Here is what you can do to foster a truly inclusive workforce in your organization.

Making workplaces LGBTQ inclusive

Let’s start by looking at the numbers. A Human Rights Campaign survey found that:

• 46% of LGBTQ workers are closeted at work
• Half of non-LGBTQ employees reported there were no openly LGBTQ employees in their company
• 1 in 5 LGBTQ workers have been told or had coworkers imply that they should dress more feminine or masculine (compared with 1 in 24 non-LGBTQ workers)
• 54% of non-LGBTQ workers said that they would be very comfortable working with an LGBTQ coworker; of those who wouldn’t be very comfortable, a majority said it was because they “didn’t want to hear about their coworker’s sex life.”

LGBTQ employees are not comfortable everywhere they work, and there are some misperceptions out there. No one wants or needs to hear about their coworker’s sex life, which shouldn’t even be an issue on the table regardless of preference.

We share five tips on how to make your workplace more LGBTQ inclusive:

1. Speak with your pocketbook, not your rainbow logo

It’s easy to change a logo, put up a flag, or tweet about happy Pride Month. But LinkedIn took a step further and started paying the heads of their affinity groups $10,000 a year for the extra work. This demonstrates their desire to support all diversity groups, including LGBTQ groups.

Nothing says real support and inclusion like cash which recognizes the hard work these employee resource group leaders put in.

2. Be thoughtful about pronouns

This is a hot button issue at work, and you need to tread carefully. For example, look at the following exchange on Twitter:

Katrina Kibben: One of my Pride wishes this year is to ban the phrase “preferred pronouns.” They are not preferred. This isn’t steak or shrimp. It’s a human’s identity.

Dr. “Coach” Dawn Reid #ReidReady: I respect how you feel and I ask if you can consider preference is about a label choice. I.e., My son is non-binary. He has a pref of they/she/he depending on his affect. It’s his pref of a social label in the moment. Not who he is as a person.

Katrina Kibben: Every experience is different. I respect it. For me? My first thought is that your child may be code-switching for their safety (I do it too), not changing pronouns.

Dr. “Coach” Dawn Reid #ReidReady: Agreed. It’s different for each person. Code switching is another topic. We all do that for communication clarity. The original term/use is from linguistics. And that’s not it for them. It’s his preference. We are talking about this now.

In other words, there is no way to get it right. An October 2020 survey by Tallo found that 88% of Gen Z candidates think it’s important for recruiters to ask them their pronouns. But many Baby Boomers and Gen Xers find it offensive to ask their pronouns. This leaves you to guess, but there are some things you can do.

Listen to what people want to do. Respect and use their pronouns. (But it’s not reasonable for an employee to expect everyone to follow regular pronoun changes.) Allow people (but don’t require) to list their pronouns on email signatures and other work-related things.

3. Don’t make assumptions

Does someone look gay? Is that person trans? Whisper, whisper, whisper. This type of thing makes for a very unwelcoming environment for everyone.

Instead, make sure your staff understands employees treat every other employee and client equally across the board. Everyone gets respect. If you allow people to bring personal items to decorate their cubicles, then everyone gets to bring a family picture – regardless of what their family looks like.

Make sure you schedule and provide promotions and perks based on performance and seniority, not the perception that so-and-so needs a bump in pay because his wife just had a baby. If an employee announces the impending birth of a baby, don’t speculate about just how that baby was conceived or carried. Instead, just say, “Congratulations! Let me get you the FMLA paperwork!”

4. Remove bias from your recruiting process.

EPM Scientific gave five tips for reducing bias in hiring. These are:

• Anonymizing resumes in the review process
• Encouraging validated pre-employment testing
• Pre-employment testing, such as work samples, predict job success.
• Encouraging a diverse interview panel and hiring committee
• Challenging bias in recruitment and hiring decisions

All these things help you ensure you hire the person who is best for the job regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or national origin. Letting candidates know you do through these processes helps them feel like they have a chance based on their skills.

5. Educate your leadership on the benefits of diversity

You can only increase LGBTQ candidates when you have a welcoming environment. But, to make a welcoming environment, senior leadership needs to be on board. Presenting the business case for making workplaces LGBTQ inclusive will help.

People who have to hide their identities at work experience more stress. Higher stress results in more days off and an increase in medical costs. It’s saving you money to have a welcoming environment.

Consulting giant McKinsey reported in May 2020 that companies with diverse leadership have higher financial returns than those that don’t. While they looked only at gender and race, it stands to reason that bringing in people with different sexual orientations would bring additional viewpoints that would help the company reach different audiences and support all employees.

Finally – candidates, especially Millennials and Gen Z, want to work for inclusive organizations and leaders. They’ve made that clear. So make sure you let them know what your company is doing to ensure everyone feels comfortable.

The critical point of all this is that everyone deserves a job based on their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Everything else should be irrelevant. This means ensuring that everyone is welcome in your company. A simple concept that goes far.

The post 5 tips on making workplaces LGBTQ inclusive appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

However, a new challenge is coming: your company has decided to incorporate AI into its overall workflow. You’re under a lot of pressure from the higher-ups to get everyone on board the AI train, but when you look at your team, you’re worried about the range of reactions you’ll get from your talented team members.

In short, you know this can make your team more productive and competitive, but you also understand it’s a change. You are determined to navigate this transition smoothly.

So, how do you do it?

Introducing your team

Let’s identify five distinct personas who may be in your team and what motivates them.

1. Traditional Terry

Traditional Terry is your company’s historian, having been with the company for over 15 years. He’s a senior project manager known for his methodical approach and rich industry knowledge. Everyone knows Terry and everyone respects Terry. He’s a good egg.

Terry aspires to retire in this company, and his goal is to maintain the reliable and efficient work processes he’s developed over the years. He’s driven by a sense of duty and a strong belief in the company’s mission – and colleagues look to him as a stabilizer whenever things get a little hectic.

2,. Eager Enrique

Eager Enrique is fresh out of school. You just hired him last year as a junior developer because he’s incredibly keen and brings an absolute smorgasbord of nascent tech skills. He’s always on top of the latest tech trends and isn’t shy about voicing his ideas.

Enrique’s ambition is to become a tech influencer someday – heck, he even has his own YouTube channel with more than 10,000 followers. The chance to work with AI might just be the exciting break he’s looking for.

3. Cautious Chloe

Cautious Chloe is your meticulous and dedicated data analyst. She joined your team five years ago and has consistently demonstrated her ethical and thoughtful approach to work. She absolutely crushes it every time she has a data project on her desk, and she’s your go-to anytime you need to pull insights out of those nascent data sets.

In your 1-1s with her, you’ve come to learn that Chloe’s career goal is to move into a leadership role where she can influence company policy, particularly around ethical use of technology.

4. Strategic Sven

Strategic Sven is the team’s product manager. When you interviewed him for the open role, you knew he was the one. He brings with him a huge background in tech startups, plus an MBA from a top-tier business school.

Sven’s ambition is to improve the company’s strategic planning and he’s motivated by driving impactful change. He doesn’t like just getting the job done and going home – he wants to do a lot more than that.

5. Tech-Averse Thanh

Tech-Averse Thanh is your administrative assistant who has been with you for more than two years. Thanh’s goal is to excel in administration – and stability and harmony in the workplace are huge motivators.

Thanh prefers traditional methods and isn’t as comfortable with technology as the rest of the team. In fact, they prefer to do things the way it’s always been done (and proven to work, too).

At this week’s Monday meeting, you deliver the news from the higher-ups: the company wants to incorporate AI into everyone’s workflows. You highlight the benefits of AI – greater productivity, optimized processes, the ability to scale faster – and underscore its importance for meeting the company’s ambitious goals.

You reassure the team that you will support them throughout this transition.

Watching your team’s reactions

You see your team murmer and look at each other across the table. Yes, AI has already been in the news and this was somewhat expected, but you see that reactions are mixed and varied. Some nod and roll with it, others look a little more hesitant.

Let’s look at the five personas again and see how they react to the news.

1. Traditional Terry

Traditional Terry looks taken aback during your announcement, his brow furrowing. You’re not terribly surprised at this – he’s not necessarily averse to change, but you know he’ll see the “big picture” in everything that happens at the company.

