When working in D&I should we be evidence based or should we experiment?

There are oodles and oodles of papers and articles and research on D&I initiatives. So much so it can be overwhelming, particularly when you just want someone to tell you what actually works.

So I think the key is to be very cynical and very suspicious of most of what’s put out there. But there are some companies and research that seems to hold true across many years and markets. When I’m reviewing all the stuff, I’m looking for evidence and data that has been conducted using sound and scientific methodology and work that you can practically implement using your own experience to your work in diversity and inclusion.

One of the papers I often refer to when doing gender work is the Women in the Workplace report which has been conducted by consulting company McKinsey and Lean In organisation since 2015. It’s the largest study of women in Corporate America and many of you may be thinking how does this apply to Asia and other parts of the world. Stay with me.

This research consistently looks at how women are progressing in organisations and identifies any emerging issues. For example in the 2020 and 2021 report they highlight the challenges for black women as well as women in general.

One of the issues the Women in the Workplace study has uncovered is this idea of the “broken rung”, which is the biggest obstacle women face on the path to senior leadership by securing their first step up to manager. McKinsey’s research shows that men significantly outnumber women at obtaining their first step up to manager. When women miss this step or lag behind their male counterparts their career lags as well.

i recently applied the US research and approach to a global employee population by looking at the population by gender (male and female) at each organisational level. When I looked at the populations from graduates through to team leaders and supervisor levels there certainly was a broken rung, that was consistent with McKinsey’s findings. Anecdotally leaders told me that they wanted to appoint more women into senior leader roles, but they couldn’t see them in the organisation.

So while this research was US centric, the problems uncovered in that market mirrored the data I was working with.

But sometimes you can’t rely on research, because sometimes it doesn’t exist and sometimes the articles and books you are reading may not actually have the practical actions detailed. So you have to test and learn to see what works and what doesn’t in your organisation. Formulate a hypothesis, and then test it out.

One of the goals in many organisations, is to move more women into Senior leader roles. Companies know they don’t have enough women to choose from internally, in part due to the broken rung, so have been trying some things to see what would work.

One company I know of was mandating at least 30% of short lists for roles to have female or other diverse candidates and to have a least 1 female candidate on the interview slate. This hypothesis was that if more diverse and suitably qualified and experienced candidates are in front of hiring managers there would be times they would choose the female candidate. For that company, during the last year 22% of women were recruited into senior roles, which was a big improvement from previous years.

So evidence based and experimental approaches both have their place.

Lisa xx

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