Understanding the composition of our workforce is important in ensuring a diverse workforce and inclusive culture. Employees are often hesitant to share personal information-leaving companies without accurate data and insights. Without voluntary self­ identification information, it's difficult to identify the challenges employees face, provide necessary resources and assess the effectiveness of recruitment and retention efforts.

To overcome this challenge, Principal created a best practice actively engaging employees in the self-identification process. Our first step was embedding opportunities for voluntary self-identification of individuals with disabilities and veterans into our annual Global Code of Conduct training. This contributed to an immediate increase in our voluntary self-identification percentage and led us to implement a comprehensive approach towards voluntary self-identification and a better understanding of our employee population. These actions provided employee education on the voluntary self-identification process which dispelled myths and fears around how the information is used and why it is requested.

Here's a bit more on how we achieved our desired outcomes:

1. Added veteran and disability self-identification to the annual Global Code of Conduct training as an opportunity for employees to self-identify during required training
2. Created an FAQ document on the corporate intranet to answer common questions
3. Leveraged the OFCCP Disability Inclusion Starts With You Video regarding self­ identification to help increase participation
4. Added verbal and written invitations to self-identify to enterprise inclusion events and communications

Through the implementation of our voluntary self-identification plan, we achieved a 62% increase in disability voluntary self-identification and a 13% increase in veteran voluntary self-identification compared to the previous year. There was also an increased understanding regarding the voluntary self-identification process, its purpose and use. We plan to expand this framework to other dimensions of voluntary self-identification as we continue to grow our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, our business practices and in our communities.

Miriam Lewis