This blog post highlights the key insights and takeaways from a Spark Hire webinar hosted by Spark Hire and Checkr on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive (DEI) hiring strategies.
Speakers included Brenna Walsh, VP of Marketing at Spark Hire, and Arielle Khan, Senior Strategic Partner Manager at Checkr, who offered valuable insights for organizations looking to enhance their recruitment processes in alignment with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Table of contents
DEI in the Workplace
Key Takeaways
- A Smart Business Decision: Studies show, companies with diverse teams are more successful, as they bring a broader range of perspectives that enhance adaptability and innovation, ultimately boosting revenue. Prioritizing DEI efforts in hiring processes fosters team and company growth.
- Effective DEI Hiring Efforts: Partnering with community-based organizations, crafting inclusive job postings, and using flexible HR technology to ensure fair candidate screening and interview processes can help attract diverse talent, prevent bias, and broaden your candidate pool.
- Measuring Success and Setting Goals: To assess the effectiveness of DEI initiatives, start with clear, measurable goals such as increasing diverse applicants or advancing candidates from underrepresented groups. However, continuous evaluation and adjustment are key to fostering inclusivity in the workforce.
Interested in listening to the full episode of our latest podcast: Aligning DEI with Your Hiring Strategies in 2024? Click below and listen to one of our most important conversations to date. If not, keep scrolling to read a synopsis of the conversation.
The Importance of DEI Hiring
From a business standpoint, studies prove companies with strong DEI initiatives and more inclusivity in the workforce are more successful and bring in higher revenue
Why is this? Simply, because a diverse community offers far broader perspectives.
Whether talking about race, age, gender, disabilities, or even work experience and geographic location, you need to focus on hiring colleagues with unique perspectives. Having a wealth of different experiences promotes organizational growth and adaptability in an ever-changing world.
To incorporate DEI strategies into our hiring processes, hiring teams must be aware of potential biases and inequity throughout the entire recruitment process.
Data Supports Inclusive DEI-Focused Business Models
DEI initiatives have been a growing focus in the business world, so it’s important to share the results of inclusivity studies. The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership was created by Dr. Katherine Phillips from Columbia University, and her work centers around diversity in the workplace.
Dr. Phillips’ studies compared groups’ abilities to effectively solve problems, and she intentionally created homogenous groups and diverse groups to identify differences. Dr. Phillips found that diverse groups outperformed homogenous groups in nearly every round of her study.
Interestingly enough, the diverse groups often assumed they underperformed while the homogenous groups regularly assumed they had succeeded in their tasks. This study highlights people’s perceived qualifications and self-value while also showing that diverse perspectives can lead to higher results.
Additional reporting from McKinsey and Company, SHRM, and Forbes further highlight the correlations between diverse teams and financial performance.
Assessing Organizational Readiness
Self-reflection is a great place to kickstart or enhance your DEI efforts. Honest assessment may be tough, but it’s important to look critically at your workforce and hiring practices. To better evaluate your current strategy, be sure to include a diverse set of employees in the conversation.
Ask your employees about their experience with the company, what their hiring process felt like, and whether they feel like additional perspectives are needed to achieve greater inclusivity in the workplace.
Look for teams, departments, and roles that may feature less representation and see if there are bottlenecks to hiring and building more inclusive teams. Only with a diverse group of voices in the room will you be able to shape effective strategies and avoid overly homogenous workforces.
Strategies for Effective DEI Hiring
One of the best places to start your DEI hiring journey is by contacting community-based organizations (CBO). These types of organizations can help you connect with candidates directly, and they often host events and diversity-focused job fairs to introduce organizations with underserved candidates. Meeting candidates in person is a great option because oftentimes, candidates will look at a job description and not apply for fear of being underqualified.
When in-person meetings aren’t possible, you can help encourage more candidates to complete applications by partnering with your legal team to craft more detailed and personalized discrimination disclaimers. Calling out your organization’s initiatives and DEI strategies can help build rapport with candidates before you ever have direct contact.
Be sure to think about how and where you post job openings when considering your candidate sourcing. HR technology can help with candidate attraction, but be sure your talent acquisition tools are user-friendly and accessible to all; they must get candidates into your funnel quickly and be agile enough to adapt to evolving sourcing strategies.
