Industry Research: Utilizing Technology to Create Inclusive Hiring Strategies

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Diversity has been the buzzword of the last year for many organizations, with roles for Head of Diversity up 107% and Chief Diversity Office up 68% from 2015.  While hiring an executive focused on diversity, holding splashy events with a major speaker to discuss diversity, or putting out a statement is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t move the needle behind the scenes to work through the bigger issues within an organization. In fact, half of employees, who participated in a survey, think their company has failed to create a diverse workforce and more than a third of employees (36%) aren't sure if their company is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

DEI is beneficial to employee retention and hiring, and contributes to business growth. A report from McKinsey found companies in the top quartile of gender and ethnic diversity financially outperformed those in the bottom quartile by up to 36%.

To create a company that will succeed and grow in a post-pandemic world, organizations need to showcase a strong commitment to DEI in every aspect of their business, but especially in their recruiting practices. Three-quarters of job seekers report a diverse workforce is an important factor when deciding whether to apply to a company or take a job offer, underscoring the importance of building up DEI strategies for today’s world. With Goldman Sachs predicting unemployment levels will be back down to 4.1% by the end of 2021, now is the time to act to create a hiring strategy that will push your organization into the future.

Integrating technology into recruiting processes is crucial in understanding the actions needed to make DEI improvements within an organization, so let’s explore how organizations can utilize technology to create more inclusive hiring strategies and meet their overall DEI goals.

The key to overall success in building a diverse workforce starts with data. Without data, it’s nearly impossible to understand where there are gaps in your workforce. If your leaders don’t know where there are gaps in their workforce, how can they begin to fix them?

The first step is to look at the demographic data of your teams. Is the majority of your engineering team men from the same background, for example? If so, it’s time to take a deeper look at your hiring practices and reevaluate a hiring strategy for that team to expand its talent pool. Demographic analysis is just the start of an ongoing process that organizations should implement to continue to identify gaps in the hiring process that may be stunting diversity goals.

To ensure DEI is top of mind for all hiring managers across the organization on a regular basis, HR leaders can conduct a quarterly analysis of DEI within each team and discuss the results with the team’s leadership to ensure the team understands diversity trends and ensure gaps are caught. Once leaders have an understanding of where these gaps are, they can take actions to uncover why these gaps exist and implement strategies to fix them.

Data is a crucial component of growing a diverse workforce, yet nearly half (49%) of talent pros say lack of data and insights into candidate demographics make it difficult to implement their strategies. One way to gather this data is to collect optional and anonymous demographic data from candidates during the interview process. By tracking the results, HR leaders can identify holes (such as if the job is not attracting women of color) to help understand where they should make changes to attract more diverse talent.

Another role of technology in the recruiting process is eliminating groupthink. Implementing a recruiting platform with the ability to block interviewers from reading other interviewers’ feedback before they submit their own, can promote independent decision making, rather than risk being swayed by others’ point of view. Additionally, utilizing interview kits that allow panels to conduct apples-to-apples interviews across the board allows for more even comparison across candidates and interviewers, and creates a more equitable decision-making process.

The only way DEI can become fully ingrained as a core value for the organization is if every program, process, policy, and decision keeps inclusivity top of mind. Building a diverse team ultimately starts in the recruiting process - if you can’t attract diverse candidates, how will you create a diverse workforce?

Reworking job descriptions is a good place for many organizations to start. For example, we look at job descriptions as “impact descriptions” or expectations of accomplishments in the role, rather than pure background qualifications, to help attract more diverse talent. For example, a candidate with a two-year degree and incredible work experience may not apply for a job they are fully qualified for if there is a four-year degree requirement.

Providing fair pay and equitable benefits is also critical in creating an inclusive environment. Working with a third-party benchmarking tool to understand market compensation can help make sure the organization is not only competitive, but also offers fair and equitable total compensation in offers for new hires and compensation review processes for current employees.

As we enter a post-pandemic work environment, DEI will only continue to grow in importance, and utilizing data and technology to create a strategy that exemplifies how DEI is built into your company’s core values will help create an equitable and inclusive workforce. Learn more about how Lever can help you diversify your pipeline, reduce your interviewer bias, and measure your results today.