THE RESULTS ARE IN! The Culture Ministry's 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Salary and Market Survey
Listen in to hear the results from the 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Salary and Market survey.
During this episode you will learn:
👉 Key insights and learnings for organisations and Diversity & Inclusion professionals
👉 Which organisations are participating in Diversity & Inclusion work
👉 What's changed from 2022 and what's stayed the same
👉 Salary ranges for Diversity & Inclusion leaders for Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the UK
PLUS lots more. Download your free copy of the 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Salary and Market Survey Report here.
Want to know more? Book a discovery call with Lisa Mulligan here.
The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.
Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more
If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something please share with your friends on social media, give a 5 star rating on Apple podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity.
A Dog Called Diversity is proud to be featured on Feedspot's 20 Best Diversity And Inclusion Podcasts
Thanks for listening. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
THE RESULTS ARE IN! The Culture Ministry's 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Salary and Market Survey
Listen in to hear the results from the 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Salary and Market survey.
During this episode you will learn:
👉 Key insights and learnings for organisations and Diversity & Inclusion professionals
👉 Which organisations are participating in Diversity & Inclusion work
👉 What's changed from 2022 and what's stayed the same
👉 Salary ranges for Diversity & Inclusion leaders for Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the UK
PLUS lots more. Download your free copy of the 2023 Diversity & Inclusion Salary and Market Survey Report here.
Want to know more? Book a discovery call with Lisa Mulligan here.
The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.
Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.
Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more
If you enjoyed this episode and maybe learnt something please share with your friends on social media, give a 5 star rating on Apple podcasts and leave a comment. This makes it easier for others to find A Dog Called Diversity.
A Dog Called Diversity is proud to be featured on Feedspot's 20 Best Diversity And Inclusion Podcasts
Thanks for listening. Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Welcome to A Dog Called Diversity. I'm Lisa Mulligan, your host, and this week I've got a bit of a different episode. I'm not interviewing anyone this week. This week I am talking about the Culture Ministry's 2023 Diversity and Inclusion Salary and Market Survey, which I ran for the second year in 2023. And you know, to be honest, I'm pretty proud of the survey and the report. It's my way of giving back to the community of people who work in diversity and inclusion and who are trying to make a difference in our organizations and our communities. So I'm very happy to jump on today and talk a little bit more about the survey and the results for 2023.
Speaker 1:So let's start with a bit about. Well, I'll start with telling you a bit about the survey and then I'll talk about the different sections in the survey. So I will cover demographics, the kind of organizations that participate, some information about diversity and inclusion, roles and how they've evolved. I'll talk a little bit about salary, but I will put a link in the show notes. So if you would like to download the report and have a look at the salary information, you'll be able to do that. It's free. So I encourage you to do that and then we'll look at, I guess, some of the key insights from the survey, which is possibly my favorite part. I think there's a lot of really interesting things happening in the market and some things that have changed over the past year or two. So, yeah, so in 2023, I ran the second version of the survey and I'm really setting out to understand how people who work in diversity and inclusion are being paid and, at the same time, understanding the market and the conditions within organizations they are operating under. In addition to for the 2023 survey, I also surveyed across Europe for the first time, as well as the Asia Pacific region, so we're starting to get a bit more of a global view of this data. This year's survey, I surveyed the market in May and June and some of the key questions we asked were around roll, size and scope, budget availability for diversity and inclusion work, whether there's leadership support for diversity and inclusion work, what skills you need to be successful when you're working in diversity and inclusion, particularly within organizations, and what are the challenges and priorities for the next 12 months. And as I talk you through the results for 2023, I'll also talk about where we've seen a shift in the survey results from last year to this year. Did we move forward? Did we make improvements or did we slide backwards? So the report I really designed it for people working in diversity and inclusion or people moving their career into this space. It's also a great resource for organizations wanting to understand what's happening in this function and in some parts of the world it's a real emerging function and it's also for organizations who want to employ diversity and inclusion people.
Speaker 1:So a little bit about the culture ministry. So I'm the CEO of the culture ministry and we are the place for all things diversity and inclusion. We work with organizations across the world to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive. And I take a really big picture balanced approach teamed with real world experience. So I'm not a consultant who's who hasn't got experience in organizations and don't know how this work carries out in organizations. I've actually got practical experience. So if you need any help with your diversity and inclusion work, please get in touch and I will put information in the show notes for you.
