Inclusive hiring practices are being brought to the workplaces and from what we have heard; many recruiters agreed that these hiring practices have made recruitment easier and better.
A good organization is one where everyone’s thoughts and ideas are respected and taken into consideration. Inclusive hiring practices have increased employee productivity along with improving the organizational environment.
Creating a work environment with qualified candidates regardless of their background, religion, gender, and color where all individuals feel welcomed and can participate equally is what inclusive hiring aims for. Having people from different backgrounds with different mindsets will promote several different views and ideas that could eventually result in innovation.
Inclusive Hiring Practices: All You Need to Know
In this article, we will learn about the following:
- What is inclusive hiring?
- Why are inclusive hiring practices important?
- 12 inclusive hiring practices for your organization
What Is Inclusive Hiring?
Before moving to the meaning of inclusive hiring, let’s first compare two scenarios of a workplace. One where several people regardless of their ethnicity, race, or color are working, and another one where many people with the same mindset are working. What’s better? The first scenario.
This is what inclusive hiring practices are all about.
Inclusive hiring practices values diversity i.e. it considers a variety of qualities and mindsets that an employee brings to a company. Many people confuse inclusive hiring with just having different mindsets of hiring people with disabilities. However, in reality, inclusive hiring practices are about fighting and eradicating recruitment bias and discrimination against any applicants.
Such hiring practices create an environment where both; people with abilities and disabilities — visible and invisible — are given the same kind of exposure and judgment.
Inclusive Hiring: Facts
- Inclusive hiring practices and Diversity Hiring Practices in the workplace have improved team innovation by 20%.
- To measure inclusion and diversity, more than 50% of the companies have metrics.
- When a candidate looks for a job, more than 55% have claimed that they look for workplace diversity.
- In 2019, 82% of male full-time in-depth about the wage was equal to a woman’s pay.
Why Are Inclusive Hiring Practices Important?
Inclusive hiring practices have reformed the business world. The interviewers are now liable to respect and consider every appearing candidate equally regardless of his color, caste, and creed.
Inclusive hiring practices promote a good, healthy image of the company which helps them stand out from the competition. Among many respondents, 23% of them said that they have left a job in a company for another, more inclusive one.
Implementing inclusive hiring practices in the workforce is considered a fast-growing strategy. Not only is it good morally, but also provides the business with a wide range of ideas and mindset that later on help in innovation, productivity, growth, and performance.
A good strategy of implementing inclusive hiring practices is beneficial because:
- It provides a larger candidate pool.
- It provides awareness about different cultures. This helps in understanding customers belonging to different cultures and speaking different languages.
- It provides a large number of capabilities and skills on your team.
- It increases exposure for your company. Since you are selecting employees regardless of their disabilities and backgrounds, you can get employees from all over the world. This helps in increasing the international base.
- It helps in plugging the talent gaps and filling the leftover spaces. For instance, having people with different mindsets can bring in more ideas likewise filling talent gaps.
Well, Let’s Back Up the Above Mentioned Advantages by Some Success Stories, Shall We?
- Companies with inclusive hiring practices successfully increased their revenues by 19%.
- Inclusive hiring practices helped companies improve their bottom lines by a whopping 85%, claims the CEOs.
12 Inclusive Hiring Practices for Your Organization
Do you want to increase your organization’s productivity and growth too? Well, here are 12 inclusive hiring practices that you can opt for:
1. Diversity And Inclusion: Make These Two Your Best Friends
A lot of people confuse diversity with only culture, race, color, religion, and gender. However, when talking about inclusive hiring practices, diversity must also cater to the following:
- Veteran status
- Abilities
- Skills
- Neurodiversity
- Generation
- Age group
This means that one needs to focus and go in-depth about such differences to achieve a better strategy for inclusive hiring practices. For instance, the experiences of an obese girl’s life will be much different than that of a skinny girl although both have the same gender.
2. Job Description and Inclusion
Before moving ahead, let’s learn what an inclusive job description is. An inclusive job description means using a language that does not reflect any biasedness of any kind. But how do you write a job description in such tones?
Well, the following are the steps that you can opt for writing an inclusive job description:
- Make sure your title does not target a specific gender or industry.
- Restrict your requirements to must-haves or job responsibilities.
- Avoid mentioning extra. Stick to the job at hand.
- Make sure you use gender-neutral language.
- Avoid using long sentences. Be to the point.
- Use large fonts and highlight the important parts that you need attention towards.
