Recruit and Retain Diverse Talent.

As human beings, we are all biased to some extent.

Mental shortcuts and assumptions help us to make sense of our world. It’s when these biases are applied to people that we can run into problems. Biases are preferences; unconscious biases are simply those biases we are not consciously aware of, and as a result of this, we often act on them unintentionally.

Our biases act as social filters, which our brains use to make immediate assessments and judgements about the world around us. It is a perfectly natural human process to develop mental shortcuts, they help us to act quickly and learn. But unconscious biases can get in the way when it comes to opening up to diversity. If you have unconsciously categorised certain groups of people into negative buckets, it can be hard to overcome - because you are probably not consciously aware of them.

Assessing your own biases is the first step to addressing them. Until you become aware of your unconscious biases, you will continue to risk unconsciously acting on them.

A survey for The Guardian of 1,000 people from minority ethnic backgrounds found that 43% of those from a minority ethnic background had been overlooked for a work promotion in a way that felt unfair in the last five years – more than twice the proportion of white people (18%) who reported the same experience.

One common form of unconscious bias is “affinity bias”. Managers may be more likely to hire employees who look similar to them, or with familiar sounding names. Within organisations managers may be more likely to assign work to employees whom they have formed a favourable unconscious bias for.

A Harvard study showed that 76% of participants more readily associate women with family and men with career - regardless of their own gender. Acting on unconscious biases in the workplace is dangerous. Metal shortcuts which tell us to run from a dangerous creature, are not helpful when it comes to deciding who to recruit or promote.

Becoming aware of our biases is the first step in addressing them; take these free IAT tests and discover your biases.

Think about all your biases, not just race, gender and ethnicity - what about age bias - or socio-economic bias? Especially in recruitment, socio-economic “tells” can come through strongly at CV stage: Where were they educated? Did they attend university? Where did they grow up? All of this and more is evident from CVs and it can place people from different socio-economic backgrounds at risk of bias from the very start.

REFLECTION

Watch this short video and consider your different employees, leadership teams and departments - and how they might respond to these questions:

• What does unconscious bias mean to you?

• What do you think it means to your colleagues?

• Do you believe that unconscious bias can impact recruitment?

• Does your organisation share your view point?

There’s no need to disclose your unconscious biases to anyone and you may feel confident that you can act around yours without help - but do not dismiss them.

If you disagree with your results or if you need help understanding them, it’s a good idea to enlist the help of an independent coach. Ignoring your unconscious biases is not a solution.

The next step is becoming conscious of your biases day-to-day, and coding around them, for example enlisting help in shortlisting CVs, and getting more than one person to assess your team’s performance instead of relying on your own subjective opinion.

To avoid affinity bias, it is advisable to enlist the help of a diverse group (people 'like you' may share the same unconscious biases that you do).

The more you challenge yourself to confront possible unconscious biases, the more you will learn. The more you expose yourself to positive experiences and associations with groups you have an unconscious bias against, the more those biases will diminish, eventually you may eliminate some of them altogether.

ACTIVITY

Watch this short video

In her book on ‘What Works: Gender Equality By Design’, Iris Bohnet recommends taking these 5 simple steps to make sure that bias does not influence your recruitment decisions - whether regarding sex or any other protected charateristic.

Looking at each of the 5 steps from Bohnet, what would work now, next or later in your organisation?

1. Use Screens: You may not need to interview from behind a curtain, but how else could you ‘screen’ gender bias out of your recruitment processes? Anonymousing people can often let you see the skills instead of the person.

2. Evaluate people comparatively: Comparing people in groups is more effective in evaluating people than doing it based on an individual basis. We tend to ‘assign’ roles and strengths based on our assumptions and biases, which is why research illustrates it is better to compare with at least one other person - instead of just comparing against our own judgement.

3. Add portraits to your walls: Research shows that ‘subtle’ exposure to examples of diverse leadership help inspire it. Consider what images are on your walls at present - and what might be more inclusive - and motivating?

4. Make information simple, salient, and comparative: People are busy and overloaded with information. Easy to digest, bitesize chunks are what we as humans tend to prefer these days. Keeping role information easy to access, without additional clutter can ensure that meaning is clear and understood.

