With the hullabaloo surrounding a diverse workforce, many organisations are scrambling to jump on to the ‘diversity’ bandwagon. In the scuttle to have a wide variety of people (ranging from age, gender and religion to race, ethnicity and nationality) on their payrolls, they also incorporate ‘diversity-building’ in their corporate goals and objectives.
Simply wanting to change the composition of the workforce does not actually get hiring managers to recruit diverse candidates. Recruiters are predominantly focussed on hiring the best people for the job and ‘diversity hiring’ becomes just another extra prerequisite on their already overloaded plate of requirements. The hard work and hassles of meeting diversity requirements becomes tough leading to disjointed efforts and little success.
Companies that are genuinely interested in developing a diverse workforce should adopt new managerial strategies:
Educate hiring managers about the true benefits of having a diverse set of employees. Show them that it is not just a ‘politically correct’ stance, but the efforts will actually lead to meaningful results by building a more innovative, productive and healthier work environment.
Provide cross-cultural sensitivity training so that recruiters can combat their prejudicial hiring practices, stereotyped preconceptions and discriminations of any sort. The diversity knowledge will also help them to understand the differences in background and learn how to review the qualifications/requirements of diverse candidates.
Then again, hiring managers tend to hire people like themselves. They should be able to let go of these subconscious biases and adopt a broad view that is flexible and open to change. Only then can they look beyond ‘those like us’ and hire ‘different’ people.
Hiring managers often recruit from the same sources and ask themselves ‘Where are the diverse candidates?’ The management should provide tools and processes for accessing a broader candidate pool, like advertising in publications/media that reach a wider demographic, or inviting foreign applicants.
They can also conduct campus recruitments in different states, target conferences and job fairs and reach out to universities with more diverse student bodies. Or, offer internships and mentoring programmes to multicultural people who can later be absorbed into the workforce.
• Encourage diversity hiring not just for entry-level jobs, but also for middle and upper management levels.
• Make quality hiring a substantial component of assessing recruiters’ performance.
• Tie incentives, recognition and rewards to sustained efforts at hiring for diversity.
While the organisation should establish diversity goals and create a campaign geared towards recruiting diverse employees, the focus should not be merely on ‘hitting the numbers’. Think – can the company afford to hire few women just to balance a completely male staff, take on a few middle-aged employees to offset a predominantly young workforce or recruit foreigners just to mix a few ‘alien’ faces among the locals? Instead, persuade them to hire the best-qualified candidates, but also seek out and be open to recruiting a mixed bag of people.
Companies should make efforts to foster a corporate culture that supports and values diversity, and is open to accepting and respecting differences in an inclusive environment.
Apart from the diversity recruitment objectives, legitimate efforts should be made to assist, mentor, reward, promote and retain the employees. As a top consultant urges, “Employers should adopt a strategic diversity management process that focusses not only on hiring but also fosters an environment that attracts, retains and maximises the productivity and contribution of a diverse workforce!”
PAYAL CHANANIA
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