3. Develop a Career Website for Candidates
Another way to incorporate inclusive hiring practices is through building a career website. Firstly, make sure that the language you use reflects a sense of diversity and inclusion while being gender-neutral.
Secondly, avoid using pictures off the internet. Instead, use authentic photographs of your meetings and discussion groups to promote a positive picture of your work environment. You also need to make sure that the fonts used are dyslexia-friendly.
For a better understanding of how to have a perfect user-friendly career website, visit Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
4. Create an EEOC Statement
An Equal Employment Opportunity statement will ensure that your company believes in inequality in terms of opportunities and respect for all your employees. An EEOC statement will not only improve your career website but will also support your claim of inclusiveness.
To learn more, click here.
5. Advertise Your Job Openings in Multiple Forums and Formats
A lot of the candidates are fresh graduates who seek jobs through job fairs, workshops, social networks, print ads, and online advertisements. Hence good marketing and advertising are what you should aim for. However, your advertisement must be gender-neutral as well as free of any religious controversy.
Here are a few examples that you can take inspiration from:
Nike’s Advertisement
Dollar Shave Advertisement
6. Construct Your Employer Brand with Inclusion
What people look for the most while opting for a job is a company’s determination. Hence, to achieve a strong inclusive hiring base, you need to show your commitment to inclusion. But how to achieve that?
Well, honesty. Be honest about your condition, where you stand, and how you see your future while still supporting equality, inclusion, and diversity.
For example, Airbnb uses inclusive hiring practices. It was recorded that 30% of the applicants were women. Likewise, Apple while advocating inclusive hiring practices claimed that it hired about 64% of employees from underrepresented communities.
7. Provide Employees with Possible Career Opportunities
Employees are a very important part of an organization. Keeping them engaged is of great significance. Hence, make sure your employees are fully aware of any growth opportunities.
This can be done by making them participate in the internal recruiting process, taking their opinions, and respecting their ideas. Moreover, you must also understand the problems your employees are most likely to face and likewise introduce programs to help them such as mentorship or workshops.
8. Ensure Unbiased Interview Procedures
Prior practice and preparation for an interview are essential. Hence, before interviewing the candidates make sure you have an interview guide or several questions that are gender-neutral and inclusive.
Avoid asking any questions that do not assess a candidate’s abilities. Only stick to questions regarding the job for example:
- Did you ever face a time where you had a workload and described how you handled it?
- How would you react in a situation where you lose important files?
9. Diversity In Interview Panels Is a Must
Before moving ahead, let me get you a little excited. Well, the top organizations in diversity best practices are said to use the diver interview panel method.
If you want to implement inclusive hiring practices, establishing a diverse inter-panel could be beneficial. Doing so will help in having a united view of each applicant based on different evaluations on different skills.
Moreover, a diverse interview panel can also reduce the risk of biases since different interviewers would have different views on a single candidate. You can do so by simply making a group of your well-managed and top managers.
10. Use Recruitment Technology
Another way you can implement inclusive hiring practices is by the use of technology. Have you heard of Lever? Well, it is an applicant tracking application that helps in making unbiased decisions i.e. the better the employee performs, the better will be the rewards.
11. Algorithm Bias: Watch Out
If you are planning to opt for the above-mentioned hiring technology, you might have to consider a few things. For instance, what is the alleviation of the algorithm bias? This would help you make sure that no human bias is included or wrongfully administered into the system.
12. How Good Is Your Inclusive Hiring Program?
Well, the most important part of implementing the strategies is to know whether they will give a sustainable outcome or not. While implementing inclusive hiring practices, make sure you do not rush into the process.
If you are using a tracking system, you can easily differentiate between the selected and unselected candidates and likewise work on the weaknesses in the future. Other than this, you should also have a measure of your selected employees, how they feel around the workplace and whether they are comfortable or not.
What’s the use of an inclusive hiring program if your employees don’t feel welcomed and wanted?
Final Thoughts
As important as it is to implement inclusive hiring practices, it is equally important to review them. This would give you a picture of where you stand and where you need changes. In-depth about the Take one step at a time, move smartly, and incorporate hiring practices to make your organization a better place for people to work. It may seem tiring, but it sure is worth the effort.
Other Useful Resources:
10 Recruitment Predictions and Trends You Should Know
3 Benefits of Predictive Hiring Analytics for CHROs
Best Job Hashtags for Recruiting on Social Media
