Empowering Inclusion: The Pivotal Role of a Chief Diversity Officer

Organizations that embrace diversity perform better. A Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) serves as a business executive who oversees the inclusion strategies for organizations. It’s a leadership role ensuring the organization has a welcoming work environment across all business units. 

In today’s global work environment, a CDO plays a prominent role in maintaining an engaging and inclusive workforce with people from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and demographics. More than 50% of Fortune 500 companies have a designated Chief Diversity Officer for employee welfare that, in effect, contributes to organizational efficiency.

What Does a CDO Do?

CDOs collaborate with managers and employees across all departments to foster a culture of inclusivity through the depth and breadth of the organization. Since the work portfolio of the CDO is to ensure a collaborative work environment, they perform the following duties.

• Oversee recruitment of diverse employees across company locations
• Address employee concerns related to discrimination and breach of diversity
• Increases organizational cohesiveness through the hosting of multicultural events
• Promotes the idea of acceptance of inclusiveness as part of the organization’s culture
• Design training modules to educate employees on how to respect and maintain a code of conduct when working with people from different demographics and geographies
• Maintains the corporate image of unity through diversity
• Maintains data and records demographics and keeps senior management up-to-date on the information that’s collected

What are the qualifications to become a CDO?

As a technical requirement, a Chief Diversity Officer’s role requires either a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in Human Resources. Most importantly, organizations look for CDOs with extensive people management abilities, ideally with a decade or more relevant experience. Some of the qualities a good CDO brings to bear are:

• Leadership: In an executive-level leadership role, a CDO is a leader for functional and cross-functional teams from every department in the organization. They do not oversee every position but are the guiding force and the standing authority for including diverse groups.
• Empathy: The most essential quality of a good leader is empathy. For a CDO, it is the primal guiding force to ensure a work climate to accept, adapt, and adjust to every individual in the organization. A CDO knows that irrespective of an employee’s background, they are an integral piece of the organizational puzzle. They do not doubt that people from various cultures can work together with equality and equanimity.
• Legal Knowledge: Smaller organizations do not require a Chief Diversity Officer, as the Human Resources Officers handle diversity-related roles. In contrast, larger organizations need CDOs due to legalities, primarily when people from diverse backgrounds work together. Religious diversity, ethnic diversity, and demographic diversity have recently become sensitive areas of concern that require effective handling. 
• Communication: CDOs require strong public speaking abilities. A CDO communicates through various channels such as training, speeches, circulars, and presentations, where they directly interact with people in the organization. Effective communication with a pleasant demeanor is essential when building a culture of inclusivity.
• Conflict Management: Conflict management is an important quality for any CDO. People-related challenges are usually sensitive topics and require a person whom employees can look to for fair solutions. This can become a severe concern in an organization with employees from diverse backgrounds.

Other CDO tasks include data analysis, budgeting, designing training modules, and driving the organization’s culture through various stakeholders. These tasks can be delegated and leveraged through their teams. But in totality, the above five qualities sum up the core values and requirements of being a vital Chief Diversity Officer.

To whom does the Chief Diversity Officer report?

Not all organizations have the same reporting structure. A CDO should be able to report directly to the CEO or the head of HR. If they report to the head of HR, there should be dotted-line access to the CEO based on the issue’s sensitivity. 

For the CDO to substantially impact the organization, they must have support from top management. The CDO is primarily considered a part of human resources, but the executive position holds an independent role of authority.

A CDO works closely with the heads of the human resources department, legal and corporate communications. Since they perform a crucial role in the organization, they are seated alongside the top management executives in discussions and decision-making.

Is a Chief Diversity Officer C-Suite?

The Chief Diversity Officer’s role has gained prominence recently and is now considered a C-Suite position. With the heightened activity of workplace discrimination, no global organization would want to risk tarnishing its image or getting involved in legal battles. The role of CDO has gained such prominence that organizations lean on modern executive search software to find executives who can effectively perform these roles.

4 Reasons your organization may need a CDO

1. CDOs can analyze the recruitment and interviewing process to ensure that candidates are solely selected based on talent and in an unbiased way. Additionally, they will analyze data to gain insight into how hiring managers conduct talent acquisition and on what parameters to set the right precedent for the organization’s culture of inclusion.
2. CDOs maintain legal requirements to avoid future challenges. Amidst the discussion of workplace discrimination, a CDO is better equipped to support the company’s reputation of equity and fairness.
3. CDOs educate management on workplace diversity and advise on effectively maintaining and managing the complex task of implementing internal change. They create awareness for company diversity-related issues that may have gone overlooked.  
4. In a company’s regional or global expansion phase, a CDO will oversee the inclusion process effectively, which may only be possible for the human resources sector with help.

Conclusion

In today’s global work environment, the CDO plays a prominent role in maintaining an engaging and inclusive workforce that fosters people from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and demographics. Over 50% of Fortune 500 companies have designated Chief Diversity Officers for employee welfare, contributing to organizational efficiency and inclusion.

Any organization serious about supporting diversity and inclusion can use a modern executive search platform that removes conscious and unconscious bias from the hiring process.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also enjoy our blog post focused on eliminating bias during the hiring process.