Reports and numbers alone don’t generate change or provide you with the insights that have impact. Identifying gaps and pinpointing areas of opportunity are critical to maximizing the potential of your entire workforce. This tool uses a step-by-step, guided approach to show you how to apply a diversity lens to your workforce data, focusing on five fundamental metrics:
- Representation: How diverse is your organization at various levels? Are there specific levels that are more or less diverse than others?
- Hiring: Is your organization hiring talent that is at least as diverse as current employees at each level?
- Promotions: Who is chosen for development opportunities and advancement at your organization? Are all employee groups moving proportionately through the ranks? At the end of the year, have your individual talent decisions resulted in promotion patterns at equitable rates?
- Voluntary Turnover: Who chooses to leave your organization and why do they choose to leave? How does this vary by level?
- Involuntary Turnover: Who does your organization ask to leave and why? Are there disparities among groups? What else could be contributing to underperformance or perceived underperformance?
- Key Metrics Comparison: How do the above measures come together and result in changes to representation over the course of a year?
Each metric has been deconstructed to include calculations, examples from our consulting experience, graphics, and questions helpful for assessing workforce gaps and successes. At the end, you’ll learn how to combine the metrics in one effective visual display.
The accompanying tool, Vital Signs: Using Your Data to Close the Gaps—Figures and Tables, allows you to customize our charts with your organization’s data.
Originally published 12 February 2013.