Understanding your organisation’s current equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) position is the starting point for an effective strategy. Without a clear picture of policies, workforce data and employee experience, it is difficult to prioritise action or measure progress.
The foundation of everything is that you see EDI as a way of looking at your entire business. It’s a lens through which you view the business.
For directors, this means EDI should inform business planning, governance and decision-making, rather than being treated as a separate initiative.
Why an EDI Assessment Matters
An EDI assessment helps directors understand whether policies are working, leadership decisions are evidence-based, and employees experience the organisation consistently.
It also helps answer key questions:
- Where are we performing well?
- Where are the gaps?
- What are the main organisational or legal risks?
- Which priorities will have the greatest impact?
When this stage is done well, the strategy becomes more focused. Leaders can distinguish between structural issues, capability gaps and cultural barriers instead of treating EDI as a generic programme.
A practical framework for assessing current EDI position
1. Review policy and governance
Review key policies, including recruitment, progression, flexible working, reasonable adjustments, and grievance procedures.
Consider:
- Are organisational policies up to date?
- Are responsibilities clearly assigned?
- Are policies applied consistently?
- Is progress regularly reported?
2. Examine culture and employee experience
Policies alone do not reflect the day-to-day experience. Make sure to review employee survey findings, exit feedback, grievance themes and listening exercises. Patterns in feedback often reveal issues that are not visible in policy documents.
Useful questions include:
- Do employees feel safe to raise concerns?
- Are opportunities perceived as fair across different groups?
- Do managers have the confidence to apply policy consistently?
- Are there recurring themes around belonging, progression or communication?
This stage is especially valuable because it connects formal commitments to lived experience.
3. Analyse representation and workforce data
Workforce evidence provides an important strategic lens. Review representation across business functions and leadership levels, then compare it with recruitment, promotion, retention, and absence patterns where data is available.
Workforce data should be interpreted alongside employee feedback and operational context to understand what the evidence is telling you.
As our trainer has explained:
The best people come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colours and backgrounds. If you’re not seeing that, can you really be sure that you’re getting the best people?
Looking at workforce data helps directors understand whether talent is being identified, developed and retained across the organisation.
4. Identify strengths, gaps and risks
Once evidence has been gathered, summarise findings under three headings:
- Strengths: areas where progress is visible and worth sustaining
- Gaps: areas where systems, skills or outcomes are weaker than intended
- Risks: issues with potential legal, cultural, talent or reputational impact
This step allows leaders to avoid creating an unfocused plan. Not every issue can be addressed at once, so the assessment must support informed prioritisation.
Turning findings into strategic action
Prioritise Strategically
An effective EDI strategy focuses on the issues that will have the greatest organisational impact. Consider each priority against business objectives, urgency, available resources and potential outcomes.
Trying to tackle every issue simultaneously will slow business progression.
Involve the right stakeholders
Strategic EDI planning works best when key stakeholders are involved early. This may include HR, operational leaders, employees, and line managers. Their involvement improves decision quality and increases the likelihood of implementation.
Stakeholder engagement should be structured. Directors need clear input on what the evidence shows, what barriers exist, and what resources will be required to make progress.
Set measurable objectives
Objectives should be realistic, clearly allocated and regularly reviewed. They should define:
- The issue being addressed
- The intended outcome
- Who is responsible
- How progress will be measured
- When performance will be reviewed
The focus should extend beyond activity, such as introducing training or publishing policies, to the outcomes those actions are expected to achieve.
Strategic planning checklist for directors
To support implementation, use a structured strategic planning checklist before finalising the plan:
- Have we gathered evidence from policy, culture, employee experience and workforce data?
- Have we identified the most material strengths, gaps and risks?
- Have we involved the right stakeholders in reviewing the findings?
- Are priorities clearly ranked rather than listed equally?
- Do objectives have owners, timescales and review points?
- Do we know what progress will look like in practice?
- Is reporting built into existing governance processes?
Common mistakes to avoid
Momentum can be lost due to these common errors:
- Treating EDI as a standalone initiative rather than part of business planning
- Relying on policy updates without examining employee experience
- Using data without enough context or stakeholder input
- Setting too many priorities at once
- Choosing actions that are easy to launch but hard to evaluate
- Failing to assign ownership at director or senior manager level
A more disciplined planning process reduces the risk of broad commitments that are difficult to implement or review.
Building director capability for long-term impact
Leaders who are responsible for strategy need more than good intent; they need a structured approach to diagnosis, planning and review. Developing that capability can help organisations move from fragmented activity to a more coherent and accountable model. For senior professionals looking to strengthen this area, our CMI Level 7 Strategic Approaches to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion course provides a useful route into the strategic, governance and planning skills required at this level.
In practice, assessing current EDI position should be treated as an ongoing leadership discipline rather than a one-off exercise. Start with evidence, prioritise what matters most, involve the right people, and build a plan that can be reviewed over time. That is how directors turn EDI insight into action that is credible, practical and strategically relevant.
Pam Luo