Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

I just sat down to look through the new HR Magazine from SHRM and I got caught up on page 22.  The article "C-Suite Worries Over Succession Planning", caught my eye because of some of the research attached to it.  The article is based on a survey conducted by SHRM and Hay Group, which asked HR and non-HR executives what are your top human capital future challenges?  These were the responses:

1. Succession planning
2. Recruiting and selecting talented employees
3. Providing leaers with the skills they need
4. Engaging and retaining talented employees
5. Rising health care costs
6. Creating and maintainnig a performance based culture
7. Managing the people side of change
8. Managing a global workforce
9. Integrating people and systems during mergers and acquisitions
10. Building and sustaining a diverse workforce
11. Setting up and implementing HR systems across countries
12. Measuring the financial and non financial impact of human capital initiatives
13. Onboarding and integrating new employees

So…diversity shows up at #10 with 1% of HR executives and 1% of non-HR executives identifying it as a top challenge.  This is just further fuel for my argument that Diversity and HR must part ways and re-create their relationship, but more on that at another time.   For the sake of this post, I want to focus on what the above list tells us.  It tells us that executives (HR and non-HR) do not comprehend what we are talking about.  If they did, the list would look different because Diversity and Inclusion work play a key role in succession planning, recruiting, leadership development, engagement, retention, change, etc, etc, etc. If they did comprehend they would see that a real and comprehensive investement in diversity and inclusion would help move many of the issues on this list.

Sometimes as diversity practitioners, champions, advocates and leaders maybe we think too much about what is next (I know that is my tendency).  It it becoming increasingly clear to me that the average manager, the average executive, the average HR professional does not have a solid grasp on what diversity and inclusion are, what their value is or what is involved in tapping into the associated value.  Maybe what is next for us is a substantial effort to get back to the basics.