Promising ways to attract diversity in your organization

Workplace diversity is the talk of the town amidst a busy and highly competitive hiring ecosystem. Leading organizations and thought leaders in the HR industry are actively implementing strategies to attract and retain a diversified workforce. 

According to Harvard research, organizations with diversity are 45% more likely to witness growth in market share over the previous year than those that are not diverse. Several studies also show that diversity in the workforce helps organizations perform up to 35% better than those that aren't diverse. 

Recruitment, however, is a long-drawn process often affected by conscious and unconscious biases. And this tremendously affects your hiring process and outcomes by creating barriers in acquiring diversified employees and maintaining a healthy work environment. This is why recruiters often take creative approaches to hire a diverse workforce.  

What is Diversity in the Workplace?

Diversity in the workplace refers to the company culture or attribute where its staff members or the working population consist of people from various regions, genders, languages, sexual orientations, abilities, ages, religions, socioeconomic, professional, and educational backgrounds. 

Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace

1. Better decision-making: Diversity assists organizations in taking better decisions by allowing employees to utilize their varying life experiences and perspectives while taking crucial decisions. 

According to a study by Carson College of Business, companies that embrace diversity are 1.7 times more innovative, 87% better at decision-making. 

2. Better leadership and financial performance: By cultivating and exploring new talents and skills, diversity enables organizations to improve employee relationships and build leadership qualities that eventually lead to better financial performance. 

According to a Harvard Business Review, companies that embrace diversity are 70% more likely to get new markets than their non-diverse counterparts. 

3. Boosts creativity and innovation: Diversity allows you to create a healthy working atmosphere where people from different backgrounds can easily offer new and creative solutions to a task. 

4. Improves employee engagement: By diversifying your company, you can boost employee engagement by making every employee feel valued and included. 

5. Opportunities for professional growth: By introducing team members to one another's backgrounds and cultures, diversity helps you establish a better understanding and respect for one another resulting in mutual professional growth.

6. Faster problem-solving: Diversity in the workplace allows employees to think out of the box and develop cognitive abilities that help faster problem-solving and better performance. 

Ways to Attract Diverse Workforce

1. Display the Work Culture 

Work culture is one of the crucial driving factors for top talents to choose a job offer. This makes it important to first portray an image of the diversity and inclusion of your organization. This can be effectively done through social media and the organizational website by posting diversity promoting posts, infographics, newsletters, publishing diversity reports, etc., if you want to employ and attract the best talent. 

Top ways to project company culture 

• Include diversity related elements such as blogs, case studies, etc., on the company website.
• Mention that you value diversity in the job description.
• Utilize social media handles to display your work culture such as group photos, celebrations, and events.

2. Make the application process inclusive 

The job application process is one of the most important places where inclusivity is needed as this is the primary gateway that lets in talent.

Here you can add diversity-attracting elements to the job posting or advertisement and the job description by avoiding words and content that appear biased and include content that motivates candidates to apply irrespective of their background. Also, in the application form consider including text boxes in addition to the check boxes and dropdown list you provide. This is the simplest gesture using which you can give hint that you open to a broad category of applicants thereby motivating more candidates to apply.

3. Ensure fair candidate screening

Conscious and unconscious biases are still the biggest reasons behind why there is a lack of diversity in workplaces. And if you want to eliminate these two factors and attract diverse talent, you will need to ensure and maintain a fair and transparent candidate screening process.

For instance, you can mention that the candidate screening and skill assessment processes will not be affected by the candidates’ marital status, gender, ethnicity and that there will be transparency in the screening process where the reason for rejection will be specified. Consider conducting job preview tests which act as a direct indicator of how the candidate is going to deal with the day-to-day job responsibilities. This can cut down unnecessary steps in the hiring process and minimize the impact of discrimination.

4. Technology to overcome bias

One of the best ways to remove biases in the recruitment process is to utilize automation and AI-enabled tools and techniques for recruitment. Technology in silos understands no race, gender, or status. Here it’s important to note that technology that is designed to mimic human behavior has to be trained and tested in such a way that it could eliminate all human biases.

Here is a list of tools technology will not only bring transparency to your hiring process but will also help you attract diverse talent.

• Automated Candidate CV screening
• Bot communication system
• AI enabled robotic interviews

5. Highlight employee benefits 

In today's competitive talent marketplace, one of the best ways to attract talent is by rightly projecting what employee benefits your organization offers. This includes both monetary and non-monetary benefits. Recruiters can mention the employee benefits while advertising job openings. 

Employee benefits that can attract talent diversity 

• Flexible working hours, hybrid work culture, and compensatory leaves.
• Performance based incentives and bonuses and reimbursement policies.
• Travel and house rent allowance.
• Maternity and paternity benefits and paid parenting leaves.
• Sick leaves and health insurance policies.

6. Conduct events emphasizing diversity 

Today’s talent market does not allow you to just rely on traditional channels to attract talent. So, conduct cultural and motivational events that showcase that you value diversity and inclusivity. When the opportunity presents itself, collaborate with organizations that work to eliminate social inequalities across the globe to promote diversity. 

• Organizational events to emphasize the importance of diversity
• Motivational sessions by people from diverse backgrounds
• Training sessions
• Seminars and webinars
• Charity events
• Quiz and competitions

Challenges 

Amidst the run for quality and a time-driven hire it is challenging to keep your effort to maintain diversity promoting factors consistent. This is where technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can lend its support. Organizations that prefer diversity also consider utilizing recruitment marketplaces that can source candidates from their diversified sourcing experts. This also helps build a rich and wide talent pool. Further, recruitment solutions provide tech platform support and support systems to gear up recruitment outcomes cost-effectively.

Summary

In a nutshell, diversity in the workplace does not just stop with acquiring employees from diversified backgrounds, it also includes a sense of acceptance, empowerment, fair treatment of all, and a continued intention to promote diversity.

The main obstacles that affect diversity are human biases and lack of awareness regarding diversity promoting factors which can be efficiently tackled with technology and human resources. Moreover, when the competition to be the best is around every corner along with the need to enable your organization to stay ahead in the hiring race, you need a solid workforce and creative people to support your business goal and help accomplish the set goals.