Diversity in People Portfolios:
Powerful Questions to Unlock Growth.
In this guide you will find many powerful questions that can help leaders embark on a journey of maximizing growth across their stakeholders, employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities they serve.
Introduction
Every game-changing solution started with a good question. And every good question prompts a fresh perspective. Embracing fresh perspectives can help your organization see itself differently and uncover impactful insights you may have previously missed.
Included here is a list of recommended questions to help your organization unlock the next generation of growth across all stakeholders, from your employees and suppliers to your customers and the communities in which you operate.
Employees and the broader talent market
- Do you have the data needed to achieve dynamic analytics going forward? For example, is your HR/Employee System of Record attributed sufficiently, and does it include a process to keep it continuously updated and accurate as employees are hired, evolve or advance in their roles and exit the organization?
- What is the current diversity of your team by function/role?
- How do your detailed diversity statistics across all major functions/roles compare to the community(ies) where you operate?
- Is your talent acquisition strategy intentional about diversity? Have you evaluated every part of the talent lifecycle to ensure openness of opportunity?
- How does your pay equity look across comparable workers internally?
- What does your median income look like based on level of educational attainment and other relevant factors compared to the broader community(ies) where you’re located?
- How does the percentage of home ownership and health coverage of your workers compare to the averages in your surrounding communities?
- Are you fostering sustainable wealth-building across your employee base?
- What are peer companies doing to promote wealth-building, and are there best practices that your team could put in place?
- Are there internal initiatives that could empower your employees to make better decisions that would promote the overall viability of themselves and their dependents?
- Do you have concrete workforce development programs that help foster diversity and track the impact that they have over time?
- Do your attrition numbers look different across demographic lines?
- Have you put a robust employee survey engine in place that can provide meaningful qualitative data to combine with core quantitative metrics on diversity based on geography, role, function, compensation and other relevant factors?
- Are you able to glean meaningful differences in employee satisfaction metrics along demographic lines through employee surveys or other communication channels?
- If you have AI-based systems in place in the human capital management process, have you evaluated them for efficacy, continuously ensuring that bias isn’t creeping into the recommendations and other outputs?
Procurement portfolio and broader supply chain ecosystem
- Do you have the data needed to achieve dynamic analytics going forward? For example, is your Procurement/Supplier System of Record attributed sufficiently, and does it include a process to keep it continuously updated and accurate as employees are hired, evolve or advance in their roles and exit the ecosystem?
- What is the current diversity of your procurement portfolio by vertical/micro-vertical?
- How does the diversity of your supplier portfolio compare to the available businesses in the community(ies) where you operate?
- How do your financial metrics look across comparable suppliers from different demographic backgrounds? Is there a meaningful difference?
- Do you put supplier opportunities out to bid through an open process that proactively widens the gap so diverse suppliers are incorporated wherever possible?
- Are you able to track KPIs across suppliers to ensure your engagement is fair, open and objective?
- Is your firm proactively recruiting diverse suppliers while fostering a healthy ecosystem of suppliers and subcontractors that are critical to your business success?
- What are peer companies doing to promote workforce development and empower minority- and women-owned businesses that are part of your supplier ecosystem?
- Are there internal initiatives that could help your procurement employees make more thoughtful decisions to promote the overall viability of a diverse supplier ecosystem?
- Does your procurement team reflect a diverse supplier ecosystem from a demographic standpoint to drive stronger recruitment, engagement and retention of diverse suppliers?
- If you utilize AI-based systems in the procurement process, have you evaluated them for efficacy, continuously ensuring that bias isn’t creeping into the recommendations and other outputs?
- Do you capitalize on external data to stay up-to-date on available suppliers in your ecosystem, particularly related to minority- and women-owned businesses (MWOB) and veteran- and disabled-owned businesses (SDVOB)?
- Do your attrition numbers with suppliers look different across demographic lines?
- Have you put a robust supplier survey engine in place that can provide meaningful qualitative data to combine with core quantitative metrics on diversity based on geography, industry, role, gender, race and other relevant demographic factors?
- Are you able to glean meaningful differences in supplier satisfaction along demographic lines through surveys or other communication channels?
Customers & Target Markets (Geography, Demographic Data, Etc.)
- Do you have the data needed to achieve dynamic analytics going forward? For example, is your Customer System of Record attributed sufficiently, and does it include a process to keep it continuously updated and accurate as employees are hired, evolve and advance in their role and exit the ecosystem?
- What is the current diversity of your customer portfolio?
- How does the diversity of your target market segments compare to the available businesses in the community(ies) where you operate?
- How do your financial metrics look across comparable consumers from different demographic backgrounds? Is there a meaningful difference?
- Do you consider diversity when determining your market strategy, purpose/mission and branding?
- Are you able to track KPIs across customers throughout the entire lifecycle to ensure your engagement is fair, open and objective?
- Is your company proactively welcoming diverse consumers to be part of the brand community and investing in bringing diverse consumers into the mix?
- Do your team members who engage with customers and prospects demographically reflect diverse consumers and the markets where you operate?
- What are your peer companies doing to promote engagement with diverse customers that are yielding positive results?
- Are there internal initiatives that could help your marketing employees make more thoughtful decisions to promote the overall viability of a diverse customer base?
- Do your product innovations include diverse employees and suppliers/subcontractors that represent empathetic points of view, reflective of diverse communities that can help drive stronger alignment between supply and demand?
- Do your customer attrition rates look different across demographic lines? If so, why might that be the case and who’s in the best position to brainstorm ways to overcome the challenge?
- If you have variable or differential pricing, is there a material difference in how your average historical pricing has played out across demographic groups?
- Have you put a robust customer survey engine in place that can provide meaningful qualitative data to combine with core quantitative metrics on diversity based on geography, gender, race, age and other relevant demographic factors?
- Are you able to glean meaningful differences in customer satisfaction along demographic lines through surveys or other communication channels?