In your 1-1, Terry expresses fear that AI will change the way he does his job or, worse, make him redundant. You can see the genuine concern in his eyes. Sure, his kids are grown up, but he still has his mortgage to pay and it’s not like he can easily migrate to a new job.

2. Eager Enrique

Eager Enrique, on the other hand, is visibly excited. As an early adopter of many technologies, even so far as to approach you regularly with new recommendations for your tech stack, there’s no question he sees this as an opportunity.

He’s practically brimming with ideas when you meet him, speaking rapidly about potential applications of AI. His enthusiasm is contagious both for you and the larger team, but you’re worried that he’s a bit too optimistic and not thinking about the realistic challenges that could surface.

3. Cautious Chloe

Cautious Chloe listens attentively during the meeting, her face thoughtful. She’s never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve, and to be fair, that’s one of her strengths – she’ll process new developments internally and meticulously, and then make decisions later.

In your 1-1 later that week, she voices concern about AI’s ethical implications and how job security will be ensured. You appreciate her frankness and careful consideration and, especially, the time she’s; taken to think it over rather than react strongly.

4. Strategic Sven

Strategic Sven listens attentively, nodding occasionally. You can see his MBA background whispering in his head, and of course, he’s seen a lot in his career in tech startups. This isn’t his first rodeo.

When meeting privately with you, he notes that he agrees with the strategic importance of AI in your 1-1 but admits he’s unsure about the execution. This needs to be carried out properly in order to succeed and, when you ask, he lists out the potential obstacles worth thinking about. You’re grateful to him for being pragmatic.

5. Tech-Averse Thanh

Tech-Averse Thanh looks nervous during your announcement. You’re not terribly surprised, but you’re worried. You know Thanh really needs to be a bit more flexible, but their administrative and organizational skills more than make up for that – so you really need them to be on board.

In your 1-1, they confess that the thought of using AI is a major stress inducer. It’s literally another thing they need to learn in order to do their job. They’re clearly anxious, worrying about whether they can keep up with the changes.

After hearing your team’s reactions, you realize that you have a critical task ahead. Everyone brings unique strengths to your team, and it’s vital that their voices are heard.

You know you must engage them individually to help them adapt to the new changes.

Engaging your team

Now that you’ve met with each of your team members, it’s time to put in an action plan for each one of them. It’s your job to bring the best out of them – and part of that involves getting them to adapt readily to AI’s entry in their day-to-day work and continue to flourish.

1. Traditional Terry

For Traditional Terry, begin with open conversations about his fears and reservations. Those hesitations are legitimate and understandable and you want to help him work through them. For starters, reinforce that his years of experience and established skills are invaluable to the team.

Show him – don’t just tell him – how AI can take over repetitive tasks, freeing him to focus his time and energy on complex, high-value work that draws on his experience. Provide real examples from other organizations that have successfully adopted AI without any impact to their actual team structure – and emphasize that job roles at those companies have actually evolved rather than disappeared.

And to further support him, work with HR to set up a personalized training program for him that helps him integrate AI, and touch base with him regularly to monitor progress.

2. Eager Enrique

With Eager Enrique, the prelude has already been covered. He’s already on board. Now, you have the opportunity to channel his excitement constructively in a way that benefits him and the team. Set up regular meetings to discuss his ideas, urge him to consider potential challenges, and ensure a balanced perspective on AI.

Encourage Enrique to join AI-focused groups or events to broaden his understanding. Given his aspirations to become a tech influencer, suggest that he document and share his AI learning journey, turning him into a proactive AI advocate within the team. Invite him to host lunch & learns every month – if he’s keen to be an influencer, he’ll jump at the idea.

3. Cautious Chloe

Cautious Chloe doesn’t like unknowns, so transparency is key here. Get her involved in discussions about the ethical framework within which the AI will operate. Invite her to decision-making meetings regarding AI deployment, allowing her the opportunity to voice her concerns.

Like Terry, you can also reassure Chloe that roles will evolve rather than be replaced and encourage her to think about how AI can boost her own work. Her concerns can be converted into a mechanism for constructive feedback, helping your team and company foresee and mitigate potential risks.

4. Strategic Sven

When dealing with Strategic Sven, focus on business strategy and execution because that’s what speaks to him. Give him the resources to design a clear and effective AI implementation strategy – after all, you’ll be needing one anyway, so let him play a leading role in that.

He can also be a great sounding board during your 1-1 sessions. Encourage him to pose questions, discuss doubts, and explore solutions. And bring in external AI consultants where needed, to provide expert opinions and recommendations. This will bolster Sven’s confidence in navigating the change and benefit the team as a whole.

5. Tech-Adverse Thanh

Tech-Averse Thanh needs an approachable introduction to AI. Explain the technology in simple terms, direclty linking benefits to everyday tasks. Pair Thanh with Enrique, as Enrique’s enthusiasm can be infectious.

Offer additional support, such as optional training sessions or learning resources. Make sure to frequently highlight their progress, praising them for each successful step – and regularly provide reassurance that the job won’t be tech-first but rather, tech-supported. The human is still core to the job.

This engagement doesn’t happen in a vacuum, nor is it something you can strike off as ‘done’. You need to continue working with your team to ensure success – you’re their manager, after all. That’s no different when bringing AI into the picture. It’s an ongoing process.

So, how does your team respond? Let’s look at the results of your work (and make no mistake, you’ve worked hard!).

Gauging your team’s results

A few months have passed, and you’re seeing positive changes. Let’s look at what those changes are.

1. Traditional Terry

With your encouragement and reassurance, Traditional Terry has started to warm up to the AI tools. He’s really appreciating how they free him from those annoyingly repetitive tasks – and you can see how much more relaxed he is when he shows up for work.

Plus, he now has more time to mentor younger team members, sharing his invaluable experience and sage advice with them.

2. Eager Enrique

Eager Enrique is thriving, regularly sharing his AI learning journey and experiences with the team. He’s even turning to blog posts on the company’s internal platform, and those have been receiving positive feedback from people at all levels in your company.

He’s now a go-to resource person for AI-related questions and his YouTube channel is now accumulating more and more subscribers – positioning him to be the tech influencer he always wanted to be. And because of his fan base, he’s able to bring in fresh candidates whenever your company needs to fill important tech positions.

3. Cautious Chloe

Cautious Chloe’s pragmatic, level-headed approach has positioned her as a key player in ensuring that the AI deployment aligns with overall ethical standards and with the company’s own values.

Because her work is producing results that are very much in tune with her own personal priorities, she’s become more confident in her work. She appreciates that her concerns were heard and addressed, and her insights have proven invaluable in foreseeing and mitigating risks.

4. Strategic Sven

After several brainstorming sessions and expert consultations, Strategic Sven has designed a comprehensive AI implementation strategy that incorporates all the elements that must be considered to see it succeed. He’s learned a lot from watching other tech startups succeed and fail and knows the importance of having a thoughtful, well-planned plan that executes smoothly.

Not only is Sven motivated by finally being able to put his MBA learnings into action, the team has also responded positively to the well-planned rollout. This boosts Sven’s confidence as a strategic leader.

5. Tech-Averse Thanh

Tech-Averse Thanh is slowly but surely learning the ropes of AI. Paired with Enrique, Thanh is making steady progress and showing less resistance to using the AI tools. You’re even seeing them hanging out in the lunch room together talking animatedly about tech.

It turns out Thanh is a people person, not a tech person. They’re motivated by human connections and teamwork, not weird tech things and robots and paperwork and stuff. But now that Thanh has put a ‘human’ face on AI in the form of Enrique, there’s a sense of familiarity and achievement as they become more comfortable working with the technology.

Not bad, not bad. You, Alex, have done a good job. The team is in sync and they’re driven to succeed.

Watching your team thrive

As you look at your team, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Despite initial resistance and fear, every team member has adapted to the incorporation of AI in their own way that works for them.

Your belief in each individual, open communication, and personalized strategies have all paid off. You’ve mastered the fine art of inclusive leadership here, by bringing out each individual’s strengths and setting each one for success.

The team is now more productive, and they’ve evolved professionally in the process. AI is no longer a foreign concept; it’s now just another tool that your team uses to thrive in their work.

