“DEI leaders reported that the top challenges they’ve faced this year include: lack of business leader accountability for DEI outcomes, limited power to make decisions that drive DEI outcomes and ineffective, uncoordinated cross-enterprise DEI efforts.”

“To more effectively lead DEI efforts amidst uncertainty, heads of DEI can adopt three lessons from CFOs: 

• Show how DEI minimizes enterprise risk.

• Weigh DEI investments by their organizational impact.

• Focus on the assumptions underlying beliefs of power players.”

“DEI efforts are essential to mitigating various types of organizational risk; for instance, when it comes to talent retention, 40% of employees would consider leaving their organization if they cannot trust them to fulfill their DEI commitments.”

“Heads of DEI must measure the value of individual DEI investments; while 96% of organizations conduct DEI-focused trainings, less than half of participants report them as somewhat satisfactory.” 

Rather than aiming for broad allyship on DEI issues, DEI leaders should leverage power mapping to develop relationships with the right advocates for a given issue and build influence.

“Forty-eight percent of managers at organizations are at risk of failure.”

“A manager is considered to be at risk of failure if their team has been inconsistent in achieving business goals in the last 12 months and if there is lack of confidence in the manager’s ability to lead the team to future success.”

“The employees of managers who are at risk of failure are 11% less likely to be high performers and three times more likely to want to leave their organizations.”

“The four top predictors of manager failure are: 

• Lack of manager self-awareness

• Absence of employee empathy

• Unproductive manager interactions with their direct reports 

• Misalignment of the work itself with the organization’s and employee’s personal goals”

“Organizations can achieve a 43% reduction in the percentage of managers at risk of failing by successfully addressing the top four predictors.”

“Fifty-one percent of DEI leaders reported that leadership’s failure to take ownership for driving DEI outcomes is the top challenge they face today.”

“DEI leaders are using metrics to drive accountability – 85% of DEI leaders said they allocate a considerable amount or a great deal of resources to setting goals and tracking DEI progress through metrics.”

“DEI metrics focused on demographic data have value, but they are not sufficient because they lack intersectional insight, encourage check-box compliance and lack progress indicators.”

“DEI metrics must move beyond merely reporting demographic data to prescribing leader action based on metrics that predict and guide future performance. This includes, but is not limited to, demographic breakdowns of:

• Intent to stay

• Psychological safety

• Diversity of hiring pool”

“Employees who have concerns that AI may replace their jobs are 27% less likely to stay at their current organization for the next year than employees without any concerns over AI impacting their jobs.”

“Organizations should evaluate opportunities for AI at a portfolio level – that takes into account business context and demand volumes – rather than an activity or task level.”

“The impact of AI on jobs will be uneven; depending on how AI is used, it has the ability to reshape roles, create new roles, redesign other roles and retire some roles..”

“When AI is used only for quick wins and operational efficiency, the likelihood of automating away jobs increases, including within HR. New roles emerge, however, when AI is used in transformative ways to change products or services, or to transform customer experience.”

“HR leaders can take three actions when planning for generative AI’s impact on jobs:

• Take an Active Role — Decide where you choose to use AI

• Monitor Roles — Be ready to redesign them or create new

• Map Your Portfolio — Anticipate unique talent challenges.”