Diversity and Inclusion Trends for 2023

These days, clients care more about D&I hiring because it is the right thing to do as opposed to for financial reasons, says a new report from Sheffield Haworth.  Companies are also showing a growing determination to measure the effectiveness of their diversity efforts and find practical solutions to problems. 

October 19, 2022 – Reviewing the current mindset around diversity and inclusion within global organizations in financial services, consulting, and technology two powerful overarching trends have emerged this year. In a new report, Sheffield Haworth’s Helen Tudor examines the D&I trends the firm is seeing from clients around the talent pipeline, and around effectively onboarding, integrating, and developing diverse talent once engaged. Rather than talk about the bottom-line benefits of improving diversity and inclusion, firms are now saying they want do better because it’s the right thing to do, according the report. “They have moved on from the business case, in other words, and are leaning into the moral or ethical case for change,” the study said. “The second big trend is that they are keen to get on with it and take practical steps to improve their D&I. For many organizations, this means collecting and analyzing data to understand the reasons for their current lack of D&I. They are keen to measure the effectiveness of their D&I efforts and, where possible, come up with practical solutions to problems.”

Challenge 1: The Talent Pipeline

Sheffield Haworth’s clients are seeing similar challenges come up repeatedly, and the theme that connects them is lack of data around talent attraction and selection. In particular, many clients are interviewing – and even making offers to – more diverse candidates, yet many candidates are turning them down, and these organizations don’t know why, the report found.

According to Sheffield Haworth, clients lack qualitative data to know why more candidates either aren’t successful at the final interview stage, why more candidates aren’t offered roles, or why in some cases diverse candidates are turning down job offers.

Solutions

Alongside these challenges, the firm is also seeing a trend in several multinational clients deciding to be more proactive about finding the solution. This year, for example, the senior team of Sheffield Haworth’s clients began carrying out monthly reviews of their talent pipeline in one of their regions, specifically to identify and track female talent.


Helen Tudor is a managing director in the consulting & professional services practice and is the global lead for diversity, equity & inclusion at Sheffield Haworth. She focuses on partner level executive search in management consultancy and professional services, specializing in financial services, government & defense, telco, consumer and retail sectors. she covers strategy, operations transformation, technology & digital, organization design, human capital, talent and leadership. She works with the Big 4 consultancies, strategy houses, systems integrators and challenger consultancies. Ms. Tudor has extensive U.K. and European experience. She covers partner, VP and director level positions, as well team acquisitions or team builds.


“With our help, they’re tracking all females approached, with a view to seeing how far along the selection process they have got,” the Sheffield Haworth report said. “How many dropped out? At what stage of the process did they drop out? Why did they drop out? How many got through to each stage of the process? How many who were not offered roles might be suitable to be reapproached? By taking such a thorough analytical approach, the client hopes to uncover the reasons why more women aren’t being offered roles – or aren’t accepting them. In this way, they hope to establish any hitherto unknown barriers or trends that they can remove or mitigate.”

Sheffield Haworth is seeing other clients exploring similar initiatives to track female talent, with the same goal of increasing female representation within senior leadership and management levels.

Challenge 2: Integration

D&I is not just about attracting and hiring diverse talent; it’s also about helping diverse talent to integrate into your organization and setting them up for success, according to the Sheffield Haworth report. “Here we’ve been seeing another common trend amongst larger clients which are experiencing institutional or bureaucratic challenges around how to put in the right kind of onboarding and professional development experience for diverse talent,” said the study.

Related: Achieving Diversity in Private Equity

“Again, almost all large firms want to become more inclusive and are keen to onboard diverse talent effectively,” said Ms. Tudor. “Yet I’ve been invited to meetings with the HR leaders of some very well-known multinationals who tell us that it’s hard to coordinate onboarding and inclusion efforts because different parts of the business control different parts of the budget for the different parts of the process.”

For example, Ms. Tudor says that in many large organizations one cost center “owns” talent acquisition from a budgetary point of view. Yet onboarding, induction, and learning and development support fall under the remit of different cost centers – often more than one. It is proving difficult for HR departments to manage this process effectively end to end because they have to justify the budget for each part of the process separately in an uncoordinated way, she says. Added economic pressures in the current environment can also lead to push back on the investment.

Solutions

“Our clients have reached out to us for advice on how to coordinate inclusion processes,” Ms. Tudor said. “Here, there are no one size fits all solutions, but clients are working on ways to get around these problems, from soliciting support from senior leaders to drive more joined-up thinking and carve out separate inclusion budgets with HR oversights, to encouraging more cooperation between separate budget holders. One example, is investing in a coach to mentor diverse candidates during the interview process and then continue to help with their integration into the business. The key to finding solutions here seems to be the willingness to acknowledge the problem, agree on the solution, and then align budget.”

What does the rest of 2022 have in store for firms’ D&I priorities?

Sheffield Haworth’s clients are at different stages of their D&I journey. Many are experiencing success at attracting more diverse talent at junior and graduate levels but struggle to do so in more senior positions, while some find onboarding and learning and development more of a struggle than others.

“One thing that does seem here to stay is the recognition that D&I is important, and that the inclusion aspect is just as important to get right as the diversity part,” the report said. “Feeling that you belong, are accepted, and supported is essential. In that sense, the validity and desirability of the goal is agreed. Where companies differ is on the specific challenges they face and the solutions they’re exploring in order to get there.”

The common theme when it comes to enacting change is the lack of data. That’s where the most far-sighted firms are beginning to direct more of their resources. “Those that can collect and analyze D&I recruitment data fastest are those most likely to achieve a competitive advantage in the fight to attract and retain top diverse talent in the latter stages of 2022 and beyond,” said Sheffield Haworth.

Related: The Importance of Setting Proper Diversity Targets

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media

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