Reference no: EM133407255

Case Study: Many colleges have a wide range of diversity among their students. Less advantaged students and affluent students are on the same campus. Different races, ethnicities, gender identities, political preferences, and international backgrounds are all at the same college. But, if you look around many college campuses, you see students sticking with others like themselves. There are themed dorms for certain majors, interests, and demographic backgrounds. Student organizations also tend to include students who are similar to one another.

Colleges devote a lot of effort to increasing diversity on their campuses, but then most students "spend the bulk of their time on one of many homogeneous islands."283 The benefits of diversity don't happen automatically just because colleges bring diversity to their campuses.

It's true that companies are different from college campuses in many ways. But, just like college campuses, companies can't reap the benefits of diversity just by bringing diversity on board. There is so much that companies need to do after they attract diverse talent to come work for them.

Diverse employees want to feel like they belong at a company and have a future there.284 But women and minorities often aren't well represented in top-level positions in many companies. Women hold about 26.5 percent of executive or senior-level positions in S&P 500 companies while women of color are represented in 5 percent of these top-level positions. One action companies can take is to ensure that employees can openly talk about diversity. "You can be diverse and hire a lot of people, but you are not inclusive if people don't feel like they can talk about the tough issues like race at work that affect their lives," said Julie Sweet, Accenture North America CEO. Accenture-a global management consulting firm-realized the need for open conversations about race after several police shootings of African Americans in 2016. They held meetings via webcast for all employees followed by in-person discussions in eight US cities. The conversations involved employees of all races and "surfaced far more real talk about race than the typical bias training or sensitivity program."

Many companies prioritize both diversity and inclusion. They want to make sure that everyone in the company-regardless of race, gender, personality, or any other source of difference-feel like they are included in the company. However, when companies seem to focus on certain employees, other employees can feel excluded. Research shows that the more that inclusion efforts are framed as benefiting all employees, the less resistance is found to such efforts.286

Accenture implemented an inclusion initiative framed for all employees in May 2017.287 It began as an internal video entitled "Inclusion Starts with I" that was shown to its "next generation leaders" in a leadership development program. The video shows different employees holding up signs with examples of how bias-and a lack of inclusion-can occur in unexpected ways. These employees included a wide variety of employees, from childless employees, transgender individuals, African American women, disabled employees, and men with children. The video explains that it takes just one person to make a difference in creating inclusion at work. Those who watched the video tended to have an emotional response. Many discussions about inclusion ensued throughout the company as a result of the video. Ultimately, the video was shared more broadly within and outside of company walls.

Question: What are some of the ways that companies can increase the chances that diverse employees want to keep working for them?