Unleashing the Power in People with DEI as a Strategic Business Imperative

Discussing your DEI strategy as a business imperative should be a recurring priority for annual planning. However, it doesn’t generally pan out that way --- oftentimes DEI is a topic for annual planning, but it’s not generally prioritized as part of the broader corporate (or other organizational) strategic initiatives. Even though there’s data to prove that companies with an ethnic demographic workforce are 35% more likely to have a financial performance better than the national industry median. There’s additional data that also evidences a 70% greater likelihood for more diverse companies to expand into new markets and a 45% greater likelihood of increased market share year-over-year. On the flip side, there’s also data about the adverse impact of missing the mark on fostering an inclusive work environment, translating into billions of dollars in lost productivity on an annual basis. This impact of lost productivity in and of itself is ample cause to re-prioritize DEI and give it its due focus as a business imperative. There are multiple sources of quantitative and qualitative DEI data in every organization that allow for tying diversity, equity and inclusion to business objectives. It’s just a matter of leadership making the commitment to raise the priority level of DEI in order to target and realize benefits of an improved bottom line. Nobody said it would be easy, but it is achievable --- the data proves it. I think there's a lot more power businesses can unleash in their people with the right approach to DEI. What are your thoughts?