Diversity Equity & Inclusion
Clients, employees, and the firm all benefit from diversity. We can better serve our clients and help employees accomplish their professional goals by valuing varied opinions. A corporate culture in which everyone feels like they belong is critical to our role as global leader who strives for excellence in everything we do.
The workplace is changing dramatically. The pace of change can be dizzying, from how we communicate to corporate culture and how we do our jobs on a daily basis. Add to that new technologies and the indelible scars of a global pandemic. It's easy to see why companies' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies must be constantly innovated.
A stronger business case for diversity, but slow progress overall
Our most recent analysis reaffirms the strong business case for gender diversity as well as ethnic and cultural diversity in corporate leadership—and shows that this business case is only getting stronger.
We discovered that the greater the representation, the greater the chance of outperformance. Companies with more than 30 percent female executives outperformed those with 10 to 30 percent female executives, and these companies outperformed those with even fewer female executives or none at all. A significant difference in the likelihood of outperformance—48 percent—distinguishes the most from the least gender-diverse companies.
Inclusion is the process of creating an environment in which individuals or members of groups feel welcomed, heard, respected, supported, valued, and capable of reaching their full potential, regardless of their background, identity, or disabilities. Contact our knowledgeable and friendly team to learn how we can assist you with diversity and inclusion in your organization
Inclusion is the process of creating an environment in which individuals or members of groups feel welcomed, heard, respected, supported, valued, and capable of reaching their full potential, regardless of their background, identity, or disabilities. Contact our knowledgeable and friendly team to learn how we can assist you with diversity and inclusion in your organization
While progress on gender and cultural representation has been slow overall, this is not true across all organizations. Our research clearly shows that the gap between I&D leaders and companies that have yet to embrace diversity is growing. Over the last five years, one-third of the companies we studied have seen significant increases in top-team diversity. However, most have made little or no progress, and some have even regressed.
This growing schism between high and low performers is reflected in a higher likelihood of a performance penalty. Companies in the fourth quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 19% more likely than companies in the other three quartiles to underperform on profitability in 2019, up from 15% in 2017 and 9% in 2015.
Why Inclusion Matters?
We investigated how various I&D strategies might have impacted the trajectories of the companies in our data set by examining surveys and company research. Our research identified two key elements: a methodical, business-led approach to innovation and development, and strong action on inclusion. Regarding the former, we have already argued in favour of an I&D strategy built on a solid business case customised for each company, evidence-based goals, and core-business leadership accountability.