Diversity, equity and inclusion crucial for your firm’s financial success

Diversity, equity and inclusion should be an important part of your hiring strategy at your company, and in Finance as well. Making the effort to be inclusive can draw in more talented new hires and help you grow your client base, boosting the bottom line.

Although most firms say they’re committed to boosting diversity and inclusion, more work needs to be done to integrate these principles into their regular processes. That’s according to a survey by Inclusively, a platform designed to help companies root out their exclusionary practices.

You and your fellow execs likely understand the importance of having a diverse team and customer base. In fact, most leaders surveyed by Inclusively said that if their companies don’t make big moves to boost their diversity and inclusion efforts by 2025, they’ll experience sharp declines in employee satisfaction, retention, brand value, customer satisfaction – and revenue.

But it’s often tough to go beyond the basic steps of creating employee groups focused on diversity in house or doing the bare minimum to meet legal compliance standards.

Ways to improve diversity & inclusion

Few employers are taking advantage of more effective methods to promote diversity and inclusion, such as:

• Having accommodation policies in place that are clear and easy to understand (40%).
• Incentivizing hiring managers and recruiters to hire diverse teams (33%)
• Putting inclusive interviewing practices in place that are clear and easy to understand (30%), and
• Incentivizing hiring managers and recruiters to hire people with disabilities (24%).

These changes would be an excellent start for any company serious about boosting its diversity and inclusion efforts going forward.

Getting started

Survey respondents also discussed what their own companies are doing to improve their practices over the next 12 months, including:

• Creating KPIs specifically tied to diversity, equity and inclusion (69%)
• Creating key performance indicators (KPIs) tied to accessibility practices (66%), and
• Obtaining accessible technology for employees and clients to use (66%).

In addition, 80% of those who responded said their company is placing more focus on creating a culture of acceptance for people with disabilities.

Bottom line: To boost your diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, you need to:

• work with other higher-ups and HR to create incentives and processes to hire diverse candidates and candidates with disabilities
• focus on the entire hiring process from the applicant stage to the employee stage, and
• prioritize accessibility when upgrading technology.