More and more workplaces are beginning to look at how they can better improve their diversity and culture. Unfortunately, most businesses are still fighting an uphill battle to become more inclusive and diverse. A lot of this comes down to recruitment practices, and more recruiters are beginning to search for ways to implement more inclusive recruiting.

In this article HRavailable examines new tools and technology that can help businesses reach new sources of talent, explore strategies to develop a company culture that embraces diversity and address the hurdles faced when creating a collaborative, diverse workforce.

1. Improve job ad inclusivity

Making sure that you have a thorough job description that clearly defines what the job is and the skills it requires without any unconscious bias is a great first interaction with a potential candidate.

Always be careful not to include language that immediately alienates certain groups of people. A good, simple, and very common example of this is how often we see job adverts that contain excessive, confusing business jargon. This can be incredibly repulsive for younger, more inexperienced and less privileged people. Be careful around gendered words as well, and consider alternating for a healthy mix between male and female pronouns in your job descriptions.

2. Find tools that help you to connect with diverse talent

Finding the right supportive tools such as AI recruitment tools can help you to reduce the human bias in your recruitment process.

AI recruitment tools can look at your candidates completely objectively, filtering out only the exact candidates who have the skills and experience needed for your role, regardless of their background. The best part is that you can control and program a lot of the AI recruitment tools out there to specifically deliver the kind of impartial shortlist of diverse candidates you’re looking for.

3. Counter unconscious bias

A lot of people unknowingly suffer from unconscious bias. This can have an impact on the way we feel about other people and things and can affect our decision-making in certain situations. This is all unconscious, of course, and is often completely against peoples’ best intentions.

However, more and more people are becoming aware of unconscious bias and the various ways in which you can counter it. Unfortunately, these tactics are still not commonly used. This is why it’s a great idea to get on board and enthusiastically embrace the simple strategies that can mitigate the impact that unconscious bias has on our decision-making.

4. Make sure that you have an inclusive interview process

It’s crucial that you’re able to have a completely unbiased, inclusive and equal interview process, but this isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

A structured and rigorous process is always recommended. One of the ways in which you can implement this is to use psychometric testing. Do this by asking every candidate the exact same questions and scoring them on their skills and experience. This can help to mitigate the effect of unconscious bias in the interview process.

5. Consider applying some diversity targets

Diversity targets can help to improve diversity management, motivating affirmative action to make recruitment strategies more inclusive. Critics and pessimists complain that this can result in candidates being recruited simply because they are diverse candidates from undersold demographics. However, there’s a lot to suggest that, if anything, the opposite is true.

6. Challenge your own culture

A common part of the application and interview process is often finding candidates who fit your business culture. Instead, seek candidates who will add to your culture rather than fit it. Has someone got great qualities that can add to your business, but you think that their personality or attitude doesn’t quite fit your current culture? Well, that’s great! Maybe they can bring something new and fresh and mix things up a bit. It’s good to be always looking for candidates who can give your company something new and different.

7. Offer flexible and remote working opportunities where possible

A huge majority of employees support the idea of flexible work – even preferring it over a pay rise in some cases. Having flexible working policies in place is a fantastic way for an employer to attract candidates who struggle with the typical 9-5 working week. Opening your business up to these candidates increases your diversity.

8. Widen your candidate search

If you want your candidate pool to be consisting of people with similar educations, ethnicities and experience levels, you may need to conduct a broader and more thorough search.

A great way to extend your candidate search is to simply post your openings on more diverse job boards and social media pages. Look for more diverse places to advertise and extend your reach.

9. Educate your team

One of the best things you can do is to simply educate and train your team. Bias can run much deeper than just gender, race, and religion, so helping your team to recognise their biases can be incredibly powerful. Proper education and bias training can improve employee engagement and improving diversity.

By recruiting professionals from a range of backgrounds at all levels of seniority, businesses gain access to a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives. Companies with staff from a broad range of backgrounds have been found to outperform firms with a less diverse workforce. By attracting and retaining a diverse range of staff, businesses can identify opportunities and explore new solutions. Developing, implementing, and promoting a diversity strategy is the challenge employers now face. Securing the most talented professionals will require employers to take on a new, innovative approach to access more diverse talent pools.

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