Speaker 1:Also wanted to mention our sponsor for this year, this year's survey, which is in of our solutions, and they are a diversity owned enterprise headquartered in Atlanta, georgia, employing over 50,000 people worldwide, with annual revenues approaching $3 billion. They have global delivery centers across North America, asia and Europe, and they deliver strategic technology and business transformation solutions to their clients, enabling them to operate as leaders within their fields. And it's really thanks to Innova International Services for their support of this year's survey. I'm so proud to have them on board. It's actually their second year sponsoring my survey. Last year they were known more as Vault International, and Vault was acquired by Innova, and so they've continued their sponsorship, which is very, very cool. If you are in an organization that would like to sponsor the survey for next year, please get in touch. I've got a pack of information I can give you, including the marketing opportunities that being part of this survey gives you.
Speaker 1:Well, let's jump into the survey data and let me tell you a bit about, firstly, the demographics of the data, and then we'll move on to the organizations D&I, roles, salary information, and then we'll finish off with some items of interest and key insights. So let's do it. So, in terms of demographics in the survey, we start with gender. So by far there are more women working in diversity and inclusion than men, so it's not a particularly diverse field of work at the moment. So in this year's survey, near like 79% of people working in DNI are women, but that was actually a little bit down from 2022, which was great because we're seeing more men move into this field. So for this year, there were 13% male, and then we also had some non-binary and transgender people working in the space, which is fantastic because we're starting to get more diversity in the field and more lived experience, which I think is so important. The age demographic changed a little bit from 2022 to 2023 as well, and this year we saw younger people starting to work in diversity and inclusion. As an example, last year we only had 8% of people under 30 working in the function, and this year it's nearly 20%. So I think that's really great and I think it's perhaps organizations investing in younger people and developing younger people, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:The countries that participated in the survey were very mixed this year, but, like 2022, singapore was the largest country that participated, at about 29% Perhaps not a surprise many head offices are headquartered in Singapore, in the Asia Pacific region and then we had about 15% from the UK and nearly 10% from other countries across Europe, which was a pretty healthy participation rate, given it was my first year surveying those markets yeah, out of interest. The second highest participant from countries was Hong Kong, so it's nearly 20%. The other thing I look at in the survey is what I call the right to work status. So, you know, are people in diversity and inclusion roles are they local to the country that they're doing their work in or are they potentially an immigrant or an expat? And this was really interesting. In 2022, survey respondents said you know why the expats in these roles? Why don't we have local people doing these roles, like people who really understand the local markets? And I thought there was something in that. I thought there was. You know, that was a good point, but in fact, this year, the employment of local people in DNI roles decreased, which was a bit of a shame. Last year we had 53% were locally employed and this year that dropped to 50%, so we're actually seeing more expats working or immigrants working in DNI roles. As with 2022, this year's survey respondents are a very well-educated bunch 85% have a degree and then 50% have a master's as well, and the top three areas of study were business, management and arts, and I thought that was really important because we're seeing people work in this space from a range of disciplines and backgrounds.
Speaker 1:We also look at you know, how much experience do people working in diversity and inclusion have in diversity and inclusion? And last year we saw that for the most part, people working in these roles had very little experience. They might have had more organisational experience they were often in different roles but in working in this sort of niche function there wasn't a lot of experience. For 2023, we actually saw an increase in years of experience and of course, that makes sense because we're one year on. That may also be tied to having more expats in the roles, so not local people, maybe they're coming from other markets to work in those roles, but most of the people in my survey have between two and five years full time diversity and inclusion experience. We also found that just over half of people in these roles within organisations were appointed internally. So organisations seeing people often people running employee network groups or people who have an interest in driving an agenda around diversity and inclusion are often the ones being tapped on the shoulder and being appointed into full time roles. So that's really the summary, I guess, of the demographics of the survey.
Speaker 1:And then we go on and we look to organisations. So what types of organisations have diversity and inclusion roles or functions? What industry are they in, where are they kind of operating in the markets, where are their headquarters and how big are they? So by far the types of organisations that have D&I roles are global multinational organisations, and that's probably not a surprise, given that if you are operating in multiple markets, in different countries and working with different cultures, then you'll want to understand and get the best out of your people in those different locations is going to be the most important for global multinational. And then we looked at there are multinational that just work within a region. They are likely to have much less positions and roles in D&I.
