence your customer experience?
Who has primary responsibility for designing employee experience within your organization? How does a person or team bring others together to address employee experience issues?
What types of analytics are you using to evaluate the effectiveness of your employee experience?

This article has been an output based on my own experience, conversations and online research. IBM, Qualtrics and Deloitte have been very useful sources.

Me and my colleagues at Singularity Labs specialise in designing interventions that solve People and Culture challenges and help creating engaging and High Performing Environments. We have worked across multiple industries and geographies and more recently with growing tech companies such as Nucleus Financial (Fintech) and Craneware (Healthcare Tech).

Resources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2016/02/01/global-head-employee-experience-airbnb-rid-of-human-resources/#118986f77c4e – Mark Levy, Airbnb employee personas and journey mapping. – employee personas and journey mapping, Qualtrics

How to create a meaningful Employer Value Proposition

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Blog written by Puneet Sachdev, Human Capital Expert from Singularity Labs

Note: This is he continuation of the EVP conversation we started here

1. Understand your EVP preferences

Try a top-down and a bottom-up approach. Top-down as in the person responsible for people and culture’ i.e. your people leader and the leadership of the organisation discussing and debating the EVP. Ideally the people leader creates a baseline document / template, circulates it in advance and the leadership gets together to have a conversation around it. And bottom-up as in a listening exercise with your employees. Ask them what they find great about working for your organisation and what can be done to make further improvements.

2. Design your EVP

Gather data from important sources and competitors to inform your EVP design. Use the internal and the external data you have gathered, design your bespoke EVP. Use the five core elements of a robust EVP to structure your proposition. (link to previous article on the core elements of the EVP).

3. Segment the communication

You have the sound bites by now. Here you will think about how this will be communicated to the different types of talent you want to attract into the organisation (engineers, customer service advisors) as different language will appeal to these different mindsets. Think about how you want to communicate this internally. You can consider a video message by the Head of People and some existing employees. And consider using a good copywriter.

4. Create your employer brand

A strong employer brand needs a clear value proposition, which by now you have created. Now is the packaging and positioning. You can use your internal branding team to create this or use the same people you used to help create your organisation’s brand. You can also consider creating a boilerplate’ i.e. your EVP in a tweet and text, in a sentence – strapline, in a paragraph and in a page. Some organisations create well crafted infographics for exhibitions, conferences and other events to promote their brand. Also consider some guiding principles like what L’Oreal has done.

Here is L’Oreal’s: Strapline – “Lead the future of Beauty. When you love your work and the people you work with, amazing things can happen.”

Their employer value proposition is broken down into three pillars:

A thrilling experience ”“ a truly global business with a clear purpose and vision will ensure that candidates can see how they would fit this into their own trajectory

An environment that will inspire you ”“ with the amount of science, corporate social responsibility and sustainable business practices, there will be something to inspire most employees

A school of excellence ”“ world leading brands and products would attract the best people and skills, as a candidate you could be attracted to that environment for your career growth.

This is what Hubspot has – “We’re building a company people love. A company that will stand the test of time, so we invest in our people and optimize for your long-term happiness.”

Suggested channels of communication

On your careers page
Intranet website
Glassdoor
LinkedIn page
Social channels used
Welcome packs

The investment – and if you are thinking about the cost of doing all this work, which you probably are, consider the opportunity cost of not getting all this accurately aligned to the impact it can potentially have on the acquisition of key talent at the different levels in your organisation. If you want to attract A’ players and top on-demand talent, then you want to create an A’ grade EVP. Like attracts like. Here is an article by SAGE People on the impact on Employer Brand on talent acquisition.

Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or clarifications.

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Employer Value Proposition: your ticket to attracting and retaining top talent

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Blog by Puneet Sachdev, Human Capital Expert from Singularity Labs

The Context

The number of innovative fintech SMEs based in Scotland has grown by over 60% from 72 to 119 over the last twelve months. Add to this the explosion of Fintech in London and the ease of workforce mobility, you have a people’ challenge at hand. And this is not withstanding the number of tech companies that are continuing to grow in verticals like digital healthcare, retail etc.

