As the business world has revolutionised, creating a diverse and inclusive workforce is now crucial to an organization’s survival among its competitors. Old organizational practices were often based on bias and discrimination among races, genders, ages and sexualities, but we live in a more inclusive world now. Which is why it is important to make some changes to your company’s hiring practices to welcome inclusivity and diversity. It improves employee retention and productivity along with welcoming diverse perspectives, opinions and experiences, which is extremely beneficial for a company to thrive.
Let’s take a look at what an inclusive hiring process looks like and how can you implement it within your organization:
1. Diversity Within Organisational Context:
The first and foremost important thing is to understand what diversity means to your organisation. Generally, company’s include gender, race and age in their concept of diverse hiring. But that’s not all. More under-represented backgrounds are now in the spotlight and it’s important to include neurodiversity, culture, religion, ability, veteran status, and other factors in the concept of diversity in the workplace. These factors welcome varied experiences that might bring innovation to your company and help broaden it’s vision. This is also a very strong branding advantage besides being a morally appreciative practice.
2. Inclusive Job Descriptions:
An inclusive job description is the one that does not include gender based language and terms or industry preference. This is meant to break the stereotype that women can’t do physical or force exerting tasks or men can’t do jobs that women can do. It is also meant to imply that there are more than just two genders and everyone is welcome in your organization. According to experts, gender neutral language fills job posting faster than those that have a masculine or feminine bias. Moreover, use simple and short sentences and larger fonts for people who might have visual problems and make sure that you are emphasizing more on the job responsibilities than the job requirements. Inclusive job descriptions imply that your organization values diversity and people of all genders, sexualities, religions and abilities are welcome there.
3. Accessible Website:
Having a website that has different forms of conveying information like videos, downloadable sheets, audible text etc will help candidates with disabilities access your website. You can also use authentic images of your team (with their permission) instead of stock photos to showcase diversity among your team which will encourage candidates to apply to your company. Also make sure to use simple language and font which is easier to understand for everyone, and include dyslexia-friendly font in your website. The more accessible you make it, the more you showcase how important inclusivity is to you!
4. Utilize Different Job Boards:
Candidates use different resources to look for jobs, and as an important part of your marketing strategy, make sure you utilize different mediums to advertise your jobs. Using different places to advertise helps attract a more diverse population of employees. You can advertise on social media, websites, television, print ads, magazines and newspapers, etc.
5. Establish Diverse Interview Panels:
Establishing a diverse interview panel in terms of gender, abilities and race etc can help you bring a well-rounded view of candidates and help gauge different abilities. It helps reduce bias and offer varied perspectives that have a better chance of finding the best employees for your company. If you don’t have a diverse executive or HR to form an interview panel (maybe that’s something you should work on changing), you can get help from the most experienced diverse employees on your team to interview candidates!
Inclusive hiring practices have many advantages, including improving an organization’s reputation. They strengthen the company and attract talent that keep your company high in the competitive market. In order to maintain sustainability and growth, make sure you follow these practices and create an all-inclusive hiring process.
