Promoting a diverse workplace is essential for all businesses, but it needs to be more than just a box-ticking exercise. Research shows that employing a range of people of differing ages, cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations can actually help with creativity, and it can be hugely beneficial for the bottom line. This same research also suggests that diverse teams are 35% more likely to experience higher financial returns and 70% more likely to attract more potential customers.
Today’s candidates are looking to join respectful and diverse teams; they want a workplace that’s empathetic, and yet 57% of employees still feel that their company could be doing more to improve diversity. In fact, 41% of managers have admitted to feeling unable to improve the workplace, citing time constraints as the number one reason.
Having a good diversity recruitment strategy is now essential. Here’s how you can get started.
Work on your company culture
First and foremost, your company values and the way you do things in the workplace should appeal to diverse candidates. Take a look at the workforce you already have, and ask yourself whether or not the current way you operate could be seen as a barrier when it comes to recruiting new staff.
Are there changes you could make to ensure a more inclusive workplace? Offering hybrid working or flexible hours are just two examples of how you can introduce more flexibility. Having a flexible approach will help you to appeal to workers with a more complex schedule. You don’t need to miss out on the top accounting talent just because the hours don’t seem to fit.
It’s a good idea to also look at offering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training to the workplace. Ensure that all team members and management are up to date with current policies, particularly when it comes to dealing with staff issues or bias that may arise.
Having policies in place that are clear and workable will put you in a great position for recruiting new staff.
Work on your employer brand
Your employer brand needs to be spot on. You need to be sending the right message to the right people from the outset, so carry out a full assessment to identify the areas where you know you could improve.
- Website: is it up to date and sharing accurate information on your policies in the workplace? Are you highlighting your employees, celebrating their achievements, and demonstrating your commitment to diversity?
- Employee views: what are your staff saying about the workplace? Are there any issues that could potentially put new talent off? Assess your own performance as a company, and make a commitment to make improvements where necessary.
- Job ads: A report by CIPD found that only 20% of employers posted job ads with inclusive hiring statements--are you using words and phrases that aren’t appealing to diverse candidates?
- Social media: what does your Linked In profile say about you and your company? Could you be doing more to highlight diversity in your workplace?
Consider ‘blind hiring’
Blind hiring processes can overcome potential issues with unconscious bias, helping you to make the recruitment process much more inclusive. You can do this by:
- Redacting personal information on applications- this can eliminate the risk of making decisions based on a person’s age or gender, for example.
- Conducting blind interviews- by sending out questions to your candidates ahead of the interview, you can filter out a short list easily and without bias.
Following either or both procedures can go a long way towards ensuring you’re interviewing candidates based on their suitability for the job, and nothing else. Once you get to the interview stage, this part of the process can be a lot more personal and more likely to be without bias.
Is blind hiring for you? Maybe, if you feel you’d like a process that will cut out the risk of any potential influences on your decisions. Conducting some parts of the recruitment process in this way can really help to provide you with a wider range of potential employees.
Work with a recruiter
Working with a specialist recruitment team is one of the easiest ways of ensuring your hiring process is diverse.
A good recruitment team will help to ensure that every step of your recruitment process is tailored towards inclusion, so that your shortlist is never biased. They will guide you through the process and use their connections to build long-term strategies for success too.
Here at NXTGEN we have a specialised team of experts in finance and accountancy recruitment, and we know how crucial it is to get it right straight away. We’re here not only to ensure your growth, but to share our wealth of experience with you too. And we’ll do it with honesty, passion and integrity.
Ask for feedback
Once the interview process is over, delivering timely feedback to candidates is crucial, and not only in helping unsuccessful applicants to better understand the reasons why they didn’t get the job. When you feed back to candidates, make it a two-way process. Ask questions about how the candidates found your recruitment process and what you could do to make it better. Then act on that feedback.
Speak to new employees about their experience and take action on the issues raised. This is an excellent way to continually improve your hiring strategy and will provide valuable insight to the areas where you still need to perform better.
You can do this with anonymous surveys and review requests to avoid any awkwardness among staff. It can be hugely beneficial to the entire workplace to analyse the way you work and the areas where you can work even better.
If you’d like to learn more about our services here at NXTGEN, and how we can help you to develop a diversity recruitment strategy--get in touch now.
Here at NXTGEN we have a varied team of specialised experts in finance and accountancy recruitment, and we know how crucial it is to get it right straight away.