While LinkedIn and Indeed are job board leaders in sourcing for the tech space, you can also consider using DEI job boards or candidate databases. Try engaging with HBCUs or MSIs for early-career candidates, and talk with CBOs about their working communities.
Remember to be flexible in your hiring process to ensure you’re not excluding candidates at the screening and interviewing stages. It’s easy to assume everyone has access to smartphones, high-speed internet, and free time during the 9-to-5 work day, but that may inadvertently rule out otherwise highly qualified candidates.
Challenges of Building a DEI Strategy: Gaining Internal Buy-In
If you experience challenges in securing internal buy-in for DEI hiring initiatives, it’s imperative that your organization begins to foster a culture of inclusivity. From leadership to recruiters to hiring managers, every level of the team must become champions of diversity in the workplace if you wish to succeed in your DEI efforts.
While it will be an investment of time and money, allocating budgets for things such as recruiter anti-bias training, candidate outreach programs, and initiative owners will pay dividends later on.
What are DEI Initiative Owners?
Initiative owners are those within your organization who may be able to engage with employee resource groups (groups that focus on common interests, communities, or goals) to gain perspective and further conversations around inclusivity. Owners can then become advocates, representing diverse voices and encouraging transparent dialogue with leadership.
Personal testaments can also go a long way in helping team members gain perspective. People who experienced inequity can speak to their challenges, and people who witnessed the benefits of welcoming diversity can speak to the business case for growing inclusivity.
Measuring Success and Setting DEI Goals
You’ll likely want to measure success of DEI initiatives. So, where to begin?
Because DEI efforts encompass so many candidate attributes and are impacted by every step of employment from the job application to long-term tenure, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.
Start small. Pick three to five metrics that you can easily measure at particular stages of hiring or employment. Look at your current benchmarks for these metrics, and set yourself a SMART goal (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound).
Maybe you’d like to see how many diverse applicants apply for a job posting, or perhaps you’d like to see which sources drive the most diverse candidates. Consider setting a goal to increase the percentage of diverse applicants, and take note of how many diverse candidates advance to the next interviewing step.
No matter where you choose to start measuring, you’ll be able to recognize successes and opportunities for improvement. Just remember, DEI initiatives don’t stop once a candidate is hired. Aim for a future workforce that enjoys equitable evaluation, feedback mechanisms, and equitable opportunities for advancement.
Technology and Tools for DEI Hiring
When wanting to attract more diverse candidates to your workforce, it’s essential to meet them where they are in their lives. Underrepresented candidates will greatly appreciate hiring tools that are flexible, easy to use, and help them feel recognized.
Asynchronous video interview solutions, like those provided by Spark Hire, offer flexibility with timing and remove the need for commuting or taking time off from a current job. Video interviews allow candidates to present themselves at early interview stages, often conveying far more candidate information than a simple resume or cover letter.
A bit further into the hiring process, Checkr software helps support fair chance hiring. Background checks can become unnecessary bottlenecks for qualified candidates, so their modernized checks can quickly identify strong matches for open roles. Fair chance hiring further widens talent pipelines and helps grow a more inclusive workforce.
Pay inequity is another core issue, which can easily create unhappy employees and toxic power dynamics within an organization. Equity must continue to be an organizational focus throughout employment, so tools like Trusaic can also help track pay equity and encourage fair compensation.
Using innovative HR tech solutions can help you hire and retain the strongest employees, ensuring no groups are suffering from workplace discrimination.
Final Thoughts on Implementing DEI Hiring Initiatives
In a rapidly evolving HR landscape, DEI hiring remains a cornerstone of organizational success, necessitating proactive strategies and innovative tools. The insights shared by Spark Hire and Checkr’s HR experts underscore the importance of collaboration, awareness, and taking actionable steps toward fostering more inclusivity in the workplace.
As we move forward, let’s continue the dialogue, embrace diversity, and strive toward building equitable hiring practices that empower individuals from all walks of life.
Ready to take the first step toward diversity, equity, and inclusion in your workplace? Contact the team at Spark Hire to demo our innovative talent acquisition solutions, built to make hiring simpler, more effective, and accessible to all.
