“Textio for Employer Brand†will encourage users to include multicultural phrases, team-centric language, and growth mindset language when writing employer branding content.Â
With more emphasis on diversity now, companies are exploring all possible ways to create a more inclusive culture. At the heart of workplace inclusion, as is already known, are the people of an organization. This comprises employees of an organization and those who will join it and influence the organization’s culture.
TextioOpens a new window , the tool that helps recruiters write unbiased job descriptions, has launched Textio for Employer Brand. It is the first of its kind designed to identify exclusive or offensive language in a company’s employer branding content. It also provides suggestions on improving the writing to make it more inclusive and enable changes in internal communications as well.
Key features include suggestions on:
- Multicultural phrases: Language that encourages diversity
- Team-centric language: Language that promotes a team-centric culture as opposed to an individual-centric culture
- Growth vs. fixed mindset language: Language that doesn’t encourage growth or diverse trains of thought
Textio’s latest offering puts the spotlight on a largely neglected area of recruitment and employer branding – communication. Companies make many significant changes, such as announcing large-scale diversity programs but miss the smaller but equally important changes, such as phrasing content to make it more inclusive. Even if they make the change, it is usually restricted to minor ones as applicable to job descriptions or postings.
Examples of Textio for Employer Brand in Action
Harmful Language Can Be Detrimental
Textio’s most important feature is its suggestions. It picks up words that are gender discriminatory, reinforce a perception or bias, and indicate a more individualistic mindset. The tool can also be used to check content for other communication, such as talent newsletters, career websites, blog posts, and mission statements. That goes beyond the realm of only reviewing job descriptions or candidate-facing branding content.
Two primary content pieces are part of a company’s corporate communication roadmap – internal and targeted to the existing employees, and external and focused on attracting prospective employees. Some companies have a comprehensive strategy for both. Many others spend time and effort only on external communication, as it impacts their brand.
But without a culture of inclusion within, the strategy can fail to deliver.
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What Other Tools Encourage Inclusive Language?
While Textio has introduced a unique product that functions as the Grammarly for non-inclusive language, the very fact that language must be inclusive is not unknown.
For instance, several guides break down exclusive language into various categories, beyond gender to include age and disability, such as Conscious Style GuideOpens a new window . The National Assembly of State Arts AgenciesOpens a new window guide outlines the fundamental principles of inclusive language, covering all primary dimensions of diversity, and shares resources on making the change.
Another tech tool that helps highlight non-inclusive language is Better AlliesOpens a new window , a Slackbot. It was designed based on the book Better Allies by Karen Catlin, which is about proactively finding situations where one can create more inclusive culture. The Slackbot automatically raises concerns about non-inclusive language and makes alternate suggestions. Users can also add their own suggestions to be used as replacements for some non-inclusive words or descriptors.
Microsoft OfficeOpens a new window is all set to also support users on how to write inclusively. Microsoft Office’s correction tools have options that help identify non-inclusive language, including gender and sexuality bias and ethnic slurs. The spell checker now provides this new feature.
Companies are taking measures to track internal conversations on social media networks, meetings, and townhalls. For example, Facebook recently introduced employee communication guidelines within Workplace to regulate internal communications and create a respectful, inclusive work culture. This ensures that situations do not escalate and for the company to preempt when biases are expected to arise to reduce it.
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Language needs to progress from being a divider to becoming a tool for people to come together. It has the unexplored potential to make the workplace much more inclusive. By far, Textio may be leading the tech race to actively highlight non-inclusive language as it is being written with suggestions to change it instantly. This could be a gamechanger for companies not only looking to hire talent but to nudge their brand toward inclusiveness.