Listening to Your Workforce: When Employee Feedback Shapes DEIB Strategy

January 23, 2025

Today’s organizations are moving beyond a check-the-box approach to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB).

Driving this change is the need for strategies that are truly responsive to the needs and experiences of their employees.

Essential to this shift is the growing emphasis on employee feedback as a key driver of DEIB initiatives.

In this post, we explore this employee-centric approach, featuring insights from HR and business leaders who have successfully leveraged employee input to shape their DEIB strategies.

We asked these leaders from the HR Spotlight community to provide specific examples of how feedback has led to tangible changes, demonstrating the transformative potential of listening to and acting upon the voices within their organizations.

Read on!

Jamie Graceffa
VP, Talent Development, Culture & Inclusion, Quanterix

While our employees appreciate our DEIB efforts, they’ve shared that they want more than just a gratuitous post—and I wholeheartedly agree.

So, how can we raise awareness in a meaningful way?

Storytelling is a powerful tool for connection.

You may not look, love, think, believe, or worship like the storyteller, but elements of their life story may still resonate with you.

We also believe that music and food have a unique way of uniting people—but it’s the stories behind a song or dish that can truly touch a heart or mind.

Perhaps a recipe from our “Recipes from the Heart” initiative reminds you of your grandmother or a similar tradition in your family. Highlighting the stories of “hidden figures” from the LGBTQ+ community may challenge a bias.

Whatever initiatives we pursue, the goal isn’t to change minds but to open them—just a little.

And with that open mind individuals may respond in a different, more open way.

Tara Furiani
CEO, Not the HR Lady

I was consulting with a large non-profit and our employee feedback completely reshaped how we approached DEIB.

During the cultural audit I was conducting, staff anonymously reported feeling excluded from leadership decision-making, especially around initiatives that directly impacted marginalized communities.

One particular piece of feedback stood out: “It’s hard to trust leadership’s DEIB commitment when decisions are made behind closed doors by people who don’t look like us.”

That was a wake-up call for the executive team.

I helped overhaul their process for program development by creating diverse, cross-functional task forces that included frontline staff.

We also launched a rotating “Chair for the Month” program, giving employees from underrepresented groups the chance to lead discussions in executive meetings and the executives did more than provide lip service… they showed up.

These employee-led initiatives directly impacted how resources were allocated, significantly increasing outreach to underserved populations and better serving the business itself.

More importantly, it built more trust between leadership and staff, which affects everything.

Rhonda Moret
Founder & CEO, Elevated Diversity

At Elevated, our inclusion-forward approach to DEIB consulting has consistently resonated with clients who recognize the value of making all team members feel valued and heard, regardless of their background, experience, life choices, or personal stories.

We do this by intentionally creating platforms and opportunities for all to have a voice in what DEIB looks like and really feels like within their organization.

One key initiative to accomplish this goal is the formation of a DEIB strategic planning committee. These committees are curated to ensure that the group consists of employees from all areas of the organization, all levels of seniority and responsibilities, and from varied backgrounds and experiences.

Their charge is to help ensure that the organizations’ DEIB strategic priorities are truly inclusive – and not developed within a boardroom where there is often a lack of diverse perspectives.

The group’s recommendations and proposed initiatives are then presented to the leadership team for review and consideration.

We also highly recommend the formation of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and Business Resource Groups (BRGs).

These employee-led committees have the ability to play a critical and thoughtful role in establishing an inclusive culture within the organization, not only by implementing new initiatives and programming but also by serving as a vital platform for surfacing diverse insights, perspectives, and innovative approaches to organizational challenges.

By implementing these employee-driven efforts, our clients transform employee feedback into meaningful, demonstrative organizational action that drives genuine cultural change.

It also ensures that diverse perspectives are incorporated from the outset, leading to more comprehensive, organic, and effective DEIB strategies.

Raven Rankine
Senior Director, Client Experience & DEIB Services, The Nebo Company

I firmly believe that taking stock and evaluating your current state is essential before crafting any strategy, particularly a DEIB strategy. This foundational step ensures the approach is grounded in reality and aligned with organizational needs.

As a best practice, we prioritize gathering feedback from employees to inform our strategy. This feedback is collected through various methods, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups, providing an understanding of employee perspectives.

One specific example of how employee input has directly shaped our DEIB strategy is the recognition of the need for a thorough assessment of our current state and the formation of an internal team to advance our DEIB priorities.

These became immediate priorities, leading us to conduct a comprehensive DEIB assessment and establish a formal DEIB Council. Collaborating closely with the Leadership Team, the Council plays a key role in driving our DEIB initiatives and achieving our organizational goals.

Gathering employee feedback is essential, providing the insights needed to craft a truly informed and impactful strategy.

Dre Thompson
Full Cycle Talent Acquisition Specialist, Innomotics

Employee feedback is absolutely crucial to the growth of any business.

I can give several examples of how this has shaped my DEIB strategy as a talent acquisition partner.

