Normalising Inclusive Recruitment Practices

Normalising Inclusive Recruitment Practices

Callum Sherlock – Talent Acquisition Lead – Cyberfort Group

09.03.2023

In an ever changing world, it is important that to stay ahead of the curve companies allow themselves to access the best talent. A diverse workforce means your company benefits from a wide range of experiences, perspectives and insights. But to compete successfully for diverse talent, you must develop a coordinated, top-down approach. Inclusive recruitment guarantees not just the widest variety of staff, but also the best possible choice of candidates. In fact, diversity of employees, especially at higher levels, is one of the best possible indicators of both?long-term growth?and overall innovation, with more diverse management teams tending to far outperform less-diverse competitors. Organisations that don’t embed inclusive recruitment practices will keep hiring carbon copies of their current or previous employees. Although this may keep the organisation going, it will not keep it competitive or drive the best possible outcomes for service users and customers. I take a look in more detail and try to answer questions like “what exactly is Inclusive recruitment?”, “How can an inclusive approach benefit my company?”, “How do I implement and effective inclusive strategy?”.

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What are Inclusive recruitment practices?

Diversity and inclusion is about creating workplace environments and practices that encourage learning from others, and creating healthy competition within the workforce. They are measures, processes and practices that make up all the elements involved in attracting, assessing and appointing the best candidates for the job, regardless of protected factors.

Diversity and inclusion are?two interconnected concepts—but they are far from interchangeable. Diversity is about representation or the make-up of an entity. Inclusion is about how well the contributions, presence and perspectives of different groups of people are valued and integrated into an environment.

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Why Are Inclusive hiring practices important?

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An inclusive approach to talent acquisition strategy generates a wide range of benefits:

• attracting the widest pool of candidates
• better utilisation of talent?
• increased market share and competitive edge
• enhanced creativity and innovation based on a broader perspective of the world
• increased quality of team problem solving?
• increased workforce productivity
• recognition for diversity, resulting in elevated company reputation
• strong employer branding as an employer of choice?

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How do I implement it at my Organisation?

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Having inclusive recruitment practices will avoid discrimination,?increase brand reputation and diversify your workforce. Although creating an inclusive culture with psychological safety and transparent development opportunities is key, these alone don’t lead to diversity.

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The only way to increase workforce diversity such as race/ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and social background is to bring in new people. Once those people are recruited it is the inclusive culture that enables them to thrive and stay with the employer long term. Below are 8 points that I believe are fundamental to a strong Diverse and Inclusive policy:

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1. Set overall goals for representation in your recruitment strategy

One of the first things anyone leading on the organisation’s recruitment strategy needs to establish is what success looks like for you. Are you aiming for gender diversity in management? Or looking to recruit more Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates throughout your organisation? Once you have established this, what is the positive action you can take to make it happen?

There is no “one size fits all” and we have to remember the importance of adopting an intersectional lens when hiring. Whatever your goals, they need to be realistic, long-term, and built around your company values.

2. Write inclusive job descriptions

First, let’s focus on the job description:

• Have you defined – as clearly as possible – what the job role is and the skills it requires?
• Could someone outside your organisation easily understand what is needed?

All organisations develop their own language; it is part of the world you operate in every day. While this may make sense to everyone already working in your industry or sector, if you want to attract people who are different to the status quo, they need to understand what is expected from the get-go – not be left confused by unnecessary jargon. You may even wish to consider running your wording past someone outside your company to see if they understand what you are looking for. One thing my own Organisation has done, is to set up an Inclusion committee and Women’s network, these are great places to sense check your material, getting the opinions of the people you are trying to attract.

Make sure the criteria you set are clear and reflect the skills and competencies needed to do the job.

3. Widen your search to include diverse groups and pools of talent

Next up, job advertisement. You will want to think about the following:

• Where are you placing the ad?
• Are you being mindful of different groups who may want to apply?

Not so long ago, I heard a story of someone who had questioned why their organisation was not employing more people with a certain?protected characteristic. The response? “They don’t apply.” Instead of blaming the applicants, this organisation should have seriously considered whether they were advertising their roles in the wrong place.

So how do you widen your applicant base? Nowadays, you can place your job ads on large recruitment websites, LinkedIn, or in a broadsheet newspaper, but you can also be imaginative. Get the word out there via promoted social media posts, or through the various networking groups and membership societies that work with under-represented groups.

4. Inclusively design the application process

Think about how easy you can make it for a diverse range of job applicants to apply for roles.

In your recruitment system, check that the messages and instructions displayed throughout the application form-filling process are friendly and inclusive, not overly formal, and punitive. Design the application process in a simple way that does not confuse or frustrate applicants.

Do not forget the basics, either. Your organisation’s commitment to equal opportunities is something that really matters to diverse applicants – does your equality and diversity policy stand out the way it should?

5. Make shortlisting fair

If you have been crystal clear when deciding the criteria you are measuring applicants against, shortlisting should be easy. It’s best practice to have at least two people shortlisting in a formal meeting setting, they can then actively challenge any assumptions made by the other. I.e the hiring manager and your internal recruiter.

Assessing CVs without including any personal information is also effective at removing any bias against diverse applicants. This involves getting a person not involved in the shortlisting process to make sure the panel does not see names, schools, locations, and date of birth, ensuring assessors’ decisions only account for the skills and experience of the candidate – the things that matter.

6. Allow for reasonable adjustments at interview

Check whether the interviewee needs any reasonable adjustments, then remember to make them and communicate them to the candidate, ahead of time.

This is not just good practice; there are instances of tribunals when applicants have won their case based on the inadequacy of the arrangements made.

7. Prepare for an inclusive interview

The more preparation you do for the interview, the less the danger of making a biased decision and the greater the chance that you will make an evidence-based decision. This is because you know exactly what you are looking for and how to elicit the information you need. Preparation involves agreeing in advance:

• the individual roles of your panel members
• the questions you will be asking
• how you will score each applicant’s answers
• whether you will be asking supplementary questions

Your planning will give you the time you need to concentrate on the things that really matter during the interview: setting the right tone, finding the best means for candidates to demonstrate their capabilities, asking questions, listening, writing notes.

Now that many interviews are held online, you also need to include more time in interviews for screen freezing and any technical issues that might come up.

8. Set the right tone, ask the right questions

Part of setting the right interview tone is to have as diverse a panel as possible. This is a chance to demonstrate that you are a diverse organisation – right there in the room – reassuring candidates that you employ people like them.

When asking questions, focus on the candidate’s motivation as well as the specific requirements of the job. Listen actively, then appraise the person’s suitability for the post only once the interview has finished. This helps you keep the tasks separate and manage ‘cognitive load’. Overloading your brain can lead to biased decision making.

And when you are doing online interviews, remember to:

• Test the technology and that it works for both candidate and panel, ideally sometime in advance of the interview
• Check whether the candidate can hear you
• Make sure you make any online reasonable adjustments

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Conclusion

Inclusive recruitment can have a dramatic effect on increasing diversity in your business. These eight strategies typically represent the minimum organisations can do to improve diversity and inclusion in recruitment, and the steps your company requires will be unique to your organisation. Corporate leaders have clear evidence that nurturing a diverse workforce is just good business, and many companies are making greater efforts to be inclusive in the way they hire and promote. There are still hurdles to overcome, but employers globally are making strides in diverse practices – understanding the benefits and impacts an inclusive workforce has on team performance, customer service, innovation and the bottom line.?