A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that for employers who value diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, much work remains to be done.
Fifty-six percent of workers surveyed said they think that DEI programs in the workplace are a good thing, but relatively small proportions of respondents said they place much importance on diversity in their own workplaces.
For instance, 32% of respondents said that it is “extremely” or “very” important to them to work somewhere with a mix of employees of different races and ethnicities, 28% said the same about having a diversity of ages, and 26% said the same about having an equal mix of men and women at their workplaces.
DEI initiatives were more likely to be valued by women, younger workers, those with postgraduate degrees, Democrats or Democrat-leaning individuals, and members of minority races.
The Pew survey results were not broken down by industry, but the survey comes more than a year after Argentum, the American Seniors Housing Association and the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care announced the creation of the Senior Living DEIB Coalition (the B stands for belonging, which Pew did not include in its research) in a commitment to promote DEIB to businesses operating in senior living or allied to the industry. The group also is creating a long-term action plan that will support the development of tools, education and resources for senior living owners and operators to advance best practices around DEIB. (You can download an initial toolkit from the coalition to help advance your DEIB practices here.)
The survey results also come close to the timing of the release of the results of a survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in which 88% of responding nurses working in residential care facilities, nursing homes and home healthcare said they have experienced racism or discrimination from residents, patients or clients. And 62% of those nurses said they have experienced racism or discrimination from colleagues.
The good news regarding the Pew survey is, respondents tended to report noticing “somewhat” or “very” positive effects from implemented policies and resources associated with DEI in their workplaces. Policies related to fairness in hiring, pay rates and promotions were thought to have such a positive effect by 72% of respondents who work where such policies were in place. But affinity groups, salary transparency, having a staff member whose main function is to promote DEI, and DEI training sessions and meetings all have had positive effects, too, according to more than half of the respondents who have such measures where they work.
Data in the report, released in May, were drawn from self-administered web surveys taken Feb. 6 to 12 by members of Pew’s American Trends Panel who said they are paid for full- or part-time work. The panel is a representative body of randomly selected US adults; 5,902 panelists responded out of the 6,494 who were sampled.
The report has much more information that could be useful for senior living and other types of employers in their DEI efforts; you can read more here. If you value DEI, make sure you’re communicating its benefits with employees and other stakeholders.
Lois A. Bowers is the editor of McKnight’s Senior Living. Read her other columns here.
