Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) is a critical element of today’s business strategies. In the last year, we’ve seen more employers take steps to be more inclusive and improve recruitment processes to ensure under-represented groups are being engaged with and hired for permanent positions.
For the contingent workforce, though, ‘inclusion’ has long been focused on diversity spend, i.e. whether or not staffing dollars are being invested in diverse-owned suppliers. While this is certainly action that is needed to create a more equitable business landscape, it doesn’t help address actual worker diversity.
However, with social movements such as Black Lives Matter putting pressure on global leaders to address inequality, the need to drive real diversity change across the non-employed workforce has accelerated. But at Guidant Global, we know this is not an easy task to achieve. However, there are steps that can be taken to increase equity across your contingent hiring, including partnering with niche suppliers that are driving innovation in non-employed talent attraction strategies.
Introducing the INfluence Workforce Consortium
While there’s a wealth of suppliers that are vocal about their commitment to sourcing contingent workers from diverse groups, real change comes from more than just going to new websites to find contingent resources. It requires innovation and tangible actions that deliver a notable impact on communities and diversity targets.
In order to help organizations across the US ensure they are working with staffing companies that are actually putting diversity into action across contingent workforces, we’ve brought together specialist partners under the Guidant Global
INfluence Workforce Consortium.
This new, US-focused initiative will drive proactive strategic partnerships with experts in diversity, equity and inclusion across contingent recruitment. We will be working with members of the Consortium to drive further inclusion across non-employee workforces and expand members’ reach to increase the volume of diverse talent across our own client MSP programs.
The current members of this new
INfluence Workforce Consortium are:
- The MOM Project: the largest digital marketplace dedicated to building a better workplace for women, families and the businesses they support.
- Primary Talent Partners: a women-owned staffing and executive firm dedicated to helping top companies find quality employees in IT, engineering, corporate professional and life sciences utilizing programs designed to support Black STEM students into employment.
- Pyramid Consulting: a Minority Business Enterprise that promotes being intentionally inclusive and supports the next generation of tech talent by uncovering hidden talent within diverse, female and veteran candidates.
By launching this Consortium, we’ve been able to bring together completely unconnected staffing companies to give HR and talent acquisition teams a much larger support package. And the interest so far has been huge. I’ve personally had multiple conversations with employers who are extremely eager to see how the Consortium and its members can support their firm’s contingent workforce diversity targets.
Driving real change
The crucial success element of this Consortium is going to be the actual change that these firms deliver for businesses. When we were looking at the experts we could partner with and bring together to create this initiative, the key criteria was simple: they needed to be doing something different that drives actual results.
All three members have taken steps to improve the prospects of under-represented groups and have committed to more than just finding diverse workers, but also supporting these individuals in their careers.
As Guidant’s Beth Armesto, Sr. Director, Supplier Relationship Management explained following the launch of the Consortium, the possibility to drive impactful change through the members of the Consortium is inspiring:
“The diversity, equity and inclusion agenda has truly taken center stage in the last year but driving this in the flexible workforce has proven particularly challenging for some organizations. By partnering with the most innovative and experienced DE&I suppliers in our network, we are paving the way for positive change and increasing diverse representation in our clients’ workforces. We have selected these firms as part of our INfluence Workforce Consortium because they are driving positive meaningful change, and together we can open more doors for under-represented talent across our clients’ contingent workforces.”
At Guidant we will continue to push ourselves, our clients and suppliers to deliver tangible results and create a more equal playing field for everyone in the contingent supply chain in order to expand the universe for under-represented groups. Our hope is that the momentum that’s been building over the last year continues and commitment to diverse worker placements is maintained beyond the immediate future – driven, of course, by collaborative initiatives such as the INfluence Workforce Consortium.
