CUs Give Their Leadership’s Commitment to DEI a 78/100 Score: Filene Survey

A presentation of preliminary findings from a DEI survey of credit unions by the Filene Research Institute revealed progress and opportunities at cooperatives in their ongoing quest to fully embrace diversity, equity and inclusion.

During the Madison, Wis., think tank’s virtual “Amplifying Impact: Connecting Credit Unions and Communities” event Tuesday, Dr. Quinetta Roberson, a professor of management and psychology at the University of Michigan and Filene fellow, shared that the 284 credit unions and partners that participated in Filene’s DEI Practices and Policies Survey rated their leadership’s commitment to DEI as 78 out of 100 on average. “That’s great – that’s pretty high, but it also leaves some room for opportunity,” Roberson said in presenting the figure.

When survey participants were asked about the specific types of strategic DEI practices they had in place, 72.2% said they had a DEI statement, 69% had a strategic plan and 62.1% had a chief diversity officer. Lower percentages of respondents said they had a DEI committee or diversity plan in place (53.6% and 51.4%).

In the area of DEI staffing practices, 84.2% of respondents said they had a structure in place to ensure equity in the candidate interviewing process, 74.6% advertised for jobs in places targeting diverse candidate pools, 63.8% had DEI-focused interviewer training, 60.4% participated in events attracting underrepresented populations, 59.6% had partnerships with minority-serving institutions, 50.4% had diverse interview panels and 35.8% had a dedicated section on their website regarding DEI.

“We know that more practices that have related goals and purposes actually amplify each other, so rather looking at individual practices, we’re also looking at bundles or groups of practices that are related to each other,” she noted. “I think it’s more of these sets of practices that actually start to have a long-term, sustainable impact to drive growth in credit unions.”

Diving deeper into DEI training and development practices, Roberson revealed that only 38.3% had mentoring practices in place for members of underrepresented groups. “What we want to understand is, is it that those who do not have that in place found there isn’t a business case for it or much of an impact? Or, in our analyses, I wonder if we’ll find that mentoring practices actually help to drive the employee experience, member experience and performance,” she commented.

In addition, only about one-third of respondents said they had DEI affinity groups or employee resource groups (ERGs), and 26.5% said they had supplier diversity initiatives in place. Without revealing specifics, Roberson told attendees that the survey data indicated supplier diversity initiatives do have an impact on financial performance for credit unions.

Survey participants were also asked about how they hold themselves accountable for DEI practices. In the realm of establishing DEI metrics, 59-77% set goals and 52-75% were collecting and tracking data. When it comes to using the metrics, 18% said they were linked to their performance evaluation process and 13% said they linked the metrics to employee compensation.

Roberson said the data is still being analyzed to determine the impact of various DEI practices and bundles of practices on credit unions, and will be used to establish benchmarks that allow credit unions to see how they stack up against their peers and where they should be investing their resources to achieve desired outcomes.

Of the 284 credit unions and partners that participated in the survey, only 196 provided complete data. On average, responding credit unions had $1.9 billion in assets, 133,000 members and 325 employees. Fifty-seven percent were low-income designated, 17% were CDFIs, 10% had a minority membership of more than 50%, and 6% said minorities make up more than half of their board.