First, I think it’s important that any HR consultant keep inclusiveness at the forefront of any company initiatives. I love incorporating surveys, polls, and 1:1 feedback.

For example, for early career professionals looking into internships or leadership development programs, I make it my initiative to reach out to organizations like S.W.E. (Society of Women Engineers) or N.S.B.E. (National Society of Black Engineers) to ensure a diverse candidate pool.

Another example of a group I feel is often overlooked is military veterans.

I utilize unemployment offices that offer veterans programs like O.M.O. (Ohio Means Jobs) that exclusively assists in helping employers place veterans who served recently or in the past with employment opportunities.

Dr. Gregory P. Gasic
Co-Founder, VMeDx

An employee, let’s name her Sarah, reported that a manager was abusing their authority.

Upon investigation, we found that the manager was quick to deflect blame and became angry when confronted, leading to low team morale, higher turnover rates, and decreased client satisfaction during that period.

Sarah’s feedback was a wake-up call, showing us that leadership accountability needed to be a central part of our DEIB efforts.

Previously, we trusted our rigorous selection process to ensure managers aligned with our mission and vision, but we overlooked the possibility of leaders becoming complacent or straying from our values.

Since then, we’ve implemented regular employee surveys to gather feedback on leadership and ensure ongoing alignment with our DEIB goals.

This proactive approach has fostered a more inclusive and respectful workplace culture where leadership standards are consistently upheld.

Alari Aho
CEO and Founder, Toggl

A candid Slack poll revealed employees wanted holidays that respected all cultures.

We ditched rigid calendars and introduced “floating holidays” to celebrate personal traditions. Suddenly, everyone could honor what mattered most to them, from Diwali to Midsummer.

The result?

Happier teams and deeper respect for each other’s uniqueness. It also boosted engagement because people felt their cultural identities were respected.

This small change made our global workforce feel more connected and appreciated.

Abhishek Shah
Founder, Testlify

There was a moment that really changed how we lead.

We were discussing global trends when an employee pointed out that only 5.45% of CEOs are women.

That really made me think, and we took a closer look at our own leadership team, where we found a similar gender imbalance.

We decided to act.

We started mentorship programs for women, set clear goals for diversity, and changed our hiring practices to make leadership roles more inclusive.

We also noticed that many boards, ours included, relied heavily on experienced professionals and didn’t give enough room to younger leaders in the 25–35 age range.

So, we worked on creating a balanced team that combines experience with fresh, new ideas.

All of these changes came from listening to our team.

It wasn’t just about making small adjustments but about rethinking leadership to build a more inclusive and forward-thinking company.

Kaumudi Tiwari
Digital Marketing Lead, Zonka Feedback

Our organization implemented a number of modifications after staff members voiced their concerns regarding the underrepresentation in senior positions.

We started a mentorship program with the express goal of assisting underrepresented groups in navigating leadership and professional advancement possibilities.

Employee polls also revealed a lack of inclusion in the employment process. In order to lessen unconscious bias, we redesigned the hiring procedure by including blind resume reviews and broadening the panel of interviewers.

With a 30% increase in diverse leadership presence in just one year and higher employee satisfaction ratings, these adjustments—which were motivated by employee insights—helped us create a more welcoming workplace.

Steve Faulkner
Founder & Chief Recruiter, Spencer James Group

As a recruiting firm, it’s important for us to “practice what we preach” when it comes to things like DEIB, which helps to build trust with clients and candidates that we will live up to our promises in these areas.

Soliciting feedback from our team to help us refine our strategy has been a valuable tool in helping us to meet our DEIB goals.

To give an example, we have recently been able to address a gap in our representation thanks to the input of the team. Like many employers, our diversity and inclusion efforts have largely focused on professionals marginalized due to their gender, race, or sexual orientation.

In centering these demographic groups, however, we overlooked another critical aspect of inclusivity, which is ensuring our workplace is accessible for professionals who are disabled or neurodivergent.

This is a critical area to consider because inclusivity for these professionals goes beyond simply creating a welcoming environment.

There are additional barriers that need to be removed, and accommodations that need to be made, to make the workplace inclusive for those with limited mobility, chronic conditions, or other disabilities.

In this specific situation, the employee in question has an invisible disability (the details of which I don’t want to reveal for the sake of privacy) and we were not aware that they were experiencing issues with the workplace until they gave this feedback.

Once we were aware, we immediately adjusted our definition of “inclusion” to include these groups we’d overlooked, and revised our strategy to incorporate additional ways we could make our workplace more accessible for all professionals.

It was a valuable lesson in the importance of getting input from a variety of individuals and perspectives when you’re creating a DEIB policy.

If your goal is to be truly equitable and inclusive while building a diverse workforce, then listening to diverse voices will give you critical first-hand input that can help you to better shape policies to support this objective.

The HR Spotlight team thanks these industry leaders for offering their expertise and experience and sharing these insights.

Do you wish to contribute to the next HR Spotlight article? Or is there an insight or idea you’d like to share with readers across the globe?

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