From commitment to implementation: Swiss LGBTI-Label at the 10th St.Gallen Diversity & Inclusion Week

The Swiss LGBTI-Label was pleased to contribute to the 10th St.Gallen Diversity & Inclusion Week with an online session dedicated to a central challenge for workplace inclusion: moving from commitment to consistent implementation.

Organised by the University of St.Gallen, the annual D&I Week connects research with organisational practice and provides a platform for HR and DE&I professionals, executives, academics and others working on inclusion. Its tenth edition offered an opportunity to reflect both on progress achieved over the past decade and on the questions organisations still need to address.

When does inclusion become part of the organisation?

During the webinar, Alejandro Betancor, Managing Director of the Swiss LGBTI-Label, and Andrea Waser-Wheatley from the University of Bern explored the gap that can emerge between an organisation’s intentions and employees’ everyday experience.

Many organisations today have policies, initiatives, employee networks and visible commitments to inclusion. The important question is what happens next.

Who is responsible for implementation? Are managers equipped to apply policies consistently? Are inclusive practices integrated throughout the employee lifecycle? Are employees able to provide feedback safely? And does the organisation have a way to identify where practice does not yet match policy?

These questions shift the focus from individual activities towards organisational capability.

From activities to systematic progress

The session examined several common implementation challenges.

Visible initiatives can have limited organisational impact when they are not supported by structures and responsibilities. Policies can exist without being applied consistently. Some groups can remain insufficiently considered even within otherwise advanced inclusion strategies. And organisations need ways to assess employee experience without creating pressure to disclose sensitive personal information.

Sustainable implementation therefore requires more than adding further activities.

It benefits from clear mandates and ownership, involvement of the people affected, integration into HR and management processes, capable leaders, safe feedback mechanisms and regular review.

The objective is not to reach a theoretical state of perfection. It is to create a process in which an organisation can identify its current level of maturity, decide what needs to improve and assign responsibility for the next step.

Why measurement and evidence matter

This implementation challenge is becoming more relevant as DE&I measures become increasingly widespread.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, 83% of surveyed employers reported having implemented diversity, equity and inclusion measures, compared with 67% in 2023. Among very large organisations, implementation was even more widespread.

As organisational activity increases, the question therefore becomes less about whether something is being done and more about what is working, how consistently it is working and what evidence supports that conclusion.

The World Economic Forum’s 2025 DE&I Lighthouse work similarly places emphasis on initiatives demonstrating measurable, sustained and scalable impact rather than activity alone.

How the Swiss LGBTI-Label supports this process

The Swiss LGBTI-Label translates these principles into a structured certification process.

For large and very large organisations, the assessment comprises 60 weighted questions across seven fields of action, covering areas ranging from mission and strategy to leadership, HR processes, communication, quality management and legal requirements.

The assessment looks beyond the existence of a policy or initiative. Organisations are asked to demonstrate evidence, explain how measures are implemented in practice and identify priorities for further development.

Independent scientific evaluation provides an additional layer of scrutiny and helps distinguish between stated commitment and demonstrable implementation.

Certification therefore represents both recognition of what an organisation has achieved and a structured basis for continued improvement.

Ten years of learning and exchange

The 10th anniversary of the St.Gallen Diversity & Inclusion Week provided an appropriate setting for this conversation.

Over the past decade, the event has developed into a recurring meeting point between research and practice. The previous 2025 edition alone included 24 events and 932 registrations, illustrating the breadth of interest in practical approaches to workplace inclusion.

We warmly congratulate the University of St.Gallen and the D&I Week team on ten years of creating space for learning, evidence and exchange around diversity and inclusion.

Our thanks also go to Andrea Waser-Wheatley from the University of Bern for contributing her perspective on implementation, and especially to everyone who joined the webinar, shared questions and reflected with us on where organisations can take their next step.

For the Swiss LGBTI-Label, one principle remains particularly useful: progress becomes meaningful when the next step is specific, owned and verifiable.