5 tips of diversity and inclusion in the workplace


78% of talent leaders place diversity as having the biggest impact on how their companies are recruiting in 2018. It is now widely accepted that the advantages of a more diverse workforce range from improving company culture, boosting innovation and understanding your customer, right through to improving financial performance. Many employers however, rank identifying diverse talent as one of their biggest challenges.
Several of Resource Management's clients share a common desire to improve workforce Diversity and Inclusion consulting but often struggle to identify and implement practical changes to their talent acquisition process to support this.
5 tips on improving your workplace diversity:
1. Talk openly about your diversity goals and measure progress
Diversity programmes start with a strategy and a policy but real success comes from embedding diversity and inclusion into your company culture. It’s a combined team effort with leaders providing the sponsorship and inspiration, the business taking responsibility for delivery, HR providing support and guidance and external partners offering their expertise.
As with any improvement programmes it is important to understand where you currently are and where you want to get to. Diversity and Inclusion consultants reporting as part of your talent acquisition dashboards help to track progress, identify areas of improvement and maintain the momentum of your diversity initiatives.
2. Understand unconscious bias and work to reduce it
Training for hiring managers and the talent acquisition team, gender neutral job descriptions and adverts, anonymised CVS and a structured approach to interviews and scoring all help to eliminate unconscious bias in the recruitment process.

3. Challenge hiring briefs
It is natural for a hiring manager to want to appoint the ‘finished article’ when recruiting. For job vacancies with accepted diversity challenges (for example Women in Leadership roles in the Financial Services sector), an insistence on hiring candidates with specific sector experience can limit talent pools.
‘Hiring for Potential’ programmes that identify transferable skills and transferable industry sectors can open up talent pools and support diversity initiatives. At RM, we often receive instructions to identify a candidate who is currently working in a particular role, is this always absolutely necessary or can we challenge this to identify ‘return to work’ opportunities?
4. Embrace flexible working
There is a clear link between flexible working and the ability to attract and retain diverse talent. This ranges from flexible hours and ad hoc remote working through to dynamic working, part-time and job share opportunities. Changing your default position to ‘we are a flexible employer’ can be a positive step in the right direction.
5. Build and engage with Talent Communities
The traditional approach to recruitment, i.e. trying to fill a vacancy, introduces a time pressure to the process which can have a negative impact on diversity. With a scarcity of global talent, building pipelines to attract and engage a diverse pool of potential future candidates is essential to long-term diversity strategies. This proactive approach coupled with informal coffee chats promotes your EVP and is an effective way of engaging with candidates who are not yet ready to change jobs.

For more information about Diversity and inclusion consulting firms visit on dimenzion3.com

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