Diversity & Inclusion initiatives are part of a company’s practice and mission to create a non-biased, diverse, and inclusive workforce. With more and more research being done on D&I and organisations over the years, it is clear that the benefits to working toward a more diverse and inclusive workplace are many.
Companies with gender diverse executive teams are more likely to financially outperform less diverse organisations by 25%. Teams with above-average diversity produced a 19% bigger proportion of revenue from innovation, suggesting that diverse teams make better decisions. What is more, customers are, now more than ever, interested in brands speaking out against injustice and discrimination. Brands that are vocal about social issues are 3X more trusted by customers than those who aren’t. Job seekers are interested in diversity within the workplace as well. 76% of employees and job seekers are taking diversity & inclusion into account when evaluating the company and the job.
Research done by BCG has shown that while there has been some progress, there is still a long way to go. While all S&P 500 companies have at least one woman on the board, 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs are white, straight, and cisgender men. In up to 75% of countries, companies have D&I initiatives, but up to 75% targeted employees do not feel personal benefits from those programs. In addition, annual US spending on D&I programs comes to $8 billion while 55% of employees still feel discriminated against.
Based on these statistics, D&I in a workplace not only benefits the employees and brand’s perception, it also connotates a more profitable business performance. Nonetheless, it seems that companies are not doing enough to be diverse and inclusive.
This report looks at Diversity & Inclusion as well as its sister sub-topics: Gender Equality, Racial Equality and Accessibility as these are important parts of the overall D&I conversation. Within the report, we have identified a sample of influential personas and brand employees who are vocal online in regards to the aforementioned topics. Moreover, we have taken an in-depth look to see which big tech companies are being talked about within the topical communities to get a sense of which brands have the biggest share of voice when it comes to D&I topics.
The aim of this report is to shine a light on influencers and brand employees that are doing stellar work towards raising awareness, as well as providing insight on how well some tech brands are performing online when it comes to the Diversity & Inclusion related conversations.
Shifting Perception
Online brand perception is something that every brand needs to be paying attention to, particularly when it comes to such important and relevant topics around Diversity & Inclusion. Potential job applicants and customers are increasingly paying attention to a brand’s contribution to the greater good.
The most important factor for brands to consider when it comes to shifting their perception on Diversity & Inclusion, is of course pushing for real notable changes internally to a brand’s mission, strategy, and policies. Without real change, we cannot expect to see changes in perception. Everything from equal pay and opportunities to inclusive, gender-neutral language and hiring policies that prioritise diverse representation at the top.
Social media is a great listening tool for brands to benchmark their own perception when it comes to Diversity & Inclusion compared to their peers, particularly when you hone in on the specific topical communities and the influential voices at the forefront of the conversations. It is these influential voices that can speak with credibility based off their own personal experience being part of a marginalised group, their passion and their experience in leading change.
Brands can connect and collaborate with these voices to tap into their experience and expertise to make the key changes to their policy, but to also raise awareness of their key initiatives as a way to fast track their perception change online.
It is for this reason that we have analysed the selected tech brands’ attention among these communities, to highlight where brands can improve and the influential voices that can help them get there.
Brand share of voice amongst the influencer community on all DEI topics over a 90 day period
What’s in the Report?
The Diversity & Inclusion report is split into 4 main sections:
- Diversity & Inclusion
- Gender Equality
- Racial Equality
- Accessibility
Within each section we have highlighted the following:
- Twitter topic mentions & size online
- An overview of topic mentions, size online & sentiment
- LinkedIn topic size
- Top influential voices
- Top employees
- Top employee network map and interactions
- Top tech brands
- Example posts mentioning tech brands
- Brand share of voice
- Network maps showing interactions between influencers, brands and employees
