Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 2023: Global Survey Report

Authors: Victoria Kelleher and Hannah Mason

Introduction

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are key to an organization’s culture, with a variety of recent studies showing how a focus on diversity can generate greater levels of innovation, productivity, financial performance, and employee engagement. When it is given the attention it deserves, DEI can help to promote a sense of belonging and fairness at work for employees. Our new research supports the existing empirical findings, but the emphasis has expanded. Diversity representation is just the start. Today's leading practice organizations add an inclusive culture to the centerpiece. In the absence of a sense of belonging and inclusion, diversity metrics will fall short every time.

In the US, growth in C-suite level DEI hires increased more than 100% between 2019 and 2022 according to research by LinkedIn, with chief diversity and inclusion officer showing the highest growth at 169%. Despite this growth, looking at the most recent year-on-year change (2021-2022), we can see that hiring for this same role decreased by 5%, indicating that the focus on hiring for senior DEI roles has slowed dramatically. As such, it is no surprise that the status of DEI progress is slower than is needed to make real progress in the areas outlined above.

In this survey report, we explore different dimensions of diversity, equity and inclusion within organizations across both the UK and US. The data gathered allows us to explore areas including leadership accountability, leading practices and DEI data and transparency. The goal of this research report is to support organizations and HR leaders as they navigate DEI in the workplace, by outlining leading practices, explaining the link between execution of leading practices and business results, and describing the action-oriented insights for advancing the impact of DEI.