Encountering challenges along the way does not mean that we just stop as leaders of change; we sometimes need to pause, take a temperature check, and adjust to maintain progress.

• Solicit anonymous feedback from hiring committee members throughout the recruitment and hiring process.

• Consider conducting facilitated listening sessions that allow employees to share their suggestions on how to improve current hiring and retention processes.

• In addition to sharing resources that help hiring committee members navigate the process, offer collaboration opportunities for internal units to share their challenges and best practices.

After you have identified known roadblocks or challenges in your hiring processes, work with HR to create a plan to address them. Challenge areas could include the following:

• Screening processes might unintentionally screen out diverse candidates.

• Systems might not allow candidates to add their pronouns or preferred names.

• All managers might not be committed to DEI or equipped to support it.

• Communication about the commitment to DEI might be missing or insufficient to demonstrate its importance to institutional leaders.

Help is available to assist with the hiring process and with onboarding and retention questions.

• The immediate manager is the first line of defense to ensure success, followed by next-level supervisor(s).

• New-employee peer group resources provide additional avenues of support.

• Employee assistance programs (EAPs), ombuds services, and other campus offices offer specific kinds of expertise.

• HR teams should be consulted, as should the DEI office, if your institution has one.

• Make sure “success” is clearly defined, documented, agreed, and aligned with organizational goals and objectives. Metrics can then be crafted according to that definition.

• Determine which metrics demonstrate success, and learn about various assessment tools and strategies.

• Work with HR to collect and understand organizational demographic data.

• Ensure that information from exit interviews is shared with appropriate personnel to understand why employees from certain groups are leaving and to guide future tactics to retain them.

• Establish shared hiring and retention goals; outline a plan to work with DEI offices and HR.

• Determine the best frequency for IT to report on DEI data.

An important part of maintaining progress in DEI hiring and retention is celebrating wins—big and small—along the way.

• Internal – How do we highlight individual success stories on our campuses?

• External – How do we highlight unique, scalable, successful initiative IT in general?

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Organizational Assessment Tools: A Resource Guide, Brandeis University