The business case for inclusive companies with diverse employees has been validated many times through research showing it to provide many organisational benefits, including higher levels of creativity and innovation, increased employee engagement and productivity and more efficient knowledge sharing.
Ensuring DEI is part of the culture of your workplace should be central to the heart of your recruitment strategy.
What is DEI?
DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
- Diversity concerns differences, such as apparent and non-apparent disabilities, ethnicity, gender identity, race, etc.
- Equity ensures all processes and systems within a company are fair and impartial so everyone has equal opportunities.
- Inclusion ensures everyone at work feels a sense of belonging and support.
How to ensure your recruitment strategy tackles DEI
Making sure DEI is at the heart of your recruitment strategy will require many organisations to take a different approach than they currently do. Here are some tips for you:
#1 Take a close look at your current policies
Take some time to look at your recruitment goals, available resources, and DEI gaps in your current workforce. Use this information to design a plan to help you implement new policies for a more equitable hiring and promotion process.
#2 Improve your leaderships knowledge on DEI
Implementing a DEI recruitment strategy in your organisation can be challenging if you lack knowledge about how to design and implement best practices. Ensure your team has access to the training they need, and get your human resources (HR) team involved. You could even go one step further and hire a dedicated DEI manager to show how committed you are to scale up this programme.
#3 Make sure your hiring region and networks are diverse
If you stick to the same non-diverse channels to recruit, you will attract the same non-diverse candidates to apply. To broaden the network of talent pools you draw from, you could form alliances with organisations dedicated to enhancing opportunities for underrepresented groups. Another tactic is to consider talent from locations that weren’t previously available. The rise in hybrid working, thanks to the COVID lockdowns, has meant companies can now hire candidates from a broader range of geographic backgrounds.
#4 Review your job descriptions
It is essential to ensure your job descriptions are written in a gender-neutral way with no discriminatory language included. Following this, you may want to consider what wording you could use that could attract diverse candidates rather than turning them away.
Putting DEI at the centre of your recruitment strategy is essential in creating a welcoming workplace. It is also part of a circle that will allow you to get closer to your DEI goals and attract more talented candidates to your business from various backgrounds.
Agile Recruit can help you to ensure your talent pool is diverse in cultures and experience, as well as abilities and skill sets. Please get in touch with us to find out more.
