Hiring and training in a DEI business

I wanted to share the things I've learned on my journey as a small business owner and as a principal consultant and practitioner in the diversity and inclusion industry, who has gone through the process of hiring people independently and through a recruitment agency.?

I think it's really important to talk about the reality of hiring individuals, whether they be full time permanent employees, or associates, when you are running and growing a diversity and inclusion business.?

Hopefully this will be useful to anyone in a similar position, who is thinking about how they expand their team in order to grow their DEI business and be able to service clients more effectively.

Some context about me and my business

I always like to be really transparent about where my business is at. Over the years I have managed to generate multiple six figures and have financed our growth strategies through my personal finances. I have been the sole salesperson and client delivery contact for the last eight years. That means I am responsible for the entire sales process: generating leads, running the business development process, closing sales, onboarding clients and then going on to deliver work to them.?

Over the last four years, I have used associates on different client projects when providing corporate organisations and brands with diversity and inclusion support. I also have run small B2C programmes over the years where I’ve trained individuals, independent consultants and practitioners.?

With all of this in mind, here’s my insights and advice when it comes to hiring and training in an DEI business. I have not won awards, I have not written a book in the diversity and inclusion industry BUT I have generated just under a million pounds in sales over the last several years as a sole sales person in the business.?

Hire efficiently

Firstly, assess if you really have a need or not. I recommend that before you even embark on the hiring process that you really look at your process and understand which areas in your business absolutely need a human being and which areas do not. Have you, for example, leveraged technology where you could? Ensure that you're only hiring efficiently and according to the gap you genuinely need to fill in your business.?

I have found that if you delay and dilly dally around who to employ, you can still make an incorrect choice and lose even more time. Hire quickly and efficiently.?

Hire quickly….

There's a lot of advice out there about “hiring slowly and firing quickly”. I take the view that you should hire quickly and, in some cases, hire before you really have a need. This applies even when hiring on a short term periodic basis. Why??

• It takes time to identify exactly what help is required, what the incumbent workload is and the skills needed to deliver it.
• It takes time to find the right person for the role, whether using recruiters or recruiting by yourself independently.
• There is always a training period that includes the individual getting to grips with how your business works, understanding and deploying your house style of communication, project management, navigating clients and so on.?

In my business, there is a lot to consider around diversity and inclusion risk identification and mitigation and being ahead of our clients at all times so that we as a team are regarded and treated as a strategic and trusted resource.

If you have those skills and are deploying those skills actively in your business then every single team member needs to have that attitude, approach, capacity and aptitude, even if they're in an administrative role.?

…and fire quickly?

One of the mistakes that I've made is that I have probably taken more of a coaching / mentoring approach when it comes to the performance of people who are not going to change.?

We have very little latitude and capacity in a small business to carry people who are mediocre and poor performers, particularly when you can genuinely see evidence that this is where their level is that they're not going to get better.?

You do not have to keep them on your dollar and dime. And that's one thing I've had to give myself the internal permission around and not feel as though I'm not being understanding enough. As somebody who's doing all the selling and most of the delivery I don’t always have time to coach someone from scratch. Therefore, I have to make quicker, firmer decisions about firing people. We need individuals who are ready to go, ready to add value and add value from the beginning, not in three to six months.?

Choose recruitment partners carefully (and read the small print)?

I'm a sole small business owner and I've had two very different experiences when using recruitment agencies in the past. Recruiters and headhunters all have different styles depending on whether you're using a small outfit, a solo headhunter or maybe even a medium to large recruitment agency.?

The first thing is there is a cost involved, and quite often, it's a significant cost as it is usually a proportion of the annual salary offered to the candidate. So it's really important to read the contract properly. One of the ways that we got caught out (and it was my sole responsibility and mistake) is by not noticing a term in the contract which said that if the candidate who was offered the role left after only four weeks in the role, we wouldn't get any of our fee back and the fee would not be discounted.

Now this is quite significant for a small business, because in a nine month period, we hired two incorrect individuals, we paid an introduction fee for somebody who didn't come in, didn't add value, didn't actually do any significant work, and we still had to pay out when they resigned after 7 non consecutive weeks in the role - as they had been job searching all along .?

The second individual was not competent enough for the role and was not entirely truthful and transparent. Again, I own this mistake entirely. We went on to hire that individual after conversations with the recruiter and other people. However, because not only the competence level but the attitude was all wrong, we ended up losing money again. Not only did we pay them a salary, but they did not fulfil their duties and we lost clients as a result.?

I went on to use another type of recruiter who was a small solo headhunter, and the experience was completely different. The way they set up their fee structure mitigated risk for us and that was very helpful. We went through the recruitment process in a very different style and ended up with some great candidates.?

Either way, hiring and training people and firing people is not easy. It's not simple or straightforward. As a solo business owner, who is footing the cost for all of it? You. It can be incredibly expensive on your time, your energy and your resources, not to mention the money. Then there's the time that you put into training the individual and providing equipment.?

Hire people who can get on a short runway?

Right now, we are actively trying to grow the business and I need individuals who are competent, self-sufficient, ready and able to add value immediately. I'm kind of tired of recruiters and even other people telling me that individuals who are wanting wages north of ￡50k, for example, need three to six months to ramp up in a role. That is actually unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable for a small business, to pay somebody for three to six months while they are still in the paddling pool.

