Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Our Promise

McKinley is a people-first company. We embrace and celebrate the diversity of our staff, clients and community. Because of this, we aim to ensure equity in our practices and cultivate an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome to contribute their unique strengths. As part of our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) as an organization, we strive to do better every day.

Our Approach

The foundation of our DEI journey includes these three commitments:

• We are dedicated to creating an inclusive workplace where all staff, partners, and clients can bring their best selves each day.
• Our team prioritizes equity in hiring, promotion, compensation, professional development opportunities and performance evaluations.
• As we grow and learn, we give each other the space, compassion, and benefit of the doubt to be on this journey together.

Our Goals 

As part of our ongoing DEI Action Plan, we’ve outlined the following goals:

• All staff feel a sense of belonging at McKinley, meaning that they are heard, welcomed and valued. We create and continue a corporate infrastructure that enables and ensures access and equity.
• Our staff more accurately represents the diversity of our communities and clients.
• Underrepresented groups have ample access and opportunity within McKinley.
• Our staff are knowledgeable about issues surrounding DEI — including bias, discrimination, systemic racism, belonging — and understand how to be allies for their peers, colleagues and clients.
• Our commitment to DEI is visible to all within our community, so they can continue to hold us accountable to our promises.
  

Objectives and Workgroup

McKinley’s DEI Workgroup, composed of staff volunteers, keeps us focused on operationalizing our DEI commitment and planning activities. Our current objectives are:

• Define and co-create a culture underpinned by inclusive practices
• Hold all staff accountable to practicing inclusion and equity in our daily work
• Elevate our DEI dashboard and lessons learned into organizational decision making
• Refine our career pathways document and related promotion policies
• Hold ourselves accountable to our DEI goals and progress
• Continue to provide an environment for continuous learning via formal and informal trainings and discussions
  

CEO Action Plan

To create a more diverse, inclusive and equitable workforce, we have signed the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion™ pledge to:

• Cultivate environments that support open dialogue on complex — and often difficult — conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Implement and expand unconscious bias education and training.
• Share best-known diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives — as well as those that have been unsuccessful.
• Engage boards of directors when developing and evaluating diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies.
  

To do better and be better, our community needs honest dialogue and an open exchange of ideas and lessons learned. If you would like to hear more about our commitments, progress and challenges, please reach out. We would also love to hear about your DEI journey.

Our Outcomes

McKinley shares a diversity, equity and inclusion dashboard — updated quarterly — with transparent information across the firm internally. Information from that dashboard is presented below, including specific outcomes we are focused on.

Salary Equity 

One data point shared across the firm focuses on salary equity, to ensure we compensate our team fairly and without bias. On the most recent edition of our compensation equity dashboard, we learned that:

• Individuals who identify as female make $1.00 compared to $1.00 for those who identify as male
• Individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or prefer to self-describe make $0.99 compared to $1.00 for those who identify as straight/heterosexual
• Individuals who identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic / Latinx or Spanish origin, or White plus another race make $1.05 compared to $1.00 for those who identify as white-only
  
  Note: These numbers are based on salary adjusted for organizational levels.

Employee Sentiment

On our October 2022 quarterly employee engagement survey, 85% of our staff (up from 70% in May 2022) agreed that McKinley invests the right amount of time, attention and resources in DEI initiatives. And, 88% of staff (same as May 2022) agreed that we are making progress on our DEI goals.

Demographic Distribution

At McKinley, we know that DEI is a journey and continuously strive to expand the diversity and representation of our team. 

We ask staff to optionally self-report their gender identity, race and ethnicity and sexual orientation on a quarterly basis, along with several other dimensions of personal and cultural identity. As of October 2022, our staff currently identifies as follows:

We recognize this is an ongoing journey and hope that by transparently sharing our results we will foster progress and accountability - to ourselves and our clients.