2024S-T3 MAN 6043 - Leadership in Change Management 02 (BMIM

Group 2 & Group 5)

In-class Group Assignment 4

GROUP H
PRIYESH RAJA (C0890774)
CHIDINMA EKWEGH (C0891099)
RACHIT GUPTA (C0896465)
JASHANPREET KAUR (C0895584)
JASLEEN KAUR (C0907408)
SIMRANJEET KAUR (C0897598)
AMAN NARULA (C0907419)

Due: June 14, 2024

INTRODUCTION
The management of Salesforce – the internationally acclaimed integrated customer relationship
management (CRM) firm – has always been a big proponent of Diversity, Inclusion and
Belonging (DIB). Under the leadership of its CEO, Marc Benioff, the company has invested a lot
of resources in DIB initiatives making it its core corporate goals. Promoting DIB policies as a
priority initiative is one of the ways the company hopes to improve the well-being of its
employees and ultimately overall organizational growth. The essay seeks to shed light on the
actions/steps taken by Salesforce under its DIB initiatives. It will further highlight challenges
encountered in implementing those initiatives and proffer solutions to address those challenges.

DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND BELONGING INITIATIVES AT SALEFORCE

The DIB initiatives steps and its implementation are discussed below:

1. Leadership Commitment and Vision

Sales force commitment to diversity, inclusion and belong began with a strong leadership
culture by the CEO Marc Benioff who is known for his leadership principle based on
equality. Marc Benioff ideology for incorporating Salesforce was not solely based on a
company “to develop great products but as a company whose core value is to have a positive
impact on the world”.1 This concept has now been enshrined as a strategic business
imperative at Salesforce. Consequently, the leadership vision of Salesforces includes
diversity, inclusion and belong as a primary corporate goal and has firmly committed to
promote those initiative as one of its growth strategies. This leadership commitment and
prioritization of DIB can also be seen in the company’s equality impact statement which
states that Salesforce mission is “to build a more inclusive work environment and world”. 2

2. Creation of the Office of Equality

One remarkable DIB initiative of Salesforce is the establishment of the Office of Equality led
by the Chief Equality Officer. The main responsibility of the office is the creation and the roll
out of equality, diversity, and inclusion initiatives program in the workplace and beyond. The
Office of equality is charged with focusing on inclusive practices, representation, disability,
advocacy for equal rights for people of different race, gender and sexual orientation and
1
https://www.salesforce.com/company/marc-benioff-bio/?sfdc-redirect=586#Philanthropy
2
https://www.salesforce.com/company/equality/

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 2SLGBTQIA+. The Office of Equality collaborates with other departments to incorporate
DIB principles into all aspects of the business and sets measurable targets and accountability
metrics for progress.3

3. Data Driven Information Gathering on Equality

Salesforce has an equality dashboard which gathers real-time statistics about employee
representation, hirings, promotion and attrition based on factors such as ethnicity/race,
gender, 2SLGBTQIA+, disability, veteran status. The dashboard enables the company to
make data driven decisions and pinpointing further areas of needed improvement in the
company’s implementation of its DIB program. This data is further escapaded to managers
with the objective that it will be used to quantify progress from one period to the other. An
equality Advisory Board has also been set up by the company to address issues identified in
the equality date. The Board is made of representatives from the company groups, and they
meet quarterly.

4. Inclusive Hiring Practices

Salesforce introduced a new recruitment strategy based on equality to its hiring process with
the hope of improving the diversity of applicants. Some of the measures include using data to
pinpoint gaps in hiring process and demography, sourcing candidates from under-represented
groups, the equality team was made an important part of the recruitment process. All job
posting must also include inclusive language and should include blind recruitment where
names that suggest a particular race are redated to eliminate unconscious bias. In addition,
they set up ‘diverse source’ hiring committees to interview candidates and provide diverse
perspective in the interview room. Salesforce also collaborates with agencies to promote the
employment of underrepresented personnel. A recent significant measure was the so-called
“Rooney Rule” for the filling of top management vacancies; the company ensured that at least
one candidate of color was considered for every position.4

5. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)

Sales force encourages its employees to join their respective equality groups known as the
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to enhance community representation. Some of the
groups are: Faith/Spirituality (Faithforce), Gender (Women;s Network), Race (Boldforce),
3
https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/annual-equality-update-2023/
4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSzEYTdMVvE

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 Disability (Abilityforce), Indigenous people (Windforce), 2SLGBTQIA+ (Outforce) etc,
pioneering employee engagement and inclusion strategies. 5 The groups are given a budget to
support and drive causes and initiatives dear to their community. The groups also have local
chapter in different operational regions of salesforce. The groups' influence goes beyond the
employees of Salesforce. They interact with the community, partners, and customers that
make up the company's large ecosystem in order to promote greater diversity, equity, and
inclusion in the sector.6

6. Continuous Education and Training

To ensure continued and long-term compliance with their DIB program and policies,
Salesforce deploys considerable resources to educating its employees by providing trainings
on diversity and inclusion. This encompasses compulsory prejudice awareness training to all
employees. In addition, the company has carefully designed structured trainings for major
organizational heads’ on how to build diverse teams. To further promotes its DIB program, the
company organizes cultural sensitivity training and invites guest speakers to speak about
awareness of cultural diversity.7