What was inside is now outside. Now, Glassdoor lets any employee publicly rate their CEO, LinkedIn allows your competitors to pillage your top talent, and news outlets regularly publish stories exposing the internal workings of companies. In such a context, the culture of the organisation becomes one of the key sources of competitive advantage.

The Employer Value Proposition

One of the first steps is to get clear on who you are as an employer and your value proposition to potential and existing employees. In HR jargon, you create an Employer Value Proposition (EVP). It is the dating profile’ of your company to attract the right people and then keep the talent you have agonised to acquire. Easier said than done and easily side stepped as soft’ and fuzzy’. Not only does this soft’ and fuzzy’ have a quantified impact on performance but it is powering the growth of organisations. Here is a slightly dated (2016) Deloitte human trends report on culture but the tenants still hold true.

The EVP is the complete experience of working in your organisation. It’s the summarisation of the culture and values you embody, what employees can expect from you – such as learning, career opportunities, benefits, recognition etc. It is the why’ you are creating to attract and retain talent at every level of the organisation. It is the core of your employer brand that defines your positioning, what you stand for as an and the source code for the work environment that you will build internally. Your dating profile!

Gartner says: When you invest in developing and delivering a strong EVP, you can attract significant talent and boost employee engagement. For example, your organisation can reduce the compensation premium by 50% and reach 50% deeper into the labor market when candidates view an EVP as attractive. Organisations that effectively deliver on their EVP can decrease annual employee turnover by just under 70% and increase new hire commitment by nearly 30%’

Here are five main areas to consider as part of developing your employer value proposition. There can be more, but here is what I believe are core:

1.The culture – how things get done in your company. In this guide, you articulate various things about your company for e.g. who you are as an organisation i.e. your vision and mission, your exponential purpose, the journey so far, the team, values, your development philosophy, testimonials from employees, and so much more. You can start with your elevator pitch of why your company matters, and why they should be excited to be a part of it.

Think about this as your illustrated storybook that an employee can read and get a good sense of a) what it’s like to work at your company b) how to integrate themselves into the company in their early days c) behavioural do’s and don’ts guidelines i.e. the code of conduct / values d) what does success look like e) rituals and practices. This should instill pride and inspiration into the hearts of those who read it for the first time or the 100th time.

2. Development Opportunities – a major driver for keeping the workforce motivated, especially the top talent. Here you can include the a) your development philosophy b) skills development opportunities employees have be it access to online learning, events etc. c) career development opportunities i.e. future career options that employees may have with you as you continue to grow e.g. movement from product development to customer success etc.

3. Rewards and Recognition – this will cover the financial and non-financial compensation / benefits as well as the practices you have in place for recognising employees for the great work they do. Here you can think of including a) the competitiveness of your compensation package, health benefits, vacation b) other benefits such as onsite yoga, vouchers for different services etc. c) recognition such as best team performance’, extra miler’, display of organisational values’ etc. d) employee referral scheme if you have one.

4.The Quality of Work – here you define elements that are intrinsically baked into the nature of the work at your organisation, such as a) the ability to innovate on the job b) getting to work on interesting projects c) balancing work with non-work priorities and flexible working / remote working d) whether the work environment is collaborative and team orientated e) the quality and approachability of the company’s management f) the quality of the other employees within the company.

5.Social Impact – the current workforce is getting more and more concerned about the ethical profile of companies they consider working for or are working for. They are concerned about sustainability and employment practices. Social impact or CSR (corporate social responsibility) as it is also known, is now an important aspect of the employer brand. This is worth considering.

At the simplest level companies tend to have VTO’s i.e volunteer time off, create an internal CSR group driven by employees who choose a cause to get behind for the year and then find ways to support the cause. You get as creative with this as you want to. The 2019 Deloitte Human Trends review makes a clear case for the social enterprise

Suggested: what is not often spoken about, but if done right, I believe add to the competitive advantage in attracting the right talent – the explicit communication of Employee Data protection policies and practices. As companies embrace people analytics and AI based applications, a lot more employee data will be generated. And with GDPR growing in its veracity and statutory impact, employees will have greater awareness of data and the mishandling impact. It is worth considering your approach to employee data.

Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or clarifications.