CASE STUDY /
A Strategic Shift for a Corporate DEIB Program: From Transactional to Transformational
A Strategic Shift for a Corporate DEIB Program: From Transactional to Transformational
The
challenge
The
challenge
An industry-leading beverage company had a relatively new but committed DEIB offering and was a leader amongst its industry peers. However, there was a perception amongst employees that the program was simply about checking off diversity and inclusion boxes instead of fostering transformational cultural change in the organization.
The Creative Executive assessed the company’s DEIB program and made strategic recommendations for improving, operationalizing, and sustaining their DEIB efforts and programming structure for more meaningful, long-term results.
INDUSTRY LEADER
EXECUTIVE STAKEHOLDERS
Executive Leadership in ESG, HR + Employee DEI Council
PROJECTDURATION
Project Stages: Discovery, Research + Synthesize, and Strategic Plan
HOURS OFINTERVIEWS
A Strategic Shift for a Corporate DEIB Program
As corporate Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging efforts go, our client was doing a lot. The consumer beverage company had robust, varied, and visible DEIB initiatives (internal and external) and functional support and champions, including an executive-level role under ESG and a DEI coworker council. However, the fact remained that an all-white executive team led the company, and their strategic effort toward recruitment wasn’t translating into a more diverse workforce.
"We're committed to DEIB, but are we doing enough?"
Committed to DEIB, but is it enough?
Our client approached us with two questions: 1) How effective is our existing DEIB program? and, 2) How do we improve our program to generate real change, now and in the future?
That the executive team was also in a period of transition provided a genuine opportunity for the CE team as a consulting partner to help the company solidify a new and improved strategy, clarify roles and responsibilities, and realign and recommit to the vision and goals of the DEIB roadmap.
The Creative Executive consulted with our client to conduct a full programmatic assessment of their DEIB function and make strategic recommendations on how to improve the program for meaningful success in the long term.
approach
Our client is a human-centered organization that, by all accounts, is committed to affecting real change in racial and gender equity. As their strategic consulting partner, our goal was to understand how the employees at all levels of the organization felt the impact of the company’s DEIB efforts and understand the market factors and best practices that will help define the ongoing strategy and program structure.
From Program Assessment to Strategic ROADMAP
DISCOVERY
Our team needed to understand how employees at all level of the organization perceived the company’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion + Belonging efforts. We also wanted to identify the most acute challenges and roadblocks facing the program.
GATHER + SYNTHESIZE
Our team reviewed the company’s DEIB documentation, including engagement surveys and historical work data. We also took a comprehensive look at industry DEIB best practices and existing metrics to develop a set of benchmarks for evaluation.
THE ROADMAP
The Creative Executive team delivered a full programmatic assessment of the company’s existing DEIB program and a preliminary strategic outline incorporating findings and insights from our qualitative and structural research.
PHAse 1: Where are we at?
Data was only part of the story as we assessed the effectiveness of our client’s current DEIB program. Qualitative feedback from both executive leadership and employees at all levels of the organization was essential to identifying the program’s strengths and areas for growth.
Our Interview Methods
- 1:1 qualitative interviews with 20 key stakeholders in HR, ESG, and other departments, 24 interview hours in total
- Focus groups & listening sessions with individuals and groups across the organization
- In-depth interactive conversations with the employee DEI council
Phase 2: What Does it mean?
Blending our review of the client’s DEIB program documentation, market and best practice research, and the insights from our discovery interviews, we distilled our findings into three areas that require strategic focus.
Opportunities for Growth
- Employees perceive the company DEIB commitment as transactional: a checkbox to tick rather than truly affecting change.
- Within the leadership team, a siloed DEIB approach led to confusion and conflict around roles, responsibilities, and differing levels of commitment.
- Most responsibilities fell to the DEI coworker council, putting the council far out of scope and exposing the company to risk. The organization needed to integrate DEIB into all business functions.
Phase 3: The Roadmap
In our preliminary strategic outline (or, roadmap), we laid out a strategic way forward through recommended interventions, actions, and milestones to help our client increase the effectiveness of its DEIB program.
OUR KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Refine and Reestablish DEIB Vision + Priorities
- Realign the executive leadership team around the company mission, vision, and values, with DEIB as a key factor in success.
- Create a new leadership charter that sets a clear vision for DEIB, emphasizing strategic action and prioritizing employees’ practical career needs over transactional feel-good initiatives.
