What are the signs?
What are the practices?
At the end of the day, what is the reality?
Companies today understand that one of the most important assets they have is their culture and how their employees navigate the workplace and feel like they belong. Retention in certain industries is at an all time high among both employees and managers (85 percent). Typically, retention across the board averages 76 percent among employees and 89 percent among managers. So what does retention have to with culture? Well, employees stay when they feel they are wanted and they are contributing and developing.
Based on Diversity MBA Benchmarking (our inclusive leadership survey) has identified the best practice programs companies employ to foster inclusion. Some of the results include
- 65 percent of companies have mandatory culture sensitivity/awareness training with an average of 96 percent of managers participating; and an average of 57 percent of employees participating;
- Preferred method of training is live based on 81 percent of companies;
- 95 percent of companies have employee resource groups (ERGs)with an average of 18 months employee service;
- 92 percent or ERGs contribute to company business solutions;
- 20 percent of ERG participants are promoted after service;
- 85 percent of companies deploy an employee engagement survey to understand cultural issues;
- 42 percent of CEOs are engaged in some level of employee interaction with visibility among employees.
So, when observing these inclusion metrics that are so important to companies, it must be clear those programs alone cannot foster cultural behavior. It is a combination of these types of programs with an understanding of what motivates people and their fears, so the right decisions are being made when allowing everyone with a fair chance at advancement and opportunity – whatever that looks like. Just saying…beware of the illusion.
