Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Strategic Development
Introduction
A large county hospital desired to be both intentional and thoughtful about its Diversity & Inclusion efforts. The Board and senior leadership supported a D & I assessment to learn about the organization from the perspectives of employees, patients, suppliers, community partners, and community leaders. The Exeter Group was selected to lead this work at this critical juncture for the organization.
Conducted a comprehensive assessment of workforce, patients, and communities served
Developed a strategy that operationalized D & I for each executive
Hosted Diversity Summit for 350 internal/external stakeholders to solicit input and share results
The Client
- Public county health network
- 6,000+ employees
- 40+ locations including a
- 500+ bed hospital, outpatient care center, and psychiatric services facility
- 1 million+ patient encounters per year
The Challenge
Though the client had some diversity programming, the activities had no metrics or outcomes attached to them.
Although the Board and c- suite team were unsure about the comfort of the organization to discuss really ‘tough’ but relevant D & I issues, they were supportive.
Exeter’s challenge was creating an assessment process that addressed this concern.
The Solution
Exeter designed a comprehensive D & I assessment that was as inclusive as possible. For example, we interviewed board members, majority and minority suppliers, and county officials. We also conducted focus groups with patients in Spanish and Vietnamese, in addition to homeless patients and employees who worked with patient inmates (inside the jail). Additionally, we analyzed raw data for employee and patient outcomes by subgroup.
The Result
Casting the assessment net far and wide resulted in a methodology that was inclusive of the employee, patient, and community population. As a result,, the process was respected and valued, in turn making the meaningful findings respected and valued. Before completing the strategy report and action plan, Exeter assisted the organization in hosting a Diversity Summit to honor the assessment participants and share the results. We designed activities for them to reflect on the information and provide input on what to focus on over the next five years.
The final D & I Strategy reflected these many voices from inside and outside the organization. The insights gleaned, along with quantitative analysis, yielded a product that spoke to the core of diversity and inclusion.
