CEO / Senior Leader

“The leaders of an organization must bear the primary responsibility for initiating DEI because they will ensure the organization commits time and other necessary resources to the DEI work.” --Creating a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Workplace Culture. LeadingAge LTSS Center

Members of your community will look to the CEO and senior leadership to set the tone. The key to successful implementation of DEIB initiatives is to infuse efforts throughout all departments.

Sections of this guide are geared specifically toward Admissions/Marketing, Human Resources, the Board of Directors, Diversity Task Force and Individual people who want to make change. Share these pages with the appropriate people within your organization.

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Assess Start with an Organizational Assessment to determine strengths and weaknesses.

Conduct employee surveys, interviews, or focus groups to gain continuous feedback on organizational culture.
Analyze internal and external demographics
Review organizational practices, policies, and procedures to determine whether changes are required (SHRM, 2020).

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Educate To learn what’s going on in the industry as a whole, a good place to start is to review the LeadingAge Research on DEI.

During 2021, the LeadingAge Long-term Services and Supports (LTSS) Center engaged in a series of research studies focused on supporting a key LeadingAge strategy: to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the LTSS workplace. The research was designed to help LeadingAge and its member organizations expand their racial and ethnic diversity, particularly among mid-level and senior leadership teams and boards of directors.

Four research reports including a summary report, a Review of the Literature, Perspectives of LeadingAge Members and Perspectives of Leaders of Color are a good place to start to educate yourself on what’s going on in the industry as a whole. View it here.

See a larger version of this model and details here.

Start the work Now that you have an overview of your organization and research from the industry as a whole, the work of the organization can begin. The Centre for Global Inclusion's Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmark (GDIB) Model is a comprehensive approach to changing the system as a whole. It gives you a beginning look at industry best practices and will help you identify steps your organization should take using benchmarks, which include internal and external, foundational and bridging factors. View a portion of the GDIB Model here.

The Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks Model suggests that the most effective efforts begin with a foundation of vision and strategy, leadership and accountability, and infrastructure and implementation. These are all efforts that begin with Senior Leadership and the Board.

Each strategy on the pyramid has corresponding benchmarking. You can use the benchmarking to determine where you are on that strategy as well as what you can implement to go from 0% to 100%

Category 1: D&I Vision, Strategy, and Business Case would be the responsibility of the Board and Senior Leadership.

Category 2: Leadership and Accountability would be the responsibility of the Board and Senior Leadership. There are some elements that would be the responsibility of the Board and others of Senior Leadership, along with some shared roles.

Category 3: Infrastructure and Implementation would be the responsibility of the Senior Leadership Team.

Please contact us for more details about how FSA can help your organization foster a diverse, inclusive environment.

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