Workplace diversity has become a hot button issue and a top priority for recruitment departments.

A recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that 57% of recruiters say their talent acquisition strategies are designed to attract diverse candidates.

57% of recruiters have strategies to attract diverse candidates

Achieving greater diversity in the workplace is not just a noble and compliance-related goal.

The rise in diversity is related to the increasingly collaborative and team-based structure of modern organizations: the evidence is clear that companies that can effectively recruit and manage a diverse workforce have a clear competitive advantage.

Recruiters and talent acquisition leaders everywhere are being tasked to increase workplace diversity. So why is it so hard to move the needle?

Is it a pipeline issue as it’s often argued? Are unconscious biases interfering with recruitment decision making? As with most complicated issues, it’s all of the above. That’s why clients engage us to address the growing importance of diversity in their employee population. Companies that incorporate inclusion strategies in their business have stronger financial performance and provide greater shareholder value. Sourceology has a strong track record in diversity search assignments and embraces the global reality of diversity and inclusion.

We offer diversity talent pools, diverse talent pipelines, and diversity benchmarking services. We shine a light on star diverse talent that other firms miss. Our diversity talent acquisition services are designed to ensure inclusion from diverse executives to technologists for corporate executive recruiting and diversity recruitment efforts. Better yet, our diversity recruiting services deliver an added benefit. Our diversity engagements demonstrate our clients’ proactive commitment to diversity. Proactive diversity initiatives foster goodwill as they give added lift to diversity talent acquisition efforts.

Workplace diversity is the idea is that your workplace should reflect the makeup of greater society.

The concept of diversity in the workplace has become important because historically, this wasn’t the case. When people think of diversity, they often think of demographic groups like race or gender. However, diversity is a much broader and more inclusive concept.

There are two main categories of diversity:

  1. Inherent diversity: demographic characteristics like race, sex, and age.
  2. Acquired diversity: factors such as education, experience, values, skills and knowledge.

Workplace diversity is defined as understanding, accepting, and valuing differences between people of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations, as well as differences in personalities, skill sets, experiences, and knowledge bases.

Diversity has become a top priority for recruitment and talent acquisition. Based on the outcomes correlated with diversity, it’s easy to see why:

  • Forbes Insights has identified workforce diversity and inclusion as a key driver of internal innovation and business growth.
  • Professors Neal and colleagues have found that diversity creates better performance for product development and creating new markets.
  • Professors Hong and Page showed that groups of diverse problem solvers outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers.
  • According to McKinsey’s analysis, companies with diverse executive boards enjoy significantly higher earnings and returns on equity.
  • Research conducted at Harvard Business School found that having multicultural social networks increases your creativity.
  • A study of more than 500 organizations has found that every 1% increase in gender and racial diversity is correlated with a 3% to 9% increase in sales revenue, respectively.

An industry survey found that 67% of active and passive job seekers said that diversity is an important factor when considering companies and job offers.

67% of job seekers use diversity as an important factor when considering companies and job offers

Attracting and increasing diverse talent is an important competitive differentiator for recruiters and talent acquisition leaders to develop.

We increase workplace diversity by:

  • Helping write job descriptions and job posts to attract more diverse candidates
  • Promote the workplace policies that our client has that is more appealing to diverse candidates
  • Use assessments to recruit more diverse candidates
  • Use sourcing methods that contain more diverse candidate pipelines
  • Strategically seeding your pipeline with more diverse candidates with a “two in the pool effect” which is a method for overcoming unconscious biases and increasing diversity and inclusion candidate hires