Participants discussed ways to embed inclusion into their company culture during the second meeting of the Council’s Inclusion & Diversity Business Champion program on May 25. Led by the Inclusion & Diversity Committee, the year-long program is designed to guide participants through the process of building a strategy, establishing a culture that values diversity, and recruiting and mobilizing leaders.
The session included information on the profound advantage gained by more diverse organizations.
“The performance differential between the most and least gender-diverse organizations is 48%. Organizations in the top quartile of ethnic and cultural diversity outperform those in the bottom quartile by 36%. And when an organization’s board of directors are in the top quartile of gender diversity, they outperform their peers financially by 28%,” said Pat Lipovski, Envision Group
Inclusion is an important component of employee retention. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of employees with a high sense of belonging in their organization planned to stay with their organization compared to 22% of those with a low sense of belonging. Employees with a high sense of belonging also reported being highly engaged at work and believed their organizations bring out their creative potential.
Participants also discussed making diversity part of the company culture.
“You have to live it,” said program participant Sebastian Imbern, Manager Capital Allocation and Asset Management, Exterran. “It can’t just be a document.”
For more information on the Council’s D&I efforts, please contact Council COO Molly Determan.
Kevin Broom, Director Communications and Research, writes about the Council’s sector-specific best practices and leadership. Click here to subscribe to the Council’s newsletter, which highlights industry practices, workforce development, Council activities and more.