Business leaders can t afford to treat diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as afterthoughts.
Even before 2020 s explicit conversations and public protests on race and civil rights, statistics showed that a diverse business has as much to do with profit as principles.
A 2020 McKinsey study tracked six years of data and found that more ethnically and culturally diverse businesses are as much as 36% more profitable than the least diverse companies. The profitability gap widens to 48% between the most and least diverse businesses according to gender alone. The business case is glaring, says Miriam Lewis, chief inclusion officer for Principal. Diverse companies with inclusive cultures outperform more homogenous companies. Revenue, market share, smarter teams, retention there s just no lack of evidence.