Workplace diversity has become a hot buzz and a top priority in recruiting. According to a study by SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), 57% of recruiters say they design their talent acquisition strategies in a way that attracts diverse candidates.
A diverse team empowers companies to be more creative, innovative, and productive. Talent from different backgrounds, cultures, and environments will bring innovative solutions to new business problems. There is no surprise that companies across the globe are targeting diverse candidates as part of their recruiting process.
However, a diverse workforce is not only good for your company but your business gets benefitted too. Let’s see why diversity and inclusion in the workplace are crucial in numbers.
- 57% of employees think their organization should be doing more to increase diversity.
- Highly gender-diverse teams are found to be 21% more likely to excel in their jobs and outperform profitability.
- Diverse teams are 70% more likely to take over new markets and 87% better at making smart decisions.
- Studies show inclusive companies are 1.7x more innovative.
Here are some more interesting stats about workplace diversity.
- But 41% of managers state they are “too busy” to implement any diversity and inclusion initiatives.
- Women are more likely to be recruited with blind applications.
- Men are twice as likely to get hired, regardless of the hiring manager’s gender.
- Only 7.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
What is Diversity Recruiting?
Diversity recruiting actively seeks candidates from different backgrounds to ensure every qualified candidate gets an equal opportunity in the talent acquisition process.
Diversity recruiting is as same as workplace diversity, where your team reflects the makeup of the greater society around you. Your staff and future employees should consist of various backgrounds, cultures, and ideas. Hence the hiring should be done carefully, eliminating all the biases against individuals or groups. Diversity recruiting is purely a practice of merit-based recruitment whose aim is to find the best talent, and it also promotes inclusion in the workplace.
Why is a diversity recruiting strategy crucial for any organization?
As discussed, diversity in the workplace is a fast-growing trend in the business world. While diversity recruiting is a moral choice, it also brings advantages like improved performance, innovation, productivity, and efficiency. Let’s see some more benefits of having a diverse recruiting strategy.
- It brings a larger and broader candidate pool from different backgrounds.
- Diversity recruiting increases cultural and language awareness.
- It attracts a wider range of skills and experience to your organization.
Now that we have seen what diverse recruiting is and why it is essential. Let’s see how to increase diversity through your recruitment practices.
6 Effective Ways to Recruit for a Diverse Workforce
Set Goals for your Team
Start with setting goals for your recruiting team. When it comes to increasing DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion), your teams should not rush to prepare a checklist of goals. Here the goals should be noble and also realistic. Talent acquisition teams often fail because they think of DEI as a one-time task. The main goal should be to develop a strategy that focuses on building a long-term talent pipeline with diverse candidates. Your team should work on it consistently rather than just focusing on ticking it off the list.
Simply put, your diverse recruiting goals should be simple, achievable, relevant to your hiring objectives, and measurable.
Leverage Data to Improve your Recruitment Strategy
Workforce diversity is an ever-evolving, ongoing practice that involves every employee in the company. To build a long-term diverse recruiting strategy, you need to measure results, learn, and correct them whenever or wherever needed.
A recruitment analytics tool will help you closely study the data and insights and uncover your strengths and weaknesses. You can also measure your diverse recruiting results through surveys studying employee demographics.
Make your Talent Acquisition Team More Inclusive
When you are looking to increase diversity in the workforce, it is first important to diversify your recruitment team. A diversified talent acquisition team works towards an unbiased recruiting strategy. Building a diversified recruiting process means increasing inclusion and equity in the following areas:
- Job descriptions
- Candidate sourcing
- Screening
- Assessments
- Interviews
- Data analytics and insights
- Onboarding and job allocation
Attract More Diverse Candidates, Ask Referrals
Modern recruitment is more about attracting, nurturing, and hiring the best talent. Although it’s tempting to implement traditional practices to engage candidates, they don’t bring many good results. Hence, you need to broaden the way you source, communicate and attract candidates through different channels.
Include Policies that Appeal to Diverse Candidates
Another thing that impresses diverse candidates is company policies that appeal to them. To attract and keep diverse candidates in your organization, you should not just create policies, but you need to live them.
Create a flexible work schedule; time offs, religious holidays, workforce benefits, etc. Having these policies implemented proactively, you can promote them when sourcing candidates.
Use AI (ATS) for Eliminating Bias
It’s easy for a human to shortlist more men than women candidates when screening the resumes. This is where AI helps recruiters hire high-quality candidates blindly without any discrimination. An Applicant Tracking System comes in handy for teams practicing diversity recruiting as it screens resumes that match your job post.
So, Ready to Implement Diversity Recruiting Practices in your Company?
When including diverse recruiting in your hiring strategy, teams are unaware of where to begin in many cases. It’s convincing that you find it hard to cultivate diversity and inclusion in your team. However, looking into your organization’s objectives and writing relevant hiring goals will help you initiate diversity recruiting smoothly. Find an ATS that allows you to eliminate bias when sourcing, screening, accessing, or onboarding candidates with ease.
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