JEDI1: How to use stakeholder feedback to choose your JEDI actions and build your plan

Modified on Thu, 26 Mar at 10:12 AM

Gathering stakeholder feedback for your JEDI plan

Summarizing key data and stakeholder feedback findings

Choose JEDI actions using data and stakeholder feedback

Create a JEDI action plan with clear priorities

What this article covers

This guidance is for B Corps and companies working with the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Impact Topic. This article discusses ways that companies can use the data and feedback gathered in JEDI1 to implement meaningful actions for JEDI2. This article gives a short overview that is further explained in follow-up articles.

Why stakeholder feedback matters

Without engaging stakeholders, JEDI actions risk being symbolic or disconnected from what people actually experience. The JEDI Impact Topic is designed to help companies measure differences between groups, gather feedback from stakeholders, and take action to create more diverse and inclusive ways of working. Listening to stakeholders is also essential for building trust and protecting people’s dignity: it signals that their experiences matter, that harms or inequities will be taken seriously, and that the company is willing to be held accountable for change.

The JEDI Impact Topic journey has four interconnected steps:

Gathering disaggregated JEDI1 data and stakeholder feedback
Summarizing key data and feedback findings
Choosing relevant JEDI actions
Creating a data-driven JEDI action plan

1. Gathering stakeholder feedback for your JEDI plan

Start considering the stakeholders in scope: all individuals and communities affected by your own operations and value chain (e.g., customers, supplying farmers, investors, neighbours, and volunteers). Always include employees and other workers and consider different worker groups (locations, job categories, seniority, contract types). Explicitly include systematically disadvantaged groups such as people with disabilities, migrants, specific ethnic groups, and LGBTQIA+ people.

Choose feedback channels that are safe and practical: anonymous surveys, listening sessions, one‑to‑one interviews, and existing channels like worker representatives or grievance mechanisms. When inviting people, explain clearly:

Why are you collecting feedback
How information will be used and who will see it
What people can expect to happen next: action plan
How anonymity and confidentiality will be protected

If in doubt, lean towards including more stakeholders and refining later, rather than excluding groups too early.

Example of how to communicate the feedback request to stakeholders
“We are collecting feedback to better understand how our policies, culture, and day‑to‑day practices affect different groups of workers. We will combine your responses with our people data (for example, on hiring, promotions, and exits) to identify JEDI priorities and choose concrete actions.

A small internal project group, which includes worker representation where possible, will have access to the raw results. Before sharing any findings more widely, we will anonymize them and remove any information that could identify individual people.

After we analyze the results, we will share the main themes and planned actions in an action plan available to all employees and other workers. We will also explain what we can and cannot commit to in the short term, and when you can expect an update on progress.”

2. Summarizing key data and stakeholder feedback findings

Next, bring together all your inputs:

People‑related data (social identity markers, recruitment, promotion, exits, training, wages, complaints, culture)
Stakeholder feedback (survey responses, interview notes, focus group summaries, emails)

Where possible, disaggregate measurements for different identity and employment categories (for example, gender identity or sex at birth, race/ethnicity where appropriate, disability, job category, site). Write one to two sentences per metric to describe what you see and which groups are most affected.

Then theme the qualitative feedback into a small set of JEDI‑relevant topics (hiring, promotion, pay, culture, complaints). Note how often each theme appears and how severe it seems.

For example: “Across all sites, annual turnover is 12%, but it rises to 22% for temporary workers and 25% for workers who self‑identify as migrants in warehouse roles.” or “Overall, 78% of customers rate our product as ‘easy to use,’ but this drops to 46% for customers who self‑identify as having a visual impairment.”

3. Choose JEDI actions using data and stakeholder feedback

Use your JEDI1 insights to review the JEDI2 actions (JEDI2.a–s) across:

Foundation actions (a - e)
Within the Workplace actions (f - l)
Beyond the Workplace actions (m - s)

For companies with more than 10 workers, each key insight identifies which JEDI2 actions could address it by:

Documenting the JEDI1 data that each action responds to
Documenting the stakeholder feedback that each action responds to
Define three to five JEDI priorities, each linked to specific JEDI1 data and feedback.
For each priority, identify priority actions, ensuring you choose at least the number required for your size, and link to JEDI1 data and feedback.

4. Create a JEDI action plan with clear priorities

Companies that are at least small must capture their actions in an action plan table with:

JEDI priority
JEDI action (plain language)
Related JEDI1 data and feedback
Owner
Timeline
Resources
Status

For micro companies this is optional but recommended.

For all companies, we recommend:

Prioritize actions that:

Address the most severely felt issues
Benefit systematically disadvantaged groups
Are feasible to implement before the next audit cycle

Make sure that workers can access the plan and review it regularly. Communicate key elements and updates back to stakeholders so they can see how their feedback shaped your JEDI work.

Ultimately, working with JEDI1 and JEDI2 is not a one‑time exercise or a way to “prove” that everything is already fair. It is an ongoing practice of listening, learning, and adjusting when evidence shows that some groups are harmed or excluded.
In this work, it is important to show willingness to hear difficult feedback, to acknowledge where your company has fallen short, and to be transparent about what you will do next. Acknowledge your accountability by returning regularly to your stakeholders and your data, showing how their input has shaped your decisions, and being open about both progress and gaps.