Before beginning to dive in at the bottom of diversity hiring, recruiters need to understand more about the superficial items related to it. You often are at crossroads when you ask yourself what diversity actually means. Few people define diversity as differences among people.

However, you need to understand that diversity is really an exclusive term which defines cultural differences often keeping race and ethnicity as major filters. Now diversity hiring in the workplace can be described as adding more women to a male-dominated company and vice versa.

This term used by people can be interpreted into different meanings, especially in the workforce.

Recruiters need to understand that a high-quality workforce is significant to any company. Confusion and concern arise only when you provide employees that the company is unable to retain and your employee-retention graph starts falling way down expectation. Diversity is really important in case of hiring since it provides certain tangible benefits to the company.

For example, once a company starts expanding globally, being able to understand and being able to reach out to a wider audience with various culture and language becomes easier when diversity is in play. So here Recruit CRM is providing recruiters with top 5 facts you need to know before you dive right into diversity hiring.

5 Things You Need To Know In Case Of Diversity Hiring

In Corporate America, diversity hiring has always been a hot button topic. They are always aware of the changing demographics and know when the make-up needs to change. Nevertheless, did you know that many corporate front-runners actually established diversity initiatives back in the mid-to-late 90s?

1. It Has A Lot Of Enhancing Features

More than two decades later into the history of Corporate America, the bottom-line results have been measured in the demographics of women and minority recruitment and not in dollars. Diversity throughout any workforce environment enhances connection with the customer, employee motivation and always remember that employees will maintain their productivity only when they are treated with dignity. Apart from this it also opens up employee innovation. A workplace which is open to diversity involves a lot of innovation. As you know diversity hiring is when you start hiring based on merit but with care to ensure that the processes are free from any bias related to age, gender, sexual orientation, religion or any other characteristics that are unrelated to the individual or that specific job.

Diversity has resulted in employee recruitment retention, a workplace that emphasizes interest and concern for its employees. Apart from attracting a high-quality workforce always remember that this includes continuous quality improvement as well.

2. It’s Profitable

There’s a positive impact on the bottom line. A study conducted by the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission concluded that organizations that were successful in leveraging any form of diversity (which included both the hiring and advancement of women, promotion of non-white people to senior management jobs and providing a climate conducive to people from various backgrounds) have experienced better financial performance in the long run than other organizations. This study also found out that in the companies which rated the lowest for equal employment opportunities, their annualized return was 7.5% whereas companies that rated the highest for equal employment opportunities had an annualized return of 18.3% which is significantly higher.

It is however true that big industries and companies can afford to conduct large-scale surveys and studies but what about small businesses? According to Dr. Edward E. Hubbard, the writer of Measuring Diversity Results and How to Calculate Diversity Return on Investment says that diversity hiring can really be challenging to measure since creativity, productivity, and teamwork cannot be measured in numbers. However, the presence of diversity itself affects individuals, companies, and communities at large.

3. It’s Marketable

Diversity initiatives are in fact a catalyst for a better ROI for human capital. According to a study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, customer bases are actually becoming more diverse than the workforce and the combined Black, Hispanic and Asian buying power is more than $750 billion. Also in more than half of the U.S. households, women are considered to be the primary investors. Thereby as a recruiter you need to understand this can serve as a major advantage to the company you’re hiring for as the financial rewards for appealing to a more diversified customer base is really significant.

Apart from the above, there are 3 more things you need to keep in mind:

  • Women purchase 70-80% of all the products.
  • Hispanics are the fastest-growing consumers in the US.
  • African-Americans spend nearly $750 billion each year on any kind of goods and services.

4. You Can Harness Its Power

To harness the power of diversity, you first need to understand what it actually signifies. You, as a recruiter might often think that recruitment is all about job postings and searching for the right candidate. But no, it’s much more than that. The sooner you realize the faster you can also grasp the basis of recruitment advertising. Now, recruitment advertising is also not about reaching out to future employees or communicating with them where they live and breathe. You often go beyond what’s been already done and overdone. You always keep looking at staffing profiles, behavioural modelling and lifestyles of the candidates in all industries. Everything you’re doing is designed to find a much more suitable candidate and helps you acquire and retain the cream talent. But you have to look at the bigger picture here. Remember to provide solutions which are unique in nature.

True diversity begins when you start realising how much strength it will bring to an organization. It has not become a benchmark in how they are perceived. Outstanding people with diverse backgrounds, skills and ideas help reach a specified target audience thereby meeting the company’s goal and mission.

5. Gets Rid Of Harmful Biases

The ideal candidate for most people is usually someone one can be comfortable with. Nevertheless, a recruiter needs to understand that likeability is not an indicator of how well he/she will perform in the future. So watch out for bias towards likeability. Any form of structured interviews and diverse hiring panels help eliminate the likelihood of the above scenario. You can also pair the interview with any form of skill test or real-life challenge.

Prevent yourself from hiring a candidate based on an interview alone. Reduce confirmation bias. Now, what exactly is confirmation bias? Confirmation bias refers to this tendency you’ll have to seek out information that supports your preconceived notion about someone or something. Assess a candidate based on both an interview and skills test. Never rely on intuition and vary where you advertise about your job postings to attract diversity.

You might by now have a clear idea about what is diversity hiring and what one should think about or take into account before accepting and implementing it. Tell us in the comments below if you’re a recruiter and you’re a staunch believer of diversity hiring.