Every organization faces two persistent and ongoing challenges: how to find the right talent and how to make them stay. With DEI resistance gaining more traction in recent months, the increased pushback makes creating workplace programs that foster inclusion and belonging more difficult. Retaining employees, especially those from underrepresented groups, remains an uphill battle. New research from the Academy of Management Journal offers insights into how diversity programs impact turnover rates for women and people from “racialized” groups. The term racialized refers to individuals who experience differential treatment on the basis of their race. This article provides an in-depth breakdown of this research and offers strategies to build better workplaces for all employees.
In the first study, the researchers examined 270-280 law firms between 2010 and 2018 to assess diversity practices and their impact on turnover. These practices included resource, non-discrimination, and accountability practices. Resource practices are interventions that provide women and racialized employees with support and opportunities like mentorship and sponsorship programs, social support, career advice and targeted recruitment practices. Non-discrimination practices were defined as interventions like diversity training. Accountability practices include interventions aimed at tracking DEI progress and increasing accountability for diversity outcomes. A key finding was that resource practices were effective at reducing turnover only when combined with the other two types of interventions (non-discrimination practices and accountability practices).
In the second study, 650 non-managers and 661 managers participated in an experimental vignette. The researchers found that for non-leaders, their turnover intentions were impacted by concerns of unfair treatment. For leaders on the other hand, their turnover intentions were shaped by whether diversity practices were personally relevant to them. Taken together, the findings of both studies in this research indicate that when interventions are misaligned—e.g., when there are diversity practices like mentorship and sponsorship, or targeted recruitment practices but no accountability measures—turnover rates are higher. A strong diversity program is one where these multiple interventions are implemented in tandem.
This research offers several insights for organizational leaders. First, there should be an assessment done of the different types of diversity practices that are currently being implemented. What category or categories can you place these practices in? Often, organizations may have anti-bias training in place, for example, but lack accountability measures. Or there may be mentorship programs integrated but no formal training mechanisms in place, causing a lack of awareness and understanding, thus leading to unchecked bias and inequities in workplace systems. Conduct an audit of your current diversity practices and figure out which categories they fall into.
Given the findings of the research, consider how to address these different perceptions of leaders and non-leaders. For early and mid-career professionals, what interventions can be introduced to address workplace harm and improve fairness? This could be anonymous reporting systems for employees and ensuring that bias is mitigated in workplace systems through tools like calibration and scorecards/rubrics for hiring. For leaders, how can diversity practices be integrated into their roles to foster personal relevance? This could look like including a metric of inclusion, for example, in leadership performance reviews, involving leaders in the process of diversity programming to increase commitment, and integrating DEI into different aspects of a leader’s day-to-day responsibilities.