What Is a Diversity Audit?
A diversity audit is the unbiased review of your company or organization’s diversity initiatives relating to your workplace practices. The overarching goal is to measure where your company currently is regarding D&I initiatives, how it relates to your business and people strategy, and benchmark it against industry standards.
The diversity audit is a data-driven way that will provide you the means to do the following:
- Implement an objective assessment of your workforce demographics and culture to get a holistic view of current employee perceptions.
- Identify potential biases and issues connected to race, gender, sexual preference, and even religion.
- Establish clear action plans and practices that provide equity for all to participate in your organization.
Why Is It Important to Incorporate Diversity in Your Organization?
A diversity audit is an important undertaking that should be included in your business strategies. When done right, it is known to result in 19% increased revenue by letting you maximize your human talent in the best possible way. Here’s why:
1. It Can Pave the Way for Fair Hiring Practices Resulting in a Globally Adept, Multi-Talented Workforce
In research released by McKinsey, companies that incorporated diversity in their recruitment strategies and leadership roles were 35% more likely to gain ROI above the national industry margin.
This is because, through a diversity audit, you can recalibrate your HR team to implement fair hiring practices that can welcome and promote a broader range of talents. As you integrate a multi-talented workforce with diverse backgrounds, you also inevitably onboard in-house sources of local knowledge, cultural understanding, market insight, and varied skills that you can leverage to drive your business forward.
2. It Opens Opportunities for Innovative Growth and Increased Business Performance
One of the major benefits of a diversity audit is the fact that it gives your organization access to a melting pot of creativity, and the secret lies in the ability of a diverse workforce to see the world from different worldviews. In fact, a study shows that diverse teams are more likely to come up with better, out-of-the-box ideas compared to cognitively similar employees because they can offer more diverse solutions to a single problem.
The Harvard Business Review echoes this by noting the impact of diversity as an engine of innovation and a key driver in market growth — a study that should encourage organizations to acknowledge the benefits diversity brings to the table.
3. It Can Help You Attract the Best Talents in the Market and Increase Your Employee Retention Ratee
Implementing a diversity audit will send a powerful message to your current and potential workforce that you possess progressive organizational culture and values. This can make you a highly attractive employer of choice and help you not just attract globally-minded quality candidates but also retain them for the long haul.
The key lies in the simple fact that when you foster a culture of inclusivity, your workforce feels more valued, respected, and empowered. This results in higher employee engagement rates that can translate to employee loyalty over time and fewer recruitment costs.
What Is the Scope of the Audit?
Just like any business strategy, conducting a thorough assessment of your D&I initiatives and action plans will require a well-planned process. There are diversity audit criteria that your audit should follow:
- Data collection: To better understand where you are as an organization in your D&I journey, you have to collect data from your staff, leaders, and third-party/outsourced partners. The audit will provide the opportunity for you to capture, analyze, and develop your diversity data.
- Policy Review: To implement a culture of inclusivity and diversity, you need to have the right set of policies in place. The diversity audit will help assess if your current policies support your D&I goals regarding your company culture and corporate leadership.
- Process Evaluation: In order to guarantee diverse talent selection, proper recruitment and internal processes should be implemented. The goal is to identify possible biases and improve existing processes to attract diverse talent and equal career growth opportunities.
- Cultural Demographics: Through the diversity audit, you can get a good idea of the cultural demographics that make up your current workforce.
For a good diversity audit example, you can check out our diversity audit checklist template.
Automate Your Diversity Audit With a Digital Solution
Ensuring that your company consistently meets your diversity and inclusivity initiatives will require high volumes of data collection and analysis. Without the right tools, this can be potentially time-consuming, unorganized, and inefficient.
With Lumiform, you can have the information you need right at your fingertips. Gone are the days of tedious, manual audits because our audit app can provide a paperless and automated process for you. Even better, it can be downloaded straight on your mobile or desktop so you can have 24/7 access even when you’re offline.
But that’s not all, how your diversity audit process can improve:
- Use a template from the Lumiform template library for your diversity audit checklist.
- Customize your diversity audit form at any time with the flexible form builder.
- Measure progress effectively with a dashboard that shows an in-depth analysis of your audit data, so you can spot problems immediately.
- Consolidate all your audit data in one place and generate digital reports automatically.
- Share your findings with key stakeholders with just a click of a button and stay on track of your D&I goals.
