Who receives development opportunities, challenging assignments and sponsorship? Do managers follow through? Torch helps you design support around those questions, combining professional coaching for underrepresented leaders, coach-led peer groups and Sponsored Mentoring where they fit. Support for the managers making these decisions can be scoped alongside the participant program.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) coaching is leadership development focused on the challenges people from underrepresented groups face at work. A coach can help a leader develop influence, prepare for a new role or work through a difficult conversation. The organisation remains responsible for decisions about assignments, pay and promotion. Coaching can support a wider inclusion strategy; it does not replace those decisions.
Choose among four areas of support according to the barriers your organisation has identified and the goals participants want to work on. The combination and scope are agreed for your program.
A senior ICF coach with at least five years' coaching experience, matched for context and style, works with a leader on their specific challenges: taking on a first management role, building influence across a function, or moving into a broader role. Participants set goals in the context of their work. Before-and-after 360 feedback and custom dashboards support review of agreed progress measures, separately from private coaching conversations.
Torch's Navigating Identity & Influence group coaching program brings together leaders from underrepresented groups with a coach to work on presenting themselves authentically, building networks and navigating organisational dynamics. This is a peer cohort working on shared challenges. It is distinct from team coaching, where one coach works with an intact operating team, including its manager.
The Torch Sponsored Mentoring Program pairs a rising leader with an internal executive sponsor who provides stretch opportunities, access and advocacy, while a professional coach supports the rising leader's development. The sponsor helps open doors within the organisation; the coach helps the participant prepare for and learn from the work.
Manager decisions about feedback, stretch work and advocacy are another place to examine barriers. Support can be designed to help managers practise these responsibilities alongside their employees' development. Zendesk included Torch-led group coaching for managers in its Ignite program, described below. The format for your managers would be agreed as part of your program scope.
Zendesk's Ignite program, designed and managed on Torch and documented by The Josh Bersin Company in 2022, began as a women's career initiative. In late 2021, it was expanded to serve employees who identified as underrepresented talent. The eight-month design combined one-to-one external mentoring with experienced operating leaders from the Torch community, group coaching for participants, a parallel group-coaching experience for their managers, executive fireside chats and customised learning paths.
At the early-2022 midpoint of the first redesigned cohort, which involved approximately 100 employees and more than 50 managers, the case reported:
These are employee and manager reports from one program's early-2022 midpoint; exact response counts and promotion or retention outcomes were not reported. Ignite offers a practical design example: participants and their managers developed simultaneously, with mentoring, coaching and executive engagement connected.
A 2023 meta-analysis of workplace coaching found positive average outcomes across the studies it reviewed. That supports coaching as a development method. Research on access, decisions and accountability also helps shape the questions a DEI program should address. These findings guide design; they do not forecast promotion or financial returns from a particular program.
A 2019 economic modelling study estimated that improved allocation of talent among women and Black men explained 20 to 40 percent of growth in US market output per person between 1960 and 2010. This is a national estimate. Within your organisation, investigate where capable people lack access to work that would let them contribute and develop.
A 2017 meta-analysis of US hiring experiments found a persistent callback gap for Black applicants over the period studied, with fieldwork ending in 2015. A Toronto field experiment published in 2011 also found callback differences between otherwise comparable applications assigned English-sounding and Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names. These studies concern hiring. To understand development access in your organisation, examine its nominations, assignments and feedback directly.
In a 2006 mock-jury experiment, racially diverse juries discussed more case facts and made fewer factual errors than all-white juries. A meta-analysis of 146 team studies found that conclusions about diversity and performance depended partly on how performance was measured. For your program, consider whose perspective reaches a decision and how people engage with it.
In an observational study of 708 US workplaces, structures assigning responsibility for diversity were associated with broader gains in managerial representation than training alone. A 2019 randomised trial of brief online diversity training at one global company found improved attitudes, with less consistent effects on measured workplace behaviour. Assign owners for the actions you want to see, then review what people do afterwards.
Start by examining where people from underrepresented groups may lose ground in your organisation: nominations for development, stretch assignments, sponsor relationships, promotion rates by level, feedback quality and attrition. Your HR team can use its data and participants' accounts to identify priorities, then discuss those findings with Torch's program designers. The practical guides below offer two starting points:
| Your team owns | Torch supports |
|---|---|
| The access data and the barrier you choose to address | Program design around the priorities you identify |
| Eligibility, selection and invitations | Coach matching by context and style, with the appropriate coaching tier agreed |
| Manager participation and sponsor commitments | Coaching and mentoring support scoped around those responsibilities |
| Decisions on assignments, pay and promotion | Development goals, before-and-after 360 feedback and custom dashboards for agreed progress measures |
| Internal rules for handling participant information | Agreement on reporting and information sharing for the program, separately from private coaching conversations |
Agree on the measures before launch and keep four questions separate:
Report the time period and denominator for each measure. Where a suitable comparison group is available, explain the comparison and its limitations. Satisfaction is not the same as advancement, and a sponsor's readiness rating does not equate to a promotion. Agree which progress information is shared; keep private coaching conversations separate.
Pricing is quote-based. Discuss the audience, coaching needs, peer cohorts, sponsorship and manager support with Torch so the proposal reflects the program you want to run. A department, region or initial cohort can be the starting scope; agree what the review will assess before deciding whether to extend it.
Already identified the barrier? Share the audience, the issue you want to address and what support is already available. A Torch program designer can help you explore the right combination.
Still determining where to start? Explore the ERG support guide or women’s development program guide to inform your first set of decisions.
Leadership coaching focused on the challenges people from underrepresented groups face at work. It can support goals such as building influence, preparing for a new role and navigating organisational dynamics. Individual coaching, peer cohorts, Sponsored Mentoring and manager support can be combined according to the program's needs.
Torch coaching works with participants on their own work situations, with opportunities to practise, reflect and use feedback over time. Diversity training may teach shared concepts, skills and expectations. The two can complement each other; the program design should be clear about what each is meant to achieve.
Set eligibility, invitations and any identity-data requirements with your HR team before launch, and explain them clearly to participants. Confirm with Torch what information the agreed design requires and who can access it.
Agree what goals and progress information will be shared before the program begins. Managers and sponsors need enough context to support relevant work and opportunities, while private coaching conversations remain separate. Any joint conversation should have an agreed purpose and scope.
Yes. Torch can support department-level development, and a group or region can provide a focused starting point. Agree the participants, relevant manager or sponsor support and the questions you want the first review to answer.
Set goals for what participants will practise and what access the organisation will provide. Review participation, applied behaviour, access and advancement separately. The Zendesk case shows the connected design and feedback from Ignite's early-2022 midpoint; promotion, retention and representation are outcomes to assess over time, not guarantees.
Torch is a leadership coaching and alignment platform. For DEI programs, it offers individual coaching with senior ICF coaches who have at least five years' coaching experience, the Navigating Identity & Influence group coaching program and Sponsored Mentoring. Manager support can be scoped alongside these. Organisational context, before-and-after 360 feedback and custom dashboards connect the development work with agreed progress measures.
