Strategic DEI Audit

To develop an effective DEI program, you need to be aware of your current diversity profile and how it affects your company; this is where conducting a DEI audit comes into play.

A DEI audit can present a valuable framework for analyzing and measuring diversity within your company while also identifying areas of opportunity. Whether we’re partnering with small or larger, more complex organizations, we’re excited to design customized DEI services for the clients we serve and look forward to working with you.

Bright Star Consulting designs and facilitates capacity-building interactive DEI training, workshops, dialogues, and strategy-building sessions designed to meet the varied needs and experience levels of clients.  From clients who are taking their initial steps to invest in DEI values and outcomes to those seeking more advanced approaches to this work and/or who have developed a supportive foundation for their efforts and are ready to deepen their investment in DEI processes, Bright Star Consulting is ready to design and facilitate tailored interactive programs for you, ranging from short, 90-minute sessions to longer sessions designed for full and multi-day facilitation.

Based on the findings of your DEI audit, you’ll be able to create an action plan for developing DEI training and strategies designed specifically for areas in which your company needs to improve. (Note: It is strongly recommended that employers consider partnering with an outside DEI expert when conducting this audit.)

 

Step 1: Ask Questions

When you want to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in your company, it is important first to identify the needs of underrepresented groups to provide them with the right support and resources. 

  • What factors affect the ability of my employees to achieve their potential
    within our company?
  • Do differences between employees create disadvantages or advantages,
    within the company?
  • How do business processes, policies, practices, and strategies impact
    different groups of employees?
Step 2: Re-evaluate Business Processes

Take stock of your business policies and practices and eliminate those that hinder diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Consider how and where you are recruiting your candidates from. Hold you recruiters accountable!

When reviewing your business practices, it is also important to identify and eradicate biases that favor processes, methods, and styles used mainly by dominant demographics.

“Don’t be afraid to challenge the usual way of doing things.”

Step 3: Collect and Analyze Your HR Data
Measure the current state of DEI in your business by collecting and analyzing your HR data. You’ll want to track and assess metrics related to your talent recruitment and development, leadership demographics, employee engagement and retention, compensation, and benefits to determine whether any discrepancies exist within these areas when it comes to race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and ability.
 
Without clear metrics to track DEI initiatives and their outcomes, it’s easy to slip back to habitual thinking and the behaviors that you’re trying to change.
Step 4: Monitor Your Progress

Be sure to set a schedule for regularly monitoring your DEI efforts and measure your progress over time (and compared to that others in your industry). Share the benefits of your progress with other leaders in your organization often to assess whether your business is heading in the right direction.

When your diversity and inclusion efforts are authentically embraced and embedded in your business operations, what you create and put out into the world is better, and your workplace can be better too.


“Although the impact of DEI initiatives on your bottom line is tangible, it is about far more than that; it is about building up entire communities of people, both within and outside the business, who feel connected to your company and what it stands for.”