MEDIA ADVISORY
Communications Contact:
sheila@diversitymbamagazine.com
DIVERSITY MBA ANNOUNCES BEST IN CLASS
“50 Out Front:
Best Places to Work for Women & Diverse Managers Ranking”
CHICAGO, IL– Diversity MBA Magazine, a national leadership publication targeting managers, executives in leadership; as well as professionals, students, and the business community; publishes its tenth annual list of “50 Out Front: Best Places to Work for Women & Diverse Managers Ranking – Best in Class Companies.
Diversity MBAs Inclusive Leadership’s Index identifies companies for the Best in Class recognition that have demonstrated consistent and excellent systems and practices. This measures the impact of their diversity and talent management strategies. While we recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, the Best in Class recognition celebrates significant progress. This release recognizes the Top Ten Companies in each category that have leading and best practices.
“The Best in Class companies actively engage in implementing leading practices that result in significant workplace outcomes that advance inclusive diversity. “50 Out Front: Best Places to Work for Women & Diverse Managers” list. The six areas measured for best practices in management and leadership are defined below; Recruitment, Representation, Succession Planning, Workplace Inclusion & Retention, Accountability, and Board Diversity.
Recruitment strategies must be aligned with the overall diversity and business strategy. Building a recruiting platform with strong practices and metrics that drive accountability with emphasis on developing the talent pipeline. For example; companies that have recruiting teams that are inclusive, diverse, well trained and actively engage with their internal business partners and external partners to achieve their goals.
Representation is the ultimate outcome that companies want to achieve with women and people of color in the most senior leadership roles. While on one hand, we analyze representation at all management levels to determine the overall progress of the marketplace, the greatest challenge continues to be with the consistent and timely advancement of people of color into the most senior leadership roles. We recognize those companies that have made significant progress year over year.
Succession Planning is the talent management system that allows for fair and equitable advancement of identified top talent. The inclusive leadership index’s top companies advance their high potential talent at a rate of 30 percent on average; and their diverse talent at a rate of 40 percent on average. These companies also have intentional strategies to ensure access, exposure and assignment for women and people of color.
Workplace Inclusion & Retention combined are business essentials that must be achieved for the cultural institutionalization of diversity and inclusion. It is the blend of cultural competencies and career disciplines resulting in the differences of thoughts, approaches, experiences, identities, affinities and more. Full employee engagement is a culture that supports trust, innovation, flexibility, leadership and authenticity. These are some of the components of creating a sustainable workforce.
Accountability requires CEO and board commitment to ensure the success of achieving diversity and inclusion results. Accountability must be systemic in all processes at every level. Incentive and recognition need to be cascaded at every level so every employee understands their contribution to the overall strategy. While recognizing great strides for achieving goals is necessary, aligning compensation to support the diversity and inclusion journey is a best practice.
Board Diversity continues to be a growth opportunity for all companies. More and more companies are engaging their boards in their diversity strategy. Diversity on boards is a proven indicator to ensure a competitive advantage. Diversity MBAs Inclusive Leadership Index Best in Class Companies has an average of 65 percent diversity on their boards; which means women and people of color are the majority.
