Dive Brief:

• Senior executives "from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds" may change employers at twice the rate of other executives within the next year, according to an Oct. 28 study from DDI. "It's likely that these leaders still face significant barriers as they move up the ladder, which may be why they feel like they have to leave the company to advance," Stephanie Neal, director of DDI's Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research, said in a statement.
• Just over a quarter of leaders surveyed said they believe their organization strongly values diversity and inclusion, while less than 25% say their organization "consistently recruits and promotes from a diverse talent pool."
• However, companies that have "above-average gender, racial and ethnic diversity" performed better than their peers financially, according to the study.

Dive Insight:

Similar surveys have shown that diversity is not a strategic priority for leaders despite evidence that strong diversity and inclusion improves the bottom line as well as productivity. Companies that had high racial diversity congruence — having matching levels of representation in upper management and lower management — had the highest levels of productivity, according to a study published June 9 in the Academy of Management Journal.

But even companies that say they create empowering environments that encourage belonging may have a perception problem in their workplaces; while a majority of leaders in a June Accenture report stated they created such environments at their workplaces, only 36% of employees agreed. A May survey from Clutch noted that employers may be focusing on "small elements of diversity"... [click here for the rest of this analysis]

‍