Editor’s note: Kate Economou is director of research at market research software company Remesh, New York. 

Overwhelmingly, there is a belief that diversity in all its forms (from race or ethnicity to work experience) impacts the bottom line and promotes employee engagement. A recent online focus group from Remesh asked American professionals how they perceive diversity and inclusion programs at their organization. The results show that now more than ever employees believe diversity and inclusion are important not only for themselves, but also for their coworkers. 

Impacting the bottom line

One of the initial findings from this study that stood out is the belief in having diverse points of view to influence an organization’s bottom line, even during a pandemic or recession. This comes as no surprise, since this kind of creative and collaborative environment is closely linked to innovation.

The potential benefits of implementing diversity and inclusion (D&I) programs vary, according to respondents, from the generation of new ideas to better decision-making as a result of a variety of ideas. Seventy-nine percent of professionals with 20 years of experience or more noted, “there is a better workflow when people feel equality is at play” in the workplace. 

Across organizations of all sizes, 71% of employees feel that highly effective D&I programs ultimately lead to a better business understanding of consumers. 

Despite the clear benefits of D&I programs to organizations, only 6% of companies have formal training or programming related to diversity and inclusion. 

I believe this may be because organizations don’t see the financial benefit of D&I programs, or because employee feedback has not yet reached decision-makers – a communication gap that is becoming increasingly more common, especially as organizations scramble to transform into fully-remote workplaces.

Employee recommendations for areas of improvement  

The study brought up two notable points regarding diversity and inclusion. The first: diversity of race or ethnicity is essential to workplace collaboration and in impacting the bottom line. The second: diversity of work experience is equally as important in maintaining an innovative environment and product.

Almost all African American employees (67%) and about one-half of Hispanic/Latino employees said their organization is “not very committed” to diversity. The other half of Hispanic/Latino respondents believe that their organizations’ diversity efforts are “in the dark ages.” Almost half of Caucasian respondents, on the other hand, reported that their organization is “very committed and active” in diversity efforts.

In general, African American employees reacted positively to the expressed statement that diversity would increase internal competition at their organization. Asian American employees reacted positively to the expressed idea that increased diversity would lead to an “improved work environment.” Finally, Hispanic or Latino employees had an overwhelmingly positive reaction that an increase in diversity would expand adaption to “problems that may arise in different cultures.” 

Another notable type of diversity in this study is work experience. 

While a majority of employees (77%), regardless of work experience, say that focusing on diversity and inclusion is important for an organization, junior employees (with five years or less of experience) are much more likely than their more seasoned counterparts (20+ years of experience) to react positively to the opinion that “focusing on those [D&I] things can ever be a bad thing.”

Implementing diversity and inclusion programs

Employees in this study recommended transparency in the implementation of D&I practices and showed interest in having more policies in place to prevent discrimination. Employees also recommended that hiring managers do more research and recognize that their “own bias could cause issues.”

When asked what specific steps employees would recommend for increasing awareness of diversity and inclusion, they offered up the following: 

  1. Hiring a person to take the lead in this area.
  2. Offering trainings and workshops on D&I.
  3. Documenting efforts in annual or quarterly reports.
  4. Hiring more minorities.

Given all of the responses from this study, there are two clear takeaways. The first is that there is a clear risk for companies not taking D&I programs seriously – and the potential for dismissal of these programs to impact an organization’s bottom line. The second key takeaway is that if organizations do act on recommendations from its employees, the enhancements will provide a competitive advantage.