Inclusive Recruitment - the first step, not the solution

I recently worked on a project here in Manchester to run an awareness event for Inclusive Recruitment. It was really inspiring talking to people who know so much about a range of different underrepresented groups and the work that’s being done in and around Manchester to integrate and support people from different backgrounds. 

We had 6 round tables with speakers covering issues ranging from disability, to hiring ex-convicts, to care givers, and people who speak other first languages than English.

One question keeps coming up, though, that really worries me - what to do once we have recruited inclusively? There seems to be so little thought on how to ensure new staff are supported and/or understood once they start work. It’s all well and good to make our workforce more diverse, but we must support these people properly once they are in the office. It’s pointless to recruit inclusively if you then ask people to conform, or ‘fit in’ to the existing company culture. 

What do we do once we have recruited inclusively? It's pointless to recruit inclusively if you then ask people to conform

We can’t think that these recruitment policies will make us more open, inclusive and diverse if there is no real commitment to changing mindset. Unconscious bias training is one way to start to look at and deal with this. 

By understanding our own preferences and biases, we can understand what beliefs and reactions might be stopping us from engaging with certain groups of people. One way to do this is to really think about how certain things make us feel, what our initial reaction is to certain things.

Ask yourself, honestly, what is your first reaction to these situations: 

1. Your brother/sister comes home with their new partner: this person is trans.
2. Your new line manager is Muslim with a large beard. 
3. Your new colleague has a learning disability and has a lighter workload than you do.
4. Your friend invites you to a gay bar this evening, and you’ve never been to one before.
5. The person you are interviewing for a senior position in your company is considerably younger than you.

There are certain things that many of us know we dislike, but there are others that maybe cause an uncomfortable knee-jerk reaction that we can’t quite put our finger on. We need to become aware of these and challenge them – why do they make you uncomfortable? is there any logic to this? is there anything you can do about it? 

We need to become aware of our bias and challenge it

These 5 situations are just some examples of the hundreds of different situations that we may feel uncomfortable in. Most of the time these biases are things we have unconsciously learnt over the years, and we have assimilated them as part of our reality. When we start to understand this and challenge these ideas, we’re opening ourselves up to a more inclusive and diverse world. 

Why should we be more inclusive? 

The first thing to say is that, of course, it’s the right thing to do. Why would one group of people be more valuable or important than another group? Why would we want to make others feel belittled or less valuable? 

From a business perspective, there are many, many reasons to embrace an inclusive and diverse workforce. Some of the most compelling are: 

1. Increased creativity & innovation 
2. Better decision making, the result of which is more profit by beating competitors to the finish line
3. Happier employees, leading to better staff retention and more loyalty to the company 
4. A better reputation as a company who does the right thing and supports their staff 

Increasing diversity and inclusion is ethically right, strategically important and compatible with operational performance.

Knowing that most bias is unconscious does not excuse prejudice or discrimination: these need to be stopped and dealt with. It’s important to recognise the difference between these: prejudice is an attitude, while discrimination is an act.

Acting on our bias is a problem, a big one. But recognising it and learning to deal with it is a very positive, first step in learning more about who we are and what we believe, all while moving towards building a fairer playing field for everyone.

We all benefit from inclusion. Let's do it right.