Importance of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in Business

James Cheng, Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Zimmer Biomet

James Cheng is a passionate, results-driven strategist with a solid record of achievement and demonstrated success driving diversity, equity, and inclusion while providing inspirational leadership in a highly competitive market. His passion is to empower the right people to work together and create innovative solutions while bringing an inclusive culture to the employees and promoting a growth mindset.

What are some of the major challenges and trends that have been impacting the DEI space?

There are two difficulties that we observe in the market at the moment. The first is dealing with competing priorities in an environment where diversity and inclusion aren’t incorporated into business strategies, and the second is taking care of oneself as a DEI practitioner.

It is a well-known fact from a business perspective that when employees are engaged, they become more productive. However, when it comes to competing priorities, a large number of DEI strategies have a tendency to be one-of-a-kind. It may or may not be connected to their overall business strategy and the final outcome of a business. This is why such priorities are lost if they are not integrated into an organization’s long-term objectives. It is essential to have an understanding of how the void should be filled. Businesses need to be more careful while designing their DEI strategies. 

"One needs to make sure that whatever DEI strategy they are designing, the mission of the company must be influenced by this strategy. "

The second issue is that those who work in DEI eventually become exhausted by the nature of the work. Practitioners must be aware that they cannot be the only ones doing DEI work; the responsibility for the success lies one each and every leader in an organization, as well as on each and every employee.

What are some of the latest projects that you have been working on and what are some of the technological and process elements that you leveraged to make the project successful?

When it comes to DEI, the most popular topic of conversation is how to measure DEI. One of the most important things to keep in mind while measuring is to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Second, it’s important to keep in mind that one should create the right dashboards by using appropriate engagement surveys, as well as conduct stay cases and exit interviews. This helps deliver a truly interactive dashboard where leaders can see certain stories that they can pay attention to. In addition, we need to make use of internal tools such as the internal dashboard, which measures not only the DEI but also the business connection of our employer resource group. We also need to use the tracking mechanism to provide true access to leaders’ overall performance.

Additionally, as there are numerous technological trends emerging, one of the things I’m hoping for with new tools and the future of the industry is the capacity to forge more connections. Whether it be through the dashboard, employee interaction, or linking leaders to various levels of an organization, the capacity to have tools that facilitate connections between people is essential.

Which are some of the technological trends which excite you for the future of the DEI space?

One of the things I hope to witness is a continuation of growth within the company using the DEI strategy. This is because I believe that DEI is not just HR-specific work, despite the fact that HR is going to make up a significant portion of it; rather, it can be used as the foundation work across the board. Moreover, when we think about how an organization succeeds, we generally focus on employees and the communities that it serves, however, the best to do that is to listen to different people with different ideas and challenge your own internal thoughts.