Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts begin with a general purpose, often something along the lines of wanting to include talent from all backgrounds and demographics in order to make one’s company more welcoming and positive while also taking advantage of all the benefits of a heterogenous, high-performing team. On the ground, however, Diversity Recruiting efforts and the key work of equity and inclusion are in the nitty-gritty.
These efforts may look like digging through policies for exclusive language and changing it to make a better first impression on new hires. It may involve job description review to avoid biasing the hiring process. It can involve changing elements of company culture when it becomes clear that only some employees can participate and others are being overlooked.
Because the efforts are so varied and doing DE&I well isn’t a one-person job, you may be considering adding a diversity council of some kind for your organization. This can go very well, but top leadership needs to be ready to support this council in a variety of ways for it to have success. Here is a good process to follow:
1. Research past efforts and effects of diversity initiatives.
If your company has already had diversity recruiting initiatives, try to locate information about them and their results. The goal isn’t to critique the past, but rather to learn from past efforts. If you have a DE&I coordinator or consultant at the helm, they can help you contextualize the past experiences and mention some of the reasons why these efforts did or did not achieve their objectives.
2. Reach out to gauge interest with clear expectations.
One of the key factors in a successful diversity council is that it needs to have some structure created at the leadership level. Rather than having the council itself set goals and objectives, have your leadership team come up with some outcomes and goals so that participants can decide if they truly want to be involved.
If you have three to five potential goals created, you can use a survey to gauge who is interested and which goals they’d feel comfortable working toward. The key is to give ownership and agency but not set a council off in search of an unclear goal. Especially if you are asking team members to meet frequently, such as once a month, and to do their own research and fact-finding, make it clear how this work will be compensated.
In particular, make it clear that this work will be on the clock and that management will work with team members to ensure their workload remains manageable with the addition of the council responsibilities. Some interested parties may not join if they feel they’ll lose out on promotion potential by taking on this commitment, and you want those high achievers’ voices to be involved.
3. Make the distinction between action teams and advisory committees.
Diversity councils come in many configurations, but a major distinction to make is whether this will be an implementation team or an advisory team. In general, diversity councils tasked with implementation need to be actively involved in the leadership of the organization or part of Human Resources, with the mandate to actually change policy, implement hiring practices, as well as other actions. If your council is full of newer, entry-level team members, you may want it to be an advisory committee, bringing concise recommendations to the leadership team periodically, where they should be put into practice as soon as possible.
What you don’t want is a council that has a lot of great ideas but no clear path to gaining authority and implementation ability. Some councils do succeed purely as employee education, sharing information about equity and inclusion, but you get your biggest gains if you can make changes at the policy level and see the results over time.
5. Use meetings for initiative ideas, progress updates, and allocating tasks.
To save everyone’s time, make meetings efficient and with full agendas. The goal isn’t to just brainstorm in the moment but to come to the meeting with ideas that might need to be discussed. Each team member who is researching or gathering data can report out to the team, but the goal of the meeting should be to synthesize all new ideas and updates into the next tasks to complete, respecting the time of the council members.
6. Use surveys and management one-on-ones to gauge improvements.
Between periodic employee surveys, information gathered from candidates and new hires, and meetings between managers and employees, it should be possible to evaluate how the new initiatives from an advisory council are being received. Make sure that the diversity council has the power to send questions for feedback to different stakeholders in your organization so that they can bring results of their work to the C-Suite.
7. Create a process for rotating off the council to gain new voices and avoid burnout
From the start, plan on the diversity council being a set time commitment and create a process for selecting a new member when someone rotates out. Staggering terms can help to keep the group from having to reinvent the wheel each time a new term begins, and making the terms relatively short but allowing people to rotate back on can keep everyone engaged and energized about the work to be done.
Overall, you want to create a diversity council that functions like any good business unit: they need to understand the task at hand, have a clear path to effective implementation, and a way to measure results. They need to be able to accomplish all of these tasks without reducing their effectiveness in their day-to-day work, and their efforts should be quickly and publicly implemented in the organization’s policies.
Don’t make your diversity council go it alone, though. From an in-house DE&I coordinator to using the features in Diversity Recruiting Platforms, offer your council as many tools and resources for success as possible. You want them to be able to turn enthusiasm for equity and inclusion into effective policy adjustments and recruitment and retention practices.
