Pay, leadership equity, retention, and burnout are equally dire for racial and ethnic minorities within AEC. Those existing at the confluence of being both female and a person of color face the greatest challenges. As clients begin to invest more effort into their own DEI and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) efforts, their procurement values shift. This shift demands transparency and improvement for both their operations and ours as service providers. Beyond competition for clients, stronger DEI investment provides internal benefit. There is no shortage of research proving that more diversity makes organizations more profitable. Currently, diverse companies, particularly those with diverse leadership, enjoy 48% higher performance, 4 66% better decision-making time, 5 and 19% higher innovation revenues with 9% higher EBIT margins than average. 6 Research from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company shows that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. 7 This data is nothing new. Just about any firm leader you ask would tell you that they know we as an industry need to change, and that DEI is a good investment. However, with the average budget set aside needed for a new DEI program estimated to be between $25,000-$450,000, many firms simply don’t have the resources to execute effectively on the ambitious DEI programs needed to make a dent in their own culture, recruiting, training, and retention, let alone the industry at large. The more we as a work group discussed the industry, its problems, and the challenges we faced as women, the more we came back to the same issue in our research and conversations on the topic: DEI programs at small and medium-sized firms are beginning as grassroots efforts with one or two passionate people, often overburdened women and people of color, taking on voluntary and under-supported tasks as mentors, program leaders, and educators, all while still working a full-time AEC role.
While the idea of a small, grassroots effort succeeding in changing the company culture by winning over hearts and minds in time is more heartwarming, we as business leaders know that initiatives without investment, policy reinforcement, strategic incentives, and high-level backing are often destined to fail. The unfortunate reality is that most of these efforts will die on the vine – at best having accomplished modest awareness with little or no sustained change, and at worst having created more disillusion or doubt in the efficacy of DEI. Failed programs and abandoned attempts are net negatives. They create cynicism in the value and validity of DEI initiatives and become anecdotal evidence of “we tried that here and it didn’t work.” When we looked again at that average price tag of $25,000-$450,000 just to start a DEI program and thought about the bandwidth we saw in the industry, the burnout, and how it inequitably impacts women and people of color, we thought: “The first and biggest hurdle here is time and money.” When we envision a “dream DEI program” we think of the kind of hefty time/money and culture investments made by Fortune 500 companies and big technology firms – organizations dedicated to capturing the value of diverse staffing and leadership because they understand the long-term benefits it will bring to their bottom-line, and have the willingness to invest in it. Developing and recruiting diverse leadership is a long-view strategy. It does not happen overnight, but it pays dividends. 4. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-diversity-equity-and-inclusion 5. https://www.forbes.com./sites/eriklarson/2017/09/21/new-research-diversity-inclusion-better-decision-making-at-work 6. https://hbr.org/2018/01/how-and-where-diversity-drives-financial-performance 7. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters
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