It’s not a revelation that companies benefit from developing a diverse leadership pipeline. McKinsey research found that companies with ethnically diverse senior teams are 33% more likely to outperform their peers and that companies within the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 25% more likely to outperform their competitors. And yet, in 2023, there is still a significant absence of diversity at the top … and this isn’t due to a lack of ambition from people from underrepresented or underserved groups. In fact, it’s far from it.
Despite countless training courses and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives championing their career development, progress has been slow and uneven when it comes to diverse promotion into senior teams.
Learning and development (L&D) teams have been working hard to support career mobility for minority employees — equipping learners with models, toolkits and practical guidance to help them take the next step in their career journeys. But when it comes to supporting career growth for marginalized and underserved groups, off-the-shelf career development courses are not enough.
Here are five tips for how L&D professionals can support diverse employees’ career mobility:
1. Challenge organizational readiness: When it comes to career mobility, it’s not about “fixing” your talent. It’s about developing the systems, environment and culture that will support their progression. Before you even begin to design your next leadership development (or other training) program, take the time to understand the true workplace barriers – for example, biased criteria, a narrow definition of “talent,” legacy attitudes about who or what works best or homogenously designed processes. Look over your promotion statistics against diverse representation, identify any emerging patterns and ask critical questions that may help uncover their root cause. Are processes fully promoted to and accessible by all? Are managers trained in using fair and equitable assessments for performance management? What work styles are culturally valued, and do they advantage particular groups? Ultimately, the task is to identify the systemic changes that need reviewing, or the cultural behaviors that need exploring, and take them straight to the top. If the organizational environment isn’t ready to embrace and engage with your diverse talent, your training efforts offer little more than false promise.
2. Avoid your typical off-the-shelf leadership training program. Speak with diverse leaders, and potential course participants, to understand the barriers to career advancement that they face. Targeted programs need to present modern leadership practice with an eye on the specific contexts and requirements of underserved participants. Tailored offerings should deconstruct the barricades of politics and power, while providing opportunities for kinship and the psychological safety needed to appreciate how identity influences and strengthens leadership styles. To truly elevate your offering, think beyond your immediate and traditional training delivery team. Instead, pull together a group of facilitators with deep, researched and/or lived experience to speak with insight and authenticity. While your old guard might be effective, they may lack the depth of understanding required to, first, create this safe environment and, second, speak with expertise pertaining to particular groups.
3. Align sponsors and mentor opportunities. Career pathways are not unlocked by a “one-and-done” leadership course. Build an offering that combines formal development with exposure to new networks. Many people from underrepresented groups are not automatically extended entry to critical leadership experiences. They’re often excluded from these experiences and from influential networks. Two of the most valuable components you can add to your leadership development initiatives are introductions to influential sponsors and experiential mentors who are trained in how to act as effective allies for members of certain communities and use tacit knowledge of the organization’s opportunities to feed them forward to individuals. Sponsors will create opportunities for underrepresented learners in the business, while mentors will be able to discuss the less-talked-about necessities for staying on a desired career path.
4. Engage front-line managers: Training alone is limited if front-line managers are not held accountable for nurturing and supporting their team members. Too often, staff complete a development program without having a career plan in place. L&D teams have the perfect opportunity to support front-line managers and guide talented staff in their career progression pathways. As part of any training rollout, engage the participants’ managers — have a kick-off event with their attendance, implement a “career progression packet” that they will work through with the participant, and task front-line managers with creating opportunities for their team members. Training presents the foundations, but managers must build on this to make the most of the talent on their teams.
5. Create an inclusive culture: Marginalized groups remain at risk of workplace bias, stereotyping, hypervisibility and tokenism outside of your development offerings. To improve inclusion and eradicate systemic discrimination, L&D professionals need to ensure that DEI is the golden thread through every activity they engage with. Elevate your recruitment process training by including inclusive hiring behaviors. Evolve your staff survey insights by overlaying diversity metrics. Revise your lunch-and-learn schedule to include topics such as cultural curiosity, power and privilege, and psychological safety. Introduce panel events with a range of diverse speakers. Break diversity awareness out of its mandatory training confinements and normalize inclusive consideration for everyone.
