SITUATION

The Research and Design (RAD) team at Workday sought to develop a strategic roadmap to shift their equity and inclusion efforts from performative into alignment with the company’s global mandate. They wanted to be thoughtful about how they evaluated the current state of their team’s efforts and best practices as they got started.

OUR WORK

• We conducted a rigorous discovery process, reviewing institutional knowledge and communications, conducting interviews with senior leadership, team members, and subject matter experts

• Evaluated current programming and initiatives, assessing them against their impact and outcomes

• Identified strategic pathways for Workday’s design team, including recommendations for programs to invest in and built an overall portfolio of interventions to support diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging efforts

• Illustrated potential future states to help the team and leadership understand the vision and potential outcomes

IMPACT

• Workday deepened its relationship with Diversify by Design (D×D), a coalition to catalyze racial equity and justice in the design profession, nominating their DEIB team lead to D×D’s Advisory Council.

• Increased their participation in D×D’s signature education programs to bring design education to historically excluded high school youth.

• Engaged in a benchmarking exercise; analyzing the team's current configuration to move toward a place of best-in-class, human-centered design.