AS DEI PROGRESS SLOWS, FORMAL CHARTERS OFFER A WAY FORWARD

by David Braue

Signing onto formal diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) charters has become a popular way for corporations to differentiate themselves in the eyes of employees, managers and potential recruits alike. Yet, recent statistics suggest many industries are still struggling to convert theoretical support for diversity into real change, despite the promise of DEI charters to drive the creation of a diverse workforce.

For example, 16 percent of women surveyed in the recent World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) 2023 Global DEI Census said they were likely to leave the marketing industry due to the impact of working in DEI-deficient workplaces.

The figures from the survey – which included nearly 13,000 workers in 91 countries – were even worse for other groups, with 17 percent of LGBQ+ workers, 22 percent of respondents from ethnic minorities and 24 percent of disabled respondents expressing their dissatisfaction with the current DEI climate in their organisation.

Despite the expectation of cultural improvement resulting from high adoption of DEI initiatives, survey respondents said the overall level of inclusion in their organisation had not changed appreciably since the previous survey two years earlier.

Age, gender and family status were flagged as the most common forms of discrimination across the board, with 41 percent of women saying family responsibilities still hindered their careers. Ans while there were improvements in overall metrics in New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland, respondents also noted declining DEI experiences in Hong Kong, the Gulf states and the Netherlands.

“There’s not a lack of people recognising the importance of DEI in the industry,” said Jason Mander, chief research officer with Global Web Index (GWI), who noted that, despite widespread enthusiasm for

DEI, the real issue remains “the level of action needed to really impact change.”

“This is something we see as a trend in global data with important topics people clearly care deeply about, such as DEI and climate change,” he said. “What’s challenging is converting that concern into the work and change needed across the industry and beyond to make a difference. And this includes each and every one of us adapting and being willing to take part in that change.”

A Model For Diversity

Formal DEI charters are often driven by individual companies or industry bodies and range in depth, complexity and usefulness. The UK’s Athena Swan Charter offers a broad range of resources and connections for universities in that country. The Law Council of Australia’s Diversity and Equality Charter includes just three bullet points – binding its signatories to treat all people with respect and dignity to create and foster equality through a “supportive and understanding environment”, and to promote a diversity of views within the legal profession.

Whatever words are used in the charters their overall goals are remarkably consistent: to improve workforce culture and help companies tap the benefits of diversity – which are, as one recent major research effort affirmed, significant enough that mixed-gender research teams are 9.1 percent more likely than same gender teams to produce a novel research paper, and 14.6 percent more likely to produce a highly cited paper.

Retrospective analysis may easily surface such compelling data points, but companies shaping individual DEI policies from a morass of potential diversity models often find the going much harder, which is why the European Commission has spent years promoting a more consistent approach based on 26 national diversity charters that formalise expectations around DEI support within each European country at a national level.

By creating consistent national diversity targets these charters have become centres of gravity for corporate DEI initiatives. Sweden’s charter, for example, was founded in 2010 and has attracted formal support from the likes of Volvo Cars, IBM, Ericsson and 3M. Greece’s charter, in contrast, was introduced only in 2019 and already has over 150 private enterprises as signatories.

Cybersecurity and IT firms have been proactive in embracing diversity charters, with Vodafone leaning on the EU Diversity Charter to improve ethnic diversity, ESET adopting the Slovak Republic Diversity Charter, Cloudflare embracing the German Diversity Charter, and Prosegur a long time supporter of the EU Diversity Charter.

“As a technology company, a central tenet of diversity and CSR [corporate social responsibility] activities is strengthening the representation of women and girls in IT, not only for the company itself but for the entire sector as a whole,” ESET CSR manager Lucia Marková said when the company signed onto the Slovak Republic Diversity Charter.

“We work hard at creating a respectful environment in which all our employees feel welcome, without distinction. … We mainly focus on a receptive and individual approach, not on statistics.”

Many charters are driven by groups of industry partners who have recognised the value of embracing a consistent approach to particular business problems, and hence recognised the value of charters’ consistency of messaging in driving industry wide outcomes.

The charter approach has been invaluable for industrial giant Siemens, which launched its Charter of Trust in 2018 and which has since signed nearly two dozen major business partners to its proclamation of 17 concrete baseline requirements designed to improve the security of the company’s entire supply chain.

Benchmarking Dei Progress

The consistency of messaging provided by charters makes them valuable tools for organisations to track their progress when pursuing DEI objectives – both in tracing their progress over time and in benchmarking themselves against their peers.

“We have been making progress” towards workplace gender equality, but it has stalled,” noted Mary Wooldridge, CEO of the Australian government backed Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), a statutory body that promotes diversity and, among other activities, certifies companies as having appropriate gender diversity policies in place.

Achieving WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality (EOCGE) citation

“is quite a significant hurdle and challenge to be successful,” Wooldridge said when recently introducing the latest cohort of 11 businesses joining more than 115 other companies – representing over 500,000 employees – that had previously attained the certification.

There are signs the program is working: holders of EOCGE citations have, on average, gender pay gaps that are six percentage points smaller than those that do not have the citation, Wooldridge said, with higher take up of parental leave, zero tolerance policies towards issues like sexual harassment and discrimination, and “a genuine commitment and environment where gender equality is supported for all employees.”

Getting to that point is not always easy, however: media giant Seven West Media, for one, needed three tries before it was able to secure EOCGE certification – and the process, chief executive James Warburton explained, “led to us being focused on [DEI] for managers and certain areas of the business.”

After two attempts in which the company failed because its DEI policies “weren’t clear or we hadn’t done enough,” he said, the company finally met expectations.

“Each time, it drives a huge array of continuous improvement in the business,” he said, “just by putting metrics into your scorecard, having KPIs set for leadership positions, and having that focus across the whole range of area.”

Ultimately, therein lies the value of charters and the standards they provide for companies that have struggled to drive significant DEI transformations on their own.

Citation holders “recognise that this is part of the journey, not the end of the journey,” Wooldridge said. “One of the most common points we hear is that they wish they had gotten onto these issues earlier and been more proactive in terms of their work improving gender equality.

“They aren’t perfect. They can continue to improve, but they’ve got a commitment and a leadership to it.”