7. Pay Equity Initiatives

Sales is also a big proponent of pay equity and a frontrunner in the fight against inequality in
compensation packages. The company conducts compensation assessments on a regular
basis, and consistently corrects identified pay discrepancies in the organization. To further
address the issue of equal pay, the company has pledged to act and make relevant changes to
its policies and practices regarding compensation, and provide equal salaries for male and
female employees, or those of any race or ethnicity, doing the same work. Salesforce’s bold
call for fairness, has helped remind the public of the company’s goals and core values.8

CHALLENGES

5
https://www.salesforce.com/company/equality-groups/
6
https://www.salesforce.com/company/equality-groups/
7
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/inclusive-training/
8
https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/2022-equal-pay-update-the-salesforce-approach-to-pay-fairness/

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1. Employee Resistance to Change
A major roadblock that emerged from the implementation of the company’s diversity,
inclusion and belonging initiatives was organizational resistance. There was some resistance
either in the form of employees and managers who may have had no faith in the new DIB
initiatives or those that may have felt uncomfortable and threatened by the whole change.
However, the leadership at Salesforce has continued to promote its DIB policies based on the
rationale that DIB is an imperative strategy for their business performance. The company
continues to engage its employee through transparent communication during the change
process highlighting the ever-increasing advantages of the company’s diverse workforce. We
strongly believe that the company should continue to conduct trainings and workshops to
sensitize the employees on the benefits its DIB programs and create a feedback channel for
reluctant employees. Appointment change ambassadors can also drive the buy-ins of those
resisting employees albeit slowly.9

2. Reproduction of ‘Global Standard’ Across Various Corporate Facilities

Another challenge was the fact that, with offices located across the globe, maintaining a
standardized and consistent approach to DIB was difficult to achieve. This led to poor
implementation and ineffectiveness of those strategies in some locations. In addition, cultural
barriers and regulations in different Salesforce locations did not permit the implementation of
some of the DIB initiatives. Salesforce address this global implementation issues by adopting
variation in different geographical regions. The Office of Equality supports regional teams to
ensure effective implementation of its DIB program. Salesforce should focus on aligning its
DIB programs with local cultures, regional needs while maintaining its core principles.

3. Measuring Impact and Progress

It can be difficult to quantify the impact of Salesforce DIB initiatives on the company’s
financial and business performance because of the numerous indicators behind the principle
of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. This inability to accurately measure the impact will
impede Salesforce’s ability to improve on its DIB policies. Despite this issue, Salesforce has
relented and has created specific DIB targets with its own metric for assessment. It
9
https://craftware.com/salesforce-implementation-change-management/

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 determines the impact of its DIB initiatives through the implementation of different
numerical measures such as the diversity representation, pay equity and feedback surveys
and focus group. To achieve its DIB objectives, Salesforce has also set up clear reporting
channels to make operations more transparent and accountable. We also suggest that
Salesforce partners with experts in different locations to come up with different best practices
for measuring DIB impacts according to local culture and peculiarities.

CONCLUSION
There are several factors and drivers that have contributed to the success of Salesforce and one
remarkable strategy is its unwavering commitment to uphold diversity, inclusion, and belonging
a core organizational value. Sales approach to diversity, inclusion, and belonging is enshrined in
its leadership vision and this has been cascaded to all levels in the organization. All in all, the
intentional direction of Salesforce towards DIB, the mitigation of resistance, and the creation of a
central DIB tone worldwide has helped Salesforce make its workplace more diverse. Due to the
organizational commitment to DIB initiative, Salesforce has witnessed decreased employee
turnover, improved innovation, and outstanding business outcomes.

REFERENCES

1. Benioff, M., & Langley, M. (2019). Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest
Platform for Change. Currency.
2. Bersin, J. (2018). Becoming Irresistible: A New Model for Employee Engagement.
Deloitte Review. Retrieved from
[Deloitte]https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/deloitte-review/issue-16/employee-
engagement-strategies.html

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3. Catalyst. (2020). Why Diversity and Inclusion Matter: Quick Take. Retrieved from
[Catalyst]https://www.catalyst.org/research/why-diversity-and-inclusion-matter/

4. Coffee and Careers with Cindi Boudreaux. (2024, April 8). How Salesforce is Promoting
Diversity and Inclusion with the Rooney Rule [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSzEYTdMVvE
5. Equality - Salesforce.com. (n.d.). Salesforce.
https://www.salesforce.com/company/equality/

6. Equality groups. (n.d.). Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/company/equality-

groups/
7. Górna, M. (2024, March 25). Salesforce implementation: what causes employee
resistance, and how can you respond appropriately? Craftware.
https://craftware.com/salesforce-implementation-change-management/
8. Hyder, B. (2022, June 23). 2022 Equal Pay Update: The Salesforce Approach to Pay
Fairness. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/2022-equal-pay-update-
the-salesforce-approach-to-pay-fairness/
9. Marc Benioff Bio. (n.d.). Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/company/marc-benioff-
bio/?sfdc-redirect=586#Philanthropy
10. McKinsey & Company. (2020). Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters. Retrieved from
[McKinsey]https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/
diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters

11. Morehouse, A. R. (2022, November 1). How Salesforce creates inclusive learning
Programs to train the world. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/blog/inclusive-
training/
12. Salesforce. (2021). Equality at Salesforce. Retrieved from
[Salesforce.com]https://www.salesforce.com/company/equality/