A revitalized vision for diversity

The New Shape of Work interview series addresses the challenges and uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus with a focus on how to transition to a more agile workforce for the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic, racial and social unrest, and a growing environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda have all accelerated the need for a more diverse, equitable and inclusive world. Consumers and employees alike are demanding that businesses and governments take a real stand on social justice. This shift gives organizations a unique opportunity to drive positive societal change as part of their own responsibility and sustainability agendas. It's not just the right thing to do – as research has shown, driving a holistic approach to diversity, equity and inclusion can lead to greater innovation and greater productivity.

Our conversation brings two experts from the World Economic Forum, Till Leopold and Gitanjali Chaturvedi, to discuss how companies can make progress on this agenda.

Interesting moments from the interview:

With regard to gender parity specifically what we have seen through the Forum’s research…that the COVID-19 pandemic has really set gender parity back by one generation…more than 30 years that women will need to wait longer on current trends until something like full agenda parity might be achieved in our economy and society.
It's important to actually fine tune our approach. It's important to actually accelerate and focus our efforts in countries and in areas where we feel the big wins. And really target customized approaches, depending on the geographies and the community is that we want to impact.
Any effective diversity, equity and inclusion strategy needs to really not be a siloed thing…where we're trying in one corner of the company here to solve these issues. That we really see that this is embedded into the business in a very deep and meaningful way and actively supported from the top by the entire C-suite up to the CEO level.