This toolkit provides HR professionals with tools to calibrate their legally compliant inclusion and diversity (I&D) efforts. Collecting and analyzing the right data and continuously reviewing your strategies for fairness and equal opportunity ensures legal, workforce unifying, business accretive I&D.
Creating an inclusive and respectful workplace culture begins with listening and acting with intention. Structure the calibration process for legally compliant inclusion and diversity (I&D) initiatives on four components to ensure integrity, impact, and compliance.
Legally compliant inclusion isn’t driven by quotas, set-asides, goals, or preferential treatment. Inclusion means creating structures within which every employee — regardless of role or background — can contribute, be heard, and succeed based on merit and performance (referred to as “inclusion” or “legally compliant I&D”). An organization’s effectiveness at legally compliant I&D hinges on measuring what matters, such as the applicant and employee experience, the perception of organizational fairness, and the impact of developmental opportunities.
SHRM's Belonging Enhanced by Access Through Merit (BEAM) Framework is a resource that can help employers implement I&D strategies that are legally compliant, workforce unifying, and business accretive.
Opportunities open to all, without regard to a person's sex, race, or any protected status and without excluding any protected group.
Initiatives designed to engage talent without regard to a person’s protected status, ensuring people from all backgrounds can access opportunities.
Opportunities based on job-related qualifications and requisite skills, knowledge, or performance without unlawful preferences or quotas.
Initiatives clearly and consistently communicated through inclusive and broad-reaching channels.
Providing or supporting skill-building to help all eligible people improve skills, qualifications and relevant experience.
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Creating an inclusive and respectful workplace culture begins with listening and acting with intention.
Leverage structured tools designed to uncover real employee experiences, enabling timely, data-driven action. This includes a variety of safe channels for employees to share I&D feedback, including anonymous surveys, digital suggestion boxes, and manager-led listening sessions. These channels empower all voices to be heard, especially those who might not speak up in traditional settings. Insights gathered can help identify emerging themes and foster transparency in decision-making.
Short, frequent pulse surveys provide a real-time window into employee sentiment. When they include I&D-focused questions, they help assess climate factors such as fairness, inclusion, psychological safety, and meritocracy. Such feedback is valuable in supporting a culture of continuous improvement.
A virtual suggestion box can live in a digital form and be available 24/7 to collect voluntary, anonymous, and confidential input. Assign an HR team member to monitor and follow up with these suggestions so the feedback does not go unattended.
This type of feedback model provides a safe, ongoing space for feedback related to I&D issues, organizational culture, or areas of opportunity. Feedback prompts do not need to focus solely on challenges; positive recognition and examples of inclusion in action are equally as valuable. This is particularly important in larger organizations where decision-making may be decentralized across functions or business units. Sample prompts for such a form could include:
Quick polls or forms can be useful for HR to assess whether all voices were heard, especially in policy, procedure, and decision-making discussions. Periodic check-ins can help make sure that legally compliant I&D is built into business operations.
Rather than waiting until employees exit, stay interviews offer proactive check-ins focused on retention. These structured conversations uncover what motivates and engages employees to stay with an organization. Conversely, they may also highlight early signs of perceived gaps in fairness, access to opportunity, and misalignment with workplace norms before they lead to attrition. Best practices for stay interviews include:
Manager-led listening sessions are designed to create a safe space for open dialogue and early identification of potential I&D concerns. Participation is voluntary and confidential, with any insights shared only in an aggregated, anonymous format. The primary goal of these sessions is to actively listen and better understand employee experiences.
Conversation starters for listening sessions include:
Retrospective or post-mortem sessions after major initiatives offer a valuable opportunity to include I&D-focused prompts that encourage continuous reflection and process improvement. This can be done by collecting quick, actionable feedback via surveys or other methods after key meetings, launches, or decision-making sessions.
Some questions to ask:
When representatives of employee resource groups (ERGs) or affinity groups share aggregated feedback gathered through structured and trusted channels, it can help HR leaders identify recurring workplace trends and areas for improvement. Questions to ask of your ERG leaders include:
Practical measurements are essential for evaluating I&D effectiveness in a meaningful and actionable way. Analyzing data on candidate and employee experiences, workforce composition, selection disparities, equal pay, attrition trends, and skills gaps helps organizations identify areas where access to opportunity may be limited or inconsistent.
These metrics move beyond surface-level representation to provide a deeper understanding of inclusion and equal opportunity across the employee life cycle, guiding more informed, legally sound decision-making.
A data-informed evaluation of how candidates perceive and navigate the hiring process. Metrics may include:
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A holistic measure of how employees engage with the organization throughout every stage of the HR life cycle. Feedback collected from engagement surveys, stay interviews, and qualitative research can indicate how employees feel and perceive their work environment and interactions.
If any analyses reveal disparities, the next step is to explore their root causes, which may involve reviewing job descriptions, interview scoring rubrics, panel composition, or training practices. Consider taking remedial action to address disparities based on these findings.
Quantitative data that captures the demographic makeup of an organization by job level, function, geography, tenure, line of business, or other dimensions and that is anonymized and never used to make employment decisions. This can include information about race/ethnicity, sex, age, veteran status, or some other demographic or characteristic. Such data supports the evaluation of representation and tracking of progress toward improving access and opportunity.
An objective assessment of hiring, promotion, or selection outcomes to identify statistically significant disparities across demographic groups. The goal is to detect and address potential barriers to equal opportunity while maintaining merit-based practices.
This is a similar analysis to the selection disparity analysis, except that it examines each step or component of the selection process (e.g., qualifications, recruiter review, phone screening, manager review, interview, and offer).
Systematic analysis of compensation across roles, levels, and demographic categories to identify and address unexplained pay gaps. These studies can help ensure that compensation practices are fair, market-aligned, and compliant with equal pay regulations.
Measurement of the rate at which employee groups are promoted over time. This helps identify whether career advancement opportunities are distributed fairly and can surface potential barriers affecting upward mobility.
Analysis of voluntary and involuntary turnover across different demographic segments and roles. Patterns can reveal risk areas for disengagement, inconsistent treatment, or uneven access and inform retention strategies.
Data that maps existing employee capabilities against current and future business needs, disaggregated by demographics. These reports help ensure that upskilling and development programs are accessible and open to all employees, supporting equal opportunity career growth.
Identifying patterns of recurring inconsistencies or bias in decision-making, such as hiring, performance evaluations, promotions, and disciplinary actions, is often achieved through audits, survey analyses, and algorithmic reviews. These findings can inform targeted interventions to improve fairness and consistency.
Keeping an eye on employee engagement metrics isn’t just important for culture, employee well-being, and retention — it can also be vital to your employer brand.
There are ways to collect and use metrics in a legally compliant way. Below are several tips to applying workforce analytics to your I&D strategies.
Defining the goals of workforce analyses helps ensure the use of relevant metrics and supports the development of legally sound, actionable insights. These analyses are not intended to directly change employment outcomes but rather to identify whether disparities exist and, if so, to explore the underlying causes. The goal is to interpret your findings judiciously to identify potential barriers to equal opportunity, not to mandate specific results or override merit-based decision-making.
These questions provide a framework for evaluating the root causes of any anomalies you may identify during your I&D impact analysis.
It is as important to understand the initial objective of any workforce analysis (i.e., the question being asked) as it is to correctly interpret the results. Accurate interpretation helps determine the level of risk, the urgency of action, and the appropriate response.
Want to ensure your I&D strategies are in compliance with the executive orders? Navigate complex regulations with confidence through the SHRM US Employment Law & Compliance course. Grow your knowledge and comfort level with a wide range of compliance and legal issues in this enlightening two-day course.
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