DEI dashboard: benefits, metrics and best practices

A DEI dashboard is one of the most effective tools you can use to build a more diverse and inclusive organization. You can use it to gain valuable insight into the impact of your diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on your workforce. Plus, by analyzing the right DEI metrics, you can measure your progress and promote accountability at every level of your business. 

According to a survey conducted by Mercer, 74% of global organizations have been working to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in their business since the pandemic. 57% of these are also implementing diversity metrics and programs.

Is your business one of these? If not, or even if you are just looking to improve your DEI dashboard, then you have come to the right place.

What is a DEI dashboard?

A DEI dashboard is a centralized interface where you can monitor the progress of all your DEI metrics. Essentially, the dashboard gives you a visual representation of the impact that your diversity equity and inclusion practices (and ‘belonging’ if you have implemented a DEIB policy) have on various KPIs in your business. This might include turnover, retention, and eNPS, among other areas. 

For example, you can track the status of your workforce by: 

• Gender
• Religious beliefs
• Neurodiversity
• Age
• National origin
• Soft skills

This data is displayed in a range of visual formats, including graphs and charts. This makes it easier to understand where you are in terms of your DEI benchmarks. By creating a dashboard specifically for your diversity metrics, you can generate customized reports to help you monitor your progress and communicate it to your shareholders. You can then use this data to design and implement actionable strategies to improve your progress where needed. And this is the key to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive organization. It all comes down to tracking and analyzing the right data so that you know what changes you need to make, and when. 

Benefits of a DEI dashboard 

Here are a few benefits of implementing a DEI dashboard and tracking your DEI metrics regularly:

• Access clear data that helps you establish your current level of DEI. For example, you can get answers to questions like “Are we building an inclusive culture at our organization?”, “Are we attracting, hiring, and retaining diverse talent?”, and “Are we providing opportunities equitably?”. You can then use this data to identify benchmarks to help you improve your company’s level of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Streamline your data collection and analytics processes. Centralizing your data with a DEI dashboard is far more efficient than using manual spreadsheets to track your metrics. You get instant access to clear visuals about your level of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 
• Ensure legal compliance. In the US, there are laws that protect employees from workplace discrimination. This includes discrimination based on gender, age, race, or religious beliefs. It also includes protection against ableism, which is the discrimination, prejudice, or oppression of anyone living with a mental or physical disability.    
• Build a positive company culture. Tracking the right DEI metrics can help you create a more positive company culture. And by continuously improving your level of DEI, you can show your workforce that you value the fair treatment of employees. It can also help you create a safe environment where your employees feel valued, supported, heard, and understood. And this is a highly effective way to build a motivated and engaged workforce. 

You can find out more about the importance of tracking DEI data in this video:

How to implement a DEI dashboard 

You need to follow a few steps when implementing your DEI dashboard. These steps will help you create a dashboard that enables you to build an organization founded on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. That way, you can use your DEI metrics to continuously improve your DEI initiatives.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Start by creating a clear and transparent DEI policy. This will help you clarify what your goals and objectives are. Think about the areas of your business that you want to improve, and which areas could benefit from more focus on diversity. 
• Read up on all anti-discrimination laws to make sure you know what standards you need to comply with. For example, the Equality Act has recently amended the Civil Rights Act to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of the sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition of an individual, as well as because of sex-based stereotypes”. You also need to check if there are any laws in your state that you need to comply with. For instance, Illinois has made it a legal requirement to provide employees with annual sexual harassment prevention training. 
• Define relevant and informative DEI metrics to include in your dashboard. These metrics should be tangible and aligned with your overall DEI objectives. They should provide you with the data you need to build a diverse culture in your business. 
• Make sure your DEI dashboard is clear and visual. Only include metrics that are relevant to your goals so that data is easy to understand. That way, you can make the right data-driven changes to your DEI strategies. 

What data/metrics to include 

One of the biggest obstacles that many companies report when it comes to building a DEI dashboard is identifying which DEI metrics would be most effective for measuring DEI progress. This is especially difficult when it comes to inclusion as it is such an intangible aspect of your business. 

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that your metrics need to be aligned with actionable objectives. They need to reflect your organization’s level of diversity (representation), equity (access to opportunities), and inclusion (a culture of belonging).

Here are a few DEI dashboard examples. These examples should help you identify which DEI metrics you should include in your dashboard.

Employee turnover 

Your employee turnover rate represents the number of employees that leave your organization. It is one of the most important HR metrics that you can track as it reflects the overall health and stability of your company. If you have a high employee turnover rate, then it is a strong indication that something is making employees want to leave.

There are many causes of a high turnover rate. It could be down to bad management practices, a hostile working environment, or low salaries. It could also be high as a result of a lack of diversity, equity and inclusion. And this makes it a valuable metric to include in your DEI dashboard. 

The key is breaking down this metric so you can analyze your employee turnover rate across different demographics in your organization. So, for example, you could create separate DEI metrics on your dashboard to calculate and compare your turnover between genders, different age groups, and different races.

Are employees from certain groups leaving at a higher rate than others? If they are, then this could suggest that there is a lack of diversity and inclusivity at your company.

eNPS 

The Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a valuable metric used to calculate the level of employee engagement in your company. It can help you determine how happy your employees are and how committed they are to your organization. 

