With the mantras ‘we treasure what we measure’ and ‘what gets measured get’s done’, it is standard practice in organisations to set and publish performance, sales and profitiability targets etc., so that everyone knows the direction in which they are heading.
It is also standard practice for C-Suite Executives to demonstrate clear commitment and be held accountable for achieving these targets, by linking related KPIs to their bonuses.
Sadly, these approaches do not appear to be adopted when it comes to Diversity & Inclusion targets.
In a recent report for the UN Global Compact, Accenture interviewed 1122 CEOs and 1300 business consultants from April to June 2021. Whilst many C-Suite teams expressed a real desire to build an inclusive and diverse culture, they appear to have been slow to adopt traditional measures to hold themselves accountable.
42% say they have taken action to make their leaders accountable for achieving D&I Targets, but only
- 6% of companies have Executive bonuses linked to D&I Targets
- 6% of companies have a Chief D&I Officer that report workforce metrics to the CEO
- 38% have publicly declared their D&I Targets
- 13% of companies conducting an annual review of their D&I activities
Why should D&I targets be any different? Yes...organisational change is hard - but D&I is simply a different ‘flavour’ of organisational change.
Under Paul Poleman’s tenure as CEO, it took Unilever 10 years to realise his vision, but part of the reason for his success was because he held management accountable at all layers of the company. So it’s time to stop ‘talking the talk’ and insist that Executives’ walk the walk’, by holding them accountable - in the same way for revenues and profit - linking bonuses to D&I KPIs.
How are you holding your leadership accountable?
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