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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Unleashing the power of all of us

It's time to build an inclusive and diverse organization

Our world is fundamentally changing. Technological, societal and environmental shifts are reshaping how companies engage with people, customers and communities. To survive in the face of increasing disruption, your organization needs talent that matches the complexity of the world it operates in. To thrive, you need diversity, equity and inclusion to unlock the power and potential of all that talent. 

We work with organizations to drive real change, building DE&I organizations by design, not default. We transform the behavior and mindset of teams, individuals and leaders. We then support them with fair and equitable structures and processes, because the hard truth is that behavioral inclusion without structural inclusion will not change the status quo.

Our purpose is to help everyone, from any and all backgrounds, achieve their full potential, to help organizations thrive, improve wider society and bring people closer together.

How we help you

We bring together 40 years of experience, deep DE&I expertise and global benchmarks to help you make decisions based on data and analytics, not just opinion. We develop inclusive behaviors in leaders and individuals. And we transform the system itself, reshaping talent processes to ensure they are fair and equitable.

We build a plan of action based on where you are now

If your organization isn’t as diverse and inclusive as you’d like it to be, the first thing we do is to find out why. Before jumping to solutions, we help you step back by:

  • Reviewing your current DE&I programs and efforts
  • Listening to the views of your employees with Korn Ferry DE&I Compass
  • Understanding what is making people leave
  • Identifying where employees’ advancement is inhibited in your organization
  • Reviewing your talent practices to identify where potential biases might be built-in
  • Uncovering inequities in pay, talent acquisition, talent review, development, special assignment opportunities, promotions, succession and retention.
We then compare your organization against our DE&I maturity benchmarks which measure how effectively your efforts are driving business outcomes. From here we build a roadmap of where you need to go and how you can get there.

We assess and develop inclusive leaders

Becoming a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace starts at the top. From the CEO down to front line managers, we empower your leaders to be inclusive and accountable. We do that by designing and delivering inclusion learning journeys grounded in Korn Ferry’s extensively researched profile of The Inclusive™ Leader.

Custom development journeys for senior leaders

These programs foster inclusive leadership behaviors in boards, C-suite teams and senior leaders. They include:

  • Assessment of inclusive leader traits and competencies against The Inclusive™ Leader Profile along with feedback and development recommendations
  • Development programs customized to assessment results
  • One-on-one executive coaching

Scalable development journeys for all managers

Our new online self-directed development program is suitable for all leaders and can be scaled easily across your organization. It includes:

  • An online assessment aligned to the 5 disciplines of an inclusive leader
  • A customized, self-directed learning journey, including over 40 webinars, micro-lessons and e-learnings, aligned to the leader’s assessment results
  • Optional one-on-one coaching
  • A virtual AI host that guides the learning journey

Find out more about inclusive leadership.

We help everyone develop inclusive behaviors

Inclusion is everyone’s responsibility. That’s why we design and deliver inclusion learning journeys for everyone, from your newest employees to your most senior leaders. We:

  • Start the difficult conversations with our Real Talk programs
  • Help people understand their unconscious bias and how to act inclusively through our Conscious Inclusion programs
  • Design and deliver proven career advancement programs that have a powerful impact on under-represented groups. We call them The Power of Choice
  • Give recruiters the skills they need to recruit inclusively through our Inclusive Recruiting programs
  • Train managers and executives to lead inclusively and unleash the collective genius of their entire team

You can view our full suite of DE&I Accelerator Programs here.

We build fair and equitable talent management processes

You want to bring in, keep and promote the best talent, but talent systems are often riddled with biases, whether we’re aware of them or not. We help you take a fresh look at your organization's structure and talent management processes to spot and interrupt systemic biases that are holding people back. We do that by:

  • Applying inclusive design principles to help you look at your organization from the point of view of underrepresented talent
  • Ensuring you pay everyone fairly
  • Helping you find the widest mix of people for your teams and assessing them objectively
  • Implementing inclusive DE&I recruitment processes, from sourcing diverse candidates to objective assessment and effective onboarding
  • Designing inclusive jobs and career paths
  • Developing and promoting your best people fairly
  • Implementing inclusive succession and high potential identification practices
  • Helping you bring in diverse new talent and activating the potential of the great people you already have

We build inclusive organizations that last

Building a DE&I organization doesn’t happen overnight. It takes work. To bring lasting change we help you:

  • Make the most vital changes first and fast
  • Determine how you should organize your efforts to be most effective
  • Establish clear metrics and indicators of progress
  • Use technology to build DE&I into everything you do

Let us be part of your success story

Find out how we can help you build a diverse, equitable and inclusive organization.

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Our Business Transformation capabilities

To transform your business, a simple fix to a policy or process rarely cuts it. Instead, we look at the people, mindsets, skills, structure and culture you have now. Then we look at where all those things need to be, and make a plan to help you get there.

We call this closing the Potential Gap. And we bring everything we know about organization strategy, talent acquisition, rewards, assessment and development together to help you: 

Frequently asked questions for DE&I

What is DE&I?

Diversity is the 'mix'.
It encompasses the full range of human differences and similarities. Both identity-based and cognitive.

Inclusion is making the 'mix' work.
It unlocks the power of diversity.

  • Behavioral inclusion: inclusive mindsets, skillsets, and relationships.
  • Structural inclusion: equitable and transparent structures, practices, policies, and algorithms.

Equality is the promise.
It is equal access to opportunity, advancement, support and reward for all.

Equity is the fulfilment of the promise.
It is the removal of behavioral and structural barriers in fulfilling the promise.

Why is DE&I so important?

DE&I is important because organizations are facing increasingly complex challenges. Challenges like how to embrace technology in an ethical way, how to transform and innovate at speed, and how to meet customer, employee and investor demands to become more sustainable.

Diversity, equity and inclusion unlocks the power of all your talent, enabling them to work together to solve these complex issues. Research proves time and again that diverse and inclusive teams are more innovative, make better decisions and outperform their peers.

Why do many companies fail at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts?

Companies tend to fail at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for three main reasons:

  • They act on assumptions
    DE&I is an emotional issue but it’s critical to make DE&I decisions based on data and facts. If you build your programs based purely on assumptions, you end up addressing the symptoms of the issues rather than the root cause. The resulting efforts are not only likely to miss the mark, they may also weaken your case for DE&I activity in the longer term.
  • They take a programmatic approach
    DE&I needs to be approached as a joined-up strategic imperative. When organizations tackle it as a series of discrete DE&I initiatives or programs, we have seen time and again that it simply doesn’t stick. It is only when DE&I is sewn into the fabric of the business that it becomes a true lever for competitive advantage. 
  • They focus exclusively on behavioral change
    Behavior change is an important part of building diversity, equity and inclusion. But without addressing the structural biases within the organization’s underlying policies, processes and practices, changes in behavior will have only limited effect. That’s why companies that focus exclusively on unconscious bias training, or on programs that help underrepresented talent navigate the organization more effectively, rarely meet with success.

To design and build a truly inclusive organization, companies need to develop DE&I strategies that are grounded in talent and business priorities, based on data and analytics and are implemented by inclusive and accountable leaders.

What is the business impact of improving DE&I?

The business impact of improving diversity, equity and inclusion is better performance of teams, individuals and organizations. DE&I organizations are:

  • 70% more likely to capture new markets
  • 36% more likely to outperform on profitability
  • 75% more likely to see ideas become productized and report 19% higher innovation revenue
  • 87% more likely to make better business decisions and see a noticeably positive impact of DE&I on their business performance

Related insights

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