The post Lead a team through AI: an inclusive approach to change appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Picture yourself as a job hunter. Maybe you’re even job hunting as you read this. Job hunters will always research a company, whether it’s about its history, culture, or the industry it’s in. Jobseekers will also get curious – we, after all, are naturally curious creatures, and curiosity just happens to spill over into job hunting.

Jobseekers also want to make sure they are interviewing with and potentially joining a company that may be a good fit for them whether it is aligning with their personal values, career goals, and a culture where they picture themselves thriving in.

And apart from being curious about facts about a company, jobseekers get curious about the people.

It takes just seconds to look up a company and click on that tab that says ‘people’ on LinkedIn. Naturally, a jobseeker will take a look to see if anyone in a company is similar to them.

They’re drawn in to see if there are different groups of people, people that identify from the same group as them, and to see if the company they are interested in includes people like them.

But why do they do this? Let’s add a bit of psychology 101 into this. Naturally, humans have what is called an unconscious bias. Unconscious bias refers to the attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes that affect our judgments and decisions without us even realizing it. These biases are often subconscious and are formed based on personal experiences, cultural background, and social context.

Unconscious bias can also creep in for the jobseeker. Candidates are drawn to similarities. If they do not see someone that is similar to themselves, this sends a message to that jobseeker that diversity, equity, and inclusion is low or nowhere to be found – or even conveys that they may not be welcomed in that organization.

This can be problematic for both jobseekers and employers.

Unconscious bias: a two-way street

This works both ways. Recruiters have unconscious bias too, where it influences the impression of a candidate.

You, as an HR professional, must be careful with that unconscious bias. You must try to block out these unconscious biases within yourself and try not to let them cloud your judgment.

Otherwise, that clouding could result in you missing out on high-quality candidates because biases can affect your judgment of that individual’s candidacy for the position. When it comes to your day-to-day work in your job – for example, when you’re screening candidates – try to put yourself in the shoes of the jobseeker above.

Ask yourself: would you rather see more people like you or more diversification? Wouldn’t you like to be at a company that promotes the sense of welcoming, the promotion of diversity enriching the culture – and see that the sense of diversity, equity, and inclusion has a permanent strategy there?

Often, diversity, equity, and inclusion is dismissed or just refined to being a training or another difficult conversation. In recruiting, it’s confined to being just another metric. In fact, just 30% of companies have DEI as part of their permanent strategy, according to our survey on DEI in the workplace.

On the contrary, it’s more than just a training. It’s more than just an ‘HR thing’, and certainly more than a metric recruiters have to pay attention to.

DEI is beyond all of this. It’s about bringing new perspectives to the table. It’s about diversity having the power to spark creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills that may not have been possible or achievable with a homogeneous workforce.

The sense of belonging in the workplace trumps many things for people. Recruiters should leave bias hiring behind and think about this particular view of DEI.

The value of culture add

As recruiters, we must think about not just ‘culture fit’, but rather ‘culture add’.

Culture fit focuses on the harmony between an individual and the company culture. The individual shares similar values, behaviors, and attitudes as the company where they can blend seamlessly into the company culture.

On the other hand, culture add takes a different shift in focus. With culture add, there is an embrace of fresh and new perspectives, uniqueness, and differences that the individual can bring forward to enhance the company culture.

Looking at these differences, culture add can increase value to an organization. Culture fit confines a person to fit particular characteristics, while culture add embraces and allows the individual to break that confinement and to redefine what it means to ‘fit in’. This uniqueness, fresh perspectives, all stems from diversity.

This is important to keep in mind as a recruiter when scouting for talent. We want to plant culture add in our organizational garden because, remember, a diverse garden can open many opportunities.

Growing the DEI garden

True gardeners or those interested in gardening know that gardens should have a diverse species of plants to flourish. For the reason being that underneath the surface, diverse planting can create a promotion of sustainability, success, and life for the beautiful garden that most gardeners aim to have.

Now think of the company being the soil, candidates being the seeds, DEI being the water and sunlight. Imagine what beauty could grow out of this, and what could blossom. This is the beauty of DEI, how it collectively brings wonderful minds together to blossom into something bigger. This is the promotion of bringing a more sustainable, successful, alive culture to the surface.

And then think about your part in all of this. It all starts with the recruiter. Besides the company, the recruiter holds the power to bring forth those wonderful minds and enrichen the company’s diversity. This could then inspire others to do the same, to plant more of the importance of DEI.

Imagine the garden that can be grown. A garden of fresh ideas, talent, innovation, and most importantly, belonging. It is important to recognize and address unconscious biases to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace.

Think about the difference that can be made in hiring and how to couple diversity, equity, and inclusion with recruiting. Start that garden, give it the water and sunlight it needs to be healthy and to blossom. Contribute to the nature of the curious garden of DEI.

Iliana Ramos is Workable’s Talent Acquisition Specialist. In her own words: “My passion for talent acquisition first stemmed from an internship I did in college. Since then, I am doing what I love where I get to meet tons of new people everyday and staying on top of trends in the industry. When I am not recruiting, I am an avid gym-goer and a huge lover of music. My favorite artist of all time is Tiësto and have been listening to him since I was 12 years old. I almost fainted when I saw him live in person for the first time.”

The post Embrace diversity: cultivate a thriving workplace garden appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Striking a balance between harnessing the power of AI and addressing its challenges is possible. Many are driving that conversation – and you, in human resources, are part of this as well. Your work directly involves human beings, so it makes sense that you want to approach AI ethically as well.

We’ll help you out here. We share examples of how ethical use of AI has been established in various circles, and then we’ll guide you in how to ensure ethical AI standards are met in your own work.

Real-life examples of power and responsibility

Uncle Ben’s famous quote to Peter Parker rings loud and true here: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In that spirit, we have real-life examples of organizations and individuals who are driving the importance of balancing the power of the latest technologies with the challenges they present.

Ethical Intelligence founder Olivia Gambelin is one such example. In a LinkedIn post, she discussed the potential risks associated with generative AI, including security, bias, patenting and more – and emphasized that there’s an opportunity at play here: the opportunity to build an ethical AI framework from the start so that we can maximize the good that we can do with it.

There are also formal organizational and individual projects that have already happened over the last few years – let’s look at three of them right now:

1. IBM: Trusted AI Initiative

IBM made significant efforts to ensure ethical and responsible use of AI through their Trusted AI initiative. In that, IBM has developed AI solutions that prioritize fairness and transparency while minimizing bias.

By establishing a set of guidelines, best practices and tools, IBM ensures that their AI technologies are developed and implemented ethically. Their AI Fairness 360 toolkit, for example, is an open-source library that provides metrics and algorithms to help detect and mitigate bias in AI systems.

That’s more for developers who want to maintain high ethical standards in their AI work. However, it’s a powerful example of a leading brand that values ethical development of groundbreaking technology such as artificial intelligence.

2. Accenture: Responsible AI Framework

Like IBM, leading professional services company Accenture developed a Responsible AI Framework to address the ethical challenges that AI presents.

This framework outlines six core principles, including transparency, accountability and fairness, to guide the development and deployment of AI systems.

Accenture also established a dedicated AI Ethics Committee, pulling together experts from various disciplines to ensure that their AI solutions adhere to these principles and promote responsible AI use across the organization.

3. Dr. Timnit Gebru: Black in AI

Widely regarded AI researcher and ethicist Dr. Timnit Gebru has led the charge of advocating for responsible AI use for years. Her focus is on mitigating bias and ensuring fairness in AI systems – a growing concern with the surge of ChatGPT usage across all disciplines.

As part of her focus on AI bias mitigation, Timnit co-founded Black in AI, which aims to increase the representation of people of color in AI research and development. She continues to play a leading role through her research and advocacy.

Actionable tips for HR pros in ethical AI

Now, how about yourself? If you’re working in human resources, you’re likely already incorporating ChatGPT and other AI tools into your workflow through the automated creation of job descriptions, interview questions and other things.

But there is a risk of relying too much on AI to steer processes as Amazon learned the hard way in late 2018.

Also, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is likely a major priority in your work. So how do you combine the undeniable benefits of AI-driven optimization with maintaining fairness, decency and ethics in your work?

