Their numbers in the workforce continue to rise, and many say they would refuse to work at a company without these attributes.
Millennial workers value a diverse and inclusive workplace, and this generation now makes up 35% of the U.S. workforce, according to a Pew Research Centre report. By 2030, Millennials will constitute 75% of workers.
Can your company afford to keep agitating them by not practicing diversity and inclusion (D&I)?
For many years, forward-thinking corporate leaders have known a diverse workplace is socially responsible, plus good for the bottom line. A wealth of research from as recent as last October in The Wall Street Journal supports this. It published its own research in the article “The Business Case for More Diversity.” It’s a fact: Large corporations with diverse employees and leadership are more successful.
What Top Performers Do
To find out a bit more, I quizzed representatives from two companies that consistently rank at the top of Fortune’s yearly “Best Workplaces for Diversity” list: professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and technology company Cisco.
PwC’s Rod Adams, head of talent acquisition for the United States and Mexico, knows the benefits of a diverse workplace.
“We’re a client-serving business, and we’ve seen firsthand how much more effective we are at serving clients with diverse teams,” he says. “Diversity and inclusion are very important at PwC, and the company has turned up the focus in the past three years, with three times the level of diversity hires in that time period.”
Adams notes diversity is “a selling point for new talent—people want to work here because they know it’s a diverse workplace … we can demonstrate that we mean it.”
One long-standing pillar of PwC’s hiring efforts is the company’s active, year-round partnership with 35 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). It’s an intentional partnership.
“We have people dedicated to each school, which means we’re focused on them and recruiting from them. We work with the faculty and with the students throughout the year.” Plus, the company holds a faculty summit annually to share priorities and insights, as well as maintain strong connections.
Cisco is another company with a strong record of diversity.
“We know a diverse workforce and inclusive culture positively impact decision-making, innovation, and financial performance,” says Cisco’s Shari Slate, Vice President of Inclusive Future and Strategy and Chief Inclusion and Collaboration Officer.
“We view inclusion and collaboration as the bridge to connect diverse perspectives, spark new ideas, imagine new possibilities, challenge the status quo, inspire innovation, and unleash the full power and potential of our people.”
Cisco uses its collaborative technology to connect a full spectrum of diverse talent and foster an environment where all employees feel they belong and can thrive. Slate says its diverse teams “enable faster and better business outcomes, creating exponential value for Cisco.”
The company has worked particularly hard to include more women at all levels in a sector typically dominated by men. From blind hiring to regular reviews of the compensation system to conscious promoting, the company’s efforts have resulted in one of the most diverse executive leadership teams in the industry. It has 47% women and 62% women/nonwhite workers overall. Cisco’s board of directors is also 27% female.
D&I Under Threat?
These companies understand how a diverse workforce is good for policy and business. But that’s in ordinary times. Since March of this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything about the workforce and company culture.
What does this crisis mean for companies like PwC and Cisco that value and cultivate diversity? Will hard-won diversity measures be put on the backburner as companies try to rein in the bottom line?
A recent McKinsey report suggests this might already be happening in the corporate sector overall. A pulse survey found 27% of D&I leaders say most or all company D&I initiatives have been put on hold because of the COVID-19 crisis.
How can companies that lead in this area make sure they don’t lose ground?
Celebrating Diversity Is Intentional
PwC’s Adams says, “Diversity needs to be deliberate—like our sustained work with HBCUs.” During the COVID-19 crisis, PwC has reached out to its HBCU partners and offered a $10,000 grant to get “tech-enabled” to deal with the challenges of moving face-to-face interactions online. Most will use the money to buy new equipment, which Adams says “tracks with the needs we’ve noticed” in the company’s engagement with HBCUs over the years.
“The danger is a distraction—we can’t lose focus on this strategic priority,” continues Adams. He notes that PwC has a new person dedicated to inclusion, as well, making sure all employees in a diverse workforce feel valued and heard.
Almost 60% of Cisco’s employees were working remotely before the pandemic.
“Our diversity and inclusion programs and solutions are digitized and use our collaboration technology, enabling every employee, in every region, at every level of the organization, to be included and to participate,” says Slate.
D&I will remain a priority for Cisco during and after the COVID-19 crisis. Slate notes the company is working to foster a “conscious culture, where we actively monitor, protect, and care for each other … and are accountable, empowered, and expected to speak up about any actions that don’t align to our values.”
Keeping D&I front and center in tough times can be tricky, but there is evidence it pays off. New research shows “publicly traded companies with highly inclusive workplaces thrived before, during, and after the Great Recession.” Presumably, diverse companies will weather the COVID-19 crisis better than their less diverse counterparts, as well. Diverse mind-sets are more likely to bring creative solutions to difficult problems.
Listening to the People
But I don’t want to end this discussion referencing only the COVID-19 crisis because there’s another national one we can’t ignore. We have seen the country shocked into consciousness on racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd and subsequent national protests that echo those that took place in 2017. Even companies already working hard on D&I have taken a second look at their efforts.
PwC’s U.S. Chair, Tim Ryan, has pledged significant company resources to improve D&I efforts and to contribute to broader efforts to fight for racial justice and equality. These include forming a D&I staff advisory council so all staff can advise the leadership team. This ensures PwC’s progress on diversity is transparent and contributes financially to national organizations on the front lines for racial justice. It’s creating a policy team to advance solutions addressing systemic racism.
Cisco is also intensifying its D&I work, with Slate noting recent events “have also forced us to confront the long-standing and now acute challenges of racial injustice in the United States. As a result, we’ve added time to our company-wide meetings for us to have transparent and meaningful conversations discussing racism.”
The company plans to expand those efforts to include all stakeholders. A recent blog by company CEO Chuck Robbins outlined Cisco’s commitment to four pillars that will support this broader community outreach.
Top-down approaches to D&I set the tone for corporate culture. Check in regularly, though, to see how it is filtering down to your organization’s grassroots. A friend of mine was galled when she married and took on her husband’s Anglo-Saxon surname, then started a new job. She later became privy to shocking racist banter among work peers. They just assumed she was Anglo-Saxon, but she was not. It is this undercurrent that successful companies tap into and deal with. How is your company tackling this?
In short, this is not the time to let go of your D&I efforts. It is time to double down. Research, experience, and a renewed focus on racial justice all point to the same conclusion: D&I efforts are vital to the health of companies, their employees, and the wider community.
D&I in the workplace is not a luxury good—it is an everyday essential.
Nicholas Wyman is a future work expert, an author, a speaker, and President of the Institute for Workplace Skills and Innovation. He has been LinkedIn’s #1 Education Writer of the Year, too, and written an award-winning book, Job U, a practical guide to finding wealth and success by developing the skills companies actually need. Wyman has an MBA and has studied at Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship.