Diversity 2.0: Creating An Inclusive Workforce

How can technology mitigate bias and improve diversity

The past year has highlighted the strength of the HR community as we evolved our role to prioritize the mental health of our teams and ensured employees felt heard in the new world of remote work. While challenging, the changes provided a unique opportunity for companies and hiring managers to take a hard look at existing methods of doing business and to transform them with newer, more efficient processes. 
 

HR teams must continue transforming existing processes and focus on how technology can mitigate bias and improve diversity. As people rejoin the workforce en masse, employers have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to adopt new technologies, reimagine the candidate experience and permanently change the way they hire by prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Driving Out Bias 

Diversity, equity and inclusion should have always been a priority for every CHRO. However, we have seen that this is not always the case. Companies must embrace their role in ensuring a fair and unbiased hiring process, as such 2021 will be a critical year in moving the needle toward a more diverse and inclusive future. 

The use of HR technologies can help us advance those goals while also enhancing the employee experience, driving employee engagement, and expanding access to a diverse global talent pool. 

Companies must reimagine interviewing, hiring and onboarding processes to prioritize mental health, leverage the existing resources they provide and educate managers on the employee engagement experience. These changes will result in increased diversity among teams and more inclusive practices overall.

With the changing remote and hybrid landscape, technologies that help companies adopt permanent remote work strategies will be more widely available in 2021. These tools can help leaders take advantage of a diverse talent pool in a newly distributed workforce, and ensure that HR professionals are delivering in their role of prioritizing DE&I practices within their companies.  

The Role of Technology

It’s important for HR leaders to consider how technology can be used to enhance a candidate’s experience and provide a more personalized introduction to the company and job role. The notion that technology limits personal touch is an outdated one that should be left behind. HR leaders can leverage technology to better understand their employees and support candidates and hiring teams alike. 

More than ever before, companies can and should meet candidates where they are with pre-hire assessments, innovative communications, and video interviews. Standardized assessments mitigate bias by focusing on competencies, rather than biased indicators like resumes. In addition to assessments, chatbots and text work together to remove structural barriers and create channels of communication that are more equitable and engaging for candidates. 

And we know from over a century of research that using structured interview questions is the surest way to eliminate bias and deliver a consistent experience to every candidate who applies. 

Technology has the power to help create a more equitable and inclusive recruiting, hiring and onboarding experience. It can support a hiring process that ensures the prioritization of candidates by competency, which opens up opportunities to all qualified candidates. 

D&I in 2021

As a result of the pandemic, companies have had to reimagine what their workplace, employee engagement experiences and hiring practices look like. While 2020 showcased the resilience of companies with their widespread adoption of virtual interviewing and hybrid workplace models, diversity and inclusion practices have not gone far enough. 

In 2021, HR managers and recruiters will need to adopt technology that prioritizes fair and unbiased interviewing. A robust digital strategy coupled with access to a new, distributed talent pool can create the change organization leaders have long been trying to find.

Andy Valenzuela is CHRO of HireVue. Visit www.hirevue.com  Connect Andy Valenzuela