The thoughts of 1,122 CEOs on D&I

This week the UN’s Global Compact and Accenture published their annual CEO Study, which given the context of the pandemic, this year was focused on diversity and inclusion. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on some social groups, with many more job losses happening in women than men. Across many geographies and industries, this has reversed years of diversity and inclusion work, despite still being a topic that many CEOs have top of mind.

Here are some interesting data points found in the report:

• 92% of the companies surveyed have D&I initiatives.
• 86% of them have a non-discrimination policy.
• 81% of them have an equal opportunities policy.
• 82% say gender equality is part of their sustainability strategy.
• 85% of the companies with less than US$25m in revenues want to have a female representation higher than 30% at the C-Suite and Executive management levels. 28% have targets above 50%.
• 53% of female CEOs think the pandemic highlighted the need to transition to more sustainable business models; 36% of male CEOs think so too.
• 77% of North American CEOs say that their company has expanded resources and protection for LGBTIQ+ team members, compared to a 45% global average.
• …but only 38% of the companies surveyed have publicly disclosed D&I targets, only 42% of them have ensured the leadership team is accountable for D&I goals, and only 6% of them have executive remuneration linked to D&I KPIs.

We think this survey is quite interesting because it encompasses the views of 1,122 CEOs and 1,300 business practitioners globally (103 in Africa, 163 in Asia, 400 in Europe, 173 in Latin America, 65 in MENA, 77 in North America, 28 in Oceania, and 113 CEOs who did not indicate a region). This therefore allows an accurate understanding on how corporations think of key topics globally.

It is obvious that diversity and inclusion is in the minds of most CEOs as an important topic for discussion, and that in most cases policies have been put in place. However, without true ownership of performance indicators, progress will be slow. Ideally, we would like to see more companies publicly disclosing targets, and more CEOs’ compensations tied to this subject (if the company is suggesting the subject is strategically relevant to them).

In our practice we find it is quite common to see companies that are not convinced about disclosing KPIs, targets for those KPIs, or making board members and key management members responsible for ESG topics. But we also find that those companies who dare to do so, are more likely to succeed in their sustainability journey.

I hope you found this interesting. As usual, if there is anything we can help you with, or if there is an ESG topic you would like to know more about, please let us know.

Best,

Marimar

CEO, Miranda ESG