Speaker 1:We also found that most organisations that were represented in the survey are headquartered in the United States Probably not a surprise. I would say that the maturity of this work really comes from the US. So just over 40% of the organisations represented are headquartered there. That was followed by the UK at around 18% and 10% in Hong Kong. We also looked at organisational size in terms of how many people they employ and really the very large organisations that have diversity and inclusion functions Again not a surprise. So 65% of the survey respondents had over 10,000 people and 12% had between 5 and 10,000 people. So these are big organisations. We don't see D&I functions or roles in sort of small to medium sized organisations.
Speaker 1:In terms of industry, about a quarter of the organisations are in the banking, financial services and insurance industries. I think that that gives us a hint as to the kind of organisations that are operating. In Singapore, which is the biggest country represented in the survey, followed by Hong Kong, we do see lots of banking and financial services organisations in those countries, and then the next biggest industry was information technology, technology and services, at about 11%. Then, also under the organisations part of the survey, we look at budget. Like Kendi and I, people access budget to do their work. We look at their capacity and capability to get work done, we look at team size and we look at what support do they have from their leaders. So the first good news is that we found 90% of people working in D&I have access to budget, whether it's their own budget that they have control of, or access to a budget for their actions and initiatives. On the downside, about half of the survey respondents didn't get a budget increase for 2023. So this is where we start to see is the foot coming off the pedal for D&I work in some organisations.
Speaker 1:The next thing we looked at like do you have the capacity and capability in your organisation to deliver on your D&I objectives for this year or for next year? And half said they didn't. So they've either got not a big enough team or not enough budget to deliver on what's expected for them, so that's a big issue. That was very similar to 2022. Then, when we looked at team size, this was really interesting.
Speaker 1:In 2022, most people working in diversity and inclusion were solo operators. There was just one of them. They're on their own and almost acting like as an internal consultant, because you can't achieve a lot when you're just doing it by yourself. You've got to be able to work through other people if you're alone. And last year, as well as seeing lots of people working by themselves, we saw a handful of organisations having really big teams. So I look at places like Amazon. What's the other one? Google, particularly in Asia Pacific. They have larger teams, but they are the exception to the rule. Most people are out there alone.
Speaker 1:So for 2023, we did see an increase in the size of D&I teams, which was fantastic news. So around 50% had between two and five people within the organisation, which was a really positive thing to see. And then, finally, we said you know, is your CEO a true advocate for your D&I work? Are they behind you leading the way? And about 57% said their CEO is, which is fantastic. But this was actually down from 2022, where 75% said, yeah, my CEO is really supporting my work. So again we're seeing you know, is the foot coming off the pedal for D&I work? Our leaders and our CEOs are working on other things. We know market conditions are tough. We know that finding talent is hard. You know there's a lot of disruption in the market and has the focus on D&I work dropped off? Maybe it has.
Speaker 1:So onto the next part of the survey, which was really about the roles of DNI. So where do they report? How happy are people in their roles? You know things like that. So we found that about 70% of people working in DNI are individual contributors, so they're out there by themselves. We know that about 70% report into the human resources function, with only under 10% reporting to a business leader like a CEO or a managing director. We also saw that about three quarters of the survey respondents were satisfied or very satisfied in their DNI role, and that was up from 2022, where there was a lot of dissatisfaction a lot of people who were unhappy burnt out in their DNI role. Interestingly, even though 75% said they were pretty happy in their role, a good proportion of those people said they wanted to change jobs in the next 12 months A bit of a highlight for 2023,. We saw that double-hating in roles. So double-hating is where you might be responsible for two or three functions, so it could be that you're leading learning and development and DNI, so that's double-hating. We saw that drop off in 2023, which I think was great. So we're seeing in roles that there might be a bit more focus actually on the DNI work.
Speaker 1:Now the next part of the survey is all about salaries and it's my aim over time to be able to provide recent and relevant data for diversity and inclusion professionals and as I build out this data set over time, I want it to be valid and a reliable source of data so that we've got better transparency of salaries and being able to raise the importance of the function within organisations. I want this survey to be able to recognise the niche skills and capabilities required and to ensure that people working in this function are paid fairly when it's being appointed, promoted or reviewing salaries. So in the survey I received salary data from over 15 countries in Asia, oceania and Europe, but because of sample sizes in the report there is only results for Singapore, hong Kong, australia and the UK and, depending on what data I had for each of those countries, there were different roles represented. Yeah, so I'm not going to talk too much more about the salaries. I would encourage you to download the report and have a look for your area and if you have any questions, you're very welcome to contact me. I do have the raw data set that I can help you with if you're looking for something in particular, and I do that while keeping the data private. But, yeah, if you need a hand, get in contact, happy to help.