You can start right now with these seven focal areas:

1. Prioritize fairness and transparency

It’s likely you have already emphasized the importance of fairness and transparency throughout your organization in terms of communication, opportunity and collaboration. You’ll need to apply that same thinking to your AI systems. Here’s how:

Establish clear evaluation criteria

Develop a well-defined set of criteria for assessing the fairness and transparency of AI systems. This should include considerations such as data quality, explainability and the impact of the AI system on different employee groups.

Vet AI vendors thoroughly

When selecting AI solutions, carefully evaluate vendors based on their commitment to ethical AI principles. Inquire about their efforts to minimize bias, promote transparency and ensure data privacy.

Implement explainable AI

Choose AI systems that provide explanations for their recommendations, allowing you and your team to understand the reasoning behind AI-generated decisions.

Communicate AI usage with employees

Inform employees about the use of AI within the organization and the specific areas where it is being applied. Clearly communicate the goals and benefits of AI, addressing any concerns or misconceptions they may have.

Conduct bias and fairness assessments

Regularly assess your AI systems for potential biases and fairness issues. This can involve analyzing the training data, validating AI-generated decisions, and monitoring AI system performance across different employee groups.

Establish an AI ethics committee

Create a cross-functional team of stakeholders responsible for overseeing the ethical use of AI in your business. This committee should monitor AI implementation, enforce ethical guidelines, and address any ethical concerns that may arise. This team can consist of representatives from different teams including HR, IT, legal, and other relevant departments. That diverse approach is crucial here.

Provide training on AI ethics

Offer training and resources for HR professionals and other employees involved in AI implementation. This can help ensure that your team understands the importance of ethical AI use and is equipped to make informed decisions.

There’s no reason fairness and transparency should exist solely within human-driven processes. Your AI tools can absolutely be fair and transparent as well, but as the manager of those tools, it’s your job to ensure that your technologies don’t fail in this area.

2. Diversify AI development teams

The infamous ‘racist soap dispenser’ is a perfect example of the risks of non-diverse teams when designing products – since they are the brains behind the design and are the first testers of the product.

That thinking applies to AI development teams too. If you’re in the software development field, you want your teams to be diverse so as to avoid design faux pas like the one above. Here’s how you can ensure that diversity thrives where you are:

Expand talent sourcing

Broaden your search for AI talent by exploring diverse channels, such as niche job boards, online communities and professional networks that cater to or specialize in underrepresented groups. Or, if you represent one of those networks or communities, consider building your own branded job board.

Review job descriptions

Ensure that your job postings are inclusive and free of gendered language or other biases that might discourage diverse candidates from applying.

Implement blind recruitment

Utilize blind recruitment techniques, such as anonymizing resumes, to reduce unconscious bias in the hiring process.

Foster an inclusive work environment

Create a workplace culture that values and promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion. This will not only attract diverse talent but also support their retention and career development.

Offer training and development opportunities

Provide training, mentorship and career advancement opportunities to underrepresented employees, helping them grow professionally and contribute to AI development.

Set diversity goals

Establish clear DEI objectives for AI development teams, and track their progress over time. This can help ensure that your organization remains committed to fostering diverse AI development teams and continues to focus on this area going forward.

Diversity may feel like a richly covered topic for many teams, but there’s a reason for that – it’s not just about the teams. It’s about the results of their work – a diverse team means an inclusive software, because unique experiences and perspectives are pulled together into a single production.

3. Regularly audit AI systems

We touched on the importance of setting goals in the last section. You want to be sure those goals are met regularly – to do that, you need a system in place that properly tracks and audits your AI systems so you can jump on any potential biases or unethical processes that your tools may churn out.

Regular audits not only ensure that you’re on top of anything that may happen – they also give you an opportunity to refine your AI implementation strategy to make sure your tools align with your business’ mission, vision and especially values.

Follow these guidelines for a failsafe audit process:

Establish a schedule

Create a regular schedule for auditing your AI systems, based on factors such as system complexity, usage frequency and potential impact on employees.

Define performance metrics

Identify relevant metrics to assess AI system performance, such as accuracy, fairness and explainability. This will help you tangibly evaluate and measure AI systems during audits.

Monitor AI system outputs

Keep a close eye on AI-generated decisions and recommendations, looking for any signs of bias, discrimination or other unintended consequences.

Review training data

Periodically examine the data used to train your AI systems. AI learns from real-life human experience and therefore skews AI-generated decisions – so it’s crucial to ensure that the sourced material itself is diverse, accurate and free of bias.

Engage external auditors

Consider working with external auditors or third-party organizations to conduct unbiased evaluations of your AI systems. The additional layer of scrutiny that this expertise provides can be invaluable.

Implement a feedback loop

Encourage employees to share their experiences and concerns about AI system usage. This feedback is indispensible in identifying potential issues and areas for improvement.

Update and refine AI systems

Based on your audit findings, make necessary adjustments to your AI systems, addressing any biases or performance issues uncovered during the audit process.

Nothing necessarily happens without proper oversight. To ensure that your AI tools and processes run free of bias, implement the above tips so that your company can reap the full benefits of AI in its workflows while mitigating and even eliminating potential risks coming from bias and prejudice.

4. Develop ethical AI policies

Now, you need clear ethical guidelines and policies for your colleagues to follow when they use artificial intelligence in their day-to-day work. Rulebooks mean structure, and structure is crucial to success. Not only do you need to establish these – you also must enforce them, with clear information on potential risks, ethical considerations and especially compliance requirements to ensure that AI is implemented responsibly.

Related: Our AI tool policy template can come in handy here.

Get started with these action items:

Conduct a risk assessment

Evaluate the potential ethical, legal and social risks associated with AI implementation in your organization. Consider factors such as data privacy, algorithmic fairness, and employee impact.

Consult relevant guidelines and frameworks

Refer to industry-specific guidelines, frameworks and best practices for ethical AI. You can check with professional organizations and even government agencies for examples of such guidelines.

Involve stakeholders

In line with the AI ethics committee recommendation above, you can collaborate with multiple stakeholders and leaders from various departments, including HR, IT, legal and executive teams, to develop comprehensive AI policies that address diverse perspectives and concerns. This can include policies unique to specific teams and functions.

Define AI usage boundaries

Clearly outline the permissible and prohibited uses of AI within your organization. Take into account different ethical considerations and regulatory requirements as you do so.

Incorporate transparency and accountability

Ensure that your AI policies highlight the importance of transparency in AI processes and decision-making – and establish clear lines of accountability for AI system performance and outcomes.

Communicate policies organization-wide

Be uniform and thorough in your communications. Share your ethical AI policies with all employees. Provide training or resources to ensure that everyone understands that they have a role in upholding these guidelines – and that they know what they must do to maintain standards.

Regularly review and update policies

Again, tracking and auditing is a must. Review your AI policies consistently to ensure that they remain up-to-date. Adjust accordingly to stay in line with evolving ethical considerations, industry standards and technological advancements.

Ensuring ethical use of AI – and also that the AI you use is in itself ethical and fair – will not happen in a vacuum, nor can it happen simply because you’ve advised your employees and colleagues to do so. You need to prescribe ethical AI throughout your organization and that can only happen with a clear prescription. That’s the value of building guides and policies – not just for AI, but for anywhere.

5. Foster collaboration

The workplace is by nature a collaborative environment. You can work this to your advantage when ensuring that ethical AI practices are consistently implemented and maintained throughout your teams.

Some tips to get you started:

Promote knowledge sharing

Encourage employees to share their expertise, experiences and insights when using AI in their workflows. This can be done via anonymous surveys and in-person workshops to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement in the area.

Create internal communication channels

Another aspect of sharing knowledge is providing a space for employees to actively discuss AI-related topics in your organization. This can be a new chat channel, an intra-company forum, or even emails and regular meetings, giving employees multiple avenues to voice concerns, share ideas and collaborate on further AI initiatives.

Partner with AI vendors

Since you’re already auditing the AI systems being used in your company, you can also build strong relationships with AI vendors to address any ethical concerns that may arise, You can then optimize and fine-tune your systems to ensure fairness and inclusivity.

Engage with external experts

You can consult with external experts such as Dr. Timnit Gebru and other AI ethicists and industry leaders to gain insights and advice on ensuring ethical AI use and overcoming challenges.

