The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Dr. Victoria Mattingly. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah Wilkins
Hello, and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb, where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization, from hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive cultures that engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins. Today, I’m speaking with Dr. Victoria Mattingly, CEO and co -owner of Mattingly Solutions. Mattingly Solutions is a woman -owned DEI consulting firm, and today we are going to discuss the importance of DEI measurement. Welcome, Victoria.
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Thanks so much for having me.
Sarah Wilkins
Great, well, let’s dive into some questions. You know, will you start first by sharing more about you and your team’s work on DEI?
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Absolutely, so my background is in organizational psychology, meaning the science of human behavior in the workplace. And I started doing DEI work back in 2016 when I was working for a leadership development firm, and we were building out the women leadership practice. And I noticed all the content was, of course, really focused on women, what women should do, you know, skills and tools women can use. But if you look at the most organizational hierarchies, the higher you go up, the less and less women there are. And so until we get men actively involved in gender equity work, we’re kind of dead in the water. And so that really sparked my interest in inclusive behaviors, allyship behaviors. And as an organizational psychologist, how can we better quantify these concepts so organizations can actually measure progress, you know, collect a baseline, you know, see how they’re improving or not year over year. And so that’s really what my company, Mattingly Solutions, is all about. So how can we bring more scientific rigor into the DEI space, especially when it comes around the measurement piece? And so how we serve clients, we do a lot of strategy consulting, working closely with DEI leaders to help them build a data -driven DEI strategy and build those, you know, KPIs and measurable goals around that. We also have a number of measurement tools that we use. So organizations that maybe don’t have a DEI survey or don’t know where to begin, they partner with us to collect those data. And then we also do a little bit of training around the inclusive behaviors and allyship piece.
Sarah Wilkins
Great, thanks so much for sharing. So I wanted to dig in a little bit more to the, you know, how to decide what to measure. So we all know the importance, or I hope we all know the importance of DEI to an organization and having that as part of your overall business strategy, but how does an organization decide what to, what and how to measure?
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Yeah, absolutely. So something that we talk a lot about is really distinguishing between the various terms. So there’s diversity data, there’s equity data, and there’s inclusion data. And so a lot of organizations tend to start with that diversity data, which are demographics. In the US, the three big areas that most organizations collect data on are ethnicity, gender, and age. And then we’re also seeing a lot more of sexual orientation. So those who identify as being in the LGBTQ plus community. Now, global DEI is a whole other beast of its own because every country has its own laws and regulations around what data can be collected. Companies that have a more global presence, they tend to start with that gender data because that’s the most easy to collect. But that’s just a starting point is the diversity data. Inclusion data and how we define it mattingly are inclusion or the behaviors that result in others feeling valued, respected, seen, and heard. And so you need to collect how people are being treated, how often are they engaging in certain inclusive behaviors and always collecting it from the other perspective. I always say, I don’t care if I think I’m the most inclusive leader ever. What matters is that my team sees me enacting inclusive behaviors and that data, that our target of measurement really comes from others. And then also feelings of belongingness. And so like that is important to measure for oneself. So do you feel like you belong in an organization? Are you valued? Is your voice heard? Are you respected? And that way you can look more at that big picture at the behavioral and cultural and feeling level. And then equity data is really taking that diversity data and overlaying it on important people outcomes. So who’s being recruited, who’s being hired, who’s being promoted, who’s leveraging certain benefits over others. And most importantly, who’s being left behind. And so you’re able to identify those gaps in inequities based on the policies, practices, and procedures that your organization has. And so that’s our core recommendation and where to get started. I think always starting with the diversity data piece and especially a lot of organizations collect engagement survey data. And so you can turn that engagement survey data into DEI data by collecting those demographics and seeing what are some subgroup differences between engagement scores or various items on the scale. So I think that’s a really great place to start, but certainly not the place to end.
Sarah Wilkins
So a lot of that personal, how I feel may come from the surveys, right? Whether that’s an engagement survey or a specific survey that you put out. How do you make sure someone feels safe in completing that, right? And being kind of true with their responses, not facing backlash if they answer truly.
