Most organisations recognize by now that a diverse and talented workforce is good for business. Indeed most leadership teams articulate a strong and clear positive message regarding their support for Diversity.
There are many studies to show the competitive advantage and superior business results from Diversity in the workplace and most scale organisations have made significant investment in building global diversity functions and programs to improve Diversity.
So with all of the support, investment and initiatives, why do many organisations struggle to make meaningful progress in their Diversity objectives and what can be done to improve results?
Whilst there are many drivers of success, including the employers value proposition/attractiveness to their diverse employee populations, they fall into two broad categories, demand and delivery:
Demand: The formulation of demand, the development of the job profile/requisition, is where the rubber meets the road in the diversity recruitment process and is where it often breaks down and negatively impacts every step that follows. Hiring managers ask HR/recruiting to find a profile and that profile is typically the same profile – education, skills, experience, attitude and industry sector – that has been used in the past and which is likely to deliver a similar spread of candidates as in the past.
Few hiring managers have had training and experience in interviewing, let alone diversity interview training; many will approach the selection process in the same way as they have always done, typically delivering a hire similar to other hires made in the past. The result? Another chance to increase diversity is lost. As one of my former colleagues, and Global Diversity Leader put it, uncharitably but not inaccurately, often "stale, male and pale".
In my experience, it's not that managers have a general bias against Diversity. Rather, they have a fixed view based on culture and experience that leads them to formulate their demand, and select against delivered shortlists, in a very narrow range that leads to poorer diversity outcomes,
Delivery: Like the rest of HR, recruiting functions, and generalists tasked with recruiting, are being asked to do more with less. They are measured with cost and time to hire metrics and are challenged by business stakeholders to deliver candidates ever more quickly. Under resource, cost and time pressures, many HR organisations miss the opportunity to truly engage the candidate market fully, relying instead on e-recruitment or agencies to deliver candidates.
By working with job boards, and/or agencies, the restriction of range of candidates engaged misses the opportunity to really interact with quality and diversity in a meaningful way and in a way that drives competitive advantage.
Agencies on no-fix-no-fee will work their databases and perhaps some job posting and networking, knowing that speed is key, otherwise they lose the fee to a competitor so they deliver the best candidate they have, rather than the best and most diverse candidates available. Likewise, when corporate recruiters use job boards as the primary source, they are only engaging candidates that are seeking employment and not the best and most diverse candidates available to them.
By only working within the active candidate market (those people actively seeking employment), employers are missing out on the quality and diversity within the passive candidate market (talent employed by other organisations but who are not currently seeking a new job). The quality and diversity outcomes are therefore undermined by the restriction of range of candidates engaged.
So, what can organisations facing the challenges above do to improve diversity outcomes? Here are 5 practices that have proven benefits in driving better Diversity results:
Demand
The role profile for a requisition sets the parameters for the recruiting process to follow. The broader the profile, the wider the range of quality and diverse candidates that can be engaged in the attraction and selection processes.
To ensure the broadest possible role profile, build a qualitative intake meeting into the recruitment process involving the HR Business Partner, Recruiter and Hiring Manager to define the required profile. In the meeting explore the diversity impact of choices on industry experience, specific skills, attitudes and education and seek to broaden where possible e.g. is an advanced degree really required, do they have to really have retail expertise, what are transferable skills from other industries that could be included etc.
Challenging hiring managers on choices and engaging as a true business partner rather than providing transactional delivery of requested hires can lead to significantly enhanced outcomes. However, it is key to ensure that HR partners and recruiters are capable of articulating the commercial benefits of diversity and have the courage, capability and credibility to consult with, and challenge, their stakeholders on diversity outcomes.
Sourcing
Driving quality and diversity requires the broadest and most qualitative sourcing process possible. A solution approach that ensures both passive and active candidate populations are engaged is a key driver of success. By building sourcing solutions that combine e-recruitment posting/advertising along with social media and competitor talent research and approach, quality and diversity are significantly enhanced, whilst also delivering qualitative data from target talent regarding its perception of your employee value proposition.
The reality is that the vast majority of recruiting functions lack the resources to leverage the passive market and necessarily rely on the e-recruitment/advertised market at great opportunity cost to their businesses. However, there are providers in the market who deliver services related to research and approach within the passive market and others that provide combined passive and active candidate identification, approach and shortlisting, often on highly favourable charging models.
Indeed Human Capital talent provides its MyHeadhunter services on a time based charging model which significantly discounts agency and search firm costs whilst improving quality and diversity.
They challenge for HR/recruiting functions is to adopt a solution approach and to resource internally, or source and select a new type of partner that bring scale and capability in both the passive candidate market and multi-channel sourcing.
Measurement
Measure the results from your diversity recruiting investment. Measurement allows businesses to understand its diversity outcomes and provides qualitative data from which to build a platform for improvement. Truly understanding outcomes is difficult in isolation of knowing what is happening at each stage of the recruitment process.
It's important to have insights on which stages of the recruitment process are enhancing/reducing diversity outcomes and within which talent segments, businesses and hiring managers. Having this information will enable the identification of behavioural and systemic barriers to diversity success and provide a baseline for a virtuous circle of measurement, action and improvement.
Whilst data collection can be daunting, most applicant tracking systems provide the ability to capture and report diversity data. Creating cross functional teams to analyse data and recommend initiatives provides a great opportunity for business HR partnership and professional development.
Accountability
For any diversity program to be successful, it's essential that accountabilities are defined and allocated correctly. Make sure that hiring managers understand that they are accountable for diversity hiring outcomes. Make HR Partners accountable for manager training, education advice and consultancy on the diversity agenda and hold recruiters accountable for driving diversity friendly sourcing programs and solutions.
By combining clarity on accountabilities with measurement, activity, advice and consultancy, the elements are in place to drive enhanced diversity results.
Partnership
Build a sense of partnership and shared objectives across stakeholder groups to achieving sustainable benefits.
Given the fragmentation and geographical remoteness of diversity program teams, recruiters, hiring managers and HR partners, it can be easy to slip in to silo approaches and unaligned activities.
To avoid this and to create a sense of partnership, whilst generating stakeholder engagement and professional development opportunities, build cross functional diversity teams. Include all stakeholder groups in diversity action teams and task them to review diversity outputs and to develop and champion initiatives and to manage diversity related change.
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