Julia Lashay Israel, head of inclusion and belonging at Keller Williams, is cautious about using the acronym ‘DEI.’ “I prefer to explicitly write [diversity, equity, and inclusion] out. I’ve found that most people, if you say DEI, really have no idea what it means, or what you’re doing, or what the work means. They just know that they’ve heard it [in media, online and elsewhere] as this bad thing,” said Israel.

Israel and a panel of four other leaders participated in a discussion at From Day One’s June conference in Austin, Texas, titled “How to Keep The Momentum Going With Diversity and Inclusion,” moderated by reporter Deborah Sengupta Stith. The panelists addressed the challenging gap between companies’ commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, (DEI) and employees not feeling a sense of belonging, as noted in Gallup surveys and a report issued by the Pew Research Center.

In her role, Israel focuses on both external and internal DEI efforts. All 170,000 realtors at Keller Williams collaborate with individuals to ensure fair and equal opportunities for homeownership. “We believe that people build wealth through homeownership.” The internal focus with DEI at Keller Williams is to ensure there are growth opportunities within the company.

Janet Etlinger, vice president, HRBP leader for HPE’s computer business unit,  agreed with Israel’s thoughts on DEI, stating, “We are in a really polarizing climate right now.” She shared her observations about the limited diversity in their boardrooms. “We still have to get there,” said Etlinger. Etlinger is responsible for managing HR business partners at HPE worldwide, supporting staff that designs general-purpose servers with artificial intelligence as a driver. Etlinger supports DEI training presented to employees as optional vs. mandatory to ensure buy-in with initiatives.

Commitment to DEI

Madhukar Govindaraju, founder and CEO of Numly, talked about his first step toward his company’s commitment to DEI, signing a pledge to CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion. Govindaraju focuses on an intersectional definition of diversity ‘’Diversity for us is not just based on gender and ethnicity. We include neurodiversity and disability in our definition,” said Govindaraju.

Staff at Numly work with large global companies to combine DEI with leadership and development based on research from the Harvard Business Review, resulting in inclusive learning. According to the Harvard Business Review, DEI should be present in all learning content and experiences. Learning and development should carefully review all existing and future material through a DEI lens.

Women’s Leadership Roles

Women are an underrepresented group that is a pivotal focus of companies’ DEI initiatives. Susanne DiCocco, principal at Deloitte, talked about her journey to becoming a partner at a firm in Canada in 2015 before her relocation to the U.S. to join Deloitte. She attended a new partner global conference in Beijing for the firm in Canada. She was surprised when a global leader was excited to announce that the new partnership class comprised 21% women, which was a 30% increase from the previous year. “[It was] 2015, and we [weren’t] even a quarter of the firm’s population.”

DiCocco compared the representation of the 2015 firm to that of Deloitte in 2023. She received applause from the audience when she shared that female partners make up 42.7% of Deloitte. DiCocco hopes that one day it will not be necessary to talk about statistics of female partners as it would just be ‘what is.’ 

Mark Pearson, corporate vice president for human resources, talent, and organizational capabilities at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), shared the company’s goal to encourage women to pursue careers in the semiconductor industry. Turnover for women and people of color at AMD is lower than experienced within the technology industry, says Mark. 

Workplace Culture That Embraces Belonging

All of the panelists agreed that it is essential for companies to establish a culture that embraces a sense of belonging, especially in states like Texas that have a reputation for not supporting DEI initiatives.

Pearson pointed out the common mistake that many companies make with a primary focus on creating a diverse pipeline before focusing on establishing a healthy culture. “Great, your pipeline gets better, and your new hires look great, but if your culture stinks, you’re still going to run into the same statistics where you’re experiencing turnover with new hires within 18 months, and you never strengthen the middle piece of the organization,” said Pearson. A focus on culture drives the pipeline in the right direction.

Etlinger strongly agreed with Pearson’s analogy about culture in the workplace. “Culture eats strategy, that eats performance, that eats everything for breakfast,” said Etlinger. HPE’s Modern Slavery Transparency Statement refers to the company’s commitment to human rights and culture as stated in the following excerpt from the statement, “Driven by our culture and what defines us as a company – how we act, how we treat others, and how we conduct business – we believe a future without modern slavery is possible, and we are determined to do our part to get there. We re-examine and refine our program each year in light of our experience and emerging best practices.”

Employee Resource and Affinity Groups

It’s also important to establish employee resource groups (ERGs) that allow employees to develop leadership skills, since they are usually employee-led. ERGs support employees from underrepresented groups to learn how to speak up when they encounter such behaviors as microaggressions, unconscious bias, and systemic discrimination and mitigate them accordingly.

“Affinity groups are really just to provide spaces for a sense of belonging and to be able to share experiences related to their demographics,” said Israel.

DEI Metrics

Most companies supporting DEI initiatives are good with strategy and implementation but are still determining what metrics should be established to measure progress. Govindaraju shared his thoughts on DEI metrics. “I encourage you to measure one to two goals you can manage and monitor. Retention by underrepresented groups is a very good metric.”

DiCocco shared Deloitte’s journey with metrics for 13 outcomes with DEI. Her sentiments with metrics support accountability at the group and individual levels and provide insight into how companies can keep the momentum going with DEI. “DEI is not a program. It is not a thing. It’s every little action that you do every single day. You can start measuring yourself to determine your contributions to DEI.”  

Linda Devonish-Mills is a writer and diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant based in Teaneck, New Jersey.