Diversity cannot be achieved without Inclusion: why starting at the finish line can be harmful to DE&I

As recruiters we are frequently asked by our clients to support their DE&I strategies by providing a ‘diverse shortlist’. It rarely comes with qualification, hangs heavy in the air and the hiring manager or talent partner then ticks it off their to do list.

Job done.

We’ve done our part.

Of course, hiring external talent from underrepresented backgrounds is both good for business performance and an important tool to tackle inequality. It is important. It cannot and must not however be the only tool deployed by a business in the drive to make their teams more diverse and equal. As recruiters we need to be really mindful that we aren’t placing candidates into organisations and teams that will be unconducive to their development and fulfilment, or potentially hostile. Hiring managers bear this responsibility as well.

If organisational inequality is only addressed through the prism of external recruitment – adding headcount to ‘even the scales’ – it will fail to address deeper, structural issues. It’s too simple a solution to a complex and deep-rooted problem. Put more bluntly, it has the potential to do more harm than good.

Too often businesses will action as their first and only step what should really be the finishing touch. The school of thought that asserts hiring candidates from minority groups addresses D&I runs the risk of parachuting applicants from underrepresented backgrounds into environments that will not nurture them, support them, nor facilitate their success.?

What any business must do first is be introspective. By being frank and honest with themselves a business can address difficult realities internally that are too often ignored. It is vital that a business cultivates a supportive and inclusive environment for all employees before they seek to apply their D&I goals to recruitment. Here are a few examples of questions a business should be able to answer before they build an inclusive external hiring strategy:

?

• Why is D&I important to us and what are we looking to achieve?
• Why are certain groups underrepresented across the business? What is the business currently doing about that? Do we understand how inclusive our organisation is currently?
• How does the business currently support the development of EVERYONE across the organisation? For example with:

1. Commitment to pay equality?
2. Career path & promotions process?
3. Family building benefits (maternity, paternity, family building benefits)?
4. Flexible & remote working?
5. Individualised health benefits?
6. How diverse is the interview panel? Is our interview process inclusive and accessible?

?

• Are we willing to review our hiring requirements to make us more accessible to diverse talent?
• If the business hires someone from an underrepresented background, can we realistically set them up for success?
• How will we safeguard diverse talent coming in to our business? Do we have a policy and approach to discrimination within the business?"
• Has talent from underrepresented groups left the business recently and do we know why?
• Are there people internally (or external partners) that can help us address these issues?

?

This list is far from exhaustive, but it does highlight some blind spots that are often missed. Over the last 12 months our clients are increasingly asking us for advice on inclusive hiring processes, here are some other articles we’ve written recently on some of these points:

?

• Writing inclusive job adverts and job descriptions
• Exploring inclusive benefits
• 6 top tips for creating an inclusive interview process
• Getting past unconscious bias in your recruitment process

??

So what can you, the reader, do? The key actions I want to flesh out in this article though focus on knowledge gathering and employee engagement; allowing staff to drive these changes within the business. Building a D&I agenda is no easy task, particularly when HR functions and leadership teams who tend to construct them, are often slightly removed (by design in HR’s case) from the everyday employee experience. For this reason the knowledge gathering process is vital to getting a representative picture of how things currently are. Here are a few things your business can do right away:

?

• Conduct inclusion surveys, reviews of internal processes, accessibility assessments and exit interviews as all can provide useful information. Ensure you understand your current demographic. Doing an employee demographic survey is a good starting point, but this should be coupled with inclusion conversations with every department in your business – how included do people feel who work for you? This may sound scary, and you may hear things you don't want to hear, but this is the only real way to drive genuine change within your business. No one starts from a position of ‘perfect’, it's about making a first step.

?

• Use the data to establish employee led groups that span the breadth of the organisation, fostering allyship. This will enhance inclusivity and ensure that everyone can succeed regardless of their background.

?

• Make sure you ask employees for help with this, don’t nominate people! It is not the responsibility of underrepresented groups within the business to do the heavy lifting on D&I, that sits with those that set the culture. Leaders need to lead on D&I, but the ideas should come from across the business.

?

• Educate! Encourage education across the business about different diversity groups. This can done by an external consultant or could also be driven by affinity groups set up within your organisation. Education and awareness is a key step in driving inclusion within a workforce.

?

• Review your hiring practices. Is the current interview process inclusive and accessible? If for example you are looking for female talent, it is not a great idea to have all male interview panels! Regarding wheelchair access or any other accommodations, can you facilitate that practically and in a manner that protects the dignity of your candidates?

Using external recruitment as a DE&I strategy will never be more than a sticking plaster until your business is truly inclusive. Employees need to be seen, need to have a voice and all hires you make need to be entering an environment where they can succeed.

?

In our role as recruitment partners we are not only well placed to help identify underrepresented talent, we can also help you to design recruitment processes to make them more inclusive and accessible. What we can’t do is build you an entirely inclusive culture, that hard work needs to come from you!

If you are looking for ways to secure more diverse talent for your business, let us know and we will be happy to help. Similarly, if you’re thinking of designing a more inclusive hiring process and aren’t sure where to start, we’d love to have that conversation as well. ??Send me an email to [email protected] .