The process for calculating your eNPS is simple. You just have to share a survey with your employees consisting of one key question. This question is, “How likely are you to recommend your workplace to your friends and family on a scale of 0-10?” (With 10 being extremely likely and 0 being not likely at all). You can then use these scores to calculate how satisfied your employees are at your company.

The eNPS can also be a valuable DEI metric. Instead of adding up the scores for your entire organization to calculate your overall employee happiness score, you can break down your results by different segments of your workforce, such as gender, age or race. That way, you can establish the level of employee satisfaction in underrepresented groups. You can then determine if they are as happy as other employee groups. If certain demographics report consistently low scores, then it suggests that you need to work on your DEI initiatives. 

Adverse impact 

According to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, adverse impact is defined as a “substantially different rate of selection in hiring, promotion, or other employment decision which works to the disadvantage of members of a race, sex, or ethnic group”. 

Essentially, adverse impact is when employment practices appear to be nondiscriminatory on the surface, but in reality, they have a negative effect on a legally protected minority group. It can occur in a number of HR processes including promotions, training and development, layoffs, and even performance appraisals. However, it is most commonly seen in recruitment in the form of hiring and selection practices that alienate groups of people based on their race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, or gender. The concept is closely related to disparate treatment, which is where policies and procedures have been intentionally created with the aim of discriminating against protected classes.

Tracking your adverse impact through your DEI dashboard can help you identify if there are any issues with intentional or unintentional discrimination at any of the stages of your employee lifecycle. The idea is that, once you identify an issue, you can implement measures to address it. And this helps you create a more diverse and inclusive employee lifecycle. 

Retention 

Similar to your employee turnover rate. Your employee retention rate can help you identify if there are any issues with diversity, equity and inclusion that are preventing employees from staying at your organization. 

To do this, you need to create different retention DEI metrics for different groups in your organization. You then need to identify if you are consistently retaining fewer employees from certain minority groups. For instance, do you retain more men than women? If so, why might this be? Do you retain more younger employees than individuals from older generations? How can you increase retention levels across marginalized groups? 

Ideally, you should aim for equal levels of retention across all demographic groups in your company. That way, you can be sure that employees aren’t leaving because they don’t feel that they belong. 

Promotion rate 

Another area where discrimination can arise is in employee development and promotions. Are you offering opportunities for advancement fairly to all your employees? Is there a lower promotion rate in a certain segment of your workforce? Are employees from all groups and backgrounds taking advantage of your learning and development opportunities? Do some of your employees feel they are passed up for promotion because of their age, gender, or race?

This is all valuable data, and the best way to understand if there is a potential issue with discrimination in your promotion process is to include your promotion rate in your DEI dashboard. Compare your promotion rates for different groups with your general employee advancement rate. Are any groups unintentionally being held back? Then implement measures to address any groups that might not be getting equal opportunities for L&D and promotions.

Pay equity 

Finally, another important metric to include in your DEI dashboard relates to pay equity. Essentially, this means analyzing all your salaries to see if there are any pay gaps or disparities between demographic groups. 

Ultimately, you should be following a policy of equal pay for equal work. This doesn’t always happen in practice, however. One of the most common issues relates to the gender pay gap. Regularly conduct an audit of your salaries to see if you are following a pay equity strategy. If you’re not, then adjust your pay practices and implement solutions to address any disparities. 

DEI dashboard best practices 

Here are a few DEI dashboard best practices to keep in mind:

• Make sure you clearly define your objectives so that you know which areas of your business you need to improve. That will help you determine which DEI metrics you need to include in your dashboard. This is often the hardest part of building a DEI dashboard so make sure you give it a lot of thought.
• Think about who needs to access the dashboard. Will it just be your HR team, or would you like your senior managers to have access too? How will data be used? Internally only or will you publish your DEI metrics on your website too? (This can be a great way to boost your reputation as an employer who is committed to DEI)
• Be careful with the language you use on your dashboard for referring to different employee groups. Do your research and make sure you pick the most appropriate label so as not to cause offence. You could even collect employee feedback to find out which terms are best, and which should be avoided.
• Once you’ve collected your data and reviewed your DEI metrics, make sure you convert your results into actionable strategies to help you continuously improve. For example, if you identify that there is a low retention rate for certain employee segments, you could design a series of diversity and inclusion recruitment best practices to improve your hiring process.
• Use the right tools and technology to help you create an optimized DEI dashboard interface with the right balance of visuals and data. Ideally, the solution you choose should be integrated with your HRIS so that you can easily import the data you need for your metrics.

Track DEI data with Factorial  

As we just mentioned in the last section, it’s important to use the right tools and technology when you create your DEI dashboard. This means picking a solution that provides a visual and user-friendly interface where you can access all your DEI metrics and generate automated reports on a regular basis. 

With Factorial’s HR reports tool, you can create custom dashboards that support your DEI initiatives. You also get access to an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. That way, you can visualize your most important DEI metrics and keep track of your diversity, equity, and inclusion progress. 

The other big benefit of Factorial’s HRIS solution is that you can easily integrate your employee metrics with your DEI dashboard. For instance, you can automatically align data from your hiring dashboard with your DEI dashboard, saving you valuable time and effort. You can also use your dashboard to detect pay gaps, promotion gaps, and raise gaps. Plus, the solution makes it much easier to keep track of the demographics of your workforce so you can ensure you are creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment at every level of your organization.