- Put the leadership team’s (and organization’s) commitment to DEIB into action through mindset shifts, solidifying goals/objectives, determining how to measure efforts, formalizing communication, and building accountability structures.
Operationalize DEIB
- Clarify roles and responsibilities across the DEIB function and within the organization at large and close existing competency and expertise gaps.
- Tie DEIB to performance, career development, and advancement through all leadership levels.
- Create new policies and procedures that reflect and communicate the realigned vision and strategy from the executive leadership team.
- Institute structural changes (move DEIB from ESG to HR oversight) and add strategic roles to champion and provide tactical support to the DEIB program.
Incorporate DEIB into Learning + Development (L&D)
- Integrate a more holistic approach to L&D, incorporating DEIB into all employees’ professional development within the organization.
- Provide learning and support on topics such as handling difficult situations, managing unconscious bias, and training on microaggressions, religious sensitivity, cultural competency, and inclusive management.
- Create a mentorship program to increase engagement, empower underrepresented employees, support high-potential coworkers, and serve as a tool to create a diverse and inclusive talent pipeline.
PHASE 3: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
In our preliminary strategic outline (or, roadmap), we laid out a strategic way forward through recommended interventions, actions, and milestones to help our client increase the effectiveness of its DEIB program.
Our Key Recommendations
Refine DEIB Vision + Priorities
Refine DEIB Vision + Priorities
- Realign the executive leadership team around the company mission, vision, and values, with DEIB as a key factor in success.
- Create a new leadership charter that sets a clear vision for DEIB, emphasizing strategic action and prioritizing employees’ practical career needs over transactional feel-good initiatives.
- Put the leadership team’s (and organization’s) commitment to DEIB into action through mindset shifts, solidifying goals/objectives, determining how to measure efforts, formalizing communication, and building accountability structures.
Operationalize DEIB Program
OperationalizeDEIB
- Clarify roles and responsibilities across the DEIB function and within the organization at large and close existing competency and expertise gaps.
- Tie DEIB to performance, career development, and advancement through all leadership levels.
- Create new policies and procedures that reflect and communicate the realigned vision and strategy from the leadership team.
- Institute structural changes (move DEIB from ESG to HR oversight) and add strategic roles to champion and provide tactical support to the DEIB program.
Incorporate DEIB into Learning & Development
Incorporating DEIB into L&D
- Integrate a more holistic approach to Learning + Development, incorporating DEIB into all employees’ professional development within the organization.
- Provide learning and support on topics such as handling difficult situations, managing unconscious bias, and training on microaggressions, religious sensitivity, cultural competency, and inclusive management.
- Create a mentorship program to increase engagement, empower underrepresented employees, support high-potential coworkers, and serve as a tool to create a diverse and inclusive talent pipeline.
RESULTS + OUTCOMES
TAKING DEIB FROM TRANSACTIONAL TO TRANSFORMATIONAL
Our full report included a candid assessment of the company’s existing DEIB program and our comprehensive set of recommendations for improvement. Additionally, The Creative Executive mapped out a roll-out plan and milestones for our client so that the executive team and DEIB leaders can evaluate their progress in 3, 6, and 12 months, at two years, and at the 3-year mark.
It’s not an overnight process, even for a company with a track record of improving Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging efforts. But with strategic, forward-focused movement, our client can evolve from a transactional “check-the-box” relationship to DEIB and build a transformational culture that thrives with transparency, accountability, and trust—fostering true belonging, empowerment, and equity.
Our team can help you with DEIB
Five years ago, our company found itself in an unfamiliar and unexpected position after our founder & CEO sold the company to pursue other professional challenges. This set the stage for our company’s most aggressive restructure ever, nearly doubling the management team overnight. The Creative Executive team acted quickly to provide systematic and goal-oriented paths centered around adaptive management approaches, recognition of styles, strengths, and weaknesses, effective problem solving, and best-in-class performance. The C/E team facilitated team-building events, goal-related and comfort-pushing exercises, and in-depth 360 reviews of the entire management team. The unique challenge for C/E centered around an entirely new management team most having little or no senior-level corporate experience. Five years later, a cohesive & confident team in support of common goals has emerged. C/E has clearly been an intrinsic part of our company’s amazing success. As the nationwide leader in our commercial insurance space, we’ve watched both top and bottom-line financial results more than double during our 5-year relationship with C/E. Perhaps the best (and unfortunately unmeasured) results are the care & kindness that’s braided into the entire organization now at all levels.
