How to Set — and Meet — Your Company’s Diversity Goals

The foundational first step toward creating a more diverse workforce — and realizing the many benefits it can bring to an organization — is the same as with any other business effort: setting goals. Accenture had set internal representation goals for many years, but realized that change would come only if it held itself publicly accountable. The company created its own goal-setting methodology based on a set of five key actions: 1) Analyze locally so your goals reflect the communities where your people work and live; 2) Focus on skills, not education; 3) Work the education-location equation and identify the proportion of residents with and without bachelor’s degrees, by race/ethnicity, in your largest office locations; 4) Pressure test your goals to ensure rigor and reasonability; 5) Build your own pipeline.