Professionalizing Diversity and Inclusion Practice: Should Voluntary Standards Be the Chicken or the Egg?

Abstract

Workplace diversity and inclusion (D & I) practices today are based to a great extent on unevaluated experience and intuition rather than empirical evidence. Would voluntary professional practice standards in this field help to raise the level of current and future practice? Or would they be premature? If developed under 4 principles we describe, we predict the former. However, this positive outcome will also require industrial and organizational (I–O) psychologists to join their D & I colleagues in expanding research on D & I practices, strengthening the skills of D & I practitioners, assisting employers to avoid self‐incrimination, and enhancing employer commitment to D & I itself. I–O psychologists should also be aware of other implications of D & I practice standards for their work.

Voluntary Standards: On What Exactly?

“…This essential question must first be answered before an agenda can be formulated and implemented. From our experience working in multiple organizations, spanning 50+ years, representing a mix of both industrial organizational psychology backgrounds and D & I consulting experiences, we agree with Hays‐Thomas and Bendick () that there is indeed a strong need for standards in the area of D & I. However, what is included in the standards is as important as how the standards are created.…”

“…With the goal of creating voluntary standards that are accepted and promoted by the D & I community, a focus needs to be placed on the WHAT as much as the HOW. Hays‐Thomas and Bendick () make very compelling arguments on how these standards should be created; we will focus the remainder of our response on the WHAT. What should we aim to include in these voluntary standards?…”

Using Information Regulation to Enhance Workplace Diversity, Inclusion, and Fairness

“…Many pieces of employment data are not immediately interpretable in isolation. That is, it is often not possible to tell if a particular numerical result is good or bad until it is compared against some standard or yardstick of how other, equivalent employers perform (Bendick 2012, Hays-Thomas & Bendick 2013). An effective data utility must place information on firms into comparative contexts so that their meaning is clear.…”

Diversity and Inclusion Standards: A Laudable but Premature Goal

“…Hays‐Thomas and Bendick (), for example, suggest a contradiction (p. 202) between two surveys. The 2012 Conference Board CEO Challenge found respondents placed high importance on “efficient mobilization of human capital.” In contrast, a 2010 SHRM survey found that only a minority of diversity managers found diversity enhances either organizational competitiveness or the bottom line.…”

“…Hays‐Thomas and Bendick () argue that if formal standards of practice for diversity and inclusion (D & I) were created, then major improvements would follow. That is, if the right people, processes, and relationships were built, and continuous improvement standards were implemented, then major benefits for D & I practice would ensue.…”