How can you widen your recruitment selection pool to increase diversity within your organisation?

February 12, 2004

How can you widen your recruitment selection pool to increase diversity within your organisation?

Increasing diversity whilst recruiting has been one of the hot topics in the UK employment marketplace for the last couple of years. The debate has often been driven by the public sector which has been the source of much best practice, whilst in the corporate sector, legal compliance has been the primary driver behind most diversity recruiting. Jeremy Tipper, Managing Director, Capital Resource Consulting outlines a four-point plan for developing an effective diversity recruiting strategy.

The introduction of The Employment Equality Regulations 2003 in December has made it illegal to discriminate or harass in the workplace on the grounds of sexual orientation, religion and beliefs. However, the threat of being sued should not be the backbone of your diversity policy.

Economics and commercial advantage provide solid foundations for most corporate initiatives and the business case for increasing diversity via recruitment should be no different.

Outlined below is a four-point plan for developing an effective diversity recruiting strategy.

1. Know your market

According to the 2001 Census, the minority ethnic population of Great Britain grew by 53% between 1991 and 2001, from 3.0 million to 4.6 million.

UK Population Size by Ethnicity in 2001:

Obviously there are significant local variations in ethnicity and it is important to understand the make up of the local population so you have an accurate understanding of your target audience.

Use internal resources to help you get to know your market place. Market research, marketing and sales departments, and corporate communications functions tend to be a rich source of information in relation to the diversity of your customer base. Learn from your sales and marketing team who, given the commercial benefit, will often have developed sophisticated target marketing strategies for attracting and retaining diverse customers.

2. Building the business case

The linchpin to the success of any diversity recruiting programme is to win the hearts and minds of those who it will most closely impact – hiring managers. A sound commercial justification for recruiting for diversity is a good starting point.

Dr John Sullivan, Head of the Human Resource Programme at San Francisco State University, and ex-Chief Talent Officer globally for Agilent Technologies, suggests the following key facets of the potential commercial impact:

Achieving excellence through access to quality. Diverse thinking enhances evaluation and problem-solving ability, in part due to different frames of reference.
Product sales. Product sales increase as a workforce reflects the interests and needs of the customer base which, for most organisations these days, is globally dispersed.
Product features. Having diversity on product development teams helps ensure that products have features that are desired and can be easily utilised by more people.
Advertising and marketing become more effective. Having diverse people collaborate on the design of advertising campaigns results in a more effective campaign, because advertisements can be understood by and reach a culturally broader audience.
Globalisation. As companies become more global, it is essential that everyone thinks and acts with a broader understanding of the different ways to solve problems and sell products.
Employees and shareholders. Diversity is one of the key elements that attracts and retains top performers. Also, in a changing world where more diverse people own stock, expectations for a diverse workforce increase.
Customer service. Employees from diverse backgrounds understand and thus provide better service to diverse customers.

3. Channels to market

The key to success in diversity recruitment is to have an effective strategy for gaining access to your target audience. I’ve outlined below some examples of best practice that we have seen and helped our customers implement.

Employee Referrals: There is a school of thought that employee referral programmes are actually anti-diverse in that they perpetuate the lack of diversity of the existing workforce. However, if used imaginatively they can be hugely valuable. Proactively approach employees from diverse backgrounds and ask them to support your diversity programme by referring people known to them. Also use the induction process to gather names of people from the new starters’ previous employers and local community.

Think laterally about your media strategy: Use both traditional and on-line media that is read by your target audience rather than stereotypical trade magazines and national press you might normally use.

Use your website to promote diversity: Highlight practical examples of diversity in your organisation, as well as the policies you have in place. Have ‘evangelists’ for your business on the benefits of the company’s diversity recruiting and its impact on the business.

Get help from experts: For example, The Windsor Fellowship is a well established charity whose aim is to demonstrate how a diverse population can add substantial value to the economic, social and political well being of the UK. It helps companies in their diversity recruiting by running a range of customised programmes to support the effective hiring and retention of minority ethnic people. Companies such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, The John Lewis Partnership and the Education and Skills Council have taken advantage of its expertise.

4. Reward great diversity recruiting

Traditional measures of success in the recruiting area are cost and time of hiring. Most firms refuse to give recruiters extra incentives for identifying diversity candidates or for successfully recruiting diverse individuals. In recruiting, ‘what you want done gets done faster when it is rewarded’, so measuring and rewarding recruiters for diversity hires becomes an essential element of success.

Really successful companies in this field also ensure hiring managers are rewarded for great diversity recruiting. A significant portion of all individual hiring managers’ pay (5 to 10%) should be based on diversity recruiting and retention results. In addition, senior management should have their pay based on producing results.

In the challenging world of investment banking, Morgan Stanley has implemented such a strategy and its impact has been enormous on the diversity of its workforce, even in the traditionally white male dominated environment of the trading floor.