“When we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So, it is better to speak.” – Audre Lorde

In a new age of constantly evolving change we are becoming accustomed to the term of Diversity and Inclusion and its important in the workplace. The biggest issue in this change is quantifying the value of Diversity and Inclusion to an organization and how much resources will be used to effectively manage this change. Diversity is a fundamental characteristic of nature, a natural condition in the world we live in where the workplace is constantly attempting to adapt and match to the increasingly diverse environment to thus thrive as a business. Mary Frances Winters defines diversity as “Diversity is more than race. It includes age, gender, gender identity, background, religion, sexual orientation, and so on” and inclusion “the ability for individuals to bring their whole selves to work.” Great People Inside will adapt and match this evolving change to meet diversity needs through workforce assessments (Winters).

Who We Are and What The Data Says…

Great People Inside is the first global science-based assessment platform that focuses on creating and customizing assessments and surveys solutions to attract, assess, select. develop and retain the current and future workforce. By measuring potential and predicting performance, Great People Inside can handily identify key performance drivers and talent development opportunities. This works perfectly when considering the diversity and inclusion model as people develop and change the assessment platform can develop and change to the needs of both the individual and workforce. By evaluating people when considering a diverse and inclusive workforce an organization is thus able to quantify where they are in the conversation as well as evaluate the change need to match the goals that organization has made. Especially since we live in a new age of transparency where data can be observed all around thus evaluations and observations are made daily.

Traditionally demographic disparities were not a priority for organizations but in age of transparency, the casual individual. whether it be on social media or some other platform can observe the layers of organizational hierarchy. According to Jennifer Brown, these are some of the numbers when considering CEO’s in the workplace and some additional notes:

CEOs in the workforce:

• Black- 5
• Hispanics – 9
• Asian American – 10
• LGBT-1
• Female – 27 (no black women)

Additional Notes:

• Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national means.
• Female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value according to Cristian Deszo study on the top firms in S&P’s Composite 1 500 list.

Dimensions and Definitions

Using Great People Inside’s cloud-based assessment platform, we have recently conducted a study focusing on Diversity and Inclusion culture considering 12 dimensions such as:

Flexibility – The ability of reacting promptly and with agility to be able to adapt to different changes, personalities and working styles.

Managing Generations – The tendency to adopt a flexible management style, adapted to each generational typology, using the characteristics of each of them and inter-generational collaboration to motivate and increase the efficiency of the team.

Leadership – Directs and guides a group of employees or an organization; establishes a clear vision and conveys it to others; inspires employees to perform and have increasingly better results.

Connection to Others – The capacity to easily relate to people, to be motivated by a feeling of belonging to a group and create, maintain and value interpersonal relationships.

Strategy – Correctly anticipates future consequences and tendencies; recognizes strategic opportunities for change and creates competitive and innovative strategies.

Positive Thinking – The capacity to assess and interpret a situation in an optimistic, confident manner, to identify the advantages or benefits of a situation and expect positive results.

Engagement – The tendency to exert maximum effort on a daily basis, to be dedicated to the goals and values of the organization, to be motivated in contributing to the success of the organization, showing a high level of morale.

Personal Growth – The ability to constantly seek development solutions, be preoccupied with giving and receiving feedback and continual learning. Puts theoretical knowledge into action.

Energy and Vitality – The ability to identify internal and external resources and to call upon them to maintain physical and mental health.

Cooperation – The tendency to establish close social relationships based on trust, empathy and mutual support.

Vision – Communicates an inspired and convincing vision or a feeling of understanding the purpose; makes the vision be shared by everyone with the purpose of inspiring and motivating at the level of entire departments or the organization itself.

Team Work – Positively contributes to team effort, supports others in their approaches to reaching organizational goals. Encourages the creation of work relationships between co-workers, shares information with co-workers.

What We Found

Great People Inside has over 129 dimensions that the organizations can use to create and customize different assessments with the objective to focus on measuring and predicting behavioral categories in the workplace. These specific 12 dimensions were chosen as dimensions that closely matched Diversity and Inclusion culture by combatting unconscious bias in the workplace and focusing on positive thinking to create a diverse workforce (Benaji).

The individuals that were included in the survey were all aware of the diversity and inclusion definitions and are privy to different tactics used to create workforce diversity cooperation. The caveat is that all were from different fields such as human resources, construction, medical, IT, and project management and different age groups ranging from 25 – 45.

At the beginning of the study and considering how the platform could be used, we had considered that age group and career would not be a determining factor given the fact that all had knowledge on workforce diversity. Upon evaluating the results, it was quickly noticed that there were disparities all across the board.

However, the overall match with the diversity success profile was quite high as the lowest compatibility percentage was at 80.75% to as high as 96.67% on a scale of 100%. The disparities were noticed in the range between dimensions that were rated on a scale of 1-10. A focus on positive thinking in the workplace leads to diversity of thought and innovate ideas in the diversity and inclusion space (Reynolds).

An example is how when understanding how generations are managed there was from 4 to 8 showing that individuals involved in the study had an overall understanding of the conversation but had individualistic differences when putting the understanding into effect. Similarly recognizing generations in the workplace leads to more focused conversations on providing the appropriate resources for individuals and better communication throughout the workplace. The results for positive thinking ranged from 5 to 10.

Some other results based on data found through the study and definitions based on Great People Inside are how in connecting to others, the capacity to easily relate to people, the range was as much from 4 to 10. Strategy, recognizes strategic opportunities for change and creates competitive and innovate strategies, ranged from 2 to 7. Personal Growth, the ability to constantly seek development solutions, be preoccupied with giving and receiving feedback and continual learning, ranged from 3 to 8. Energy and Vitality, the ability to identify internal and external resources and to call upon them to maintain physical and mental health, ranged from 2 to 1 0.

Cooperation, the tendency to establish close social relationships based on trust, empathy and mutual support, ranged from 4 to 8. Vision, communicates ranged from 4 to 8. Vision, communicates an inspired and convincing vision or a feeling of understanding the purpose, ranged from 4 to 9. Team work, positively contributes to team effort, supports others in their approaches to reaching organizational goals, ranged from 4 to 7.

Flexibility, the ability of reacting promptly and with agility to be able to adapt to different changes, personalities and working styles, ranged from 4 to 7. Engagement, the tendency to exert maximum effort on a daily basis, to be dedicated to the goals and values of the organization, to be motivated in the contributing to the success of the organization, showing a high level of morale, ranged from 5 to 10.

What Do I Do Now?

When analyzing such data an organization can observe where direct training will be effective to close the gaps of disparity on workforce diversity. Considering dimensions that are focused on providing feedback, communicating through multiple platforms, physical and mental health, establishing relationships, and reactions are all facets that are productive to the diversity and inclusion conversation to analyze and support a diverse workforce. This is especially important as in today’s technological world all organization are in the view of the public eye, focusing on effective training to improve workforce habits and positive thinking can build and engage the everyday worker. Thus, building a workforce that will eventually lead to effective management.

Great People Inside’s people intelligence platform can be highly effective for all types of organizations by using the employees’ reports to develop focused training based on quantifiable data. In tum this data will continuously grow and become more effective over time as an organization is able to do comparative analysis for future employees involved in the platform. If you are interested in getting involved in the change, please contact Magda Vargas Battle, CEO Great People Inside USA and our collaborator Raphael Parra, President, Diversigate to build a more effective and diverse workforce!

Want more details? Click here to download the full report.