These quick tips outline the best avenues for growing and sustaining diverse talent.
Take a look at these helpful tips as youdevelop a diversity retention programfor senior leaders and executives.
Track promotion avenues and timelines to see determine any promotion discrepancies, outline a transparent promotion process and be open to non-traditional pathways.
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.
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.
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.
Mentorship—both for new hires and internal ‘reverse’ mentorships—is essential to ensuring retention and timely advancement.
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.
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.
Set clear objectives for succession and implement systemic mechanisms to facilitate focus on skills and abilities, not personalities or surface characteristics.
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.