It’s OK to have set and manage clear expectations of your staff from Day 1?

This is probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned about hiring and training people in this diversity and inclusion business. As much effort as it can be as a solo business owner when you're doing the sales, you're delivering to clients as well as training people you've hired - you must measure and track your hires’ performance and you must do it clinically. You must also do it strictly, because if you do not, the results will be variable, mediocre and cost you time and money.?

For example, the only time I ever got detailed, structured correspondence from those two employees that didn't work out is when they were asking about their annual leave and their salary. In terms of the execution and deployment of their role, their communications were always very vague.?

I've had to give myself permission as a result of these learnings that it is okay to have a clear job description, clear expectations and KPIs from the start and stick to them!?

Inclusion should not equal poor performance?

It has been a rough and torrid road for me at times when it comes to hiring and training individuals. We're living in a culture whereby people assume, especially in the diversity and inclusion industry, that anything goes because we're being “inclusive”. What that really means is there are no boundaries, expectations, consequences or accountability for poor performance, mediocre performance, regardless of the reason why. This isn’t acceptable.?

Poor performance will hurt you?

Trust me when I tell you that when people are performing in a mediocre fashion it hurts you more than it helps you as a small business. And it's incredibly frustrating and there aren't a lot of people who talk about this element. I know it’s not popular. Because there's a lot of shame associated with making incorrect hiring decisions and often there is a lot of vitriol around business owners being demonised and presented as harsh taskmasters who should be grateful that people are working for them. That’s not the case at all. There are a lot of individuals who know how to sell themselves in an interview and that poses a high risk for small business owners when they begin the hiring process.?

It’s all about having the right people?

Now fortunately, the team that we have now came to us mainly through introductions. I've been able to metabolise what I've learned and approach hiring them and managing them in a particular way. And I use the competency framework we use with clients to hire and performance manage my team.?

I put a post on LinkedIn, probably a few months back, where I actually said, I'm not a people leader. I said, “look, I think I've made a mistake. I'm not a people leader. I need to hire someone else to lead people” and that was actually false. That was a lie. The issue was not that I'm not a people leader. The issue was I had the wrong people in my team. I had individuals who didn't respect me, individuals who didn't respect my authority within the context of the business and individuals who did not like feedback. Sometimes the amount of stress hiring and training people can cause, will result in you questioning whether you want to grow and scale your business at all. In fact, a lot of my peers have said to me “this is exactly why I'm not scaling my business. This is why I am going to just run this business as an independent consultant in the diversity and inclusion industry.” I’m sure the same is true for many other sectors.?

Hire based on competency?

It should come as no surprise to you that we now use the CCWE competency framework that we use with clients, internally. Every one of our employees comes on to our certification programme. This is because it is super important. 70% of the work when it comes to growing a diversity and inclusion business is not about topping up your knowledge about the area that you are an expert in. It's actually around the other skills: around how you treat clients, how you communicate with clients, how often you communicate, the way you communicate, the way you build trust. The way you stay ahead of the game, the clarity and structure that you bring to the relationship with your client and the way you deliver that piece of work. All of that is much more valuable and important to me as a business owner than somebody who can tell me the ins and outs of bias and white supremacy, quite frankly.?

And that's one thing that I've learned. There are some great trainers out there and people who are very enthusiastic but when they're left with a client project end to end, they fumble. They fumble because of these smaller, more nuanced but very significant skills and competencies you need in this industry. The ability to give clarity and not be overly emotional and reactive. What I have found is that building and training individuals to think and behave in that way has been far more valuable to me than somebody who is passionate and knowledgeable about anything diversity and inclusion-related.?

Hire in alignment with your strengths?

Through this process I have actually discovered through hiring people and the mishaps and mistakes is just how good I am at what I do and what my strengths are. There are skills and abilities that I have nurtured and developed intentionally over the years that have enabled me to deliver at the highest level in terms of expertise, especially in terms of relationship building and trust building. I’ve realised that I need to have people who have those same skills too, not just in areas that I am weaker in as a business owner.

It’s okay to give yourself permission to decide how you're going to spend the money in your business.

When it comes to problem employees, you become so wrapped up in how the other person feels that you forget what the purpose of your business is, and the fact that it's your money and resources on the line. For small business owners this does matter. When we decide to hire, we go into it positively, wanting this role to add value to the business, because it doesn't serve us at all for it not to work.?

Hopefully this is helpful for you around hiring and training people in a DEI business.

Are you looking to run a more effective DEI business or in-house team?

Join us in person from November 4th to 6th for the CCWE DEI Reframe Summit . This premier CPD-accredited summit focuses on transforming Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) practices into measurable and impactful strategies. Whether you are an independent consultant or a corporate decision-maker, this event will provide you with the tools, knowledge, frameworks and network to excel in the DEI field.

What you will learn

• Independents - how to build an ethical & profitable DEI business from those who have done it.
• Corporates - how to develop and implement sustainable DEI strategies.
• Everyone - unique insights from leading experts in the DEI field. Not just theories but practical skills and actionable steps to drive real change.

CPD accreditation is applicable for days 2 & 3 and a certificate will be issued via email to all attendees up to 30 days post event.

Sign up for the DEI Reframe summit