Big technology companies (along with most major brands) spent a lot of time this summer talking about diversity in their organizations. The shortage of women and people of color in the industry has been well documented — and a hot trade show topic in recent years. But the COVID-19 pandemic, with its opportunity to “reimagine” what the sector will and should look like, coupled with massive protests triggered by police killing black people, seemed to spur companies into real action.

Just yesterday, during data center giant Equinix’s quarterly earnings call, CEO Charles Meyers pointedly discussed diversity and social justice before his company’s Q2 results.

Equinix’s vision, he said, includes a workforce “at all levels” that represents the communities in which it operates. “We acknowledge that we have work to do in achieving this vision but are fully committed to demonstrating measurable, enduring progress against a multi-year strategy and continue to believe that our culture remains a key competitive differentiator,” Meyers said, adding that Equinix will use diversity targets, bias training, and “employee mobilization,” to achieve this goal.

But for tech and other industries this goal remains lightyears away. Google, which released the industry’s first diversity report in 2014, reported it was 61.3% white and 69.4% male. Six year later, and Google has hardly moved the needle. Its 2020 report said Google is 54.4% white and 68.4% male.

Tech alone isn’t the problem, and this shortcoming crosses all industries. Despite talk of increasing diversity, only 12% of human resource leaders across sectors say their organization has been effective at increasing diversity representation, according to a new Gartner survey.

Based on a survey of 113 human resource leaders in April, Gartner came up with three barriers to improving underrepresented talent: unclear career paths and steps to advancement, too little exposure to senior leaders, and lack of mentors or career support.

On the plus side, the survey also found that 69% of organizations are prioritizing diversity — especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. However, “while the intent is there, there is no two-hour training remedy for this challenge,” said Lauren Romansky, managing VP in the Gartner HR practice. “Organizations need to assess their current systems and processes to mitigate bias and address organizational factors that prohibit equal opportunity for advancement.”

To increase diversity, Gartner says organizations need to address systemic bias in processes and stakeholders. This begins with building healthy manager-employee relationships. The most successful organizations go beyond traditional leadership development programs that focus solely on skill-building to advance women, LGBT+, or racially and ethnically diverse employees, Gartner says. Instead, they also target managers of program participants to spread awareness of the employee experience of their direct reports, build trust, and enable greater manager advocacy.

Gartner also suggests developing growth-focused networks that include an array of diverse employees in role, skills, level, and experience. These networks also offer exposure to senior leaders who are positioned to support growth and advancement.

And finally, organizations must redesign hiring processes to mitigate bias and make it easier for employees to change roles within the organization. Gartner says this is often the least used technique because it requires a significant effort. But it’s also one of the most effective. This includes expanding labor market opportunities to consider adjacent and nontraditional talent pools, and also holding leaders accountable for balanced evaluation of candidates and successors.