Speaker 1:So the last part of the survey was really around some items of interest, so what's happening within organisations. So the first sort of area we asked about was what are the challenges that you have in executing your DNI strategy, and there were some changes from 2022 to 2023. So back in 2022, the number one challenge was what I called localisation issues, so that ability to take a global diversity and inclusion strategy, usually from a US head office or a UK head office and apply it into a local context, and so that was a big challenge in last year's survey. That wasn't even in the top five for 2023. In 2022, related to that localisation issue was people were finding it hard to find local data and research. So when DNI professionals are working with leaders in Asia or in Europe well, actually last year it was Asia they couldn't find data to support things that they wanted to do, because it basically doesn't exist and a lot of the data and research comes out of markets like the US and the UK, which are quite different to many of the countries in Asia.
Speaker 1:But then number three as the biggest challenge in executing strategy in 2022, was getting leadership, buy-in and support. So if we go to 2023, the top three challenges were having access to budget and resources. So we saw that half of the respondents didn't get an increase in budget. Half of the respondents said they don't have the capacity or the capability to deliver on their objectives. So that was the first challenge. The second was being able to influence stakeholders and, in many cases, leaders, and number three was getting leadership, buy-in and support. So leadership buy-in support appeared in the top three in the last two years and, given that we saw a drop in CEO support for DNI work, there is certainly a focus there around how do we get leaders on board, how do we get them to understand, how do we get them to walk the talk in organizations.
Speaker 1:The next area of interest was a new topic for 2023 and it was really about do you need to have lived experience in D&I work? So do you need to be in an underrepresented group? Do you need to have experienced discrimination? Yeah, and I'm seeing anecdotally out in the market people saying you know leaders in this space saying, yeah, you do need to. You need to come from a minority or a disadvantaged group to be successful in D&I work. So I asked the question in the survey like what do you think people working in D&I, how important is it to have lived experience? And about 75% of the survey respondents said it is important to have lived experience in D&I, which is interesting because that's in contrast to the skills required to be successful in D&I work. So that was the next area I looked at what are the most important skills needed by D&I professionals to be successful?
Speaker 1:Number one was influencing skills. So we talked about influencing stakeholders, getting leaders on board influencing skills Number one. Number two was implementation skills. So it's all very well having a strategy and I think we've got organisations with some great strategies out there but if you can't deliver against it, if you can't put some actions in and if you can't get things to change, yeah it's going to you're going to struggle to be successful. Number three was communication skills. Speaking clearly and succinctly, I guess this was something I mean it shouldn't have surprised me. I've worked in D&I roles and I have been surprised how much time is spent planning and preparing communication within organisations and then delivering that communication, and so, whether it's to executive and leadership teams or broader employee groups or employee resource groups, for example, that communication skills piece is really important.
Speaker 1:Number four was about navigating the organisation, and I think that links to being able to influence. Well, and you know, as we saw earlier in the survey, the organisations that have D&I roles are big organisations, and big organisations can be really hard to get around. It can be hard to find the right person to do the thing that you need them to do, and so and I think that links with influencing skills as well. So how do you find the people that you need to get on board. How do you convince them to help you with your work? So there's a lot of related skills in here. And number five and perhaps not surprisingly influence I'm not influencing resilience. Many people in D&I work get burnt out pretty easily. It's hard to make progress, but it can be pretty demoralising, particularly if you come from a minority or a disadvantaged group and you can't get changed to happen in organisations. That resilience piece is really important.
Speaker 1:The fourth area we looked at well, what are the D&I priorities for the coming year? What are organisations working on over the next 12 months? I guess the top three or four were about enhancing workforce diversity and increasing representation for underrepresented groups. Next was creating and promoting a culture of inclusion, because if you're going to bring in people who are different to what you already have, how do you make sure they feel like they belong? There's work happening around implementing diversity and inclusion policies, which I think is a good sign. Policy is sort of a base level activity to put a line in the sand about. This is who we are as an organisation and this is how we want to be, and so it's important to have those things in place, often before you start doing other things.
