As a small-business owner, it's one thing to say you promote workplace diversity; it's another to actually measure your success in that effort. If you want to determine how effective you are being in achieving diversity in your business, you need some tools to quantify that achievement. Examine the ways you can measure your diversity initiatives for effectiveness so you know what's working and what's not.

Maintain recruitment figures. Examine your new hires for the past year and note the number of minorities and other subgroups such as the disabled you have hired. Compare this to the previous year’s figures to see if you have made progress in promoting and achieving diversity. Talk to your human resources department about whether they are turning away minority candidates or if those candidates are failing to apply. This can guide your efforts for the following year.

Analyze biannual employee surveys. Conduct surveys twice a year to see if employees perceive improvements in diversity at your place of business. Ask for responses in terms of numbers. For example, a scale of 1 to 5 could range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Total the numbers from responses on subsequent surveys to see if workplace perceptions support the idea that you are promoting diversity successfully.

Measure changes in supplier diversity. Analyze suppliers and vendors to determine how many are minority owned. Compare the figure to previous years to see if you are making progress. Instruct your buyers to make an effort to consider minority-owned businesses as vendors and measure the change in the numbers for the following year.

Examine pay equity. Thoroughly study your payroll department figures to see if minorities and other subgroups are spread out among the wage range at your company. Assign percentages to each wage level that represent the number of minorities. Note any pay scales that have no minorities and those that have an inordinate amount of minorities. Track these figures as you initiate diversity measures and compare for improvement.

Analyze turnover. Take note of how many minority employees leave your place of business. If you find unusually high figures for any given minority, you know you'll need to make efforts to retain this group of employees. Compare turnover figures from year to year to measure your progress.