How the unlikely match of DEIB and technology will grow sustainable business

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Discussing AI technology and an equitable, vibrant workplace culture in the same breath can raise eyebrows.

The reasons for skepticism have repeatedly made headlines:

• EEOC Sues iTutorGroup for Age Discrimination: Tutoring Provider Programmed its Online Software to Automatically Reject More Than 200 Older Applicants, Federal Agency Charges, S. EEOC, 2022.
• AG Healey Targets Companies Selling Pre-qualification Software That Discriminates Against Prospective Tenants, Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, 2022.
• Racial disparities in automated speech recognition, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020.
• Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women, Reuters, 2018.
• How white engineers built racist code – and why it’s dangerous for black people, The Guardian, 2017.

In fact, harmful bias baked into AI and AI-driven technology is among the top ethical concerns in Stanford University’s 2022 AI Index Report. The bias stems from human choices and behaviors, often unconscious, that can become embedded in AI, often resulting in software that perpetuates discrimination, unfairness, and toxicity.

Building a healthy culture across any business requires actively advancing a human-centric workplace that dismantles discrimination, strengthens intersectionality and human rights, and embraces a continuous learning model to improve everyone’s performance as well as business results.

All of this is done while openly examining the current state of diversity in society, changing strategies for building inclusive environments, and the equity of resources and opportunities. It’s a tall order for any team, strategy, or tool to take on alone.

But here’s what’s quickly changing: Denial that AI applications and other technology can be manipulated by humans during problem-framing, data collection, and attribute extraction is steadily being swept aside thanks to mounting evidence and media attention.

Companies are now building technologies that inherently level the playing field within today’s workplace and provide the often overlooked “E” in DEIB – equity. More and more, tech companies are proving that software can enable more holistic diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) efforts and help repair ethical fissures at work and in the world.

The post-pandemic boom of DEIB software offers new hope

With the power and poignance of global social justice movements, post-pandemic hybrid work realities, and business efficiency and profitability top of mind, a paradox has arisen with DEIB and technology.

In 2021, Gartner found that only 10% of DEIB leaders considered technology a priority. Compounding potential skepticism, they cited budget limitations and low organizational maturity as reasons. At the same time, both startups and established software giants have offered more than 100 DEIB-related solutions in the last several years.

TechCrunch recently reported that the market for DEIB assessment software alone grew globally from $100 million in 2019 to $313 million in 2021, and it continues to expand today.

Gartner also revealed that more than 25% of large enterprises will pursue cohesive technology strategies for DEIB realization by 2025. DEIB remains a stated value or priority for 85% of organizations worldwide, according to PwC’s 2022 Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Survey.

Many of these new solutions on the market are now using AI to counter bias instead of perpetuate it. For example, the Gartner 2022 Innovation Insight for Digitally Enabled Diversity, Equity and Inclusion report shared that underrepresented employees are more likely to choose remote over in-office work, while managers and senior leaders still make talent decisions based on in-person employee visibility. New DEIB software is built to identify these biases and inequities hidden in the evaluation of hybrid work.

With the expansion of software offerings, it’s important to consider that a majority of today’s DEIB applications remain targeted toward HR functions involving candidates and employees. They tend to fall into four main categories:

1. Talent acquisition, which focuses on candidate selection and candidate sourcing, makes up 43% of DEIB-related applications;
2. Analytics, which is about 25% of all applications, centers on pay equity analysis, monitoring DEIB initiatives, and making the DEIB business case;
3. Career advancement and development comprises about 20% of all applications and focuses on performance management, high-potential selection, leadership development, career management, and mentorship;
4. Finally, engagement and retention targets employee experience and communication. It makes up a little more than 10% of all applications.

But the promise of DEIB software goes beyond these parameters. Technology can also solve for the lack of integration among applications and the disconnect between global and local sponsors of DEIB programs.

Perhaps most important is its capacity to increase the scalability and effectiveness of DEIB programs while amplifying human-centric work design and cross-functional resource equity.

Scaled DEI and human-centric work depend on better digital adoption

Successful DEIB initiatives naturally put humans at the center of the work environment and make it measurably easier to achieve sustainable business outcomes and Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) goals.

Employers who provide a human-centric approach to work can see a reduction in workforce fatigue of up to 44%, an increase of employee intent to stay with their current employer as much as 45%, and improved performance of up to 28%.

So, in daily practice, how exactly can technology scale and integrate DEIB for human-centric ends amid digital transformation’s realities? How does a business ensure that impactful DEIB software — and any kind of software — is adopted across its diverse employee base, with individuals operating in vastly different scenarios and environments?

Making all software easier, more enjoyable, and less time-consuming to use actually solves for harder-to-see DEIB issues. WalkMe’s 2022-2023 State of Digital Adoption Survey revealed that the average number of applications employees engage with weekly is 27 (!) and that tech overload can overwhelm workers, resulting in a kind of “software paralysis” that negatively impacts ROI and workplace morale.

According to the 2022 Gartner Innovation Insight report noted earlier, the answer is emerging in a technology uniquely capable of enabling quantifiable DEIB efforts: Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs). More generally, improving digital adoption with a DAP also dismantles the larger software paralysis that’s a byproduct of digital transformation and enables people of different backgrounds, identities, and abilities enhanced access to the tools they need to perform their work.

DAPs provide step-by-step, on-screen guidance on top of and across different types of software and applications. These platforms are designed to facilitate seamless software adoption and understanding by simplifying the user experience and ensuring proficiency while boosting productivity.

DAPs also allow businesses to gain insights into aggregate user behavior and create in-application experiences and automation to guide users through business processes. DAPs help employees work more efficiently, driving business outcomes while boosting the digital employee experience (EX).

This software-based approach enables a more empowered, diverse workforce by leveling the playing field for employees with varied levels of digital dexterity or physical ability. For example, DAPs can provide in-app guidance relayed to screen readers for people with low vision and can offer on-screen guidance instantly in someone’s native language anywhere in the world.

DAPs increase transparency and lead to sustainable business

DAPs also help employees avoid confusion and challenges to productivity when application interfaces (UIs) change or organizations switch business platforms. They provide enablement to people of all levels of tech savvy, minimizing resistance to new software technology and increasing user satisfaction.

At the same time, they can automate tedious business processes, provide important insights into software usage, and give business leaders a level of transparency around data and processes that few applications offer.

The 2022 Gartner Innovation Insight report describes DAP as a key technology for the DEIB imperative of Employee Experience Equity (EX Equity). EX Equity enables a human-centric technology strategy by providing success measures in technology adoption, workforce digital dexterity, and performance and employee sentiment.

DAP isn’t another technology that can accidentally promote human biases due to problematic training data or developer assumptions. Instead, it is structured to empower humans to solve practical EX problems while recording real data comprehensively across an organization to learn what’s actually happening day to day and adapt to support employees.

To be truly successful, DEIB initiatives must be seamlessly embedded across every practice and resource a company uses. Technology is an inescapable part of modern work, so tools that scale and integrate DEIB must win over not just executives or HR professionals, but every single leader and employee at the company. Everyone must be involved in needs analysis. Digital Adoption Platforms can help cure the perceived DEIB/tech mismatch by bringing real equity and inclusion to everyone.

By targeting a holistic and human-centric employee experience — with technology and not against it — we can leave behind discriminatory algorithms and fragmented application use on the road to sustainable business.

Chelsea Pyrzenski is Chief People Officer of WalkMe. WalkMe are a Diamond Sponsor of UNLEASH America 2023 – catch them at stand B412 in Vegas next week!