Diversity hiring and employer branding go hand-in-hand in the world of talent management. A diverse workplace environment can lead to positive employer branding, where 76% of job seekers look for a diverse work front as the deciding factor while evaluating the company and job offer.
Diversity inclusion along with securing the best tech talent also reduces recruitment biases. However, to apply diversity hiring, one must thoroughly understand it.
A diversity candidate is a potential candidate coming from a different background who incorporates their unique perspectives and experiences into the work front. Such inclusion improves the organization’s employee retention and engagement rate as well as enhances creativity, and problem-solving and brings innovation into an organization.
Nevertheless, conducting diverse hiring can be easy when the right tool is used, such as WeCP. It aids employers to hire candidates across 12+ performance metrics thus, making data-driven hiring decisions. Let us look at what a diversity candidate is and how it benefits the organization.
What is a Diversity Candidate?
A diverse candidate is an individual who fits into the criteria of diverse groups such as different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, etc., and subsequently brings their unique standpoint, skills, and knowledge to the workplace. This inclusion of diversity proves beneficial for the company as well as employee retention and engagement.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “diversity” is defined as “the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.”
Workplace discrimination has long been a word of the past, society now pursues more integrating ideas and applying them practically. This will continue in the future, thankful to the increase in technology, people are accepting diversity, thus enriching their professional and personal lives.
Diversity candidate hiring is gaining familiarity within the talent management industry. These teams are creating awareness of diversity inclusion in the workplace and with the convenience of numerous tools available, diverse hiring has become achievable.
Benefits of Diversity Candidate Hiring
Diversity candidate hiring practices prove beneficial to organizations in many ways. They are -
Welcomes Creativity and Innovation
Diversity is said to be a crucial key to bringing creativity, and according to Jeffrey Baumgartner, it not only promotes creativity in your workforce but also in your personal life, the work groups, and the managers who are hired.
Employers when hiring individuals from varied backgrounds bring into their set of skills, knowledge, and life experiences. This integration where their out-of-the-box thinking and skill set gives an organization a guaranteed indication of growth in innovation.
Welcoming such creations and innovations into the workplace may bring positive challenges which include change in work practices, continuous learning, and finding new opportunities to keep growing.
It has been studied that companies that incorporate inclusion show 1.7 times more innovation. Therefore, such an environment not only promotes creativity and innovation but also better outcomes for the company.
Enhances Business Communication
Businesses rely on clients and communication plays a major role. Many businesses have now opened their doors to diverse markets that belong to different underrepresented groups.
When there is a diverse group of employees, handling such customers is enabled with a deeper understanding of their target audience.
Acquiring diverse talent enables a company to engage with its customers where their needs, preferences, and cultural outlook can be fulfilled.
It also proves beneficial for the company, in terms of communication and customizing their products or services, increasing business opportunities, as research says that 70% of the teams can attract new markets.
Increases Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is an important key for an organization to attain its goal as well as for the employees to thrive. A culturally fit candidate can help maintain this harmony and peace, and also boost the morale of the team members.
However, to acquire culturally fit candidates, an organization must hire individuals from diverse backgrounds, demographics, and identities.
The inclusion of a diverse candidate further establishes the foundation of trust and belonging and helps foster a comfortable space for every employee to showcase their true potential.
Improves Productivity
An organization will only achieve its target when all the employees work as a team. A diverse workforce can bring a positive outcome much faster than a team with people with like-mindedness.
Team members who think alike approach a problem in one direction, while a diverse team puts forth various ideas, possibilities, and problem-solving strategies.
A study conducted stated that 87% of the time diversity increases board performance whereas 94% say that inclusion and diversity bring about unique perspectives at the workfront.
When such diverse teams tackle a problem, it will be in a much more efficient way, thus enhancing the productivity of the organization.
Enhances Employer Branding
A survey conducted reports that 36% of employees believe a company’s employer value proposition (EVP) is crucial when they look for a new job. While 80% of respondents in a Deloitte survey stated that inclusion efforts done by the company were an important factor when deciding about the company.
All these data and statistics indicate that without diversity and inclusion, a company cannot be an attractive destination for potential candidates.
However, DEI can have a positive impact on the hiring process, as it builds a strong employer brand, and also retains employees in the long run.
Promotes Social Responsibility
As previously mentioned, people especially the current generation believe much more in diversity than compared to the previous generation. They look to create awareness about diversity and inclusion and show its importance, socially as well as personally.
Such a positive perception can be bought by advocating diversity and inclusion in the workplace, which is achieved through hiring diverse candidates.
Therefore, a recruiting team that promotes diversity by hiring diverse candidates automatically fosters social responsibility regarding diversity.
How to Recruit more Diverse candidates?
A recruiter can outline a strategy for hiring more diverse candidates. It can be done by -
Propose a Plan
To begin the process of hiring a diverse candidate, a recruitment agency must create and procure a strategy keeping in mind the company’s goals and objectives while promoting diversity in the workforce. Hiring diverse candidates must be made a top priority by the team and organization.
👉 Read More: Top 15 Objectives of Recruitment and Selection
Market the Plan
After creating the strategy, the recruiters should follow a systematic marketing plan to ensure the goal stays in place.
Consistent revision of the marketing plan and all the requirements must be indicated to not exclude candidates from diverse backgrounds.
Utilize Diverse Resources
The use of appropriate resources during the hiring process is beneficial as well as efficient. Numerous applications are available nowadays that conduct assessments for candidates during recruiting.
These assessment tools along with employee resource groups, and diversity job boards ensure that diversity is retained.
Train and Educate Recruiters and Managers
The hiring managers must have an understanding of the importance of diversity hiring.
If not, they must be properly trained and educated so that they can avoid any unconscious bias-based hiring practices, and can conduct a fair assessment of candidates.
Give Equal Opportunities
Diversity hiring will not be achieved if there is no equality. When all the candidates are treated equally and fairly during the hiring process then only the entire diversity hiring will be applicable.
Therefore, it is very important to select those assessment tools that are proven to maintain equal and fair assessment and evaluation.
👉 Read More: How to Ensure Fair Hiring Practices in Your Organization?
Provide Inclusive Benefits
Inclusive benefits like leave, flexible working, and supportive policies are equally important to retain diverse candidates.
These are obtained by providing such benefits to employees from diverse backgrounds.
Track the Progress of the Hiring Process
The entire hiring of diverse candidates does not end in one process but must be kept on continuity. This can be obtained through measuring and tracking how the process of diversity and inclusion is progressing.
Regular reviews and feedback surveys can be conducted to know the progress, and further implement any changes are required in the strategies.
Conclusion
A diversity candidate is an individual who comes from varied backgrounds and who further benefits a company by their unique perspectives and skills.
Statistics show that such diverse hiring brings many advantages in terms of productivity, employee retention, engagement, and employee satisfaction, as well as employer branding.
However, to achieve all these benefits, a recruiter should have a clear understanding of who these individuals are and how to recruit more such people.
The use of numerous assessment tools is slowly gaining popularity among recruiters where diversity is conducted at the assessment level itself.
At WeCP, diversity and inclusion are given the utmost priority and aid the recruiters in the hiring of diverse candidates at any given level.
WeCP is a robust recruitment tool that aims at providing bias-free hiring. They assess candidates across 12+ performance metrics, and provide a rich repository of role-specific questions to the employers, thus, further catering to recruiters to make data-driven hiring decisions.
Want to know more on how WeCP can help you out? Try WeCP for free or Schedule a Call with us.
