6 Diversity Recruiting Mistakes HR Teams Got to Stop Committing

Diversity at the workplace is more than just a buzzword today. The fact that ethnically and racially diverse teams have a 35% chance of outperforming a homogenous one shows diversity = profitability.

While many companies are coming up with ambitious diversity goals, implementing a strategy for diversity recruitment is more crucial than ever.

Systemic and sustainable diversity in any organization starts with a diverse recruiting strategy. Simply put, diversity recruiting focuses on hiring candidates for their skillset and performance without any inherent bias influencing the decision.

Despite many companies’ efforts to adopt diverse recruiting tactics, many fail to reap the results. If you are in a similar situation, here are six diverse recruiting mistakes that might be hampering your recruitment efforts to increase diversity.

1. Relying solely on data and policy

Most organizations rely on ineffective metrics for measuring diversity that gives shape to their recruiting decisions. Some companies focus only on announcing a policy change to diversify the workforce without any tangible actions to reach that goal.

While drawing up a diversity recruiting strategy, avoid these major pitfalls.

Diversity is not limited to numbers and should not be stated simply on paper. Analyze the diversity data from your human resources department and the company as a whole to understand the cause and effect behind the numbers. Ask questions like:

• Which department is the most diversified in the company?

• Which teams can benefit from diverse talents?

• How will a new recruit help in enhancing a team’s productivity?

Look inside and find answers. The answers will guide your strategy better than any dataset.

2. Focusing excessively on race and gender

Many HR leaders and CXOs’ fixation with the concept has led them to believe that diversity is just about race and gender.

Diversity is a complete spectrum of variables. Besides race and gender, there are several parameters to measure diversity; here are a few.

• Educational background: This refers to a candidate’s degree and the institutions they studied in. Diverse teams include individuals with all types of academic experiences—formal and informal, home tutoring, and online schooling.

• Religious beliefs: This refers to a candidate’s religious affiliations. A diverse workforce should comprise employees from multiple religions differing in their beliefs and traditions.

• Disability: This refers to any mental or physical condition that affects a candidate’s ability to perform certain actions. Diversity is about equal access and opportunity to individuals with or without disabilities.

• Sexual orientation:  This refers to a candidate’s identity in terms of their sexual preference. Diversity is rooted in offering equal chances to individuals of every sexual orientation and preventing discrimination.

Citigroup’s ten affinities perfectly exemplify how companies can embrace diversity at multiple levels rather than limiting it to race and gender.  

3. Finding candidates from HBCUs

In the name of diversity, many recruiters turn to historically Black colleges and universities, like Howard. This approach reduces the scope of your diversity recruiting strategy to the Black minorities and limits your talent pool as well. 

Use management tools, online platforms, and communities to source the best candidates for diversifying your workforce. Leverage social media, job boards, and digital resources to drive your recruiting efforts.

A diversity recruiting tool like Joonko can significantly enhance your hiring process. 

The software enables HR heads and recruiting managers to source talent from a diverse pool of candidates of solely underrepresented sectors— ethnic and racial minorities, women, and army veterans. This AI-automated solution empowers you to build a meaningful connection with the most relevant candidates and hire with greater inclusivity.

In addition to helping you achieve your D&I recruiting goals, Joonko also cuts down the time you spend on sourcing the candidates. 

4. Overlooking diversity training of recruitment team

One of the essential elements of a successful diversity recruiting strategy is training every member of the recruitment board, especially the hiring managers.

Without a proper diversity team, you run the risk of bringing unconscious bias into the recruitment process.

Focus on increasing your recruiters’ awareness on the subject of diversity. Teach them about civil rights, equity, and inclusion and eliminate their unconscious biases. Here are a few ways in which you can conduct diversity training for your hiring team.

• Establish your diversity goals

Discuss and brainstorm with your recruitment team about the objectives they have to achieve through this recruiting strategy. When you involve the recruiters in finalizing these goals, they become invested in the strategy from the outset. 

• Make training more interactive and hands-on

Rather than telling your team how to do the recruitment process, show them how to do it. Put them in a potential candidate’s shoes and inform them about an underrepresented candidate’s challenges. This will make them more empathetic and remove unconscious bias. 

• Add to your training material consistently

Review your training module every year and update it regularly to expand its scope. Include case studies from previous recruitment drives and incorporate crucial policy changes to promote diversity equity.

5. Not making employer branding efforts

Fact: 67% of job seekers focus on the diversity highlighted in any job posting.

Many recruiters mention a line or two about diversity in the company in their job postings. On top of that, many companies don’t highlight their diversity initiatives on their website, social media, or online presence.

By overlooking your branding and company culture as a diverse employer, you might lose out on some of the best talents. Candidates from underrepresented backgrounds look for a company’s efforts towards bringing diversity and inclusion to the team.

If you wish to attract the top performers for your diversity recruiting and hiring efforts, follow these few steps.

• Create your company’s voice of diversity: Show the world your identity as a diverse and inclusive organization by talking about it in blogs, newsletters, and reports. Create content and participate in discussions surrounding the subject of diversity.

• Highlight your diversity initiatives: Don’t limit your diversity policies only to your team—invest some time and effort to put your initiatives on your website and social media to inform interested candidates, along with adding employee testimonials for social proof. This Airbnb blog about their diversity efforts is a great example.

Accenture offers inspiration for companies aspiring to become more diverse. Their diversity branding on the official website, training, and events shows how you can also present yourself as a diverse employer.

6. Reflecting unconscious bias in a job posting

The way you phrase a job posting plays a pivotal role in your diversity recruiting efforts. The content and language of these posts can reflect your recruiters’ unconscious bias in many ways.

• Using words like “guys,” or “workmanship.”

• Limiting personal pronouns to his and her

• Highlighting maternity as a benefit

• Associating stereotypical adjectives

The language of your job descriptions directly shapes a candidate’s perception of your company and their intent to apply for the position.

Carefully think and create inclusive job postings to attract the best candidates. Portray yourself as a thoughtful and sensitive recruiter—aware of diversity and respectful to applicants from all backgrounds.

Here’s a wonderful example to follow.

Conclusion

Research has proven that inclusive and diverse teams are 1.7 times more innovative than usual. So, if you’re motivated to diversify your workforce and boost your team’s productivity, it’s never too late. Start by building a strong diversity recruiting strategy to give your hiring team a direction.

Rather than banking on the numbers indicating your company’s current diversity status, evaluate and identify the core need to hire diverse candidates.

Once you have the end goal in mind, prepare yourself for diversity hiring. Pay attention to avoid these six mistakes while drawing up your hiring strategy. 

Author Bio: This article is written by our marketing team at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee engagement, and intranet software. Our aim is to help your company improve employee engagement, employee productivity, and to save you valuable time!