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May 2023
With recent, rising pressure from social justice movements, greater media attention and growing scrutiny by the public, organizations are paying attention to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workforce. Data from HBR shows that having exemplary DEI initiatives and inclusive leadership significantly enhances team productivity and company performance.
While business leaders are recognizing the importance of hiring diverse talent, they often limit their goals to numerical targets such as increasing the percentage of employees from diverse backgrounds. Such a simplistic focus may set an organization up for failure–for example, by ignoring critical recruitment and selection strategic elements that impact a candidate’s perception and experience of the company and their desire to be a part of it.
Through marketing, a company may tout a great aspirational DEI program that champions diversity. However without the right diversity recruiting strategy, they may be failing to attract diverse talent and to meet their goals around DEI.
A successful diversity strategy goes beyond metrics and requires a fundamental change in systems and processes. Organizations must ensure their diverse workforce experiences inclusionary practices throughout the recruitment stage, up to onboarding and employment.
A diversity recruiting strategy is a master plan for how an organization will recruit and build a truly diverse workforce. It involves prioritizing, tracking and successfully achieving the firm’s goals for hiring diverse talent, and following proven best practices throughout the hiring process.
Diversity recruiting is one key aspect of an overall diversity strategy, which includes creating a diverse workplace where employees truly feel like they are included and belong. This recruiting strategy defines goals and identifies success measures for attracting, assessing and hiring candidates from diverse backgrounds and directly links with other internal Talent Management programs and strategies.
A strong diverse recruitment strategy empowers the Talent Acquisition (TA) team to build a diverse workplace. The benefit is that a company gains a wide range of perspectives, increased creativity, greater innovation and improved decision making. A diverse workforce in turn makes an organization an attractive place to work for other diverse top talent.
According to latest reports by McKinsey:
Despite these benefits, McKinsey reports that progress on increasing diversity has been slow:
While organizations and leaders are increasingly recognizing the importance of DEI, many are still lagging and have little representation of diverse talent across the organization, especially in leadership roles.
Organizations worldwide are vying for talent, to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized world and tough economic climate.
By building the following best practices into your recruiting strategy, your TA and Talent leaders can successfully meet these challenges by finding, engaging and retaining top diverse talent.
Diverse candidates who are seeking a new job opportunity will assess an employer’s brand when considering an open role. If candidates do not see themselves reflected in the organization’s workforce – due to a lack of diversity in the company’s communications, employee statistics, team or executive photos, statements about diversity, or website and branding – they may not apply for the opportunity.
Part of ensuring diverse hiring starts with investigating if you have a reputation as an inclusive employer, and how your brand is perceived. Job seekers often utilize employer review websites like Glassdoor to learn about companies and their brand. Start with assessing your organization’s brand and how it is generally viewed. Aim to present an honest and accurate representation of your company’s diverse and inclusionary hiring practices and culture of inclusion.
When seeking candidates, include steps that expand your sourcing, including these:
Job descriptions are often written with a particular audience in mind. The language used reflects this audience and can ultimately lead to the best candidates self-selecting out if they do not see themselves as a possible contender for the role.
To attract diverse candidates, a job description must be carefully written to ensure people from a variety of cultural backgrounds and communities are able to understand the role and its required competencies.
To increase the number of diverse applicants to these postings, the Talent Acquisition team must make it easier for such candidates to find the jobs by going where the candidates are. Think about your target audience and where they spend their time. For instance, if you are looking for more indigenous applicants, consider posting in communities with a greater indigenous presence.
During the selection process, many diverse candidates may not make it through the interview stage due to unconscious bias in those they speak with, or poorly constructed interview questions. While unstructured interviews may feel more comfortable, they lead to poor hiring decisions and allow unacknowledged bias to impact selection choices. Interviewers may treat some candidates more favorably and others less so, based on unexamined assumptions or past prejudices.
Structured interviews that are clearly linked to the job description requirements and job-related competencies can reduce bias. In a structured interview approach, each candidate goes through the same interview process, from the initial introduction, interview questions and response scoring to assessment. This ensures fair and equitable treatment of each candidate and helps support a diverse range of candidates successfully moving through the selection process.
One method of reducing bias during the selection stage is to have a diverse interview panel. This can decrease the likelihood of one interviewer’s unconscious bias negatively impacting diverse candidates.
Interviewer training can also be helpful as hiring team members are likely unaware of these blind spots. According to an article on leading employment testing platform Thomas, interviewers should:
The best-planned diversity and inclusion efforts will fail if there is no visible buy-in and ongoing support from senior leadership. For the diversity recruiting strategy to be successful, it is essential to establish a business case and ensure ongoing communication with the c-suite or senior leadership of your organization.
According to a Harvard Business Review article by the founder of a DEI strategy firm, “executive buy-in can help clear cultural obstacles within a company and build a communal sense of responsibility for programs.” Holding regular meetings between senior leaders and the leaders of grassroots efforts like employee resource groups (ERGs) can help leaders gauge whether DEI efforts are improving the organization’s culture.
A Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) is a senior executive responsible for promoting and overseeing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives within an organization. Their primary role is to develop and implement strategies for creating a diverse workplace and equitable, inclusive culture.
The placement of the DEI head within an organization’s reporting structure is critical to the success of DEI initiatives. While the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) is often seen as a natural fit for DEI oversight, the DEI head may be better positioned under the CEO’s purview. Placing DEI at the CEO level can signal the organization’s commitment to DEI and provide the necessary resources and support for driving meaningful change. Regardless of the reporting structure, it is essential that the DEI head has the authority and influence needed to effect change across the organization.
If your organization is seeking a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion leader, or diverse C-Suite candidates, reach out to our team of experienced search leads at Frederickson Partners. Among executive search firms for diversity, Frederickson Partners champions DEI and has been named on the Hunt Scanlon Power 65 list of top diversity recruiters. In the past year, and throughout our history, we have successfully placed Heads of Diversity and Inclusion. As thought leaders, our search leads go above and beyond as champions of diversity recruiting by offering consulting services and sharing best practices with our clients.
Contact us today to learn more about our executive search services.
Frederickson Partners, a Gallagher company is a market leader in retained executive search since 1995. As one of the top-rated HR executive search and C-suite recruiting firms, we have expertise in placing Chief People Officers, Chief Human Resources Officers, Chief Diversity Officers, Chief Financial Officers, Chief Legal Officers and many other senior leaders. We draw on a broad network of rising and established executives and leaders, and a 28-year reputation as a talent acquisition and HR Advisory provider.