From improving employee engagement and increasing knowledge of markets to higher revenues, the benefits of a diverse and inclusive workplace culture have been well-documented. Unfortunately, so has the lack of progress on this front, in spite of the millions of dollars spent on diversity initiatives. Google, for example, spent $114 million in 2014 and $150 million in 2015 on such initiatives. Their 2019 diversity report, however, revealed that Black workers still made up only 2% of its tech workforce. "Diversity and inclusion initiatives in the contingent workforce industry have been slow to make an impact in the past because they have been too focused on spending with diverse suppliers, or worse, public relations. To drive real change, investments must go to initiatives that create inclusivity and diversity within the actual workforce," says Jim Burke, CEO of global workforce management company Workforce Logiq. "It's time to up our game." Related: 3 strategies for promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace To that end, Workforce Logiq has released its Workforce Management AI-Powered Diversity Benchmark Report, which analyzes worker gender and ethnic diversity across geographies and job categories. The report uses predictive insights from its new algorithm called IQ Talent Diversity, which aims to help employers attract talent with the desired skillsets from typically underrepresented communities. Employers can also use the intelligence compiled by the algorithm to compare their company's diversity hiring performance against industry and national benchmarks. The Diversity Benchmark Report takes a look at ethnic diversity by state. The algorithm found Hawaii, New Mexico and California to be the top three states with the highest ethnic diversity indices, double the national average of available Black, Hispanic and Asian-American professional and knowledge workers. Texas and Florida made up the rest of the top five states which represent 50% of identified diversity candidates in the Workforce Logiq proprietary database. Maine, West Virginia, Vermont, South Dakota, and North Dakota (tied with Montana) had the lowest percentages of available diverse professional and knowledge workers included in the IQ Talent Diversity predictive algorithms, each below the national average by -70% or more. The report also examines gender diversity by state, finding the gender split for professional and knowledge workers to be relatively even. Mississippi, Vermont, Maine, and Arkansas were all found to have above average percentages (+5%) of women professional and knowledge worker candidates than the national average. "We're giving employers the real-time tools and predictive insights they need to ensure more diverse candidates are included at the front end of the recruiting funnel," says Dr. Christy Petrosso, Workforce Logiq's chief data scientist and talent economist, "and enabling workforce leaders to proactively benchmark their performance against the industry and competitors and improve inclusive hiring and retention practices." See our slideshow above for the top (and bottom) four job categories for gender and ethnic diversity, and click here to access the full report. Read more: 

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