Success isn’t always in the numbers.

It’s three years into the “racial awakening” in America. Does your organization look different?

It has been gratifying to work with clients ready to invest in hiring a more diverse pool of talent, so that they can benefit from the widest range of perspectives (and respond to stakeholder demands for racial justice).

But I’m hearing from some of them that they are concerned. Three years later the numbers aren’t there. They’ve been making efforts to expand their pipelines and make their interview process fairer. Yet they have not reached their target demographic make-up. They want to know—what went wrong? Has their recruitment strategy failed?

Well, possibly. But with DEI work, measurement is complicated. Staff demographics won’t tell the whole story.

The deeper question is, are you measuring other things besides who works with you? Specifically, are you measuring your organizational climate?

You can bring in diverse talent with one set of strategies. But if you don’t have an inclusive culture once they arrive, you risk watching them exit through a revolving door. No matter how excited you are to make an offer to a brilliant person of color you wouldn’t have connected with a few years ago, if you throw them into an unpleasant or unsafe atmosphere or don’t give them challenging work, critical feedback, or advancements, why would they stay? Talented people always have options. Some other organization will recognize their talent and let them soar. In addition to being demoralizing, turnover is expensive for an organization.

So don’t limit your focus to recruiting and hiring. Assess the systems you have in place.

• Ensure that new hires are onboarded appropriately.

• Connect new hires with a mentor or buddy so that they feel welcome from day one.

• Make sure that your processes for assignments, evaluation and promotion are equitable.

• Provide contemporaneous feedback that is developmental.

• Use an annual employee survey to track how people are experiencing the organization.

• Analyze the data by demographics to ascertain if any groups are feeling marginalized.

• Find ways to notice other indicators of inclusion, like who attends company events, and who volunteers to do the extra work of celebrations and other milestones.

Those are the numbers that tell you if your organization is a place where a diverse workforce might actually want to stay.

Racism changes. So do pronouns.

“Now this is something? They’re having third graders declare pronouns? We’re not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida.”

I heard Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on TV last week at an evangelical Christian school, defending the sweeping restrictions on freedom of speech and gender expression that he signed into state law last week.

That quip suggests that his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights is based on his unfamiliarity with them.

In fairness, until a few years ago, there was not a socially acceptable way to clarify when a person’s gender identity may not be visibly apparent. Now, there is.

But because it is new, it is wrong and bad, in Governor DeSantis’ view. The way things have been is the way things should always be.

We are in the midst of a major social shift in mainstream understanding of gender identity. Gender (as opposed to sex) is a social construct. And social norms change all the time. What is understood “feminine” or “masculine” or “androgynous” are cultural signals, and they evolve.

As I listened to DeSantis seem to claim the opposite—that social constructs must never change—I wondered if has reflected on how his own ethnic identity has evolved in the United States.

According to genealogical researcher Megan Smolenyak, Governor DeSantis’ great-great-grandmother Luigia Collucci fled Italy to immigrate to the United States in 1917.

Her timing was good. Just a few decades earlier, the social construct of race had been redefined to allow Italians most of the privileges of being “white.” But during the 19th century, when Italians began coming to North America in large numbers, they were often excluded from the white club: discriminated against, portrayed as low-lifes in popular culture, and even lynched en masse in New Orleans in 1890.

The governor would have to admit that when the U.S. adjusted its norms so that Italians could more fully participate in our society, it was a net gain for all of us, not just Italians. Surely he wouldn’t argue that the past definitions of race, which excluded his own family, should be restored.

But now DeSantis takes his inclusion for granted. And how quick he is to exclude other groups in the name of tradition. He’s almost gleeful when he attacks DEI programs, calling them “discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination,” which is as accurate a description of his own agenda as I can think of.

DEI is so not this. Even the fact that we keep adding letters (D, D&I, DEI, DEIB, DEIA, DEI/RJ…) shows that our goal is including more and more people! Pronouns are part of this movement.

DeSantis’ rhetoric appeals to people’s fear of change. But as his own heritage shows, sometimes the way things were is actually what we should be afraid of. Especially for marginalized people.

Change may be uncomfortable. But history shows that we can adapt—and create a world that welcomes everyone.

Socio-economics are a DEI issue

Socio-economic diversity often doesn’t get talked about in workplaces as part of DEI initiatives.

But it should.

There are ranges of wealth and income in every organization. Our access to resources affects our lives in so many ways, including culturally. The class we belong to informs our accent, our vocabulary, our taste, our preferences, and our behaviors.

And just as we work to notice and interrupt our assumptions about race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability, we have to address our class bias.

You may be at the same firm, but there was not an even playing field to get there. Around the table may be a first-generation college grad, someone who has been homeless, and someone whose family was able to pay for their education in full.

Many microaggressions related to socio-economics go unnoticed by bystanders. But if you have abundant resources, imagine that you were living paycheck to paycheck, and consider how these moments would land for you:

• A colleague says “Oh I’m so broke now,” after purchasing a fancy car.

• Someone shares a story about a recent vacation overseas and asks everyone to share their favorite destinations.

• Employees are expected to pay for their travel, lodging, and meals on a business trip out of their own pocket and then submit receipts for reimbursement.

Be sensitive to the ways anecdotes and rituals implicitly involve money. Ask yourself if a comment or an ice-breaker about favorite memories or activities would set up comparisons between people’s access to luxury. Even someone who is single and making a big salary may not be able to afford to eat at an expensive restaurant if they are supporting someone else or paying off debt.

Societal inequality has worsened in recent decades. I want to read Matthew Desmond’s book Poverty, By America to learn more about the ways people who have the least are often penalized with senseless fees, regressive tax systems, poorly funded schools, bureaucracies, and disrespect. So many systemic issues need to be tackled to restore class mobility.

Of course, your company alone can’t solve this. But you can make sure you aren’t replicating those injustices in your compensation and benefits practices. Look into your expense payment policy. Plenty of people don’t have extra cash on hand to effectively loan to the company and then wait patiently for it to be paid back, interest-free. Pay for expenses centrally if you can, with a booking system or designated corporate card users. If that’s not possible, make sure you reimburse employees promptly. These are simple yet important equitable solutions.

And start with looking at your own biases. Remember: the experiences of people who have had to struggle against the odds stacked against them are not a mark of shame. The obstacles each of us face shape our perspectives, and cultivate resilience and dedication that we bring to work every day.