Diversity is vital to the strength and health of practically everything on Planet Earth. Exclusionary recruitment strategies create weakness. But cultural diversity in the workplace gives your company deeper roots and a stronger foundation.
The traditional sourcing and hiring practices used by businesses for generations work in opposition to the diversity goal. But with a keen eye toward cultivating a varied and inclusive company, you can boot out the old ways and adopt new practices and policies that keep your company moving forward.
#1: Strive to Identify Personal Biases
Everyone has personal biases. They’re inherent to the human condition. Unfortunately, identification doesn’t necessarily help people avoid their influence. But Harvard University‘s Recruiting for Diversity plan suggests that it can help you build strategies that eliminate their effect on the hiring process.
Project Implicit offers a bias test that individuals and companies are using to help suss out issues. The results are sometimes disappointing, but knowledge really is power. When you know that you’re more inclined to project traits onto certain people just because of their gender, race, age or any other factor, you can find ways, such as automation or AI, to make those biases null in your sourcing and hiring.
#2: Incorporate “Blind” Recruitment and Hiring Practices
Blind recruiting is making some headway. Some companies go all-in with total blind recruitment and hiring. And some pick and choose areas where they’d prefer to make decisions based only on qualifications and appropriateness for the job. Michael Grothaus writes for Fast Company that this approach “needs to be tailored to each organization.”
You might selectively and judiciously omit information that your hiring team has known biases toward, or you might eliminate everything from gender and age to the name of the college or university where the candidate graduated.
#3: Use Candidate Matching Technology
Candidate matching, such as RealMatch technology, helps support blind recruitment efforts. It lets you plug in job requirements, then it works automatically. And with programmatic advertising, candidates who meet the job requirements are reached where they’re more likely to be. That’s based on data, not hunches.
RELATED: Can Blind Recruitment Help Encourage Diversity?
Our solutions put job ads in front of the eyes of a much more diverse pool of talent. The technology screens, grades, and ranks applicants so you don’t have to. And that saves valuable time while helping to eliminate the possibilities of unconscious bias.
#4: Weave Diversity Into the Employer Brand
The more your company is known for diversity, the broader the range of applicants you can expect. HR Council in Canada recommends promoting the company as a workplace where a diverse group of individuals are welcome and can thrive. If a good reputation is there, more people will feel safer and welcome.
Smart Recruiters calls it your Diversity Brand. Social media can help you create a diverse community, too. Use it to “showcase your current and ongoing diversity efforts and programs.” Imagery also goes a long way. So choose images carefully so they reflect a diverse group of individuals.
Although automation can help eliminate the biases that lead to exclusionary practices, you’ll still want a diverse interviewing and hiring team. At some point, a person, not a computer, will make a job offer. When varying opinions and attitudes are balanced against each other, you can expect a more reasonable and fair outcome for the company and your candidates.
Prepare for some difficult questions through the hiring process. People who are attracted to the promise of an inclusive workplace might bring along some past grievances and biases of their own. They’ll want to know, for example, about real opportunities for advancement. But when the whole team is on the same page, the right answers won’t just sound good. They’ll reflect the reality of working for the company.
Are you ready to build an environment of inclusiveness?