EDI Case Study resource 2025
Key Findings – It starts with the Data
Takeaways
- Getting better data on where you are and where the key challenges are will benefit you at any stage of your EDI work, whatever your available resources
- A clear baseline will support you to direct your energy at the right things, and measure if those efforts are paying dividends
- The earlier in a candidate’s journey you get the data, the easier
- If many are unwilling to share their information, start there – why? What can we do to shift that dial?
One of the core conclusions of the Inclusion at Work Panel report published in 2024 was that most organisations were designing their EDI work around assumption or trends rather than data. A CIPD survey from 2022 found only 25% of employers said they consult data before planning a new inclusion and diversity activity, and 25% said most of their EDI work is reactive – citing social and political events. This challenge is clearly reflected in the IHPN members’ data – where 33% of employees opt not to share ethnicity, or are not asked to – compared with 4% in the NHS.
“If you don’t measure, you can’t see what’s happening”
A Private Equity firm (FTSE 250, ~500 employees) recently realised this and began to focus on improving its information to enable the team to take more specific and measurable action. The company began with a Census project – a big push to better understand all colleagues, protected characteristics and beyond. As a global operator, it was quite sensitive, so the firm designed the project to be flexible to different legislative contexts and cultures. The team did a big push on ‘why’ the data was important whilst ensuring it was entirely voluntary. The firm found new joiners were far keener to disclose – they are keen to fill in the paperwork during the first two weeks when they haven’t hit the ground work-wise yet – so it was much easier to capture here.
Many people mentioned they found data easier to collect at recruitment stage – where you can make completing the form even if it is to check “rather not say” a prerequisite in the application process. This is already standard for all public sector roles, which may explain why the NHS data is more advanced. One senior leader in the NHS reflected – the data is useful, especially in context. We might be proud to be 50/50 on gender but our workforce is heavily skewed towards women, so is 50/50 in the executive team actually telling us that it is harder for women to get into those senior roles.
A medium-sized management consultancy (250 staff, £55m turnover) has recently taken their data approach even further. Having focused their strategy on inclusion – they have launched a 6 monthly inclusion engagement survey. The goal is to understand, split by demographic, if the experience of working at the company is the same for everyone. They can already identify variations, for example women feel far less safe at work than men. This enables them to identify specific areas where they can target work. The tool they use is anonymous so doesn’t require anyone to share their information directly with HR. Next they are going to investigate whether the anonymous demographics and the HR data align – if not that will give them another line of enquiry, which aspects are employees reluctant to share and why?
“What gets measured gets done”
When appointing Chairs and Non-Executive Directors to NHS Trusts, the NHS England team looks at how the composition of the board has shifted, every single time. They look at whether it reflects the composition of the workforce of the trust, and of the local community. It is not a target, but it is reported on and is a useful dimension in reflecting on progress as part of every panel and raising the question in people’s minds now and for the future.
It’s not just about data on who is in your workforce, but other potential sources of intelligence. One IHPN member noticed that absence and attrition went up in one team when a particular employee joined and dropped when that employee departed – which was a clear signifier that something culturally ‘off’ was happening in the team that needed investigation.
Useful resource: Effective Workplace Reporting: Improving people data for business leaders.
Where to start on data
Try not to get lost in all the data you could be collecting. As we said at the beginning, it starts with data, but not perfect data. Pick a couple of metrics that are important to you and start there. Here are some suggestions for data you could collect – first for diagnosis purposes to understand where to focus or identify any key issues and priorities. And then for tracking or measuring whether what you are doing is working.
Data that may help you diagnose where to start:
- Current overall diversity make up of your organisation – consider that collecting truly anonymous data may enable you to get more thorough information and may be sufficient to act on in the first instance. If response rates are low – that’s an interesting finding in itself – worth understanding why. Are people disengaged, don’t understand why you want the information, worried or not feeling safe to share, or some other reason? Curiosity is king.
- Comparison – how is your hiring versus the universities you are hiring from, how is your diversity compared with the locations you operate in, how is your diversity compared with your sector peers (if that data is available), how is your diversity compared with three years ago? How do certain posts on teams compare to others? Are there certain days of the week when employee networks are better attended? Data placed in context is far more likely to throw up useful indications of where action would be useful.
Data that may help you identify whether your actions are paying off:
- Recruitment (over time)
- Diversity of your applicant pool
- Diversity at different stages of application process
- Diversity of hires
- Retention & career progression (over time)
- Grade and tenure mapped to different characteristics – are there some key drop off points
- Amount of time to promotion within different demographics
- Average performance ratings for different demographic groups
- Engagement (over time)
- Employee engagement scores within different demographics particularly focused on perspectives on organisational culture and inclusion.
One useful way to start if you are in a regulated industry is of course, to capture the information you are required to report, in the exact same way and use that as your starter for ten. Not only is this an efficient way of streamlining the reporting process but it often means there are industry comparators that enable you to get a better sense of your current position. One law firm highlighted their use of the SRA law firm diversity tool.
Inspiration sources and more information: https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/dei-metrics, https://hbr.org/2023/05/7-metrics-to-measure-your-organizations-dei-progress