Leaders can fall out of touch with company culture, believing what they wish rather than what is. How can you know the truth if you don’t make a serious effort to find out? Coqual Advisory® culture audit services are the answer. Whether you are looking to build out your DE&I strategy or if your company is facing disruption such as a merger or an accusation of bias, our audit delivers the specific insights you need to create targeted solutions that will get your company where it needs to go.

Using a range of survey, interview, and focus group methodologies including our anonymous Insights In-Depth® diagnostic tool, we go far beyond the annual employee survey, and explore critical workplace issues such as:

• The lived experiences of underrepresented employee groups in your company
• Motivation levels, sense of purpose, and what your employees value most
• Perceptions of meritocracy and opportunities for advancement
• Access to networks and career development
• Incidences of harassment, bias, or discrimination
• Trust in managers, senior leaders, and HR departments
• Awareness of positive leadership behaviors and company role models
• Clarity of policies and codes of conduct, and whether you have a speak-up culture
• Crisis response and the best path forward

After we analyze and synthesize the data, we provide a report, presentation, strategy session, and recommendations for putting findings into action. We’ll provide support as you build out strategy and develop programming.

Career success doesn’t come from hard work alone. It also requires access to leaders who open doors. Over a decade ago, we wrote “The Sponsor Effect,” published by the Harvard Business Review; a landmark report that identified and named this powerful dynamic.

Leaders tend to pass on power, usually unintentionally, to those who remind them of themselves. For more than a decade, Coqual Advisory® sponsorship tools and programs have been showing companies (and leaders) how to make this intentional: by creating sponsorship relationships across lines of difference and building a pipeline of diverse talent. Eventually, as these programs take root and mature, a culture of sponsorship emerges that needs no formal system and has measurable impact. It examines key processes that determine professionals’ career outcomes; performance evaluations, promotions and pay.

Today, our approach is a diversity, equity and inclusion gold standard, used by companies around the globe. Our offerings are fully available in remote formats, including:

• Workshops to introduce the concepts and benefits of sponsorship
• A 6- to 18-month sponsorship program, which may include online assessments, sponsor-protegee matching guidance, coaching, awareness building, and impact measurement
• Sponsor Ready™, a five-week online course that can be used as a standalone module or blended with other approaches

More than 20 years of research, including our 2019 study, Being Black in Corporate America, gives Coqual Advisory^® unique expertise and capabilities to help companies identify systemic racism and remove barriers that prevent talented black professionals from meeting their ambitions and potential. Coqual Advisory^® awakening and allyship three-step approach takes companies through a program for long-term systemic change that addresses both employee culture, behavior change, and bold action to end bias at every level of companies.

Audit: We begin with a culture audit that uses our research methodologies to get an accurate picture of your workforce, including how well employees understand systemic racism, privilege, and Black experiences at work. White professionals rarely see the struggles Black professionals so acutely feel. We often discover big gaps in trust that leaders hadn’t realized existed. An audit helps you identify where understanding, resistance, and blind spots lie.

Awaken: Coqual Advisory^® consulting services helps leaders begin to talk openly about race and racial bias at work. We offer facilitated dialogues, safe spaces, and conversations with employees to deepen understanding and develop new skills for communication about race. For example:

• Dialogue on Foundations. This may include historical context, facts about microaggressions, conversation starters, stories from Black company employees, and next steps for action.
• Dialogue on Practical Actions. We provide key messages for leaders to use when supporting Black colleagues, insights on current company culture, best practices for active allyship, and an open forum for leaders.

Act: Coqual Advisory^® consulting services shares best practices for antiracism and help lead strategy sessions. We also deliver recommendations that will vary from company to company; for example, strategies for convening diverse leadership teams to develop prototypes, hackathons, or planning events that can create systemic change. We may recommend impact metrics, new accountability standards for representation, or performance reviews that tie advancement and successful leadership to diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.

With options ranging from single sessions to a series of workshops, Coqual Advisory^® builds leadership development offerings designed to create inclusive cultures. Leveraging Coqual’s research findings, our data-driven solutions will help you build a culture of inclusion and innovation. Our Inclusive Leadership framework and Acquired Diversity^® research and consulting services enable leaders to deepen understanding and build capabilities.

• Inclusive Leadership to ensure team leaders and team members understand how to lift, hear, and include all voices in order to create a culture of belonging.
• Acquired Diversity^® tools and training to enable leaders to recognize and drive inclusive behaviors, and unlock employees’ innovative potential.
• Authentic Leadership to help rising leaders recognize and use their unique assets as a source of strength.
• Emerging Leader Programs to create momentum for rising leaders and support the professional development and capabilities for underrepresented talent.