5. Set goals:

As well as the Powered By Diversity Process, consider what else your organisation's goals are for diversity and equality, and how you can achieve them. Consider how you will motivate your workforce around your goals - and how you will celebrate your achievements.

2. De-Bias Your Candidate Search

Job advertisements are not allowed to advertise specifically for men or women or use pronouns such as he or she. However, gender preferences and unconscious biases can still be conveyed with more subtle cues such as traits and stereotypes typically associated with certain groups and genders.

Although it’s up for debate, some research has found that words such as competitive and dominant are associated with male stereotypes and have been proven to put some women off applying for roles. Words such as supportive, understanding and interpersonal are more widely associated with female stereotypes and might deter some men from applying for roles.

Unconscious bias goes much further than just gender bias alone, and it’s imperative that all biases are assessed and addressed, not just gender. Biases can include racial bias, LGBTQ+ bias and socio-economic bias as well as biases towards people of certain religions, ages - and many more.

REFLECTION

Including certain words and phrases in job advertisements and specifications could make the position seem less appealing to a certain gender or group, thereby limiting the applicant pool for these jobs. Reflect on the two statements below:

Statement 1.

I am always put off when I see an organisation searching for “the best of the best” or the “cream of the crop”. When I read that I immediately think “according to whose judgement?”.

In my imagination of those jobs, there’s a white guy who went to a private school, reading the CVs looking for white guys who went to private school.

It may not be true - but I have never got one of those jobs. The jobs I go for now are the ones who are looking for “creative thinkers” “disruptors” or “people who think outside the box”. That tells me they’re actively searching for different perspectives than theirs.

Wes, Graphic Designer.

Statement 2.

If I see a company advertising themselves as a meritocracy when the leadership is not diverse, the question “merit, according to who?” pops into my head straight away. Are you going to think what I can bring has merit? Probably not.

I avoid all organisations who are not diverse and who say they run a meritocracy.

Shallinee, Producer.

• What did you take away from these two statements?

• What steps do you need to take to equalise your recruitment practices?

• Do you know an experienced recruiter that you can talk to about this? Make some time to seek out two or three (diverse) opinions on this point.

If you are not already checking your job adverts for hidden biases, you might try running one of your recent job adverts and job descriptions through a gender decoder like this one.

• Do you believe that language is powerful enough to turn away potential applicants?

• How could you design a test in your organisation, to see whether or not language changes affect the applicant pool?

The most effective way to reduce bias in your job search is to enlist the help of a diverse team in creating job specifications and adverts. Ensure that the team is as diverse as possible and get them to help you adapt your specifications to have a much wider appeal.

Something like job specs may seem trivial but this is such an important step in the process of gaining diversity in your workforce. You could be turning whole groups away without even realising it.

Using diversity focussed recruiters is crucial. Sticking to the same recruiters who have brought you great people in the past is fine - if they are bringing you a great, diverse mix of people. With so many recruiters placing such an emphasis on recruiting for diversity there’s not really an excuse for any recruiters not to be focussing on it, and there’s no excuse for not using one who has great DEI creds.

3. Insist on Diverse Interviews

Walk your talk - if you want to hire a more diverse staff, make sure your commitment to diversity is represented during your interview process.

Candidates are much more likely to join a company when they can interact with similar people who are already there, and can testify to a company’s commitment to diversity. Experts say, one of the biggest deciding factors on whether or not a female candidate accepts a job is if there was a woman on the interview panel. Extrapolating this out to all characteristics from disability status to race and ethnicity is extremely important. Seeing yourself represented at the company can be a huge deciding factor in whether you think you’ll like working there.

If you’ve successfully attracted a diverse selection of candidates to apply for a position, their first opportunity to get a real feel for the workplace culture is at interview. However interviews are subjective; people tend to hire candidates like themselves, so falling into the trap of poor diversity is particularly easy if a panel is one-dimensional.

ACTIVITY

Consider your interview process and how it may look from an applicant’s point of view.

• What would their experience be?

• What would their impression of your company be?

