So you’ve decided that you want to make changes to your business by making it more diverse. An important part of achieving equality, diversity and inclusion is going to be instilling diversity recruiting strategies. Before you jump in and begin to make changes, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Think about your ultimate goal, and how you are going to measure the success of your efforts. If you fail to do this then you could be working very hard but with no knowledge of whether you are truly improving your diversity recruiting strategy. The results may be disappointing and this is not what you want.

Begin by putting together a team to work on the project with yourself as the leader. Establish the existing barriers to inclusion in your workplace, identify the measures that want to achieve and then agree on percentages. It could be that your focus is on bringing older or younger people on board, adding more people from a diverse ethnic background or boosting the number of women you have in the team. The choices are yours. Only once you have this outline in place should you begin improving your diversity recruitment strategies.

Ways of improving your diversity recruitment strategy

Let’s look at a few ways of improving your diversity recruiting strategy:

Improve the content of your job ads

This is easily done by using the right language. Your advert needs to appeal to a diverse range of candidates. Get an expert to write the ad, taking no chances with the content. Take care of how you speak to prospective job seekers so that you don’t exclude anyone. Include the proclivity you think best suits the role and the and impact you would like the person to make.

Use a variety of sources

If you post job ads in the same place, you’ll get the same sort of people applying. Be varied and target a variety of areas. If you have only previously posted on the company website, try using jobcentres, social media and a good recruitment agency. You need to go to places where your type of candidate spends time instead of waiting for them to find you.

Ask for current employee referrals

Let members of your current team know that you are recruiting, using a candidate referral process to encourage those from diverse backgrounds to apply. If you are targeting people from a specific ethnic background or religion, let employees that fit that demographic know. Show them that you appreciate their assistance and they will feel part of the process, which is great for morale.

Offer apprenticeships/internships to your chosen group

Part of your diversity recruitment strategy can be to offer apprenticeships/internship positions to specific types of candidates. Get in touch with schools, colleges and 6th forms. Use social media to spread the word. If there are any local projects in place that encourage your type of applicant to get in touch, team up with them.

Include diversity in your brand

When your brand spreads the word, showing that you value candidates from all backgrounds. Show that you value diversity of impact regardless of traditional demographics and that it is deeply ingrained within your corporate culture. Maybe use current employees to talk about their experience and how they feel valued for the impact they are free to make. Incorporate their stories when promoting new opportunities. Do this the right way and you will find diverse candidates applying for vacancies, comfortable in the fact that they will be welcome. Once you develop a reputation for being this type of company, diverse growth will become the norm.

Take a fresh look at your company policies

If your company policies don’t tally with the version of the company that you are portraying, how is the right atmosphere going to be maintained? Staff might find themselves at odds, confused by what is on paper and what they are being told. The HR department needs to be living and breathing diversity of impact so policies should be updated. When new staff are taken through the onboarding process, they will then feel comfortable. You might want to allow more flexible holidays to fit in with school breaks or religious festivals and even adaptable working hours. Ask for employee feedback – this can be done via anonymous surveys if needed. Listen to what your workforce is saying and think of ways that you can encourage everyone to feel valuable.

Get used to working with blind CVs/interviews

Personal information should be ignored where possible. If candidates are filling in an application form, this should be on a separate sheet so that it can be hidden from view. Name, age, sex, religion ethnicity, gender preference – all of these should be separate. The aim is to remain unbiased so you should filter out applicants for an interview in the same way, although this can only occur at the beginning of the process before you talk on the phone or meet.

Use software/AI to filter resumes

This is a failsafe way of removing bias. Use suitable software to filter candidates based upon skills and experience set by you, ignoring demographics and personal information. The resultant list will be impartial.

Include several diverse candidates within your shortlist. By doing this, you have more chance of finding that one that fits well. By deliberately including several diverse candidates within your shortlist, the company is automatically providing would-be employees from diverse backgrounds with a fair chance.

Conclusion

Recruiting using a diverse system means that you end up with the right person for the job with zero discrimination taking place. Additionally by integrating The GC Index into your recruitment process you are able to add an extra dimension that will align your company’s approach to what is expected in the world of work today. The GC Index adds to the current traditional frameworks, enabling HR to assess the impact and contribution they require from the candidate within a set role. They can now evaluate how each candidate will perform as part of a team and can benchmark them against set criteria regardless of what traditional box society wishes to impose upon them.

Diversity of Impact is the way of the future for forward-thinking companies.