Creating capabilities for frontline managers to drive diversity and inclusion within their teams.

MassMutual has been focused on diversity and inclusion for more than a decade and our D&I strategy has focused on developing culturally competent and inclusive senior leaders and working with them to set goals around diversifying our workforce.

With this effort long underway, we determined we needed to bring the same level of insights, education and experiences to frontline managers. 

Our pilot to build manager D&I capabilities ran within two of our largest departments from 2018 to 2019, and focused on strengthening manager cultural competence, diversifying the talent pipeline, and cascading metrics and accountability. We identified the departments based on the volume of open roles, overall workforce diversity opportunities, and organizational readiness.

By focusing on education and creating transparency around key metrics, such as workforce diversity and recruiting, managers gained the knowledge, insights and skills to drive inclusion and create a collaborative workplace where every person feels valued for who they are, how they think, and what they contribute. Through a variety of programs, managers understood their own cultural competence, how to better connect with and support those who are different, and the impact of bias, systemic privilege, and racism.

We’ve seen leaders become stronger diversity champions who lend their voice and support to this work and set expectations with their teams.

We had positive results for each key performance indicator:

• Voice of the customer survey feedback
• Increased workforce diversity in the pipeline and in leadership
• Increased employee engagement, especially for underrepresented talent

Based on the pilot’s success, we are bringing the D&I program to other areas within MassMutual.

Christopher Lizotte