Diversity inclusion business strategies from MDB Group

Home > Diversity Services > Diversity Strategies: New,
Reinvigorated, and Add-Ons

Issue
What might lead a company to create or expand a diversity strategy and communications plan? Typically one or more of the following indicators will exist:

Need to improve profitability or grow your business in new markets.
Questions surface about why or whether diversity has become a business imperative.
Demographic trends project changes in your employee or customer base.
Your competitors are more effective than you at introducing creative and innovative new products and services.
Your employees are not engaged in the current diversity initiative.
Your current diversity work gets stuck. It is not achieving the needed business results. Great new processes were put in place and nothing happened.
Work environment concerns surface such as inability to attract new talent, high turnover, low morale, lawsuit vulnerability, or poor company reputation.
People lose focus on diversity as soon as business conditions get tight.
People ask why it’s taking so long to get results, whether the changes are affordable, or why we’re doing this.
You are achieving great results although no one internally or externally seems to care or notice.
You need a business growth strategy that harnesses diversity and inclusion to complement your existing Affirmative Action Plan.

Frequently when such a need arises, at least two other types of problems also surface: Insufficient resources to do the work. Needing to apply leading-edge expertise and ideas.

Solution
A diversity and inclusion strategy is most effective and sustainable when it:

Directly aligns with and help achieve key business strategies and plans.
Measures progress in ways that the CEO agrees are important to the business.
Has the full active support and engagement of the CEO and senior executive team.
Takes account of your company’s organizational culture.

This implements diversity as a business strategy focused on effecting changes in the workforce and the work environment that are needed to reach business objectives.

A high quality productive and innovative workforce and work environment won't happen with yesterday's management practices. Your employees must both want to and be able to contribute to their maximum potential. Attracting and retaining employees who:

Want to contribute requires that your company access the full range of talent in the marketplace.
Are able to contribute requires a work environment that enables their creativity, innovation, and productivity.

Figure 1 illustrates this relationship among business growth, workforce and work environment, and diversity, inclusion, and intercultural competence.

Business growth frequently occurs through productivity,innovation, and creativity. A diverse workforce and an inclusive work environment are key to achieving these results.

We call this Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion. MDB Group combines proven planning models, techniques, and approaches with the most-current knowledge and insight in developing or reinvigorating such a strategy.

By way of example, we design strategies, implementation plans, objectives and metrics, scorecards, Intranet and Internet website content, multimedia learning toolkits, executive workshops, focused training, Employee Network Group policies and implementation plans, workforce diversity improvement plans and objectives, and responses to difficult inquiries from media, customers, shareholders, and the public.

MDB Group addresses the core issues. For example: New processes typically require people to think and act differently. If this cognitive need is left unaddressed, the new process will yield little to no meaningful progress.

We engage executive teams and employee communications plans. We work with your marketing and supplier management teams to guide them towards integrating diversity into their plans.

Our services are customized to your specifications. For complete solutions or specific projects, MDB Group provides high quality result-oriented service.

To learn more about Business-Aligned D&I planning:

Listen to an audio overview	Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion strategic planning
Subscribe to a podcast	(paste link into your media manager)
Read an article	Designing Accountability into a Business-Aligned® Diversity and Inclusion Strategy

Sample results
See representative results achieved by MDB Group's principals at Business-Aligned® Diversity and Inclusion Strategies.

Related links
Many of the other sections of our services relate to a new or reinvigorated strategy or an add-on to an existing strategy. Click the links below for further insight:

Conflict resolution	A diversity and inclusion strategy may help address underlying causes of workplace conflict.
Diversity training	Well-crafted training helps engage a workforce and achieve the goals of a diversity initiative.
Employee network groups (ENGs)	ENGs can benefit employees, communities, and external communities as part of a leading-edge diversity initiative.
Executive briefings and workshops	Our workshops engage executives and build commitment around organizational and personal goals.
Lawsuit vulnerability	Improving your work environment and people-affecting processes with a diversity initiative may also reduce the likelihood of employees filing a lawsuit against the firm.
Metrics and scorecards	The measurements used must adapt over time to reflect progress made and changes in direction and the business.
Morale and turnover / retention	Well-designed diversity strategies or focused add-ons can improve the work environment, morale, and retention.
Reputation of your company	Effective diversity strategies with well-designed communications plans promote your company's reputation.
Strategic planning off-sites for diversity and inclusion	A strategic planning off-site brings together the people, knowledge, and perspectives needed to define a Business-Aligned® diversity and inclusion strategy.
Workplace assessments	Workplace assessments compare current and needed future state, to help guide strategies and add-ons.
Workforce productivity, innovation, and creativity	Diversity and inclusion help create a workforce and work environment that build productivity, innovation, and creativity.

Next steps
Please call us so that together we can design and implement the Business-Aligned diversity strategy that you need for your business.

Your business success is our most important objective.