Diverse Hiring Practices: 10 Ways To Implement At The Workplace

Diversity recruitment is hiring candidates using an unbiased process for or against any individual or group of individuals. Recruitment is based on merit and finding the best candidate available. It gives all applicants an equal opportunity regardless of what their backgrounds are. Diversity in the workplace is a growing trend in the business world.

Diversity in recruitment has many benefits regarding productivity, performance, and innovation. It helps gain a wide range of skills and experience in the organization, increased language and cultural awareness, wider and more varied pools of high-quality candidates. Diverse employees help in faster and better problem-solving. It drives better creativity and innovation, leading to better decisions and results. 

Ways To Recruit Diverse Workforce 

Hereunder are some ways to recruit a diverse workforce:

1. Audit Job Advertisements 

The best way to recruit diverse candidates is to audit the company's advertisements for recruitment and make changes to speak to a wider range of candidates. Usage of some languages may be more geared towards a particular demographic of the level of experience. When the job posting had words like "aggressive" for describing the workplace, 33% of male candidates and 44% of female candidates did not submit their resumes. 

The management must find ways to be more inclusive in the language that appeals to candidates from different backgrounds, including "good to have," limiting the number of people willing to apply. Women are more likely to apply to positions where they only satisfy 60% of the standards, but men are more likely to apply if they meet 100% of the requirements. 

2. Target Sources Where Diverse Candidates Congregate 

The best way to ensure a diverse talent pool is to source candidates from a variety of different places. The same sources must not be relied upon over and over again. When the management focuses on the same source, the candidates will be similar, and the pool will lack diversity. 

They must seek out opportunities where diverse candidates hang out. Many offline and online groups dedicated to women in technology are good sources for meeting and connecting with female candidates with high potential directly instead of waiting for them to find the management. 

3. Encourage Diverse Employees To Refer Their Connections 

Creating a diverse candidate referral program is a great way to boost the strategy for diversity recruitment of the company. It showcases that the company values different backgrounds, ideas, and perspectives. When the company encourages the existing employees to share the advertisements for recruitment with their networks, the employees feel that their opinions are valued by the organization, which leads to overall morale and engagement of the employees. 

4. Offer Internships To Targeted Groups 

By internal diversity training programs that offer internships to candidates from different backgrounds, candidates are encouraged to join the organization and gain experience. Diversity recruiting is all about hiring the best and qualified candidates without giving any regard to their backgrounds. 

5. Develop Employer Brand That Showcases Diversity 

One of the best ways to boost the diversity recruitment strategy of the company is to create an employer brand that values people and opinions all the time. The management can encourage the employees to talk about their business, their stories can be recorded, and that part can be incorporated into the corporate personality to promote the employer brand. Diverse candidates will thus be attracted to an organization that truly values employee ideas and opinions. 

6. Framing The Right Job Description 

The job description is your initial point of contact with a potential employee. If the job description's wording is incorrect, the entire diversity hiring procedure will be wrong. People should be valued for who they are, and how the management approaches them is a good place to start.

(i) Pronouns (he, she, her, him, and they) are little but important parts of a person's identity. When writing a job description, the management must keep the following suggestions in mind: Gender-neutral wording should be used in all job descriptions. There is an app that can tell if the job advertising contains any unconscious bias.

(ii) Use simple, understandable, and precise language. 

(iii) Reduce the number of job requirements not relevant to a person's ability to accomplish the job.

(iv) Before posting, double-check and proofread the job description.

7. Regulate The Candidate Screening Process 

Various biases are displayed during the screening process. The common criteria for selecting a candidate who attended a top school has excellent academics. On the other hand, an outstanding job history manages to separate many applicants who come from less-than-ideal backgrounds. It influences your organization's diversity and deprives the management of the opportunity to interact with and hire some outstanding but underappreciated individuals.

Here are some things the management can do to make sure the candidate screening process is fair for everyone:

(i) Pre-assessment testing is an option. It will give each candidate an equal chance to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities.

(ii) Use "blind hiring" software to hide the candidate's personal information from the hiring manager, such as pictures, school, and so on.

8. Regulate The Interview Process 

Finally, an interview is the final major hurdle that a diverse employee must overcome. However, it is also the site where, sadly, there are no other options for assuring that all chances of bias are eradicated.

(i) Create more varied interview panels that can offer perspectives other than that of the management. 

(ii) Create and focus questions on their skill set, with previous experiences as a secondary consideration.

(iii) Allow individuals the option of dressing casually, as many people may not have the financial wherewithal to invest in a formal suit. Consider renting formal attire expressly for the interview process if you work for a company that requires employees to dress up.

9. Involve a Diverse Set of People In The Hiring Process

A diverse hiring team can assist in mitigating the biases of a homogenous one. To assess candidates independently, the management must include many persons from different backgrounds at each level of the screening and interview process. After the corporation mandated interview panels to include at least two women and personnel from underrepresented groups, the diversity of hires grew from 31% to 45 percent of women and persons of color at Intel. 

10. Hire Multiple People Per Role At A Time

Hiring one individual often excludes underrepresented groups, as research suggests that isolated, one-off decisions result in less diverse candidates being chosen. This effect is countered by recruiting numerous employees for a role at the same time.

Conclusion

Hiring for diversity and inclusion aims to combat unconscious biases — taught prejudices that are unplanned, automatic, and deeply established in views – that lead the management to generate an opinion about a candidate solely based on first impressions. Unconscious bias may be seen in every step of the hiring process, preventing businesses from reaping the many benefits of having a diverse workforce. Improving the team's diversity will not happen immediately. However, identifying and eliminating unconscious bias in the hiring process is a good place to start. If effective diversity hiring strategies are undertaken, the company gains a competitive advantage over other companies.