Companies have faced a number of challenges due to the overwhelming repercussions of the pandemic. Besides the widely reported Great Resignation, which has led to the mass exodus of workforces, employers grappling with how to best address and implement Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and solutions are now faced with not only the challenge of retaining talent but also hiring diverse talent efficiently and effectively.
Many companies are struggling with general hiring and recruitment in the workplace without the added challenge of effectively keeping an eye on DEI best practices. Recent data shows that 73% Opens a new window of companies are having a difficult time attracting candidates, while 60% are finding it difficult to retain current employees. Many companies have recently turned to emerging technologies, such as AI, to accelerate hiring processes and find the right candidate for the position. While these tools offer the promise to build teams in a more efficient way, they can actually hinder a company’s DEI efforts. Many existing tools and platforms provide misleading and inaccurate diversity info on candidates by scraping and enriching demographic data from outdated third-party sources.
Prioritizing DEI is no longer an option for companies. As stated in Hired’s 2021 Impact Report – Wage Inequality in the WorkplaceOpens a new window , over 83% of survey respondents said that it was important that their employer make a genuine commitment to making the workplace more diverse and inclusive by utilizing the right tools and platforms needed to achieve DEI goals.
See More: Driving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Through Data
So how can companies not only find the right solutions to drive DEI efforts optimally but also measure the overall success?
1. Choose the Right DEI Platform
Before choosing a potential DEI platform for recruitment or hiring, research how the data captured is gathered and utilized: do they scrape candidate demography and diversity data from third-party sources? If so, that should be considered a red flag.
DEI recruitment and hiring companies such as Textio, Criteria Corp, and Greenhouse are just a few platforms that help companies vet the right candidates for open positions while mitigating unconscious bias.
- TextioOpens a new window is an augmented writing platform that uses language patterns, data, and research to help companies use more inclusive language to craft more insightful hiring content for job descriptions and career sites.
- Criteria CorpOpens a new window works with companies to tackle unconscious biases by providing a science-backed, user-friendly assessment platform with equitable pre-employment tests designed to prompt better hiring decisions.
- GreenhouseOpens a new window helps companies scale teams quickly by reaching and tracking top talent through diverse pipelines and offers analytics as well as features that allow you to set goals. Additionally, they work with companies to address unconscious bias through every stage of the hiring process with tools built directly into their systems so companies can continue to improve and reach their DEI goals.
But what makes companies different? While each platform creates a better hiring experience for both employers and potential candidates, platforms like Textio works with companies in real-time to use more inclusive language for branded content such as job postings. Criteria Corp and Greenhouse help employers find the right candidates by providing assessments that are filled out by the candidates themselves, eliminating the potential for misinformation.
The importance of having diverse teams has been a growing understanding amongst highly performing teams. In turn, DEI tech also increased by 87%Opens a new window in 2021 to meet the rising need to mitigate unconscious bias during the hiring process. By utilizing the correct DEI platforms for both recruitment and hiring processes, companies saw their pipeline increase with underrepresented tech candidates, had hard-to-fill positions filled, and ultimately increased revenue by having more diverse teams.
2. Establish Processes and Evaluate DEI Efforts
As you choose the right platform to push forward your company’s diversity efforts, establishing and evaluating your DEI goals to ensure that there is full alignment across the company is equally beneficial.
Establishing a one to two-year DEI plan as well as specific, measurable, action-oriented, relevant, and timely (SMART) benchmarks can help you track and measure your progress to reach your company’s DEI objectives. Additionally, each area of the employee journey, from the hiring process to performance reviews to promotions and retention, as well as results and data collected from each department, should also be evaluated against your objectives to see if it’s driving the desired results to make a difference within your company.
3. Measure and Track Your Platforms Against Your DEI Efforts
Once you’ve set and established objectives for hiring and recruitment efforts, it’s imperative that your company’s DEI platforms are continually measured and tracked. The right DEI platforms have the power to make a significant impact on the company and be integral to its success. Teams responsible for ensuring the success of DEI within an organization should establish a DEI task forceOpens a new window consisting of key stakeholders that will assess your company’s progress to better execute initiatives and provide oversight to the effectiveness of your plan. An initial meeting with your task force should be conducted to outline goals and which underrepresented group to focus on in your DEI strategy.
This additional visibility, along with regularly scheduled check-ins with your teams, will give you insight into your company’s DEI representation as well as the commitment from your stakeholders, all the way down to your employees.
It’s also important to note that you should check that your team is actually adapting to the various platforms that have been implemented and that they are being used on a consistent basis. Additionally, asking for feedback is a great way to receive valuable insight into what is working. The best way to do this is by sending out surveys. This way, you not only find out what employees like or don’t like, but you’re also leaving space for them to share best practices and ideas to improve the use of these platforms.
Leveraging DEI platforms throughout different phases and tracking against established objectives can also help evaluate each area within the employee journey where the DEI tools are utilized.
- Are you interviewing more underrepresented candidates now?
- How are percentages evolving with regards to demographics within your company?
- Are you surfacing or hiring more diverse talent than before?
See More: 4 Ways To Optimize Your Global Hiring Strategy for DEI Success
These are just some of the key questions that you should use to analyze your tools against your own objectives.
Ultimately, the best HR platforms and tools can only go so far as the leadership teams leveraging and implementing them. Tracking metrics to ensure DEI will only give you data. It’s up to leadership, hiring managers, talent partners, people managers, and anyone else responsible for the success of the company’s DEI programs to really examine what the data is showing and then implement the right solutions to achieve successful outcomes. DEI specialists and teams are integral in raising awareness around DEI goals within the wider company, and the pressure should not be solely placed on these teams to ensure that those goals are met.
If DEI is to be a core part of any company’s DNA, the accountability and responsibility of meeting DEI metrics and implementing successful processes should be across all teams, from candidate acquisition teams to product teams to the top leadership within the company.