Participate in industry events and forums

Likewise, you can learn from others in the ethical AI space (such as IBM, Accenture and more). Go to industry events, conferences and forums and actively engage in discussions. Learn from other organizations’ experiences and contribute to the shaping of best practices all around.

Again, ethical AI does not happen in a vacuum. Use the existing knowledge that’s out there to your advantage, and also contribute your own experiences. We can’t progress in isolation from one another – a culture of continuous learning through collaboration has tremendous value here.

6. Engage in industry-wide conversations

Following on the above, your peers are likely as engaged in the overall conversation around ethical AI as you are. For example, this LinkedIn post from Caroline Fairchild explicitly expresses concerns around the greater threat of AI on marginalized groups:

When you get involved in these conversations, be it in LinkedIn or at industry events, you can stay informed about best practices and experiences that will shape the future of AI in HR.

Follow these tips to advocate for responsible use of artificial intelligence and contribute to shaping AI policy and regulations as an HR professional:

Raise awareness

Educate employees, management, stakeholders and peers about the importance of responsible AI use. Shed light on the potential risks, ethical considerations and best practices as part of those interactions.

Promote ethical AI champions

Encourage and support employees who demonstrate a strong commitment to ethical AI practices. You may even incentivize them with public recognition and rewards. Empower them to lead the charge as advocates and role models throughout your company.

Collaborate with industry peers

Again, collaboration is huge here. You can network with other HR professionals to share insights, experiences and actionables related to responsible AI use. Your commitment is stronger as a collective than as an individual.

Share success stories

Everyone likes a success story. Those stories are inspirational and informative and deserve celebration. Put a spotlight on moments where your company has successfully implemented AI in an ethical and responsible manner – and more so, show the results and benefits.

When people share knowledge and success stories about those triumphs and accomplishments, that’s powerful information. Equally powerful is sharing challenges with your industry peers and seeking out best practices in overcoming those challenges. That dialogue is crucial to ensuring ethical AI across the board. The reasoning behind a moratorium on AI is understandable, but deeper within that is the call for conversation and understanding. That’s the value of industry-wide conversation.

You can be part of the ethical AI conversation

The primary takeaway from all of this for you as an HR professional is this: establish a culture of continuous learning. AI is growing exponentially and will continue to do so – it’s understandable if you’re struggling to keep pace with all the new developments and information around AI.

When that technology grows and evolves, the orbiting opportunities and challenges will grow with it – and that includes the ethical use of artificial intelligence.

It is crucial for you, as an HR professional, to embrace the opportunities that AI presents while ensuring smart and equitable use of the evolving tech. You don’t want to shy away from it altogether because it does have a place in your work – but you also don’t want it to get away from you either. Striking a careful balance between harnessing the benefits of AI and mitigating potential risks is what you’re aiming to do here.

Be proactive, driven and optimistic as you do so. Look at the real-life examples above – IBM, Accenture, Dr. Gebru, Caroline Fairchild, Olivia Gambelin – they’re all directly contributing to the conversation around ethical use of AI at work and at play. You can be part of that conversation too.

The post Ethical AI: guidelines and best practices for HR pros appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Check out the official press release at PR Week

With Workable as a new partner, DMC is now able to offer six free months of Workable’s software to all past, present and future clients of DMC. This includes the ability to manage all hiring and recruitment in a centralized workspace from job posting to final offer letter, find and attract more candidates through advanced job board integrations and AI-powered sourcing, and automate replicable tasks to optimize the recruitment process and make an even more seamless experience for both the candidate and hiring team.

True to the DEI spirit, Workable also has a number of features to ensure a consistent and equitable hiring process through inclusive job descriptions and extension of job ads to premium diverse job boards. Workable also supports mitigation of unconscious bias through anonymized screening tools, standardization of interview questions and scorecards, and uniform, centralized assessments.

Finally, our Candidate Surveys allow users to collect anonymized applicant data to track DEI progress throughout the hiring process and to enable a fully EEO/OFCCP compliant application process, including voluntary surveys and reporting.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion is critical for any business’s success, and it’s especially important for early stage startups to consider as they are building the foundation of their teams,” said Chris Gorsuch, Senior Manager, Partnerships at Workable.

“Workable recognizes the necessary and tremendous value that diversity brings to an organization – diverse perspectives lead to better outcomes for product, support, leadership, and critical innovation. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to help more startups achieve their DEI and business goals through great hiring software, support, and education.”

Leveling the playing field

Becky Honeyman, Managing Partner at SourceCode Communications and co-founder of the DMC, is always looking to grow support to her clients both current and future.

“While bringing on additional marketing agencies has been and continues to be a priority focus for our expansion, we have spent the last year really thinking about how we can increase our impact to our clients in an even more robust way,” she said.

“It’s no secret that hiring great talent – especially in the early stages of your business – is absolutely crucial to a company’s growth. So as we work to level the playing field for diverse founders, we thought what better way to offer them additional support than to provide access to a great talent pool, as well as the tools to efficiently carry out the hiring process.”

Becky added that DMC has been a customer of Workable for years, and that Workable’s offering to DMC’s clients at zero cost will have a huge impact on their ability to hire and retain top-tier talent at scale.

DEI is important to 93% of respondents to our 2021 survey on DEI in the workplace. Both Workable and DMC are in that 93%. And, as we write in the survey report, we aim to “reconcile the chasm between ‘talking the talk’ and ‘walking the walk’ when establishing a tangible and sustainable DEI strategy in your organization.” This partnership with DMC makes that an even more attainable goal.

The post DEI is in Workable’s eye in a new partnership with DMC appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What’s going on here? It’s not overt racism – your business is actively recruiting minority candidates. If you can get people on board but not retain them, it’s likely coming from something more subtle: cultural clashes at work.

Cultural differences at work

What do a Black superintendent and a potato-loving Asian have in common? They operate out of the local cultural norms.

Blacks or African Americans make up only 2.4% of the population in Salt Lake City, Utah, so it may not be surprising that the first Black Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Timothy Gadson III, only started in 2021. And the school board suspended him one year later – the same school board that unanimously approved his appointment.

Typically, having the same manager that hires you fire you is a pretty strong defense against illegal discrimination. After all, if the school board didn’t want a Black man in the position, why would they hire one? It can’t be racism – there must be another explanation.

The only school board member who voted to retain Gadson is also Black and said the complaints were “baseless, racially motivated and based on cultural misunderstandings.”

Local news reports claim critics called him loud and intimidating and say he abused his position by hiring other Black workers.

The potato-eating Asian story has a bit more humor: A white employee became upset that an Asian employee ate potatoes in a “sexy” way – biting into them whole. When an investigation showed that she also criticized another Asian employee’s lunch choices, it became clear: This was never about eating potatoes. This was about watching someone do something outside of local cultural norms.

What is culture?

Culture is the “ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.” You don’t generally even notice the culture you grew up in. This is just how things are. Think about it: when you are at a friend’s house at dinner time, does the friend invite you to stay for dinner?

You may be surprised that the answer to that is entirely cultural. Given that you’re not dying of starvation or are impoverished to the point that you can’t feed yourself, inviting someone to stay for dinner varies significantly from culture to culture. In Sweden, your hosts likely won’t offer you a plate of food.

On the other hand, in other countries, your host would feed you and sacrifice their own dinner to ensure you, the guest, get to eat.

This is blowing people’s minds, so as an amateur historian and sociologist I’m going to try to explain this development/ cultural artifact. pic.twitter.com/vNF0MMpMFK

— Incompetent Beneficiary of Nepotism (@WallySierk) May 29, 2022

Culture impacts every moment of our lives. How we shop, how we eat, how we greet (or don’t greet!) our neighbors on the street, and how loud we speak in public are all part of the culture. And the funny thing is, most people assume that how they do it is how everyone does it until they directly confront a situation outside their cultural bubble.

To help diversity thrive in your organization, you need to recognize the value of culture – which includes knowing when to let things go and when to say: “That’s not how we do things here.”

Have your company culture accept all cultures

The key to accepting other cultures is to separate out what things are essential and what are not important. Ask yourself: Am I making this criticism because it is different or because it is wrong?

