5 Tips For Fostering a Diverse Workplace

1. Set SMART Goals

For best results, your diversity recruiting goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-Bound. Setting a broad goal of hiring more diverse candidates won’t help you achieve them. You must stick to and implement a realistic and time sensitive strategy to achieve your goals.

Setting realistic and measurable goals helps to track your progress over time. A specific goal might be using diversity job boards to source candidates. To achieve this goal, take concrete actions such as examining your process to understand why you are not attracting diverse candidates.

2. Boost Your Employer Brand

Job seekers can use tools like Glassdoor and LinkedIn to research your company before applying for a job. Making a conscious effort to implement DEI into your recruiting strategy is essential to your recruitment strategy and brand. Establishing a strong brand is a key factor in attracting candidates to your company.

Strengthen your brand by hiring and retaining diverse employees. Show that you value your workers with competitive salaries and benefits. Have a company culture that promotes work-life balance and encourages employees advance in their careers. A strong workplace not only culture attracts talent, but also helps to retain employees.

You can promote your employer brand on job boards such as WorkplaceDiversity and through your recruiting strategy. Diversity job boards are also a great place to get your open positions Infront of diverse candidates.

3. Attract More Diverse Applicants

This starts with having a variety of people on your recruiting team. People from diverse ages, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations and genders should vet potential candidates to avoid unconscious bias. Another good practice is writing more inclusive job descriptions by removing words that communicate to a specific gender. Keep job descriptions neutral.

You can do this by shifting your focus from non-essential requirements. Studies have shown that women are less likely to apply for a job if they don’t think they’re qualified. Instead of writing a job description with a long list of required experience, focus on job training and transferable skills. You can use artificial intelligence (AI) to audit your job descriptions for gender-coded words.

Promote workplace policies/practices that appeal to a diverse candidate pool. One example is including religious holidays in paid time off so people from diverse backgrounds can celebrate with their families. Consider flexible scheduling that lets people volunteer and connect with their community.

Think beyond the usual job boards, referrals, initiatives and other typical recruiting tools. Sticking to the same recruiting platforms could restrict your audience. Use different outreach methods such as niche job boards like LGBTConnect to broaden your recruiting efforts and expand your candidate pool. Or use diversity hiring initiatives and encourage diverse employees and hiring managers to share open positions with their network.

4. Reduce Unconscious Bias

Even when trying to be fair, people can still have unconscious bias. Companies can take steps to eliminate unconscious bias in hiring. Hiring a diverse panel to screen candidates is a great first step. Hiring managers of different ages, genders, ethnicities, and abilities help ensure a diverse group of hires.

You can also avoid unconscious bias with a more standardized hiring process that focuses on a candidate's skills and qualifications. Blind resume reviews are a good practice. Evaluate candidates based on experience and qualifications, without considering their race, gender, or ethnicity.

Having a set list of questions to your hiring panel to use interviews is another way to standardize the process. The panel should all ask the same questions and have metrics to rank different answers. This allows hiring managers to focus on candidate performance and compare them more effectively.

5. Optimize Your Results With Metrics

Once you set your talent acquisition goal and strategy, measure your progress. Review metrics like outreach and recruiting efforts to see what has and hasn't worked. After you’ve developed different goals and have begun implementing your diverse recruiting strategies, you can assess your talent pool.

Assess the quality of your candidate pool to see if your recruitment strategies helped you attract a broader talent base. Analyze interview notes and new hires to determine if unconscious bias could influence your hiring panel.

It's important to review your DEI policies and communicate with employees to ensure you're upholding your internal commitment to DEI. Simply saying that you’re committed to maintaining workplace diversity is not enough. You must establish a company culture that makes employees of all backgrounds feel included.