Retaining a Diverse Workforce

Analyze Your Promotion Process

Track promotion avenues and timelines to see determine any promotion discrepancies, outline a transparent promotion process and be open to non-traditional pathways.

Cultivate a Pipeline

Look closely at your screening and feeder process to ensure equal opportunities in both hiring and professional development. Encourage and reward employee referrals, and partner with applicable industry associations.

Get Buy-in

For diversity and inclusion to work, your organization must be committed to these values—at the top. Senior candidates from underrepresented groups will be able to gauge authenticity.

Practice Pay Equity

Your HR department or similar entity must be responsible for pay equity across the enterprise. Promotion alone won’t ensure people from underrepresented groups are adequately compensated.

Develop a Formal Mentorship Program

Mentorship—both for new hires and internal ‘reverse’ mentorships—is essential to ensuring retention and timely advancement.

Expand Definitions of Leadership and Professionalism

Empathetic, collaborative, pragmatic, inclusive—these words should describe your leaders. Eliminate double standards and ensure norms for appearance are culturally sensitive and not about assimilation.

Ask, Don’t Assume

Ascertain what senior leaders and executives from underrepresented groups want and need that the organization can provide to boost loyalty and retention through one-on-one conversations.

Commit to Diversity in Succession Planning

Set clear objectives for succession and implement systemic mechanisms to facilitate focus on skills and abilities, not personalities or surface characteristics.

Learn from Others

Be prepared to have uncomfortable conversations about your organization’s current state of inclusivity and deploy a growth mindset to learn from people with different perspectives.