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Yeah, it’s all about building trust with that population. So I saw some interesting data just yesterday from a local healthcare provider, very large organization here in Pittsburgh. And when they started doing their engagement surveys, they had about a 40 % participation rate. And over the last six years, they’ve increased that to 90%, which is wild. And how they did that was having a really strong communications effort around why it’s important to take the survey. And most critically, what’s being done with those data and how they’re being turned into actionable next steps that the organization will commit to and implement over the next span of time that they put that goal in. And so building that trust with the population is critical because for them to take the time to, A, share that personal information, and B, just to complete the survey in and of itself, they need to believe that those data are gonna go somewhere, the right people are going to interpret them, and then most importantly, do something about it. We’re at a unique advantage as an external consulting firm because we can assure the workforce that their data is going to come to us, that we’re going to scrub it from any identifiable variables, and we don’t report out on anything of a population less than three. And so when we get less than three, you can say, well, this is the only woman of Indian descent in this certain function, so we don’t wanna unintentionally identify people. And then having, as I mentioned, a strong communications plan, so we do a kickoff and where the CEO or the CHRO introduces our firm to the organization, usually in video form, so they can see us, get to know us, we’re the people behind the data, and then having a really strong post -survey communication process where we start with the executive team, work down through the people leaders, the DEI, the HR team, and then of course share with the broader organization, this is what we learned, and this is what’s gonna be done about it. So those are some ways to really build that trust with an organization, and not being discouraged if you have an initial low response rate, especially with DEI data, there are insights to gain from lack of responses as well. Why do people at this organization not feel safe sharing their gender, sharing their ethnicity, and what type of communication or education efforts can we go around to let them know these data are super important? Because if we don’t know who’s in our workforce, we can’t figure out how to best serve all the various groups that are here.
Sarah Wilkins
We talk a lot of engagement surveys and the importance of doing them, not just doing them, but acting on them and showing what’s important. So yeah, I like that you pointed that out, that don’t just ask for the data, but have an action plan and communicate with your team kind of following what you’re gonna do with it, especially if there’s opportunities for improvement, which there typically always are. Kind of on the data front still, and kind of speaking about trust, sometimes maybe data isn’t shared super transparently, diversity metrics. So how do you recommend leaders track, share, and update their team or external parties on their DEI data and goals?
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
I think there’s a lot of courage and accountability that comes from transparency that I implore leaders to adopt. It is best practice to share those diversity metrics, both internally and externally, and even just gender and race and ethnicity are really great places to start here in the States, and showing the year over year difference, right? And that way we’re able to hold ourselves accountable for making those changes, or recognizing we’re still flat, here’s what we’re gonna do about it moving forward. And so getting on a fireside chat or a all hands company call, you’re able to see pretty quickly what diversity looks like at an organization. And so these are not secret data and putting true numbers and values and commitments to how to change those numbers is a really great way for a senior leader team, an organization to demonstrate that they’re committed to these efforts. Data comes out again and again, that millennials want DEI, Gen Z is basically demanding it. And so by posting publicly, where people are, where organizations are at with their diversity metrics and how they’re improving year over year can really signal to others outside the organization that this is a place that this company cares about the values that they’re about. Also, just being really intentional with what data is being shared, by no means you need to share all the nitty gritty of findings and reports and whatnot with the whole workforce, but sharing some key insights and findings, even just as broad as X percent participated in this survey or we held X number of focus groups to learn more about whatever the DEI issues were going on and then sharing out what was learned at a high level and most importantly, what’s gonna be done about that. And so I think transparency really is the key in being thoughtful about what is being shared and how it’s being actioned.
Sarah Wilkins
It made me think of an organization may have goals related to DEI and I think a lot of organizations think in terms of like, well, hiring allows me to kind of meet my goals, right? And in this current environment, at least in the tech space, there’s maybe not a lot of hiring going on, a lot of hiring freezes, but how can an organization kind of get past that? There are other ways in which you can kind of meet or work towards DEI goals, even when you’re not in a hiring stage.
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Yeah, I think it goes back to what I mentioned earlier about equity data, right? So overlaying the demographic data with all the different talent management processes that occur in an organization. And so hiring and recruitment, that’s just one piece, that’s at the very beginning. How are you training employees? How are you promoting employees? How are you developing your employees? How are you looking at succession planning and building in DEI into all those components? So really paying attention to what are those demographic group differences? How can we start closing gaps from a policy practice and procedure standpoint? Also, how are we embedding inclusive behaviors into these various processes? So for example, having DEI training really around what are the specific behaviors that people can do to make others feel valued, respected, seen, and heard, especially those from underrepresented or historically disadvantaged groups. And then how do we hold people accountable for those behaviors? And so thinking about performance evaluation, performance management, building in inclusive behaviors into these competency models, into the behaviors that people will be rated on and uses basis for promotions, basis for compensation. And so thinking about how can we look across the entire talent cycle and even exit interviews, right? There’s a lot of rich data that can come from exit interview around DEI and where there are reasons related to DEI that you’re leaving the organization, especially those from those underrepresented groups. So there’s lots of different ways to really integrate DEI into the whole employee life cycle above and beyond just the hiring piece. And you need all three pieces. You need the diversity, but you also need the inclusion and you need the equity. And so there’s plenty of work that can be done on processes, systems, to help increase that equity aspect and also a lot of work that can be done with the behavioral piece to make sure that everyone feels valued, respected, seen, and heard.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you for sharing those. What are some of the common pitfalls that you see organizations make with regards to DEI measurement and how can they avoid them?