• How could this be improved?

• Who and what will you include in your planning?

Take the time to speak to some recent hires (a diverse group!) to find out:

• What their experience of the interview process was

• What their impression of the company was, from the hiring process alone?

• In their opinion, how could these be improved?

To set your panel of new hires at ease, make sure to tell them that you are aware that the interview/ hiring process may need improvement - and that you value their honesty.

If you are a senior person, you might want to enlist the help of someone at the same peer level as the recent hires, so that they feel more comfortable speaking openly.
Consider asking them to submit their feedback anonymously to remove any worries around being new and needing to give negative feedback.

Let’s think practically about how your recruitment process might be improved to increase diversity:

Consider the timing of interviews

Parents of young children, people caring for family and people with certain disabilities, chronic illnesses and medical conditions, might find some times of day extremely difficult to be flexible around. Think about this in relation to socio-economic status - is asking the candidate to leave a shift early and miss out on pay reasonable?

Consider accessibility

Don't leave it up to the person who needs access to ask for it - make it clear up front that you have already thought about it. Mention what parking facilities will be available to candidates, the best modes of transport to your office, especially for people who may have additional needs with mobility. Is your building fully accessible and have you made this clear? Will the interviews be accessible for all disabilities for example candidates that are hard of hearing or deaf? Will some candidates find it easier to get to you via car or taxi? Is there an option for candidates to attend some (or all) of the interviews remotely?

Consider neurodiversity

If you are actively open to neurodivergent candidates, again, make it clear up front that you have already thought about their needs. Neurodiversity is a wide spectrum from dyslexia to bipolar, the autism spectrum, dyspraxia, dyscalculia and many more in between. People with neurodivergencies can experience barriers to traditional application and interview stages and consequently your organisation could be missing out on talent.

Neurominorities often have particular strengths in areas such as: seeing the big picture; thinking outside the box; connecting ideas; 3D thinking; and general creativity. When properly supported, the skills of these ‘specialist thinkers’ can benefit your organisation greatly.

Consider your facilities

Explain any on-site facilities you have available for employees; prayer or reflection rooms, rooms for resting, quiet, low lit areas or other accessible features in your building.

Consider returners

If you are looking for returners from maternity leave, you may want to be clear about any facilities you have for breast-feeding parents who may need to pump. Be clear about the flexible working arrangements you offer, clearly signpost your family policies and consider putting some testimonials from 'people like them' on your website.

Consider alternative interviewing opportunities

Think about how flexible you can be on the location of the interview and/ or the activities included - are they inclusive enough? Might you be excluding certain groups unintentionally? How would your interview structure suit a range of neurodivergent candidates?

If you have taken this into account, you should make this clear on your job postings. If you haven't taken it into account - you should.

READ MORE

The Impact of Interview panels

The simple, but meaningful, interview question this anti-racist company asks job applicants CNBC

Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage HBR

Conducting Interviews for Neurodiverse Job Candidates People2People

Improving Accessibility in Your Hiring Process Shine

Interview Settings Disability Confident

4. Include Multiple "Diverse" Candidates on Shortlists

The first item on the UK government’s list of effective actions for closing the gender pay gap is that all recruitment shortlists (including shortlists for promotions) have more than one woman.

A 2016 Harvard Business Review study showed that shortlists with only one woman do not increase the chance of a woman being selected - in fact the chances of her being selected were statistically zero. The same study showed that the odds of hiring a woman were 79.14 times greater if there were at least two women in the finalist pool.

REFLECTION

Take a moment to consider the recruitment process in your organisation.

• What policies are there around this including "diverse" candidates on shortlists?

• How would you feel about including "diverse" candidates on all shortlists becoming company policy?

• What might employees at different levels of your organisation think about this change?

• What objections or concerns might they have?

• Who would support this change?

• How can you test this in your organisation?

• If you are already doing this, how can you showcase the outcomes you have seen?

5. Use Skill-Based Assessment Tasks

Rather than relying on structured interviews alone, consider asking candidates to perform tasks they would be expected to perform in the role they are applying for. Use their performance on those tasks to assess their suitability for the role. Standardise the tasks and how they are scored to ensure fairness across candidates.

