Overview 

Diversity audits are a way of examining your diversity strategy, culture, systems and procedures against a framework in order to identify which aspects are working well and which need to be looked at in more detail. They are the basis of specific, practical diversity action plans and strategies. They also provide a benchmark to track improvements over time against which progress can be measured.

What do I need to know?

The term diversity audit is broad and can cover a range of ways to review the diversity climate/processes/procedures within an organisation, at a strategic level, or at a specific policy level. They can also be conducted across an entire employee population, a sample of the employee population, in specific locations, or with employee groups, such as disabled employees. You should only focus on particular groups however when you are already conducting some form of diversity audit across the entire population. Failure to do so sends the message that the organisation is only interested in the views of some employees which can lead to the audit being seen as a tick in the box or politically correct exercise.

Conducting a diversity audit to support the production of a clear and coherent diversity strategy is good practice and means that agreed actions are significantly more likely to bring about real change. A comprehensive audit may also go some way to meeting some of the requirements of the Race, Gender and Disability Equality Duties placed on public sector bodies, in terms of establishing the start of a monitoring process for internal processes.

Diversity audits, therefore, can be powerful tools in helping organisations to understand their current position regarding diversity as well as in which areas they should focus their diversity development. They also provide a benchmark for measuring progress on an ongoing basis.