Let us say it right up front. Diversity events without a strategy behind hiring diverse candidates all through the year, is a recipe for disaster. We recommend having a diversity and inclusion strategy throughout the entire year. Events should and are, for many Oleeo clients, part of a broader recruiting strategy. So what do you need to have in place before your diversity event?
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Diversity is a core value. You need to immerse your organization in the idea that diversity is not just good for business, it’s crucial for growth and innovation (because it is).
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It also means moving to a more proactive place, rather than waiting for jobs to open up before recruiting. Passive candidates and diversity candidates CAN and DO overlap.
Jennifer Dulski (@jdulski), President and COO of Change.org, reminds prospective recruiters that diversity hiring can be part of a larger conversation with candidates:
“Reach out to women, rather than waiting for them to come to you. We work with several programs that train female software engineers… We also started hosting speakers and networking events in conjunction with Femgineer, and we invite female engineers to come to our offices to speak and network with other engineers. Sometimes they’ll talk about a purely technical topic and sometimes about their career path. These events bring people to our offices so they can see what we’re like and we can meet them.”
It’s not just the recruiting department’s job
Did you know 57% of employees think their company should work to increase diversity at their company. Among younger workforces that’s even higher! Given that employee referrals are consistently shown to be one of the most successful sources of hire, you need to find a sensitive way to bring your staff in on the end goal. So….
Show them the stats. Diverse workforces are 35% more likely to outperform non-diverse companies, and referred workers tend to yield higher profits than non-referred employees. Getting your employees to refer their networks and then TRACKING those results with a great recruitment CRM will yield more benefits than just filling a seat with a “diverse” hire.
Confront your biases. 40% of respondents in a Pew study suggested there is a double-standard against hiring women in higher up positions in politics and business. A recent study showed that even so-called progressives ascribed violent and chaotic tendencies far more to black people than to white people when asked to describe them. The fact is, we all have biases and it’s crucial if you’re in a position to hire people that you not only confront your own, but ask hiring managers and internal teams to be aware of biases that might be keeping your workforce looking (and acting) exactly the same.
