Diversity Diagnostics

Workforce diversity diagnostics – progress diverse talent

Diagnostic services are crucial to identifying the barriers to progressing diverse talent. Our diversity assessment focus can be organisation-wide or specific to grades, departments or divisions, but one thing is certain: whatever insights you require, we can unblock your talent pipeline and give you greater access to the best diverse talent available.

EW Group will work with you to drill down into the data you have, consult with staff at a range of levels, and review your relevant policies. At each stage we can determine where unconscious bias may be having an adverse impact on the progression of diverse candidates.

Your final report will outline what the systemic and cultural barriers to diverse groups are within your business, as well as recommendations for next steps and ways of measuring your progress.

Recruitment diversity analysis – widen your talent pool

Recruitment diversity analysis is designed to improve how you recruit and retain the best diverse talent, and typically involves a deep dive into your recruitment and career progression processes.

We will work with you to provide a detailed analysis of your end-to-end recruitment process, from writing job descriptions and advertising roles to interviews and candidate selection.

Our consultants may, for example, observe and analyse key decision-making moments in the business, including board and senior management meetings, and consult with you on updating your recruitment policy and procedures.

Organisational culture diagnostics: assess the workplace experience

Our established diversity research principles allow us to throw new light on the experiences of different groups in your workforce. We can build up a picture of your company to use as your benchmark and the basis from which you can plan action on diversity.

The recommendations in your diagnostic report can be used as diversity objectives, to be reported against both externally to your clients and stakeholders and internally to build staff engagement.

To build up a picture of your organisational culture, we may look at the following data:

• Flexible working requests (made and granted)
• Reasonable adjustment requests (made and granted)
• Data on retention of diverse groups
• Data on progression of diverse groups
• Performance appraisal ratings (by group)
• Any instances of bullying and harassment
• Retention of women after return from maternity leave
• The take-up of shared parental leave
• How opportunities and assignments are allocated, and to which groups.

Our diversity assessment approach will combine a robust analysis of your ‘hard data’ – policy documents and employee data relating to diversity – with a process of employee consultation to gather ‘soft data’.

By speaking to a sample of employees from across the business, we will test our assumptions about your organisational culture and fill any gaps in existing employee data. These will take the form of structured, confidential small group and one-to-one conversations.

Diversity diagnostic reports – detailed company analysis

Our final diagnostic report will provide a detailed analysis of your company culture and your current state of diversity maturity. It will highlight leading practice and areas for development, as well as a timeline for recommendations, considering both cultural and process-driven barriers. It will also make recommendations for how to progress your diversity and inclusion agenda.

Your diversity diagnostic report will:

• Establish current areas of good practice
• Give an overall sense of what is working well
• Identify quick wins that can be implemented straight away with minimal resource
• Provide you with an action plan (e.g. for making your recruitment process more inclusive)
• Our analysis of how your work in this area will underpin wider cultural change across the organisation.

Diversity in your organisation – what do you want to understand?

All our equality, diversity and inclusion diagnostics are tailor-made, ensuring we focus on the parts of your business you need to know more about. As a guide, here are a few examples of questions we might look to answer on your behalf during the diversity assessment process:

• What good practices within your HR team are increasing diversity disclosure rates?
• What other instances of good practice are evident in your recruitment processes?
• Which parts of your talent management process are impacting negatively on diverse groups?
• What are the experiences of different socio-economic groups working with or employed by your company?
• How can you increase the overall number of applicants from diverse groups?
• What are the reasons for the attrition of diverse talent?
• Would name-blind recruitment strengthen your process?
• Are assumptions and unconscious bias evident? If so, how can you address this?
• Are your application forms and guidance materials meeting accessibility standards?
• Are there any quick wins to encourage diverse candidates to apply?
• How can you improve data collection among existing staff and candidates?
• How can you build internal capacity and diversity maturity?
• How can you measure the impact and success of your diversity and inclusion initiatives?
• How can your work in this area underpin wider cultural change across your business?
• How can you future-proof your talent pipeline (e.g. for millennials)?