Driving Innovation
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
When you embrace inclusivity as an organisation and hire a diverse group of employees, you attract top talent, promote innovation, and improve your organisation's performance. That is why at PwC, we believe that a strategic approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion is the key to innovation and success for your organisation.
Why are diversity, equity, and inclusion important?
Diversity, equity (e.g. equal opportunities), and inclusion (DEI) are critical success factors for your organisation, especially in a world of increasing complexity, polarisation, and high costs. Extensive research in recent years clearly shows that organisations embracing inclusivity and diversity reap numerous benefits.
Diverse perspectives lead to increased innovation, creativity, and therefore enhanced performance. Companies with greater diversity and an inclusive culture experience 33% higher profits, and in 60% of cases, decision-making improves.
An inclusive and diverse company culture has a direct impact on retaining and attracting talent. Inclusive and diverse teams increase employee engagement and social safety. Employee satisfaction also rises, leading to higher staff retention. The result? A positive and attractive image as an employer in a competitive labour market.
What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)?
Diversity, equity (e.g. equal opportunities), and inclusion are crucial themes in both society and organisations. For organisations, the aim of a DEI policy is to create a working environment where everyone feels welcome and valued, regardless of background, identity, or sexual orientation. Equality within organisations encourages an equal flow of staff, equal pay, and equal opportunities for everyone to develop their talents. Inclusive leadership and role models play an essential role in this.
By bringing together inclusion, equal opportunities, and diversity, combinations are created that contribute to trust and sustainable results.
Diversity
Diversity refers to recognising and acknowledging visible and invisible differences between people, such as age, opinions, life experiences, preferences, education, social background, and gender. By increasing diversity in the workplace, different perspectives are brought together, offering more solutions to challenges and promoting innovation.
Equity
Equity means that everyone, regardless of background, has equal opportunities to develop talents. This is reflected in the recruitment, advancement, and retention of staff, including training opportunities, promotions, talent development, and the division of work. Equal opportunities between men and women, for example, should lead to equal pay and a balanced distribution of top positions. This topic is significant in society, especially regarding equal access to facilities such as healthcare, housing, and the labour market.
Inclusion
An inclusive organisation ensures that all your employees feel engaged and valued. It is a place where diverse talents enjoy working because there is a culture in which employees feel involved, seen, and heard, and can be their authentic selves. By developing the human skills needed to appreciate diversity, your organisation can think, act, and lead more inclusively, with connection and collaboration at the forefront.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as part of Social Sustainability
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) do not stand alone but contribute to the theme of social sustainability, which aims to promote social cohesion, equality of opportunity, and justice for current and future members of society. DEI specifically focuses on the work environment within organisations (their own workforce)) and social cohesion in society (communities).
The challenges our clients experience
The motivation for an organisation to focus on DEI can vary greatly: from commercial to moral to compliance driven. For some, it's an opportunity to build a diverse workforce, while others see it as a way to increase employee engagement. Still others want to tap into new markets or stimulate innovation. Dealing with DEI requires a wide range of competencies: strategy development, talent development and personnel policy development with a specialisation in inclusion, legal knowledge to comply with legislation and regulations, organisational, cultural and behavioural change and programme management knowledge to implement DEI.
Some issues that you will have to deal with as an organisation:
Data: How can we effectively measure diversity within our team? Which KPIs are most relevant for this?
Privacy: What can and cannot be recorded about my employees without infringing on their privacy?
Strategy: What will be our policy in the field of DEI and what objectives do we need to formulate in order to implement it successfully? How do we as an organisation deal with DEI legislation and regulations in different countries?
Employee satisfaction: How do we ensure that all employees feel heard and seen within our organisation?
Do you have specific questions about drawing up your strategy, policy or the implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion? We are happy to advise you. Below we will tell you about our approach.
Approach
Our approach starts with understanding your organisation's current state, identifying your goals, and pinpointing the challenges you face. We collaborate with you to determine how we can assist in achieving sustainable results. We advise clients across various sectors on making their organisations more inclusive and positively impacting society. We employ a multidisciplinary approach tailored to your specific needs.
For each component, we provide examples of possible interventions.
1: Research and Analysis
Together with you, we evaluate the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) maturity level of your organisation. Through thorough data and document research, we arrive at a baseline measurement – an essential foundation. To do this, we use the PwC D&I maturity model, a structured approach that allows you to understand the current state of DEI within your organisation and identify areas for improvement. We conduct policy research focused on the society in which your organisation operates and analyse the impact of your organisation on society and local communities.
2: Strategy and Policy
We help you formulate a strategy and policy for DEI, set goals and priorities, and lay out the objectives in a roadmap or implementation plan. We can also provide you with targeted advice on creating an inclusive recruitment and selection policy, including talent management, and implementing the social ambitions for the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Finally, we can advise you on refining your objectives for CSR policy or involving people with a labour market disadvantage in the context of SROI (Social Return on Investment).
In this article about Neighbourhood Feminists, we describe how we have supported the Neighbourhood Feminists foundation in their strategy development and fundraising based on our CSRD policy.
3: Programme Development and Implementation
In co-creation with you, we draw up a step-by-step plan and translate the roadmap (from step 2) into a concrete programme with various interventions. We advise you on the implementation of DEI policy, and if desired, we will help you implement the interventions. This also includes developing change communication / inclusive communication through our Engaging Programme Management approach to create support within the organisation.
4: Awareness and Upskilling
We assist you with training to develop specific social skills. This increases awareness about DEI in your organisation and ensures that leaders in your organisation become skilled in inclusive leadership. Together with our PwC Academy, we offer a D&I learning journey and can deliver bespoke training courses.
We offer an e-learning course as an introduction to DEI, which can be followed by awareness training or inclusive leadership training. Our training courses focus on interaction enriched with practical examples. More information about our offer can be found here: Diversity & Inclusion learning programmes - PwC's Academy
5: Activation and Involvement
We assist you in boosting employee engagement. For example, we can help you establish and deploy diversity networks (employee resource groups), or, in the case of existing networks, advise you on how to operate more efficiently or make a greater impact. Additionally, we can explore, together with you, which interventions and activities can foster an inclusive and socially safe working environment within your organisation. For instance, a potential intervention is the 'In My Shoes' Virtual Reality awareness training for ethnic diversity. This training enhances empathy and shifts unconscious biases by allowing you to virtually experience someone else's world.
Our Employee Network workshop aids in setting up and professionalising employee networks. Drawing from our own PwC networks, we have developed a practical and applicable approach to increase employee engagement within your organisation.
6: Monitoring and Reporting
We assist you in creating an insight into the progress of DEI and ensuring accountability for it. We also offer tools to track developments regarding DEI and include them in reporting. This way, you can guarantee transparency and maintain focus on an inclusive organisation. We help you monitor your KPIs and adjust where necessary, for example, by setting up a dashboard or through our Inclusion Insights programme.
Our Inclusion Insights programme provides a comprehensive approach to monitor and enhance inclusion and diversity within your organisation.
If you would like to learn more about what we can offer in terms of diversity, inclusion, and equality, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
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