Why is a diversity recruitment strategy important?​

The more diverse and inclusive any organization is, the more profitable and innovative it is.

McKinsey’s study Delivering Through Diversity finds that organizations in the top quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams were 33 percent more likely to have industry-leading profitability. A study by the American Sociological Association found that companies with the highest levels of racial diversity attain 15 times the sales revenues of those organizations with the lowest levels of diversity. A Forbes study found that 56 percent of international business leaders say that diversity is a catalyst for greater innovation.

If an organization is looking innovate faster and with greater acuity of insights, investing in a sound diversity recruitment strategy is key.

The study Hacking Diversity With Inclusive Decision Making by Cloverpop finds that the more diverse a team, the better decisions it makes 87 percent of the time. The study shows unequivocally that a more inclusive approach to making decisions delivers better results. Decisions that were both made and executed by genderdiverse teams performed 6 percent better than average. Adding age diversity increased performance to 45 percent above average. When geographic diversity was added, decision-making performance jumped to 60 percent. Many leadership and management theorists call this the Medici Effect, where innovation is created from the deliberate integration of diverse cultures, ideas, and disciplines.

Diversity recruitment strategies are top of mind for CHROs.

Organizations and the CHROs leading them are measuring diversity & inclusion progress beyond new patents and profits. They’re intensely focused on how the less-easily-quantifiable aspects of a successful diversity recruitment strategy is redefining the very nature of their businesses. Once an organization gets committed to making diversity & inclusion an integral part of its identity, it’s more likely to expand the total available base of candidates it can hire and keep on board. CHROs are passionate about this point. They define diversity by the ability to attract, nurture, recruit, and retain candidates regardless of race, gender, age, educational background, culture, ethnicity, or physicality. CHROs are unanimous in saying their most effective talent programs are built on a foundation of diversity, and that their organizations’ efforts at inclusion are a work in progress.

The problem? The majority of CEOs and CHROs—78 percent of them—see recruiting and talent programs as critical, but 56 percent say theirs are not effective.

How are current diversity recruitment strategies lacking?

New digital business models require skill sets organizations have never hired before.

CHROs speak of partnering with line-of-business leaders, including general managers, VPs, and C-level leaders, to assist with staffing new business units and entire divisions that are predicated on digital transformations. They may have tens of thousands of resumes, but without knowing the job requirements desired to make that transformation, they can’t hone in on the right matches.

Organizations competing in flat and no-growth industries struggle to reposition popular products to attract younger, more affluent customers.

The majority of the worlds’ most successful consumer products still reflect the preferences
of Baby Boomer and Gen X product designers. Organizations selling these products see sales histories that underscore the urgency of repositioning these products as more relevant to the preferences of the fastest-growing minority groups, millennials, and market segments that didn’t exist when the products were first created. CHROs are given the task of finding design, engineering, and service teams that can revitalize products that are showing signs of being out of touch with customers’ current and future needs. It’s one of the most pragmatic, practical
reasons why diversity & inclusion needs to become part of the core fabric of any business. Without it, an organization and its products will increasingly become less and less in touch with the current and future needs of customers.

Diversity recruitment strategies involve CHRO-CEO collaboration, and the results can take time.

The most common diversity recruitment strategy CHROs and CEOs are relying on includes first creating a series of feedback and planning sessions of each C-level executive with their direct reports and teams. The goal of these sessions is to define practical, pragmatic ways greater hiring diversity can be achieved by creating a more inclusive corporate environment. One CHRO confided that it took a year for the major financial services company he was working for at the time to translate the insights gained from the planning sessions into outcomes and actionable goals. The effort was worth it: today, this company has made diversity a core part of its DNA and has a single-digit attrition rate across all diversity based hires since the planning sessions delivered solid results.

Why is it important to balance diversity with inclusion in your diversity recruitment strategy?

Concentrating too much on diversity and not enough on inclusion can backfire and lead to diverse
candidates feeling more like they are part of an experiment or socially driven cause than being respected for their unique capacities and skills. When diverse candidates sense that the effort at inclusion is secondary, unconscious biases often emerge, and conflict begins, often with the newly recruited candidates looking for work elsewhere.

Changing organization-wide behaviors and achieving diversity goals starts with C-level executives being emotionally committed to diversity & inclusion, and it becomes a core part of the organization. Divisions, departments, and teams will only change if they see C-level executives buying completely into the direction diversity & inclusion needs to survive and thrive.

How can a platform-approach to your diversity recruitment strategy benefit you?

An AI-driven platform avoids siloed systems and closed-minded thinking.

AI-driven Talent Intelligence Platforms are providing personalized career experiences. Each applicant is immediately matched with the open positions they are the best suited for based on their capabilities. One of the most important design goals of an AI-based Talent Intelligence Platform is to provide all applicants with personalized experiences that can scale as their capabilities are improved and new skills emerge. The personalized career experience needs to include a prioritized list of the positions the applicant is a “best match” for today.

The benefits of diversity programs are proven. But without the right platform, diversity & inclusion initiatives and diversity recruitment strategies can take on an optional, not-central role in any organization’s current and future direction.

AI-driven platforms use bias-free algorithms.

Bias-free algorithms are key to succeeding with inclusion and diversity recruitment strategies. An organization relying on an AI-based Talent Intelligence Platform can use Equal Opportunity Algorithms, which can guarantee the elimination of bias. Using this method, organizations can ignore any unwanted bias trends in its source data to deliver predictions that do not consider the biases that may be present, explain how predictions were made, and show that the predictions were irrespective of any bias in the source.

Eightfold’s Talent Intelligence Platform delivers a sound diversity recruitment strategy.

Eightfold delivers the Talent Intelligence Platform, the most effective way for companies to identify promising candidates, reach diversity hiring goals, retain top performers, and engage talent. Eightfold’s patented artificial intelligence–based platform empowers enterprises to turn talent management into a competitive advantage, built by top engineers out of Facebook, Google, and other leading technology companies. Request a demo today.