DEIA Action Planning
Overview
Here’s why it is essential to create an action plan for DEIA, followed by the six key components:
Why Utilizing an Action Plan is Important for Your DEIA Journey:
- Provides Clarity and Direction
An action plan outlines clear objectives, strategies, and timelines, helping the organization understand what it wants to achieve regarding DEIA. It eliminates ambiguity and gives employees a sense of direction for building a more inclusive and equitable environment. - Ensures Accountability
By creating a plan with measurable goals, an organization can assign responsibilities to specific individuals or departments, ensuring that actions are taken and progress is tracked. This accountability ensures that DEIA efforts don’t fall by the wayside. - Promotes Consistency and Sustainability
An action plan helps embed DEIA initiatives into the fabric of the organization’s culture, ensuring these efforts are not treated as one-off projects but as continuous, evolving commitments. - Tracks Progress and Measures Impact
A well-developed plan provides benchmarks and metrics to evaluate progress. Regular monitoring helps identify what’s working, what needs improvement, and how to make necessary adjustments to achieve your DEIA goals. - Engages Stakeholders
A detailed action plan demonstrates a serious commitment to DEIA, which can inspire and engage all stakeholders, including employees, leadership, customers, and partners. This engagement fosters a sense of shared responsibility and ownership of the DEIA goals. - Enhances Organizational Reputation
Organizations with a clear, actionable DEIA strategy are seen as leaders in fostering inclusive environments. This can improve recruitment, retention, and overall reputation, making the company a more attractive place to work and do business.
Using the DEIA Action Planning Worksheet:
This worksheet provides a structured approach to creating a DEIA strategic plan. It encourages organizations to set clear goals, establish action steps, and maintain accountability throughout the journey to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are not only promoted but integrated into the organization’s core values.
We’ve outlined possible actions you can take, but based on your organization and your maturity level, these may be edited. The areas that need to be completed to ensure accountability are:
- Owner: Assign each task/action to a specific individual or team responsible for its completion.
- Deadline: Specify a completion date for each action to ensure accountability.
- Status: Track the progress of each action (e.g., "Not Started," "In Progress," "Completed").
Click on each tab below to develop your action plan within each category of the DEIA journey.
Strategies & Guides
Video Resources
Gather information on what's already been done; Analyze past efforts; Connect leaders to their "WHY"; Uncover the organization’s DEI maturity level; Kick off the journey; Begin communications and Change management.
Engage and Involve Stakeholders
- What this means: Involve a wide range of stakeholders—including employees, leadership, and external partners—in the planning and implementation process. Ensure that marginalized voices are heard and considered in decision-making.
- Why it’s important: Engaging stakeholders ensures buy-in and collective responsibility for DEIA initiatives. It helps build trust, gain diverse perspectives, and ensure that DEIA strategies address the real needs of all stakeholders.
Use the worksheet in the Resource tab to: Connect Leaders to Their "WHY"
Task:
- Help leadership understand the importance of DEIA at both a personal and organizational level
- Clarify how DEIA aligns with business goals and values
- Encourage leaders to share their personal reasons for committing to the DEIA journey
Use the worksheet in the Resource tab to: Uncover the Organization’s DEI Maturity Level
Task:
- Use DEI maturity models to assess the organization’s current standing. Use IEDEIA’s maturity model assessment.
- Evaluate organizational culture, policies, and practices against best practices in DEIA
- Determine readiness for change
Use the worksheet in the Resource tab to: Begin Communications and Change Management
Task:
- Establish clear and consistent communication on DEIA goals and progress
- Create change management strategies to help employees adapt to new DEIA practices
- Ensure ongoing engagement with employees and stakeholders through surveys, updates, and feedback sessions
Gather information from: The organization, the leaders, the teams, and individuals. When possible, gather disaggregated data to help you understand the experience of people at the intersections of their identities.
Assess the Current State (Data Collection)
- What this means: Conduct a thorough assessment of the organization's current diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility landscape. This could involve collecting demographic data, employee feedback, and conducting DEIA audits.
