DEI Needs Assessment
City of Knoxville
An assessment of diversity & inclusion efforts for the City of Knoxville.
About
Needs assessment is a complex process for any organization. This assessment involved looking at project scope as well as contextual and environmental factors, as well as conducting a thorough literature review, the analysis itself, and providing recommended interventions.
Challenge
Being in the public sector, there are multiple factors to take into consideration, both in terms of the organizational culture and best practices, as well as regulatory factors and public perception. Additionally, being funded by tax-payers means all such projects and expenditures must go before City Council for approval. Finally, budget constraints must be monitored and the project plan must remain within the allotted budget.
Action
I began by developing a company profile, looking at factors such as total employee population, local demographic breakdowns, industry-specific factors, and the organizational culture. As part of the project, I assessed the current diversity climate and the diversity present in leadership roles. In addition, I assessed turnover rates in comparison to the overall employee population and the local population.
My literature review and recommendations were based in several relevant theories -- namely equity theory, X and Y theory, and corporate social responsibility theory.
I determined that a mixed methods approach, incorporating interviews, survey data, and historical organizational data research, would yield the best information for our assessment. The final assessment was performed on both the employees and culture as well as the systems, technology, and processes.
Result
-
No adverse impact detected
-
Areas to monitor
-
Minority promotion rates
-
-
Recommendations
-
Secure executive support before asking departments to implement measures or adjust procedures; this demonstrates commitment to creating a more inclusive workplace as well as presenting a cohesive plan with built-in accountability.
-
Ensure more precise exit reasoning is entered into the HRIS.
-
Institute a digital version of the exit survey to be completed online and delivered via link in email to improve survey response rate.
-
Develop and deploy an electronic employee satisfaction survey via email, aimed at determining employee perceptions of existing diversity efforts, proposed diversity efforts, growth opportunities within the organization for minorities, and the current diversity climate.
-
Add diversity climate attitude scores as a key performance indicator, as this can help determine areas that require attention.
-
Implementing future analyses on a cyclical basis in order to monitor trends.
-