Recruiting & DEI: Getting To Grips With Your Data!

A few steps to ensure you maintain your standards

Business leaders across the globe, from the smallest startups to the biggest global corporations have publicly committed to taking action against bias and discrimination in their own workplaces. The desire to create a better diverse workforce is under pressure as companies come to terms with the impact of the global lockdown while striving to balance the demands placed on them by their people – flexible conditions, reskilling, wellness and hybrid working, to name but a few.
 

So how will companies manage to keep on track with their hiring initiatives and keep in line with their DE&I strategy? Here are some simple steps to ensure you maintain your standards.

Start with the Data 

To measure what you have, you need to begin somewhere. Start with the data you have in your systems – quite simply, if you have an ATS and a Core HR platform it will be there somewhere. The struggle is ensuring you have the right data with the right KPI’s and a consistent source of truth for you to report effectively across the whole organization – and in a timely manner. What % of applicants are from a diverse background? Are we seeing any bias in our interview process? Are we losing candidates before we can even make an offer? What are the main reasons for rejection? Alongside all the other data points you are trying to measure, such as time to hire, the best source of hire and so on, we often fail in spotting the roadblocks preventing us from becoming more diverse.

Keep on Track

Make sure you can report consistently and in a timely manner. Our own experience suggests Data and Analytic teams spend a high % of their time wrestling with the data which prevents them from providing a consistent data output back to the business. Once you have established a source of truth, it becomes so much easier in automating the process to ensure that the right teams have the right data at the right time, allowing for, if necessary, tweaks to the processes and timely interventions to keep it all on track.

Get a Holistic View of Your Workforce

Getting to grips with the make-up of your organization can be daunting. Keeping track of headcount, moves and promotions, turnover and employee cost while understanding your employee diversity and the impact of your compensation and benefits can seem overwhelming. Creating a holistic view of your workforce will have a massive impact in seeing, at a glance, the make-up of your teams, and if done correctly, drilling into an organizational hierarchy such as business units, locations and managers will uncover the areas that you can focus on in the short, mid and long term – and align back to your recruiting initiatives.

Measure Effectiveness

Any process takes time and building the right teams, and building trust, is the first step in creating an effective diverse organization. When done correctly, it can have a massive boost in productivity and creativity. Being able to measure the effectiveness of your teams’ productivity is a sure-fire way to see how they are performing in conjunction with your DE&I strategy – how quickly are they meeting targets, has productivity improved, what is the time to market or any other measure will mean you can track over time the value of your recruiting and DE&I initiatives, and more importantly, ensure you keep aligned with the goals of the business. 

[In addition, the SEC Guidelines for assessing an entity’s diversity policies can be a great pointer for companies who wish to create or improve their Diversity practices]

In Conclusion

Just having a Recruitment or DE&I program does not ensure business success and it is imperative that you can make sense of the data you have now to meet the expectations of your organization. We know that it is not a one size fits all approach, so choosing the right tools to measure the impact of your programs will mean you can create a truly connected People Analytics capability that can meet the challenges of the most demanding businesses and provide the flexibility to grow with your requirements.  And from a people perspective, now more than ever, people are selecting companies they want to work for (and buy from) with their heart and conscience. Candidates are choosing to seek out employers that value diversity because they believe in these values. It is imperative to include diversity & inclusion in the work culture to hire & retain talent.

Follow your data closely to make informed decisions, and continue making progress on your organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion.  At the end of the day, diversity recruiting is all about hiring the best person by understanding all insights within disparate data sources, recruiting channels, and current practices.

Naveen Miglani is the Co-Founder and CEO of SplashBI. Naveen’s career has spanned many functions including driving corporate strategy, leading professional services practices, managing alliances / channels, and marketing. Miglani is an Industry Global Leader with 3 decades of experience helping organizations become Data Driven. Educating and Assisting Organizations make the best fact-based decisions for long-term growth and success. Prior to joining SplashBI Naveen, has worked across many functions - IT, Management, Business Development, Marketing, Finance. He has also held many senior positions such as CEO of Apex IT, EAI Leader at GE Energy Services, and Managing Principal at Oracle Corporation.  Visit https://splashbi.com/  Connect Naveen Miglani