- Why it’s important: Understanding where the organization currently stands helps identify gaps, challenges, and areas of improvement. It provides a baseline from which progress can be measured.
Use the worksheet in the Resource tab to: Gather Information on What’s Already Been Done
Task:
- Collect historical data on DEIA efforts, programs, and initiatives
- Document existing policies related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility
- Review past DEIA-related surveys, feedback, and reports
Analyze your data; identify your "North Star", begin developing your DEI strategy, conduct a SWOT analysis, develop benchmarks and create your scorecard. Set goals, objectives and KPIs, and begin your organizational equity planning process.
Use the worksheet in the Resource tab to: Analyze DEIA Survey Results
Task:
- Evaluate the success and shortcomings of previous DEIA initiatives (which should be asked as part of the survey – to track improvements)
- Identify gaps and areas of improvement
- Assess the overall impact on organizational culture and representation
Finalize your strategic plan Strategy mapping Conduct department equity lens Develop department SMARTIE goals Conduct training Coach leaders, ambassadors and staff. Now that you’ve laid the foundation and gathered all information, this section of the worksheet is designed to guide organizations in developing a comprehensive DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) strategic plan. The process is divided into three key sections: Creating a Strategy Map, Developing Strategies and Action Steps, and Establishing Accountability and Timelines. Each section will help ensure that DEIA initiatives are purposeful, measurable, and sustainable.
Section 1: Creating a Strategy Map: Define Clear Goals and Objectives (use the worksheet in the Resource tab)
- What this means: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for your DEIA initiatives. These should align with the organization's broader mission and values.
- Why it’s important: Clear goals provide a roadmap for what you want to achieve. They help focus your DEIA efforts on specific outcomes, such as increasing diverse representation in leadership roles, ensuring pay equity, or improving accessibility for people with disabilities.
Section 2: Develop Strategies and Action Steps (Use the worksheet in the Resource tab)
- What this means: Create specific actions that will lead to the achievement of your DEIA goals. This could include policies, programs, training, or other interventions designed to foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
- Why it’s important: Strategies translate DEIA goals into tangible actions. Without a concrete plan, goals remain abstract and difficult to achieve.
Section 3: Establish Accountability and Timelines (Use the worksheet in the Resource tab)
- What this means: Assign specific responsibilities for DEIA initiatives to individuals or teams and set deadlines for implementation. Ensure that there is regular reporting on progress.
- Why it’s important: Accountability ensures that DEIA initiatives are prioritized and acted upon. Timelines create a sense of urgency and ensure that progress is consistently being made.
Revisit the time for implementation to ensure its realistic, validate your metrics, keep listening to the VOE and gather feedback continually, provide constant communication and continue with change management efforts.
Monitor, Evaluate, and Adjust
- What this means: Continuously monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your DEIA efforts. Use metrics, surveys, feedback, and other tools to assess progress. Be prepared to make adjustments based on what is and isn’t working.
- Why it’s important: DEIA is an evolving process, and what works at one point may need to be adjusted as the organization grows and changes. Regular evaluation helps keep the plan relevant and impactful.
To make your DEIA strategy stick, below is a summary of key actions for a sustainable DEI action plan:
- Leadership Commitment: Secure leadership buy-in and visible support.
- Clear Goals and Metrics: Set and measure SMARTIE goals.
- Ongoing Training: Provide regular DEI education.
- Employee Engagement: Involve employees in DEI initiatives.
- Integrate DEI into Policies: Embed DEI into organizational processes.
- Continuous Communication: Keep DEI in focus through ongoing dialogue.
- Data Collection: Regularly collect and analyze DEI-related data.
- Inclusive Culture: Foster a workplace where all feel included.
- Sustainability Practices: Build long-term DEI into the strategic plan.
- Regular Review: Continuously monitor and adjust strategies. Track micro-level changes toward the goal.
- Accountability: Hold all employees responsible for DEI outcomes.
By taking these actions, organizations can ensure that their DEI plans are not just implemented, but ingrained into the organization’s culture, their DNA, and sustained for the long term. For more information, visit the “DEIA into DNA” resource, located in Tier 2 of the IEDEIA platform.
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