The University of Sheffield has some great tips on different assessment techniques.

If you’re feeling adventurous you could push the boundaries with a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® interview.

Lego serious play pro have some detailed interview methods and case studies using LEGO® to assess candidates’ abilities to resolve complex and unclear issues as well as their creativity, openness, personality, learning potential, ability to self-reflect, motivation, how they handle stress, their communication skills and their customer focus.

6. Advertise Diversity & Inclusion as an Important Part of your Corporate Culture

Diversity is so important that creating and maintaining it shouldn’t be a side task or an afterthought, especially in large organisations.

Place all of your relevant policies in a prominent position on your website, and refer to them when advertising for roles. If true, state clearly that diversity and inclusion is an important part of your organisation’s culture, and clearly explain why.

More and more companies are recruiting managers or heads of Diversity & Inclusion, whose full time job it is to create and run task forces to monitor talent management processes (such as recruitment or promotions) and diversity within the organisation.

Diversity & Inclusion managers who are senior enough and empowered to develop and implement diversity strategies and policies, can reduce biased decisions in recruitment and nurture and grow extremely valuable employee diversity networks within the organisation.

REFLECTION

Redefine hiring for “fit”

People will hire based on “fit” - and that often means “people like us”. Instead, if you build a culture where “fit” means “people who expand who we are”, then diversity will be germane to your future success.

How To Alter Your Hiring Practices To Increase Diversity Forbes

Do you hire for “fit” in your organisation?

• What does “hiring for fit” mean to you personally?

• What do you think “hiring for fit” means to your organisation more widely?

• Has “a good fit” been clearly defined in your organisation?

• How is “fit” measured or assessed as part of your recruitment process?

• Has your definition of “fit” been communicated widely across your organisation?

• Has your current process of "hiring for fit" been helping your drive for diversity? Or hindering it?

7. Offer Flexibility

The World Economic Forum identifies work-life balance as one of the main barriers to hiring and promoting women across industries.

One senior director we spoke to told us that flexibility was probably the key factor in her wanting to stay with her company after becoming a mother:

My kids' childcare closed at 6pm and my ‘official’ working day finished at 5:30pm. The problem was that my office was over an hour’s commute from the nursery. I loved my job, I wanted to be back at work, I didn't want or even need to go part time - all I needed was to be able to get to the nursery for 6pm.

I arranged to change my working hours to start earlier and finish earlier and include at least a day from home a week.

That flexibility, which was really no big deal for the company, resulted in me being happy and productive at work and crucially, in me choosing to stay with them.

Flexibility doesn't necessarily mean “part time” and assumptions like this (and stigmas around “flexible working”) are why some women feel apprehensive about approaching the topic of flexibility at work.

“Provide flexibility in the day.” Say Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce in their article Flexibility Key to Retaining Women “Some women don't require reduced work hours; they merely need flexibility in when, where, and how they do their work.” Their research showed that almost two-thirds (64%) of women cited flexible work arrangements as being either extremely or very important to them and by a considerable margin, highly qualified women found flexibility more important than compensation.

Traditional carrot and stick motivation is now being widely recognised as outdated. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink posits that motivation is all about autonomy, mastery and purpose. He also argues that motivation is largely intrinsic, and that extrinsic factors (like waving a bonus in front of someone), are unlikely to have a motivating effect. Studies detailed in Drive show that financial reward can actually reduce productivity, particularly on tasks where innovative thinking is required.

Companies that allow employees the freedom and trust to work autonomously, understand that flexibility is an obvious necessity to this. Rigid working hours, a presentee culture and the fear of punishment are all no-nos when it comes to building and fostering motivated engaged workforces - and are also no-nos for employing and retaining staff with family commitments.

8. Make Your Family Policy Competitive and Compassionate

We say family policies instead of maternity policy because companies are waking up to the realisation that parenthood isn’t a women’s issue. Nor is parenthood the only issue; employees looking after aged or other family members require just as much flexibility and compassion as parents.