Speaker 1:And then there was some work around well, how do we balance business priorities? Our organisations are not getting less busy, they're getting more busy. So how do I get my work seen in line with all the other priorities within the business? And then in terms of areas that organisations will be focusing. So identity areas Number one was around disability. Number two was enhancing representation for underrepresented minorities overall. Number three was gender equity and moving women into leadership roles. You know, I think across the board, that one's really important. Our women are half the workforce and we're still struggling with what is effectively a majority group in our communities but often a minority group within our organisations. Other areas of focus are LGBTIQ+, expanding and supporting employee resource groups and mental health.
Speaker 1:And number five, I asked where has progress been made in diversity and inclusion work? And this part of the survey had so much optimism, so many things that people have achieved, and in the report I think I've got two pages of all the actions that people have made progress with, which was so great, and we didn't see this in last year's survey. This year's survey definitely had more optimism. So a couple of examples of what people told me Leaders are willing and committed to foster a culture to make sure people feel safe, welcome and valued. Another one self ID completion rate continues to rise and awareness of DNI strategies and participation continues to increase. Setting up targets and measuring data on gender diversity Surpassed targets. Engagement and inclusion scores are up. So that's just four comments, but there are some incredible comments in the report and I think they'd be really useful if you're looking at actions that you can put in place. There's some fantastic ideas in the report towards the back.
Speaker 1:So let me finish up now and talk about some of the key insights and learnings from the survey, both for organisations and for people working in diversity and inclusion. So for organisations, I think you know we're seeing a new cycle full of high profile organisations mandating some form of return to work, return to the office, sometimes two or three days a week, and within that we're seeing talk of stalling economies, general market challenges. You know there's a whole range of stuff we've got going on in the external market. You know my reflections are that if you're a leader in an organisation at the moment, you know things are tough, expectations and challenges are higher than ever and if leaders have lost focus on diversity and inclusion work. Could they be forgiven in light of the market conditions that are not getting easier? However, for change to happen, we know that leaders need to be part of a guiding coalition of other leaders whose behaviour, their talk and actions support the change required for diversity and inclusion work. This new survey actually I didn't talk about it previously, but it showed that, more than ever, leaders have KPIs around diversity and inclusion goals in their variable pay and this is signaling to them where they need to put their efforts. And I think, as more organisations formalise D&I work into variable pay, like bonuses, I'm hoping we'll see more pressure, you know, on these leaders to learn about what they need to do in their organisations, and I think we'll see more pressure on people working in D&I to really support those leaders and give them the tools to create safe and inclusive environments. And I think finally, I think expectations are still high to achieve progress in D&I work.
Speaker 1:However, it looks like investment has stalled. You know we haven't seen any increases in budgets. We've got people saying I don't have the capacity and the capability to do the work. So let's look at people working in diversity and inclusion. So, like the 2022 survey results, success for people working in D&I really relies on their ability to challenge and influence leaders, make connections from D&I work to business strategy and deliver the D&I strategy. So the focus for this year and next year is about enhancing workforce diversity and increasing representation for underrepresented groups, in tandem with creating and promoting a culture of inclusion. But we've got over half of the people working in diversity and inclusion saying they don't have the capacity and capability to deliver on their objectives and they're saying we don't have leadership support for D&I work. Finally, the call for lived experience in D&I roles is actually at odds with the skills and experience needed to be successful. So I think it's helpful to have lived experience, to be from an underrepresented group, because you understand the challenges. But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be successful. If you can't influence leaders in your organization, if you can't implement your strategy, if you don't have well honed communication skills and haven't worked out how to navigate your organization, it's unlikely you're going to be successful. So that's a pretty broad summary of the survey.
Speaker 1:You please go and download a copy of the report. It has a lot more detail in it. It's 26 pages, so there's there's lots more in there that that you can read and understand. If you have any questions, I would love to hear from you and I'm very happy to talk to you about the survey results. And just a reminder if you're working in an organization that might like to be involved in the survey as a sponsor for 2024, I would love to hear from you as well. That sponsorship helps me use really great survey technology. It helps me get the survey out to more people. So, yeah, I'd love to hear from you and yeah, great, I hope you're listening to next week's A Dog Called Diversity.