How to Retain Diverse Employees

• Diverse employees who feel they belong to an organization are more likely to stay longer.
• Transparency about how many diverse employees a company employs helps with retention.
• Making diversity part of a company’s core goals encourages diverse employees to believe they matter.

Al Vivian has grown accustomed to being the bearer of bad news. As a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant for nearly 30 years in the Atlanta area, he’s often had to inform C-suite executives that their companies have a long way to go toward becoming truly inclusive workplaces. Even when clients are receptive to Vivian’s findings, they’re not exactly enthusiastic when their shortcomings are thrown into stark relief.

But that wasn’t the case when Vivian worked with 22squared, an Atlanta-based advertising firm. After he presented his assessment to the company’s top executives, he was asked to repeat the presentation for the entire office, then fly to Tampa for a third presentation at a satellite office.

Owning up to how far a business has to go to achieve its diversity goals is part of a strategy to make it the kind of place where diverse employees want to stay and build their careers. A company can hire as many diverse employees as it likes, but if they don’t stick around, the business is just spinning its wheels.

“When I first started in this field, all the questions I got were about how to help companies avoid getting hit with discrimination lawsuits,” says Vivian. “Now, the conversations are all about how to create an environment that brings in a diverse workforce, and how to keep those employees engaged.” Vivian’s experience is indicative of many small businesses shifting toward retention of diverse employees as a primary metric of their diversity and inclusion efforts.

22squared, which has approximately 460 employees, improved retention by intentionally and conspicuously pouring resources into diversity and inclusion efforts, such as the development of an internal working group on diversity, and creating new positions focused on the issue. Had the company not made the investment, it may well have lost Janis Middleton, an advertising strategist who has worked for the company for eight years. Middleton, who is Black, actually left in 2016 largely because she felt like she “was on an island”—part of a company that was insulated from the diverse city surrounding it.

It’s a common feeling among diverse employees, according to a 2020 study by Boston Consulting Group, which surveyed diverse employees in the consulting industry and found that a weak sense of belonging to the companies they worked for was a leading cause of such employees leaving. Such feelings “can erode individuals’ confidence in their value to their organization and their ability to advance to the next level,” the study said.

Middleton was wooed back 10 months after her departure because of 22squared’s new focus on preventing employees like her from falling through the cracks. “My mission the second time around was to make sure that no one felt the way I felt the first time I was here,” says Middleton, who now oversees diversity and inclusion efforts for 22squared’s parent company, Guided By Good. [Listen to a roundtable that Middleton moderated about the uncomfortable conversations that can come with discussions about diversity.]

Middleton’s efforts have made a difference to colleagues like Erica May, 22squared’s Director of Communications Strategy—a Black woman who has watched the workforce change in her six years with the company.

“When I first started here, I knew all the Black employees, could count them on one hand, and it seemed like everyone was fine with that,” says May. “The agency is so much more diverse now, and I’ve never worked with this many Black women in advertising before.” She recalled a small employee focus group that was recently assembled for a client pitch centered on Black women and natural hair: “We had six Black women participate in that group, and there were still lots more we could have invited.”

Financial services company Synchrony, which has a substantial business presence in the Atlanta area, has encouraged a sense of belonging with employee programs that small businesses could duplicate at a different scale. Synchrony’s virtual town halls encouraging candid and potentially difficult conversations have seen attendance of over 1,000 employees. “We’ve always encouraged employees to bring 100% of their authentic selves to work, and we wanted to back up that commitment with these talks,” explains Michael Matthews, Synchrony’s Chief Diversity, Inclusion and Corporate Responsibility Officer.

FullStory, a 230-employee digital experience analytics firm launched by former Google engineers, took similar steps to try to make diverse employees feel welcome at the company. The company introduced a program called FullCircles in which small groups of employees come together to discuss experiences around identity and difference. Installments have included discussions about what it’s like to raise a Black son in America and the history of LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations.

“It’s our hope that by holding space as a company to talk about identity and exploring the varying experiences, we take one step toward making FullStory a place where employees feel seen and like they belong,” says Gabrielle Sirner-Cohen, FullStory’s Senior Vice President of People and Places.

Small businesses can use their size as an advantage, with diversity efforts usually having a bigger and faster impact than they would at larger enterprises. “In some ways, it’s easier to set a tone and to influence programs, processes and culture when you’re small, and the cumulative effects add up over time,” says Sirner-Cohen.

Early on, that meant instituting changes like shifting to structured job interviews, in which interviewees are asked the same questions in the same order, to blunt the impact of unconscious biases in the hiring process. FullStory has also set time-bound goals for diverse hiring and has started releasing quarterly internal reports on the strides the company is making, including specific breakdowns of how diversity is distributed through various levels and teams.

Only with accountability and transparency can companies create an environment in which everyone feels empowered to bring forward their best ideas. That kind of accountability is vital to retaining diverse employees, says Chris Lugo, Executive Director of the LGBTQ+ commerce organization OUT Georgia Business Alliance.

“Over time, it will become obvious to your diverse employees if you’re making these really noble pledges, but then not tapping Black employees, women and LGBTQ employees for their ideas and insights,” says Lugo. “If you’re hiring those people but not asking them how to move the company forward, that disconnect becomes really glaring.”

While small businesses might fear the prospect of having to divert resources to D&I, doing so can save money over the long term by reducing high rates of turnover. It also boosts company morale—a rising tide that raises all boats and makes a business more appealing to all of its workers.

“People don’t stick around when they feel like they’re bringing half of themselves to work,” says Secret Holland, Director of Human Resources at Gas South, a natural gas provider. The racial justice movement, which gained new prominence in the wake of the 2020 deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of police, has added urgency to Gas South’s diversity efforts.

The company has moved beyond diverse recruitment as an end-all, and emphasizes efforts designed to make its 350 employees feel that their unique perspectives are valued. Those include a come-as-you-are dress policy that extends to natural hairstyles and regular audits and employee surveys to measure job satisfaction.

 “You can’t look at [diversity and inclusion] as the flavor of the day or something to pay lip service to,” says Holland. “These are the aspects of corporate culture that make great employees stick around, and there’s not a business of any size that can afford to ignore that.”

Vivian says he expects to see more small businesses make dramatic strides in diversity and inclusion as they shift toward emphasizing open, meritocratic cultures that encourage their employees to bring to the table what makes them different.

“Companies have historically approached this issue as a game of numbers, but diversity is more than just getting heads in the door,” he says. “The goal is not just counting heads, it’s about making heads count.”

Learn more:
• 9 ways to retain diverse talent (TextExpander)
• How inclusion can bolster your employee retention (Diversity and Ability)

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