Inclusion and diversity programs face growing external pressures due to recent enforcement initiatives at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and U.S. Department of Justice, as well as executive orders. Employers can apply a voluntary five-prong framework to ensure I&D programs are legally defensible and help ease these pressures, according to Joanna Colosimo, SHRM-SCP, vice president, Workforce Analytics & Compliance Strategy at DCI Consulting Group Inc., speaking at SHRM26 in Orlando.

The key, she said, is to tie I&D back to business objectives.

I&D programs should, she said:

• Be grounded in purpose. Define your North Star before designing your strategy.
• Define barriers and priorities. Name what is getting in the way of I&D at your organization.
• Design strategy and defensibility. Select approaches tied to real barriers and opportunities.
• Establish governance and accountability. Build structures that sustain progress.
• Move from canvas to practice. Close the gap between plan and implementation.

“You can’t really design a strategy unless you’ve done the first two,” Colosimo said. “You can’t do everything all at once when you put together your strategic plan.”

A purpose or guiding principle of an organization can be as straightforward as one tied to your industry, she noted. For example, a healthcare organization might make its North Star the following: “We know that diverse perspectives help us improve our patient objectives.”

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