Developing a Human-Centered Corporate Metric for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Antiracism in a Small Business: A Case Study and Lessons Learned

Abstract

Despite the recent, extensive development of corporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as its own field within management science, there is no definitive or standardized corporate metric for DEI that is readily available and operationalizable in a straightforward manner. As part of our company’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism (IDEA) initiative, we sought to create such a metric to assess holistically our internal DEI efforts. We implemented a five-step process to research, brainstorm, synthesize, generate, and deploy such a metric. Ultimately, we generated a meta-metric that aims to capture what we do (the success of our activities), how we feel (increasing the feeling of inclusion), and who we are (tangible diversity in leadership and staff). We believe that our effort may both inspire and inform others seeking to assess how their organization fares in the DEI domain.