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Berkshire is a human resources and technology firm specializing in affirmative action, pay equity, and DEI&A.
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An inclusive workforce in which all employees are engaged and feel valued is always the end goal – it's best for the business and all of its stakeholders. But each business starts from a different point.
Recognizing this, the Resolution Economics/Berkshire team starts every diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEI&A) project by seeking a firm understanding of what your business is trying to accomplish – and why. We then help you to build your DEI&A program from the ground up or help you to refine your existing programs. We combine a quantitative assessment with a qualitative review to identify both needs and solutions.
With our expertise in human resources management, compliance, assessments, and workforce analytics, the Resolution Economics/Berkshire team (led by a former Commissioner and Acting Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) can help HR leaders make the business case for DEI consulting and help you to implement the best diversity initiatives for your company.
HR leaders know that a diverse workforce can be crucial to a successful organization. And DEI&A efforts can have a major impact on the bottom line – a 2020 analysis from McKinsey found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile—up from 21 percent in 2017 and 15 percent in 2014. Not only is investing in DEI consulting a smart business decision, in many cases it is what employees, candidates, and consumers demand of an organization. Some of the benefits of a comprehensive strategy and executed plan include:
Data based on this report prepared by Korn/Ferry.
Our Reporting Analyses dive deep into your workforce data and demographics. Our team can focus on whatever aspect(s) of your workforce you may want to enhance. And we can analyze jobs and people in a way that makes sense to you.
Maybe you want to see employees by division and level, or by reporting structure. Maybe you want to see your representation among a certain portion of your workforce. Maybe you want to understand more than just your representation of women and minorities -- you want to dig more deeply into the intersectionality of groups.
Our DEI consulting can do all of that. We look at the data that are meaningful to your mission and impactful on your organizational goals. Understanding the utilization and representation within your current organization is a vital first step to determining the areas on which you may need to focus your efforts.
In doing availability reporting, we look at the labor market and see what demographics one would expect to see in certain roles, jobs, or levels, and then compare it to your current workforce. As with representation/utilization reporting, we can look not only at individual protected groups (e.g., race or sex or age), but can also do intersectional analyses. So, for example, a report could look at a certain role and the availability of Hispanic females with the skills needed for that role. We analyze how your current representation reflects (or does not reflect) the availability of the market.
Our availability reporting is based on real-world data and is customized to the specifics of your organization. In addition to using Census and EEOC data, we will use data from sources that reflect the labor market for the particular roles in your organization. Such sources include the Integrated Postsecondary Data System from the National Center for Education Statistics (IPEDS), National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCES), State Community College System Data, and the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH). When looking at diversity programs, it’s important for your organization to first have an understanding of your current labor force. What is your employee base like now? What sort of diverse representation makes up your current workforce? And how does that compare to what’s available in the marketplace? We view these Reporting Analyses as a critical first step for any DEI consulting effort.
As organizations grow and change, it’s important to take time to analyze how employees are moving within your organization through promotions, transfers, and more. The Resolution Economics/Berkshire team will look at your employees to analyze trends.
Are we finding more people of color in the lower pay grades, while other groups are being promoted? What can we learn about the time it takes for distinct groups to rise within the ranks? Are more women quitting than men?
We can also look at your succession planning to ensure that you have qualified people progressing to replace people as they leave the company or retire.
Achieving a diverse workforce may require more than ensuring a diverse applicant pool. If you can see that you really do have a diverse applicant pool, but your company’s workforce is not diverse, analyzing your talent acquisition process can be a huge step to finding and remedying many issues.
The Resolution Economics/Berkshire team will analyze your talent acquisition process at every step to see where people fall out of the process and to help you determine what issues may be causing your diverse candidates to not be selected.
For example, if you have a diverse applicant pool that is evenly divided among men and women, are men selected at a higher rate to move on to the hiring manager screening? If an assessment is used, is it adversely impacting one group? If you find that people with disabilities are not present in your applicant pool, you may need to examine whether the application and interview process is designed so that those people can complete those steps independently. If one protected group is dropping off after the first interview, it’s time to investigate further.
When we look at the data, we may find trends that your internal teams have not noticed. This investigation of the process can help you find issues that you can then address with tangible outcomes.
Staff turnover is a normal part of a company’s lifecycle, but how do you know when you have a problem? Our analyses can help you determine if there is a pocket of your organization that has unusually high turnover or disengagement and help you to identify the root cause. We will look at your data and help identify the story that the data are telling you, then help you to dig deeper to find the “why” behind the story – and provide recommendations for remediation if needed.
Moreover, employees now are aware of the “wage gap” – broadly defined that women make less than men, and that it is even more pronounced for women of color. A company can take steps to make its own systems equitable and communicate to its employees how it handles these issues within the company.
With many years of expertise in performing pay equity analyses, the Resolution Economics/ Berkshire team is well positioned to address the relationship between DEI&A and pay equity. We see these efforts as going hand in hand, and our experts frequently take on projects with both efforts in mind.
The workforce and pay analyses are only the first part of customized review of your workforce and DEI&A programs. Our comprehensive analysis includes a review of all of your internal policies and practices with an eye towards inclusion and inclusive language, including accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Strategic communications to internal and external stakeholders is critical. Our skilled team understands and can advise on the nuances in your communications for the success of your DEI&A program.
A company interested in ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion and access should address pay equity as part of its DEI&A activities. While pay used to be a taboo topic in the workplace, that is changing swiftly. Many applicants and employees now expect employers to be transparent about pay. And an increasing number of jurisdictions are passing laws that require pay transparency.
Related to a company’s DEI&A program are the increasing Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) disclosure requirements. This is a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape from government entities to shareholders and investors.
Companies may be in various stages of their ESG data gathering and reporting strategy, as well as in developing effective internal controls to manage risk. Our DEI consulting team can help on the “S” and the “G" by ensuring your workforce analytics and communications strategies are consistent and compliant.
Berkshire is a human resources and technology firm specializing in affirmative action, pay equity, and DEI&A.