• Different: talking loudly and directly
• Wrong: talking rudely

• Different: wearing a hairstyle outside the local cultural norms
• Wrong: not having good hygiene

• Different: wanting to start work at 10 instead of 8
• Wrong: not showing up for meetings on time and wasting people’s time

• Different: having a name that is difficult for native English speakers to pronounce
• Wrong: refusing to learn how to pronounce someone’s name

Making this distinction between different and wrong can help you stop and think before you blurt something out. Eating potatoes with your fingers may seem wrong, but it’s just a cultural difference.

Standardize processes

One of the best ways to limit discrimination based on cultural differences is to set measurable goals for employees and then follow up on those. If you just let managers do whatever they want, you can end up with discriminatory practices that drive people out.

For instance, Textio found that men were likelier to receive feedback solely based on their work, while women received personality feedback. Managers also used different words to describe male and female employees. Can you guess which words were more likely to be associated with women?

• Group 1: brilliant, genius, confident, ambitious
• Group 2: abrasive, challenging, helpful, collaborative

If you guessed Group 1 was men, and Group 2 was women, you’d be right. Why do these words come up in performance appraisals? They are just cultural nightmares, and how does someone respond or change their behavior based on that?

Women are twice as likely to report being described as collaborative and nice. While men are three times more likely to report being described as confident and 3.7 times more likely to report being described as ambitious. https://t.co/Xy3KFcKJRv pic.twitter.com/40Jl3zZ9L8

— Textio (@textio) August 2, 2022

Instead, have all performance appraisals focus on the job and stay away from personality. If a manager feels compelled to comment on an employee’s “abrasive” personality, ask the manager to explain why that is a problem.

If the manager can’t articulate how it causes problems in the office, then it doesn’t go into the appraisal.

Don’t describe – explain

If they can, then the explanation goes in, not the description. For instance, instead of saying, “You are abrasive,” you’d say, “You cut customers off in mid-sentence. Please focus on letting people finish their thoughts before answering.”

An employee can change behavior on the latter because it’s a specific and resolvable example. ‘Abrasive’ is just too general.

This helps you avoid cultural mixups and forces managers to justify their criticisms and praises – it goes both ways. No one would write, “You are a genius” in a performance appraisal. Instead, give details about what the employee did that evokes that impression. You may find out that the person isn’t a genius after all if you can’t identify what they did.

Fixing cultural differences at work is only one step toward making your business a better place for everyone, but it can be a step toward helping to retain and develop underrepresented employees. And that’s good for every business.

The post Cultural differences at work: another challenge for DEI appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

First-generation professionals have their own unique challenges when entering the mainstream working environment, and Fadjanie knows this experience first-hand. Her new book, In First Place: How to Win over First Generation Professionals with your Inclusion Strategy, coaches you on how to attract, develop and retain this crucial segment of the working population.

You can find Fadjanie here and buy her book on Amazon here.

The post Your DEI strategy must include first-generation professionals appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

And the Great Discontent survey carried out by Workable in June 2021 points to the disparity in current working situation between the genders, with those identifying as female far more likely to be not working (26% vs. 15.3%) or working part-time (17.7% vs. 8.6%) than males in the United States.

The World Economic Forum also reported similar data:

What does that say about how our workplaces are doing in supporting working mothers?

We’ll let TopResume’s report answer that:

“Women have had to navigate the stress and time-management challenges of taking on the role of teacher and child-care provider while attempting to work or find work during quarantine. All of these factors together have led to what economists are calling the world’s first ‘she-cession’ – a women-led economic downturn.”

To gain further insight, we sat down with TopResume’s career expert Amanda Augustine – herself a working mom – for a conversation about this. Clearly, employers need to up their game if they want to be part of changing things for the better.

The plight of the working mother

The mother of a five-year-old boy with special needs, Amanda’s own personal and professional load is further stressed by the fact that she has a husband who works long hours as an essential worker. And, she says, women feel they have to take all that on – more so than men.

“I think for the working mother in general, we’ve grown up hearing, ‘You can do anything’, and we’ve somehow translated that over time into ‘You should do everything,’” says Amanda. “And there’s a lot of extra responsibility and weight and stress we put on ourselves.”

And that commitment to a full-time workload also ate into Amanda’s daily schedule. Before the pandemic, she commuted into New York City for work three times a week, translating into three hours of commuting each day. This meant less time with her son all around.

“I only saw my son for two hours a day on the weekdays. I was gone well before he was awake. And I came home, picked him up from daycare and I got two hours before he had to be in bed.”

The sacrifice and the stigma

Work has long been an unmovable pillar around which we mold other parts of our lives. It’s created a situation where working mothers worry that if they make concessions in the workplace – such as arriving late or leaving early because they need to drop off or pick up their kids at school or the daycare, it impacts their career arc.

“[Those] suddenly become issues where they have to be navigated around fears that you’re not going to be put up for the promotion, or you’re not going to get the raise,” Amanda explains.

“And because whether, you know, whether [working mothers think] correctly or not, they’re going to assume that it’s either not feasible or that they’re concerned that other priorities will take over, which is just… it’s unfair.”

There’s also a proximity bias in the workplace that makes things even more difficult for working mothers forced to make amends in their schedule to accommodate demands on the home front.

“There’s this false assumption by managers that the people they see working in the office are more productive than the ones that they don’t see.”

It’s not COVID’s fault

These problems facing working mothers aren’t rooted in the pandemic. Rather, the pandemic simply exposed – and exacerbated – the problems that have long existed in the system.

“Many of us were already underwater before the pandemic and the pandemic was that last straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Amanda. “It pushed on all those little cracks and just made them that, that more obvious.”

That’s why working mothers are leaving the workforce in droves – if they can – because they’ve given up on the possibility of a much-needed balance between work and home life.

“Women aren’t going to just show up and sacrifice everything,” says Amanda, emphasizing that this is a situation faced by fathers as well.

“For some people, it’s a re-evaluation of their priorities. Many are assuming that they’re not going to find a job that’s going to allow them to still keep some of these things [remote work, etc.] that were actually the silver linings of the pandemic.”

That 69% statistic points to this new reality.

“What’s happening now is that people are [saying], ‘Do we really need that income? Can we get by without it? I’m going to hold out until there’s something that really makes sense and is a good fit. I’m not rushing back to the workplace, because I want to see what happens.’”

It’s a crisis, but it’s an opportunity

We’re already seeing a recruitment crisis – as indicated by the staggering numbers of job openings, higher than the number of unemployed, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This exodus of working mothers presents an added challenge for recruiters already facing depleted talent pools.

“[Many] recruiters I hear from and talk to are just saying, ‘We can’t fill these positions. We can’t get people in the door what’s going on here.’”

And it’s not that these are not good opportunities. These are “white collar, corporate, good paying jobs”, Amanda adds.

“A good portion of your normal labor force or, you know, is not looking right now. And so you’re missing out on a lot of that.”

But there’s good news. They’ll come back – if the conditions are right.

“Many of them would probably come back [if] they’d be able to still bring in that money or do what they love, but in a more balanced fashion where they don’t feel as though they’re slightly underperforming in every aspect of their lives.”

That’s where greater support of working mothers is needed in the workplace. Forcing your employees to find a balance between work and home actually hurts at both ends. Something always has to give.

“If you’re feeling really great as a mom, you feel like you’re probably not the star employee that day. And if you’re really rocking it at work, chances are, you’re not feeling like you’re getting a gold star from your kids that day.

“And you know, it’d be nice if that wasn’t necessarily the feeling all the time.”

The need for flexible schedules

So how do you build an environment that supports working mothers? Obviously not every company can do everything – but you can start by looking at the things you can do that don’t drastically impact your bottom line. The first objective is to build up your support system that you can offer to a potential employee. Have a strategy that enables mothers to thrive in every area – both at home and at work.

One way to do that is introduce greater flexibility in work – a lesson we all learned from the pandemic, as shown in our New World of Work survey report in August 2020 which found that 71.1% of respondents see remote work and distributed teams as one of the biggest paradigm shifts coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amanda agrees.

“More jobs are becoming location agnostic. This giant work-from-home experiment has been successful for a lot of organizations,” she explains.