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Yeah, one is unnecessary fear around collecting these data. I know I’m not a lawyer, so this isn’t legal advice. Always check with your counsel, but collecting demographic data is not against the law. I do know that. And as long as you show that there’s effort being done to help correct any of those inequities between groups, so we’re not heading to a place of discrimination, that’s what needs to be done. And so any DEI measurement effort should always end with those actionable next steps anyway. And so just getting over that fear of collecting this data is gonna get us into legal issues because you’re actually more likely to get into legal issues if you’re not collecting the data and not doing what needs to be done to close those gaps. Another common pitfall is collecting too much data right off the bat and then not being able to make sense of it. You’re in a state of analysis paralysis. And so being really intentional that the data you’re collecting aligns with what you’re doing with DEI, what that broader vision is, what those specific goals are. So you’re collecting data to help understand and advance those goals in a really strategic way. Also not getting help. So DEI leaders have so many responsibilities, so much to do on their plate that becoming a measurement expert should not be part of their job requirement. And so if you’re in a larger organization, chances are you have HR analytics, people analytics, people in your company that you could partner with, share some needs and they can share their expertise or hiring an outside consulting firm to help do some of those metrics, do some of those analyses or that data collection. And then you can focus on what matters most are those insights and actual next steps from the data.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, great. I have seen that first fear you mentioned of just even collecting it and like, how do I collect it? And can I collect it? And what’s appropriate or not? Do you have any resources just from a high level, like what, I mean, you shared a couple of things just to at the baseline collect from a diversity data standpoint, but any kind of resources that would point to the right way to ask for these things or the right, maybe just first set of diversity data to capture? Because I know that’s even been a fear of like, am I asking the question correctly? That kind of thing.
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Yeah, absolutely. So we have our book, Inclusalytics, how DEI leaders use data to drive their work. And in there, we have a variety of examples of common demographics that are collected, where to get started. And I know I focused a lot on kind of the surveying and that quantitative piece, but qualitative data. So verbal data, whether it’s focus groups, interviews, open -ended comments on surveys, that’s a really important piece of the DEI data collection puzzle as well, and being able to collect both. So you have your quant data, which is what’s going on, but the qualitative data tells you why it’s happening and really getting that voice of the employee. And so I do encourage listeners out there, check out our book. We’ve had a lot of really positive feedback from DEI leaders using this as their go -to resource for starting to build their DEI measurement strategy.
Sarah Wilkins
Great, thank you for sharing that. So we’re already coming to the end. What final, you know, parting thoughts would you like to leave with our listeners regarding DEI measurement and just what to do today or, you know, in the next few months?
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Yeah, so if there’s one piece of information I’d love to get out there and shout from the rooftops is that inclusion is behavioral. Inclusion is what we do. And you can observe behaviors, you can train behaviors, you can measure behaviors, and you can hold people accountable for behaviors. All this talk about building an inclusive culture and having the term inclusion in people’s titles, it just floors me how there’s such a lack of definition and clarity and operationalization of this term. And so if we really isolate inclusion as a behavior, we can then start changing those behaviors, which will then result in a more inclusive culture and more inclusive workplace. Also going back to what you shared previously, if you’re not in a place to hire, you’re not a place to increase that diversity from a hiring standpoint, you can always be working more on creating a culture where everyone feels valued, respected, seen, and heard. And so by really focusing on those inclusive behaviors, you can create an environment that whenever it is time to hire and bring in those from potentially underrepresented or historically disadvantaged groups, it’s a place where they can thrive and feel like they can really bring their best selves to work every day.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, great. Thank you. That’s such a great way to end. I really appreciate you spending the time sharing this with us today. And I know others will as well. So thank you.
Dr. Victoria Mattingly
Thanks for having me.
Sarah Wilkins
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