The topic addresses the practice and policy of a company providing equal access to opportunities and resources in its workforce for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized, such as those with physical or mental disabilities and members of minority groups.
Representation is important because it empowers those who have been marginalized historically. For instance, if minorities are overrepresented in lower-paying jobs and have little to no leadership positions, this shows inequality.
It is also important to evaluate inclusion in a broader sense rather than just representation within different levels of an organisation.
Using the Logical Model, try to analyse the impact of the company's practices, initiatives, and/or solutions to achieve true inclusion. What has the company done to empower or degrade minorities? Where and since when? Try to measure their practices and initiatives' effectiveness in their life: is it improving their financial situation, access to resources, health, etc.? Is it providing benefits and protection, etc.?
Caution
An absolute impact assessment must be made rather than conducting relative impact assessments (representation as a percentage or only compared to the industry). Although industry and/or competitor comparisons are valuable to include, the main focus should be on how the company empowers or degrades minorities in absolute terms.
Introduction
The introduction should examine the importance of inclusion and provide industry statistics.
- Explain how underrepresentation negatively impacts people's standing in society/why it is an issue for certain minority groups to be underrepresented in the workplace. What would be the impact of increasing their representation?
- Be careful not to include any information about how representation affects business. This is a small but important distinction.
- Background information and statistics on who the marginalized groups are in that particular society.
- Explain why inclusion is important, provide the context of inequalities for the company's industry, and the adverse social externalities of being marginalised.
Core Analysis
You must address the following points:
The total number of people working at the specific company, where the HQ is, and the geographical breakdown of employees. If unavailable, include where the company has (most of) its offices.
The % and the absolute number of minorities for the most recent year reported on (no later than 2 years ago).
A comparison with the minority groups in society/country, threshold/industry, and average/competitor depends on the type of minority group(s) and the available information.
Define whether there is a glass ceiling effect or not.
Include the following points to the best of your abilities:
Ethnic pay gap (if any) - including cash incentives, bonuses, transparency in raises, etc.
Initiatives that the company has started to increase inclusivity.
Minority turnover rate.
If minorities are concentrated in part-time and lower-paying jobs.
The percentage and the absolute number of minorities in all company divisions, the general workforce, leadership roles, and directors. Ideally, this is included, but it is not always available.
Reviews and ratings from Glassdoor, Comparably, etc. on diversity and inclusion
Note (!):
Age discrimination is good to include as a secondary point, but it is not sufficient alone.
We accept analyses that only consider the representation of disabled employees, as long as it is benchmarked against the country's legislation. As this is the bare minimum, the number of employees considered should be at least 50% of the total workforce.
External sources (such as Zippia) can be used only if the discrepancy between the number of employees mentioned in the external source and reported by the company itself is below 20% for the most recent data.
Always use company reports over external sources.
Make the analysis as robust as possible and include as much data as is available.
Representation based on visual outlook, i.e., visible minorities, is not accepted.
Remain nuanced in wording.
Measuring the impact:
Have the initiatives reduced turnover rates?
Is there a high tenure for employees belonging to minority groups compared to dominant ones?
Is there equal recruitment for open positions? Equal promotions?
Are there equal financial and non-financial rewards earned?
Comparing the results to the industry averages will help show how the company ranks within its industry.
If the company is global, it is important to benchmark it to a close competitor and include a score given by third parties, i.e., Corporate Equality Index (CEI).
Do not assess whether the company has increased or decreased the share of minorities by a small margin or if they did or did not meet the goals they have set themselves, as it is trivial.
Conclusion
The conclusion should recap the main point without adding new elements.
Decide how well the company is empowering or degrading minorities in the workforce. No new information is needed here; tie your conclusion to the introduction.
After considering the broader issue and the company's actions, what is the company's net impact on the issue at hand? Is it positive or negative? Is the impact significant when compared to the data illustrating the broader issue?
Is the company close to achieving true diversity and inclusion, regardless of the industry norms?
Sidenote
When coming across company reports that include aggregated (or consolidated) and non-aggregated data, you can still treat this topic. Please keep in mind that when the gender breakdown is only available for the non-aggregated number of employees, it would be important also to provide the aggregated number of employees to allow the reader to make a more informed judgment when it comes time to rate both the value and scale of the company's impact.
The difference between aggregated and non-aggregated data is that the latter only includes financial/other information on the parent company. In contrast, aggregated data includes data from the parent company and its subsidiaries.