“There are a lot of employees that I know of while they were still working, moved across the country, just decided they’re like, ‘You know what? I don’t want this cost of living. And if I can work anywhere, I’m going to do it.’ A lot of people are relocating.”

She points to her own company as an example.

“That’s why we’re not really going back to one central office. [It’s] because they saw it worked and they started hiring people all across the country.”

Another thing Amanda’s employer is doing right in supporting working mothers is leaving the responsibility of scheduling to employees.

“Are you getting your work done? Then we don’t care when you’re logging in and logging out. Are you there when you need to be for a meeting? Great. As long as you’re producing, no one cares.

“If you have to run out in the middle of the day to grab your kid or, you know, take them to the appointment or pick them up from daycare, as long as you’re getting your work done and you’re on when you need to be on for the very important meetings, nobody’s going to look twice and think there’s anything wrong.”

Employers can step up their game

And that’s a mindset which needs to be adopted by employers if they want to attract – and retain – workers. That’s especially when it comes to working mothers, who benefit more from this than other professionals.

“Working mothers [see this] more as a necessity or a requirement as opposed to an extra benefit.”

You can step up your policies supporting working mothers if you’re looking to attract them to your company, especially if you don’t have the luxury of moving to a permanently remote or flexible working system.

Amanda suggests looking at your maternity leave policy, and looking at other ways you can help ease the demand that a working parent faces.

“Are you providing either stipends for daycare or are you providing onsite daycare or services? Do you have a service that you keep on retainer that your employees can call if they need help securing a last-minute babysitter because someone’s ill or something like that? Those services do exist.”

Be leaders by example

While these and other programs and policies are a great first step for employers, it’s not enough, says Amanda. It also comes down to the mentality of your organization – and from the very top.

“It also has to come through in your communication. [Are you] a company that truly values and embraces and supports the working parent or various different lifestyles and is able to adapt?”

Personal experience plays a factor as well, she adds, recalling an anecdote from a friend who expressed that she couldn’t wait for her CEO and his wife to have a kid because “he doesn’t get it today”.

Instead, get ahead of that situation, with executive leadership setting the tone for a truly inclusive working environment.

Amanda described an experience before our interview where she was in a meeting with one of her own executives.

“She was sitting on her patio and she goes, ‘This may be my only moment of vitamin D all day, because I don’t know when my son gets home from daycare, if it’s going to be an outside or inside day’.”

That was a strong message from leadership. The result was that Amanda – and likely her other colleagues – now felt empowered to be able to do the same.

“I would have never considered that before, until I saw somebody a couple of rungs up for me doing it and it being perfectly OK, and not making a big deal about it.”

So pay attention, managers, directors, and executives.

“If you’re going to offer those benefits to your team, take them. If you’re encouraging them to take time off, you have to take a few days off too.”

This is a wakeup call – will you answer?

“There were a lot of awful things that came [in the pandemic], but I have to say for me, there were some definite silver linings. It has a lot to do with getting a better sense of what is a healthy work-life balance and what I want. But […] for many people out there, I think it’s a wakeup call.”

You can answer that call by updating your policies and employee management strategy to accommodate and support working mothers, and you’ll find that you attract the very best candidates to your company.

“It would be really nice if, if we could change that narrative and put systems in place that helped to support a new narrative out there,” Amanda says.

Don’t wait for others to set the standard – you can lead the charge. Be part of the solution.

Amanda Augustine is a well-recognized expert in career advancement, ranging from developing one’s professional brand to acing that next interview. She’s the resident career expert for TopResume, the world’s largest resume-writing service, as well as a certified professional resume writer (CPRW) and certified professional career coach (CPCC).

The post Supporting working mothers: it’s now time for a new narrative appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Diversity is more than gender

The dominant focal points for diversity are gender and ethnicity. The deficit in these dimensions is obvious in most organizations, as they’re relatively easy to measure. They’re also well informed by moral, ethical, and social drivers, as much as anything else.

When you consider organizational performance, there is a range of categories you can add to gender and ethnicity that provide an even greater opportunity for unlocking value. Differing perspectives are shaped by people’s sexual orientation, their age, their immigrant status, the industries they’ve worked in, the physical locations they’re in, and even the size of the organizations they’ve been part of. The list goes on.

The more you can adopt the mindset that difference equals value, the more attuned you’ll be to that value when you encounter it in a job interview, a meeting, or a business case.

What’s the point of having a highly diverse team if you can’t draw out the unique experiences, capabilities, and perspectives of each of your people? The challenge for every leader is to create an environment where people feel safe to contribute, to challenge each other, and to debate issues with a view to getting the best outcome – and not simply pushing your own opinions.

Competing against this ideal are two things: our natural tendency to avoid conflict, and our fear of being wrong. But high-performing teams aren’t built on unanimity and consensus. They are built on robust debate, respectful challenge, and fearless honesty.

Six tips for leveraging diversity

Leveraging diversity is most important in two scenarios:

1. When you’re solving a complex problem.
2. When you’re making a difficult decision.

These are the points at which you want as much diversity of input as possible. It will help you to avoid groupthink, and consider factors that may not have been identified by a less diverse group.

As most of this type of work occurs in group settings, these six practical tips on leveraging diversity will help you to maximize the opportunities when they present themselves.

1. Qualify the room

Only people who can add value to a decision or problem should be in the room, and this is usually fewer people than you think (or they think). People love having input in an all care, no responsibility way, but that’s not constructive. It slows the process down and adds little value to the outcome.

Get the right people in the room, give them all the information they need to fully contribute to the topic, and create an environment where it’s easy for them to express their views.

2. Don’t speak first

As a leader, it’s important to empower and encourage people to contribute before they have the benefit of knowing your position. Only the most resilient and robust individuals will contradict or offer alternatives to a strong leader, once that leader has shown her hand.

Facilitating the conversation to draw out people’s views and incorporate them into the framework of the discussion will do a lot to unlock diversity, so you don’t want to stymie that in any way.

3. Listen objectively

Listening is a much underrated skill, but one that’s critical to fostering diversity. We naturally tend to discard any information that doesn’t conform to our own world view.

Putting aside your own preferences and viewpoints, and asking yourself a few simple questions will improve your listening skills:

• What can I learn from this?
• What am I hearing that I hadn’t considered previously?
• How can this perspective improve our current position?

When you open yourself to the input of others, you’ll pick up some valuable insights that can only add to the existing conversation.

4. Draw in the quiet ones

Many people don’t like to talk in group forums. They need to learn to, and as a leader you need to teach them how. Although it might be safer and less confrontational to send an email to express their views, people only bring true value when they allow their ideas to be challenged.

When moderating group discussions, call on these people by name. Support them, and show them that their perspectives are valued, and that it’s safe for them to contribute.

5. Show a willingness to shift

When something changes your mind, or improves your understanding of an issue, be explicit about the fact that you’re changing your mind based on their input. This will encourage people to contribute in the future. If you don’t constantly demonstrate a willingness to be convinced of an opinion other than your own, people will stop offering theirs.

Once people can see that their ideas can make a real difference, they’ll be more likely to offer them up. Over time, this will become a key motivator for your people.

6. Encourage robust debate

Respectful, robust debate is the means by which alternative viewpoints are uncovered and challenged. Help your people to become more confident by rewarding them for engaging in this way.

Public praise and one-on-one reinforcement can motivate someone to up the ante in their contribution, because they understand why it’s important and they’re prepared to take a little personal risk to see that unfold.

Without robust debate of alternative viewpoints, people’s input is only of marginal value.

Make performance through diversity your brand

Your ability to liberate people’s talent and experience is the real key to unlocking and leveraging diversity. Ultimately, this becomes a true driver of performance, and a defining characteristic of your team. Results speak louder than anything else, so if you learn to harness the power of diversity to drive better results, people will sit up and pay attention.

Once this becomes part of your culture, it forms an important plank in your employee value proposition. Why would people want to work for you? Because you value diversity in a way that takes the organization to new levels of performance – it’s your brand, after all.

Who wouldn’t want to work in a company like that?

Martin G. Moore is the former CEO of CS Energy. Within five years, he grew earnings from $17 million to $441 million, a compound annual growth rate of 125%. Moore hosts the chart-topping No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast, and his book, No Bullsh!t Leadership, is scheduled to be published in August 2021.

