WORKPLACE EQUITY AUDITS

Addressing systemic inequities in the workforce by improving representation of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled people in positions at all levels is important to your company’s trajectory.

You’ll know it’s time for an audit if:

Your company lacks diversity in

• Leadership
• Staff
• Stakeholders
• Clients

Your company has a High Turnover of:

• POC staff
• All staff
• Leadership

Your Employees Don’t Know How to Get Promoted To:

• Leadership
• Lateral Advancement

Your Employees Don’t Understand:

• Their individual goals
• Their team goals
• How their performance is evaluated

Conflict is inevitable when working with others, and avoiding conflict will only exacerbate the problems on a team. Learning how to have productive conflict will increase team trust. Trust, in turn, makes room for more imaginative solutions and better relationships.

You’ll know it’s time for a workplace equity audit if:

• Team members go-along-to-get-along
• Disagreements arise and are unaddressed or lack resolution
• Employees complain of feeling undervalued
• Leadership and the team are not working in cohesion
• Supervisors are often asked to mediate conflicts among team members
• Collaboration is low within teams and across departments
• You notice more competition than collaboration

It can be tricky to make external statements if you have not established a strategy around DEI. If your company is intentional about its values and brand voice, published responses to current cultural events will be thoughtful and impactful.

You’ll know it’s time for an audit if:

• You are aware of current events, but are unsure how to respond externally
• Your competitors have better-defined DEI programs
• You want to communicate proactively
• Staff ask you to make a statement about recent events
• You have people of color in your marketing, but less so in your company
• POC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled employees are being over-utilized for marketing
• You’ve made statements, but haven’t seen policy changes

Having documents and policies that support your values and DEI efforts is important for your company’s DEI goals. Culture change is only as effective as policy change and vice versa. 

You’ll know it’s time for an audit if:

• You don’t have a DEI statement
• Your handbook doesn’t address the nuance of identity
• Conflicts or complaints are not documented
• You don’t have clearly defined processes company-wide
• Staff don’t know about or don’t follow the policies
• Management is not trained on policies

A workplace equity audit is designed to identify ways a company can be more equitable.

Thoroughly and systematically assessing systems, policies, and people’s experiences will help bring to light areas that could use a little more attention. Identifying the gaps will allow for a more realistic and achievable plan. If you begin to set goals for your company without having done any research, you may ultimately waste your resources in an area that doesn’t need as much attention or is not ready to expand.

If resources are poured into external marketing to appear more diverse, but retention for BIPOC (Black, indigenous, people of color) staff is at a low, you will have prioritized a strategy that will not create long-term change for the organization. In the long run, you will lose money on high turnover and put yourself at risk for lost trust from your community. An equity audit could aid in avoiding wasted resources and wasted time.

Setting goals is key to your success in creating a culture of inclusion.

Throughout the audit, themes will be identified, and the best next steps will be determined based on all of the information that was pulled during the research phase. It is possible that you’ve already identified your long-term goals.

An equity audit can help map out the near-term goals that will get you there in an equitable and sustainable way using SMART goals. Organizational change is a long-term commitment, and skipping steps to create an ongoing culture of inclusion will result in more wasted time and resources. An equity audit is an investment for long-term impact.

We recommend that companies conduct a workplace equity audit for the following reasons: 

• You can identify any gaps when it comes to representation and inclusion
• Assess your overall organizational performance
• Through our recommendations, enhance employee engagement and satisfaction
• Ensure you’re in compliance with any anti-discrimination laws in your area
• We help create strategies to enhance employee communication and promote a more inclusive culture

Fostering a more equitable workplace takes time. By starting with a diversity audit, you can make informed decisions backed up by comprehensive data. 

Hiring an internal Chief Equity Officer or creating a DEI committee is a great step in creating an inclusive work culture. While an internal team could provide an exceptional report, an external consultant has some distinct benefits.

Because an internal team is responsible for the day-to-day of a company’s DEI processes, completing a timely audit is more challenging. By partnering with an external consultant, the internal team is able to maintain steady progress and avoid burnout.

Additionally, because consultants are not in the weeds of your daily operations, they come with a fresh perspective. This distance provides a greater sense of anonymity for staff and means that the consultants’ findings can be freely shared without undue consideration of internal politics.

Every organization is different depending on its size, strengths, and weaknesses. Overall, we recommend finding quality workplace equity audit companies and conducting an equity audit at least every other year. At Construct the Present, after your initial diversity audit, we revisit and catalogue your assessment every two years as your company gains and loses staff.

This enables us to keep track of any progress made and create comprehensive reports to share with your clients and stakeholders. We can also use this data to collaborate with HR on inclusive onboarding practices.

Equity audits are the first step to creating a progressive and inclusive company culture. Overall, they can improve a company’s reputation, enhance innovation with more diverse teams, and help organizations make better decisions by allowing diverse perspectives. However, the benefits go deeper.

First, they can help identify any areas for improvement, such as ineffective diversity programs or discovering groups that are underrepresented. Diversity audit companies can also uncover any unconscious biases, giving employees the tools needed to recognize and challenge them. With a more inclusive and equitable workplace, employees will also have a greater sense of belonging, reducing turnover and improving productivity.    

We recommend personalized recommendations based on your business’s culture and teams. 

Oftentimes, companies want to follow a step-by-step guide for becoming more equitable. Because of the nature of equity work and its relationship with people, there is an element of care that is required for harm reduction.

A deep understanding of a company’s goals, values, and makeup is needed to provide impactful results.

While there are best practices for steps to improving a company’s DEI efforts, there is room for error within those steps. For example, if a recommendation is to create an equity statement, it is important that the company culture guides how that process happens.

How will employees respond if leadership writes the statement without stakeholder input?

How will the public respond when you release the statement?

There are ways to design a working plan that is effective and creates the least amount of harm.

Growth is more likely when psychological safety is present; trust is foundational. A “shaming and blaming” approach is not an effective strategy for organizational or cultural change.

In our experience, we often see resistance to engagement due to the fear of failure or lack of existing progress.

Construct the Present uses the principles of “Knowles’ 5 Assumptions Of Adult Learners,” coined by Malcom Knowles, known for his study of andragogy, or adult learning principles.

In particular, we focus on the principle of experience: “As individuals grow, they accumulate a reservoir of experience that becomes an increasingly rich resource for learning.”

By acknowledging a team as experts of their own company, a collaborative plan can be designed based on the strengths of that team and the results of a comprehensive workplace equity audit.