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Hiring diversity has emerged as a top priority and contentious topic for every business looking to succeed in the current global market. This has been incredibly challenging to accomplish. Is it because of talent pipeline issues or just unnoticeable biases? In this article, we focus on how you can encourage diversity hiring.
It’s a long-term process of creating and putting into practice a hiring strategy that ignores race, gender, religion, and other personal characteristics in favour of qualifications, experience, and competencies is known as diversity hiring. At the same time, you don’t pursue diversity hiring for the sake of a positive impression that shows up in the portfolio.
It ought to be grounded in the firm conviction that everyone deserves an equal chance to express themselves through their work and knowledge. This principle accompanies the whole recruitment process, including sourcing, screening, and shortlisting. Not including this principle is one of the common recruitment mistakes that most companies make.
Diversity hiring filters biases and doesn’t allow them to form. It checks that no minority is neglected but given an equal opportunity like any other majority. It’s worth noting that in the UK, according to the McGregor-Smith Review (2017), the employment rate for black and minority ethnic (BME) groups is only 62.8% compared with an employment rate for White workers of 75.6%.
A diverse workplace fosters greater employee productivity and better performance. When employees feel that there is diversity in terms of race, religion, gender, and even age, employee satisfaction and happiness go up.
All employees are equal because no one receives preferential treatment or more benefits. The key to successful diversity hiring is savvy management that upholds the rights and provides opportunities for all qualified candidates. This management is adept at maximizing this trait by assigning the appropriate role to the appropriate worker.
Therefore, the turnover rate will be diminished.
A diverse workplace will more readily comprehend the needs of various customers, so it consistently generates fresh concepts and creates cutting-edge solutions to increase customer satisfaction and broaden its clientele.
Diversity actually makes money. According to research, revenue resulting from innovation in above-average diverse businesses is 19% more than that resulting from below-average diverse companies. The sense of belonging makes employees establish new problem solutions that help the business grow.
So, how can you develop integrated diversity hiring?
Businesses frequently employ people who are similar to them, and this occurs as a result of the conscious and unconscious actions of business recruiters. However, if you adopt an open mind when it comes to hiring because someone has the necessary aptitude and skills, diversity will be fostered in your business and eventually become a part of your culture.
One of the first steps toward achieving diversity and inclusion D & I is to plan a diversity hiring audit that determines whether the hiring process takes diversity into account or not. Define the strengths that promote diversity and the weaknesses that diminish it by taking a broad view. This motivates you to reevaluate your diversity objectives and decide what you really need to accomplish.
You can easily choose one metric to gauge the success of the policy you committed to, based on your diversity objectives. When all efforts are directed toward racial, gender, or other equality, concentration on one form makes success easier. Like any other metric, it must be precise, time-limited, attainable, measurable, and pertinent, in other words, SMART.
Knowing this metric will motivate you to revamp the company’s policies and create an organizational culture that will be incorporated into hiring decisions and other business operations. Employee behaviour and attitude should also reflect the new policies and values.
Referrals are a great way to find candidates, but when it comes to hiring, you run the risk of having a lot of the same people work for you, which kills diversity. Make sure you advertise your job openings through a variety of channels when looking for candidates.
The audit’s conclusion will make it simple for you to identify the gaps that need to be filled. To maximize sourcing, job postings should be written in a way that encourages applications from a diverse pool of qualified candidates.
Make sure your job description is balanced and free of language that will favour one gender over another if you want to draw in applicants of all genders. Nowadays, you can accomplish this with the aid of ATSs, thanks to technology. You can also use a gender decoder before publishing any job ad.
The kind of candidates you recruit is significantly influenced by how you write your job description. Therefore, you should choose your words carefully when writing it. For instance, refrain from using language that will draw in more male candidates if you are recruiting women. Also jettison any qualities that may turn away quality candidates, such as specific universities, or a certain educational curriculum.
Checking whether diversity is reflected in online business channels is another crucial factor to take into account. Do they draw in women and members of minority groups to apply?
Pro Tip: Include a statement in your job posting stating that your business is an equal-opportunity employer and welcomes applications from people of all ages, genders, and races.
The screening process is aided by an applicant tracking system, which can also be very helpful in attracting a diverse applicant pool.
Through ATS, you add the skills, qualifications, and competencies you are seeking, adding a second layer of bias-free screening to your diversity hiring process.
By omitting the candidate’s name, address, university, and school, an ATS is successful in establishing a blind screening procedure that makes the candidate anonymous.
When selecting a short list of candidates, make sure it includes individuals from various backgrounds and genders. One minority candidate on the shortlist is a diversity dead end because it is highly unlikely that this person will be hired. Make sure there are at least two minority candidates on your shortlist if it includes any.
You can check to see if your goal has been attained by returning to the metric you initially used. If so, then congrats! Repeat the approach with minimal optimization for better results; if not, then try a different approach to get the desired outcome.
So, why would you still suffer with diversity hiring initiatives?
Even though you’ve made numerous attempts to hire people of diverse backgrounds, you’ve been unable to succeed or pinpoint the causes of your failures.
These could be the reasons:
According to studies, incorporating diverse people ensures success. Diversity thus stopped being a nicety and became necessary. Even if you completely changed the organizational culture, biases still exist and are the root of all problems. Apply unconscious bias training and evaluate the outcomes; in some cases, the effects of this training vanish after 8 weeks, but it might work for your company.
If your diversity hiring initiatives don’t produce the desired results, look to the C-suite level because changes always start at the top and work their way down. Does any woman occupy a managerial position? Is there any individual ethnic minority in a high board position? If either of the two questions is “no” or “any,” a long-lasting solution should be implemented as soon as possible if you want to make any progress on the diversity file.
Your new recruitment practices have succeeded in attracting diverse candidates, and you’ve hired women and ethnic minorities. But eventually, the turnover rate levels off and a variety of people start to depart. You achieved diversity, but no inclusivity is presented. Successful diversity cannot survive without inclusivity. The new employees did not find an environment that made them feel valued or welcomed.
Your efforts don’t end with hiring a diverse candidate; they’ve just begun. To avoid resignations before the first weekend, make sure the environment where the new employees will work will accept their odd backgrounds. The primary requirement for diverse employee retention is comfort.
With new values, start small! In other words, start by implementing the values you want to instil in your staff members in a small department. Once you are successful, expand your efforts to a larger department, and so on, until all business departments embrace these values.
How could you be certain that your approach to diversity is on track? KPI, of course. Another way of asking the question is, how do you measure your metrics?
Determine the employee retention rate by comparing the number of employees at the beginning of the year to the number at the end of it, and compare this rate to the retention rate for minorities.
Compare easily the proportion of employees belonging to a particular gender, race, age, etc. to the total workforce. To determine which department is the most diverse and which is the least diverse and requires immediate hiring, repeat this comparison with each department.
If you’ve known the group that your company misses, then post job ads that motivate qualified candidates to apply. Compare the total number of applicants to the applicants who belong to this group, and determine their percentage.
Determine the percentage of diverse applicants who successfully progressed through the recruitment stages.
Determine the percentage of diverse candidates who reached the final stage and get shortlisted and then hired.
Calculate the percentage of new employees from minorities that achieved extraordinary performance that resulted in a promotion.
Wishing you luck in creating a diverse workplace! Remember, if you need to hire for positions in your firm and need help, Whitecollars will handle it for you. Check out our Recruitment services and select the perfect bundle.
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