6 Common Trip Hazards to Increasing Diversity (+ Top Notch Solutions)
This is #IncreaseDiversity, a weekly newsletter series + Increase Diversity Toolbox sharing best practices for employers who want to implement effective diversity recruitment programs. To see previous editions, visit JenniferTardy.com. | IG: @IncreaseDiversity
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6 Common Trip Hazards to Increasing Diversity (+ Top Notch Solutions)
I believe that more workplaces truly want to increase diversity in a genuine way. The challenge to the DEI initiative is not due to a lack of desire. The challenge is that leaders continue to trip themselves up in the process of working to increase diversity. Removing common trip hazards can help organizations to move the needle forward to increase representation in a more meaningful way.
In our training and consulting work at Team JTC, we have found that there are six common ways hiring teams trip themselves up in the process of increasing diversity. Review the below list and pay attention closely to the solutions provided therein to ensure that your team does not fall victim to the same trip hazards.
"The challenge to the DEI initiative is not due to a lack of desire. The challenge is that leaders continue to trip themselves up in the process of working to increase diversity." - Jenn Tardy
Six (6) common ways hiring teams trip themselves up in the process of increasing diversity:
Trip Hazard #01 | Lack of Recruiter Positioning | Workplaces do not position recruiters with the appropriate level of authority needed to disrupt identified hiring process bias. Rather, we position our recruiters as “easy to do business with” which prevents recruiters from being seen as advisors to hiring managers and interview teams. Empower your recruiters within their role description and role expectations to lean in to disrupt identified bias and ensure hiring managers are aware that recruiters are being held accountable for doing this work well.
Trip Hazard #02 | Lack of Clarity + Accountability | Organizations rarely provide hiring managers with the clarity needed to identify how bias shows up during the interviewing process, or the clarity needed to make effective selection decisions and to hire inclusively. In addition, few hiring managers understand where they are accountable when it comes to meeting the initiative to increase diversity. Hiring managers need training too where they can learn about their role in diversity recruiting.
Trip Hazard #03 | Exclusive Initiatives | Companies leave groups of employees feeling left out of the DEI conversation. Because of ineffective language, diversity is often seen as anyone other than white, heterosexual, cis-gender men. When we use words like “diverse person,” it centers the initiative on race and gender rather than centering it on underrepresentation. A solid initiative asks the question: where we are underrepresented today and what can we do to increase representation for this particular group? A solid initiative ensures that your entire team can see how increasing diversity benefits everyone, not just some people.
Trip Hazard #04 | Faulty Selection Practices | Offices are going to the extreme to hire people because of how they identify—which is not only illegal and unethical – it positions your new hire as qualified only due to superficial factors like race and gender identity. A workplace must first understand that it is not in one’s identity that there’s a benefit that can create a competitive organization, it is in the lived experience intelligence that is born out of and shaped by the many ways in which one identifies. The goal in hiring competitively is that in addition to having the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do the job, also value lived experience intelligence because it increases the spectrum of perspective within the organization.
Trip Hazard #05 | Poor Sourcing Techniques | Recruitment teams continue to source and engage in live spaces and online platforms most familiar to them. What we often find is that these spaces mimic the overrepresentation present within their workplace. We continue to feed a lack of diversity into the talent pipeline continuing the cycle. We recommend that recruitment teams broaden their strategies to include sourcing and engaging in spaces and on platforms that are overrepresented for populations where they are underrepresented. This is the difference between posting and engaging with the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) to also including the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).
Trip Hazard #06 | Leaky Talent Pipeline | Workplaces are not paying close enough attention to the candidate experience of those from historically underrepresented groups. Where are candidates falling out of your hiring process? In other words, at what hiring process stages are people from untapped groups getting rejected or withdrawing—and why? Gaining the answers to these questions will take you far in helping to understand where there is an opportunity to process improve and create a more inclusive hiring process.
I recognize that this was a lot of information, but I also hope that you found it to be very supportive so that your organization does not fall victim to the same common trip hazards. The ultimate goal is to create more equity in your hiring process. Reaching this goal means that we have to dig more deeply beyond superficial diversity recruiting techniques like Boolean string searches.
What sort of trip hazards have you seen with other companies who are also working to increase diversity?