The majority of European organisations believe their exec teams understand the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion, according to a Workday survey.
A significant majority (84pc) of European companies are collecting employee data to help monitor equity, diversity and inclusion, or ED&I.
That’s according to research by US software company Workday, which surveyed 2,217 HR professionals and business leaders in 14 countries across Europe.
The resulting report, The State of ED&I in Europe, contains many positive findings and highlights the need for more progress.
The survey suggested that the majority of European organisations believe their executive teams understand the importance of ED&I and are investing to help to develop it.
Two-thirds of respondents said their organisation has a dedicated team or person in charge of ED&I. Three-quarters said they provide employees with some sort of training in ED&I.
Three out of four said their company has a dedicated ED&I budget, while one-third said they planned to increase their investment in ED&I.
However, a third of European organisations did not have an ED&I strategy in place for employees, and a third said leadership and commitment from the top is needed to make further progress.
The majority (62pc) felt their organisation is diverse in terms of gender. The survey found around half of companies in Europe are monitoring their workforce or job applicants by age and gender. Just 17pc of respondents said their companies were not monitoring for any diversity characteristics.
The survey also found that while employee data is being gathered, there are limits in terms of what is collected and how it is being used, which can vary from country to country.
Three-quarters of respondents said they trust the data their company collected, while 80pc said ED&I reports were readily available in their organisations. However, some of the people who said they trust the data also said they were not monitoring any aspects of diversity.
Almost two-thirds (64pc) said their organisation stores ED&I data in a core HR system against employee records.
Trust in data increased when technology was frequently used, the survey suggested. Of those who used technology ‘all the time’, 93pc said they trusted their data enough to take action based on it. A majority (58pc) said they needed new systems and software to cope with the challenge of recording ED&I data.
