Embed D&I into your business with clarity, growth, and belonging

If you asked me this time last year what I would do to kick off 2021, my answer would not include being on lockdown due to a global pandemic… and yet here we are. People around the world are entering the second year of a very dark time in our history, an experience that has brought up a lot of unexpected and changing realities. Employees have either returned to their workplace or are working from home, while possibly schooling children too. It’s easy to feel disconnected when we can no longer see other people in our lives.

Adding to this feeling of isolation, the tensions from racial unrest reached a boiling point here in the US, and around the globe. While Diversity and inclusion (D&I) programs have been around for a while, the response to current events was a push to increase efforts and results.

Companies have to do better for the communities they serve, their customers, and their people. D&I is the right thing to do and employees are demanding it.

Just like companies have had to undergo a digital transformation, the time is now for a diversity and inclusion revolution.

In fact, companies that are too slow to improve their D&I programs will most likely fall behind their competitors that are quicker to adapt. D&I isn’t only the right thing to do, it’s good for business: McKinsey found that companies with higher diversity in board and executive teams had a 36% better financial performance than others. 

Unique companies need a unique solution

We talk to many customers who are working on various stages of their D&I initiatives, and a reoccurring theme we hear is not having D&I just “live on an island”. To make systemic changes, D&I must be embedded into your daily business. Over time, you no longer have D&I-specific goals, they just become business goals that make an impact. A diverse and inclusive organization is one that is constantly innovating, selling more, and relating to customers. It’s not just a strategy or tactic, it’s a culture change. Culture change can’t happen overnight. It requires continuous work, flexibility, and transparency.

Each company is unique, with its own culture, industry, employees, and customers. Your approach to D&I should be unique, too, and tailored for your business objectives. We believe that no matter where a company is in their journey, to truly embed D&I into daily business practice requires a focus on clarity, growth, and belonging to drive impact for both the business and your employees.

Many of our Oracle Cloud HCM products can be used today to help companies as they work on their D&I initiatives. Here are three steps to get started:

1. Gain clarity around purpose, progress, and impact

Whether it’s understanding progress on your D&I initiatives or diving deeper to understand where challenges lie, if you lack a clear view into your workforce, it can hurt your business performance and ability to impact D&I objectives.

By using Oracle Fusion HCM Analytics, along with Oracle Fusion ERP Analytics, you can leverage a pre-built data pipeline to incorporate performance and revenue information from across the organization - from service, sales, finance, and your workforce. A holistic view of your organization helps to clearly identify objectives and understand equity broadly (promotion rates, turnover, and more across gender, ethnicity, intersections) and deeply (why there are issues and the impact on business performance.)

Once you set your D&I goals and metrics, align your KPIs to business needs that teams can easily view and support. Remember that D&I metrics are a barometer for your business. If you don’t have diversity or the infrastructure to keep a diverse workforce, you’re probably missing something bigger.

2. Grow talent by recruiting, developing, and retaining with purpose

Transparency into your workforce allows you to see where you are attracting and developing talent. Having this insight helps recruiting teams understand where they need to expand their talent pools and how to take action, such as using Oracle Recruiting’s built-in CRM tools to create targeted campaigns for new audiences, and attract them with personalized job sites.

Consistently executing D&I practices through embedded processes in key areas like recruiting and development helps put a culture of inclusion in motion. This must be achieved as a unified organization. Empowering people managers with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be inclusive as they hire and develop individuals helps break down barriers and promotes D&I as part of day-to-day practice.

Another way to put practice into the process is by guiding employees through pre-defined tasks. With Oracle Journeys, a hiring manager could have a set of tasks to complete that are automatically assigned once they open a job requisition. These tasks could include things like bias training and check-in with their HR recruiting partner to track goals around having a diverse slate.

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3. Foster belonging through connections, community, and guidance

Feeling excluded at work often results in lower productivity and attrition. Enabling employees to readily find and connect with those who have shared interests, new perspectives, or experiences for mentorship is critical to fostering innovation, growth, and a sense of belonging.

Employees stay engaged with Oracle Opportunity Marketplace which provides transparency to available internal full-time positions or projects. You can offer employees multiple ways to grow while providing easy access to opportunities they might not have had in the past.

Oracle Work Life helps employees find potential mentors and volunteering opportunities. Employees can select mentors to help grow their own development or partner together to contribute to a common social objective. With people feeling disconnected, even after returning to their workplace, it’s important to provide opportunities to connect and engage your employees.

What it means for us

We are inspired by the D&I work that companies are doing, and to be along this journey as well. There is more to be done in our industry, and Oracle has launched new initiatives to affect cultural change and help build a more diverse and inclusive company. Importantly, we know that D&I can’t just come from our HR team—it must be embedded into our culture. We’re passionate to continue these important conversations and leverage tools to drive impact as we move forward.

We believe that innovation starts with inclusion and to create the future we need people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and abilities. That’s why we’re committed to creating a workplace where all kinds of people can do their best work.

Join us to hear more from Oracle and our customers in the upcoming virtual summit “Addressing Diversity and Inclusion: Going Beyond the Benchmark”.

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