To speed our progress in improving representation in our business, we needed to increase awareness, understanding and governance for key diversity metrics, while staying committed to making the best hire for every role. With our BOD and C-suite actively involved and instrumental in our diversity strategy build, we realized the opportunity to create the same level of transparency and focus deeper in the organization.

First, we needed to understand our current state – and then illustrate “the art of the possible” to help our business leaders target actions/interventions. To do so, we compared representation of women and minorities against U.S. Census for business units, jobs and career levels. Additionally, we calculated what the representation of professionals of color (POC) and women could be by year end and stratified over the next 10 years under different scenarios regarding hiring, promotion and turnover. The scenarios involve parity in the promotion rates, retention rates and hiring rates equal to what’s available in the labor market. We benchmarked data through the diversity of workforces within the industries in which Ecolab operates. 

We also wanted to establish regular, sustainable and business-driven governance practices. We integrated key diversity metrics into Quarterly Talent Scorecards, and built a dynamic diversity dashboard to gain real-time, multi-dimensional insights.  We can now better analyze trends, conduct relationship/correlation analysis with other talent metrics, and drill down at a granular level to determine root cause.

These measures and insights are used in annual and ongoing talent management practices. We have identified common themes resulting in enterprise-wide goals, initiatives/programs and ownership with regular progress reviews at the Enterprise Diversity Council. Additionally, each business/function sets “local” goals to focus efforts where they will have the greatest impact. Commitments are discussed as part of Talent Reviews with the CEO, COO and CHRO.