Outdated maternity leave policies are fast being overtaken by parental leave policies, which are so competitive that organisations should expect attracting and retaining dads and same sex co-parents, to become just as big of a concern as it is with mums.

Companies are realising that being “family friendly” and rolling out policies such as paid parental leave for both parents is a great way to recruit and retain all employees - not just females.

REFLECTION

10 things to think about:

Consider the support and flexibility parents need whilst they are expecting, whilst they have young babies, and once they return to work. Think about other needs employees with family care responsibilities might have, outside of parenting:

1. Do you have any policies or support structures in place for them currently?

2. If so, how well are your current policies understood by the organisation?

3. When was the last time your family policies were reviewed? Are they still competitive?

4. What is the feeling from the parents in your organisation towards your family policies? How could you find out?

5. How might you update your family policies to become more competitive and compassionate?

6. How do you think a competitive and compassionate family policy would help your organisation?

7. Consider creches and initiatives like return to work coaching and mentoring - how might these work in your organisation?

8. The cost of childcare in the UK is often a key factor in women deciding to leave the workforce. Is your organisation in a position to assist employees with the cost of child or family care?

9. Consider the working culture at your setting - are parents taken into account when planning the timing, length and type of rewards, activities, events, training and meetings?

10. Have you considered rewarding parents/carers with opportunities to engage with their home lives - for example time off, or tickets to family events?

In ‘Lean In’, Sheryl Sandberg comments on how parking by the front of a building for pregnant employees was a small change her company made which she appreciated.

You may not be able to offer parking spaces, but the point here is that little things can go a long way when considering how you can be more accommodating to your pregnant female staff. Flexible hours, expectant parent staff benefits and support around medical appointments (for both parents) are all ways to make life easier for employees.

Look at your parent/ family policies and then create a focus group around this. Include people who have taken it up, and those who might. What are their opinions, and how do they suggest they are improved?

9. Create and Nurture Employee Diversity Networks

Head to our dedicated playbook on this topic Setting up Diversity and Inclusion Groups for Success

Employee networks can be a force for effecting real change within organisations. Encouraging employees to come together into groups to champion diversity at a grassroots level is how companies like Nokia are empowering employees to effect change. @StrongHer is Nokia’s award winning example of an employee network that promotes gender diversity by offering networking opportunities, personal development, exposure to diverse role models for women and men.

As well as creating a strong sense of empowerment and a feeling of inclusion and belonging in employees, networks can provide employers with invaluable insight into problems and gaps they might not have identified otherwise.

Nokia says that its StrongHer network has been an eye-opener on the many causes for low representation of women in the Technology industry and in leadership roles. Through the network they discovered that there isn’t just one “glass-ceiling”, but some frequent explicit or more implicit patterns and reasons at various steps of women’s life and career, caused by others and even women themselves.

Insights like this give employers a deeper understanding of specific issues which are threatening or even halting diversity, and the valuable opportunity to address them through and with the help of the network.

REFLECTION

• Is networking and collaboration valued as part of employee personal development?

• How are you supporting and celebrating employees who are active in networks?

• How could could evaluate and support this more effectively?

• What would be the benefits to all involved?

TOOLS

If your organisation isn’t big enough to have its own employee diversity networks consider encouraging employees to start, host or join regular diversity meetups or Lean In Circles in your local area.

Join Lean In Circles in your local area

Join regular diversity meetups

10. Model Diversity From the Top Down

Organisations need to aim for diversity at the very top of the company. In achieving this they will experience, first hand, what is needed to make diversity happen; from finding and recruiting diverse candidates to creating an environment suitable to retaining and engaging a diverse team. They will also directly experience the benefits a diverse team can bring to an organisation.

In a 2017 PWC survey nearly 70% of female participants working in Financial Services said they looked at the diversity of the leadership team when deciding to accept a position with their most recent employer.

Even if the most senior team is not yet as diverse as it could be, they can (and should) still model policies aimed at encouraging diversity. Seeing the most senior members of an organisation exemplifying all the policies they have put in place is the most effective way of embedding them.

An employee in middle management is far more likely to take advantage of the flexible work arrangements on offer if they see the executive directors doing it openly and proudly, and talking about it regularly.