The post Diversity on its own isn’t enough: 6 tips to leverage value appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this episode, Carolyn sat down with Fadjanie Cadet, LEK Consulting’s Diversity Recruitment and Engagement Lead, to talk about building a strategy to support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Fadjanie talks about how DEI initiatives have changed over time, how you can get started, what makes it unique now during these times, and how to make it sustainable for the future. Let’s jump in!

The post Podcast episode #12: Building a DEI strategy from the ground up — Part 2 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The post Mental Health at work: Fostering an authentic workplace culture appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this episode, Keith sits down with Fadjanie Cadet, LEK Consulting’s Diversity Recruitment and Engagement Lead, to talk about action items for you to succeed in your diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Fadjanie talks about:

• How DEI has changed over time
• How you can get started in your DEI strategy
• What makes it unique now during these time and how to make it sustainable for the future

The post Podcast episode #11: Building a DEI strategy from the ground up — Part 1 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You may even recognize that a diverse employee population where everyone feels included and their voice is heard is the simply right thing to do.

But, like me, you may not know where and how to start your DEI journey.

The challenges of diversity recruitment

This is particularly apparent in some industries including manufacturing (with which I have considerable experience), where 22.4% of respondents to Workable’s recent DEI survey indicated that they want to invest in DEI but don’t know where to start.

This challenge can be compounded where geography and demographics make it difficult to recruit diverse candidates and build diverse teams.

There may also be some discomfort that comes with pursuing a diversity strategy. After all, if you don’t already come from a diverse background or environment, engaging with others who are different from you can at first feel intimidating and uncertain.

To build and lead diverse teams, the approach I believe works best is to start by following your curiosity.

The staples of a diversity recruiting strategy

Growing up in a small town in Newfoundland, Canada, in the eighties was a very homogenous experience for me. With only one or two visible minority families in my town of 3,500, and probably less than 100 in the province at that time, diversity had yet to flourish in this flung part of the world.

But that didn’t mean that diversity didn’t exist.

For example, I remember one boy with whom I was friends being the cultural anomaly in my community as he was the only Pakistani kid in town. His name was Jesse and although we went to different schools, we played together and hung out during 5th and 6th grade.

For me, it was fascinating to be around him and his family. They spoke English with an accent, had different customs and beliefs, and ate the most amazing food. I was curious about his culture and did what any kid would do when they want to learn more: I asked a lot of questions and was continually inspired to learn more.

There are a few important lessons here that have since guided my curiosity about diversity:

• A spark is often needed to light the flame of curiosity. I love to eat so, naturally, my spark was food!
• It’s OK to ask questions about other peoples’ cultures and experiences respectfully.
• By being curious and continually learning about other people’s lives and unique experiences, you can add value to your life – and theirs.

Why is a diverse recruitment strategy important?

Apply that spark to your business: why does it matter to establish a diversity recruiting strategy in your workplace?

There are two prevailing arguments about why leaders should implement DEI policies within their organization: it’s good for business (21.7% according to the aforementioned DEI at work survey) and it’s the right thing to do (50.6%).

I’ve been fortunate in my career to be a part of many different types of teams, from homogenous teams that look and sound exactly like me, to teams with an incredible diversity of thought, opinion, and idea, with people from different cultural, disability, socioeconomic, religious, and political backgrounds.

I’m my experience building and leading diverse teams, here’s what I’ve found:

1. Diverse teams strike a good balance between speed and quality when solving problems. They develop more innovative solutions in less time, which leads to more profitable solutions.
2. Diverse teams have a functionally reserved professionalism that’s engendered through mutual trust and respect. I’ve always found this hard to put my finger on, but this fabric of professionalism keeps cliques, clubbiness, and groupthink at bay and is unique to diverse teams. When harnessed and employed toward common goals, this professionalism leads to better results.
3. Diverse teams are more resilient. Much like in nature, a disturbance to a diverse ecosystem (for example, the stress created with a new project) is hardly noticeable, while a disturbance to a homogenous ecosystem can be disastrous (think homogeneity and the end of the dinosaurs).

Now that you know the top “whys” of diversity recruiting, you must define your own purpose if diversity is to become an integral and sustainable part of your business. Once you do, here are a few steps to help you build and lead diverse teams.

How can you diversify your recruiting process?

Pursue your curiosity. The process of building a diverse team starts with you as the leader and your curiosity about diversity. It can be hard to know where to start, so here’s one option: Identify someone in your network whose background is different than yours who you’re curious about and with whom you can engage. Invite them for a coffee or a virtual get-to-know-you lunch. Let them know why you’re curious and start by sharing something about yourself. Don’t feel as though you need to pepper the conversation with diversity-based questions; just get to know them and you’ll each share your experiences naturally.

Seek new sources of talent where diverse candidates are located. This might be particularly relevant if your local talent pool is not diverse and your recruiting methods have traditionally returned a great deal of homogeneity in your candidates. Check out the diversity Working site as one potential source for your diversity recruiting strategy.

Hire ‘anonymously’. For the next position for which you hire, use anonymized screening tools when reviewing resumes and behavioral assessments to minimize ever-present unconscious biases. This means identifying the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the person you need upfront, in addition to their behavior style.

How can you lead a diverse team?

1. Know yourself. Determine your behavioral style (using a DISC method or similar) to understand better how you will lead collaboration and constructive conflict on your behaviorally diverse team.
2. Actively promote diversity with inclusivity. As gung-ho as you may be to build more diverse teams, the reality is that it’s not going to stick or be sustainable if you’re missing the inclusion piece. Take the pulse of your employees with a survey – do they feel like you’re listening to them? There’s a good chance it’s not as good as you think. For your employees, being able to voice their concerns, contribute new ideas, and provide feedback is important. To be truly inclusive as a leader, you need to start by listening.
3. Celebrate the differences of your diverse team, using this as an opportunity to add depth to the relationship between team members. Start with something casual like a culturally focused potluck where everyone on the team brings their favorite dish or a lunch and learn event where your team has the opportunity to learn and ask questions about someone else’s culture. In my experience, one of the most effective ways to break down barriers is through the shared enjoyment of eating together. Be sure to celebrate the differences equally – check out these 10 ideas to celebrate diversity.

We’re all in this together

If you’re feeling stuck in building a diversity recruitment strategy because of a lack of a diverse personal background, you’re not alone.

It can be hard to know where to start to build a diverse team, and that’s why I recommend you start with your own curiosity. Getting started in diversity recruiting can be innate and within your control, and doesn’t involve a big initial investment.

Let your diversity grow, nurture it in others, and you’ll be amazed at how exciting it can be to build diverse teams and realize the outsized results they can generate.

Luke Sheppard is an executive, manager, and engineer from the heavy equipment industry turned coach, consultant, and speaker. He’s the author of the new book Driving Great Results: Master The Tools You Need To Run A Great Business. Learn more at consultsheppard.com.

The post How to think about diversity recruiting strategies appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Table of Contents

1. Candidate experience

• On sidestepping “Where do you see yourself in X years?”
• On recruiting passive candidates

2. Lean recruiting

• On start-up recruiting without benefits and perks
• On sourcing diverse talent on a tight budget

3. DEI in the recruitment process

• On supporting DEI in hiring
• On the efficacy of Workable’s anonymized screening tool
• On hiring diverse candidates for a school district

4. Competing for talent

• On compensation in different markets
• On finding top talent when you’re not the ideal

5. And one more for the road… on hiring after COVID

Following are some exchanges from that Q&A session (with names of guests removed to preserve privacy):

1. Candidate experience

On sidestepping “Where do you see yourself in X years?”

Guest:
What is the best question to ask potential employees about retention in the office?

Melissa:
Hi, thank you for your question! To clarify, are you asking how to respond about retention at your company if the answer is not positive?

Guest:
Yes, we have a lot of longevity in our office. I have worked there for over 20 years. It takes about a year just to learn the job. I wanted to think beyond the “where do you see yourself in 5 years”. I know there are some gray areas to avoid, but any advice would be great!

Melissa: 
Assessing staying power can be hard to navigate, I would focus on sharing your company’s lengthy ramp time and the need for time commitment that employees need to invest in order to make an impact. For the right candidates, this transparency and approach will resonate.

However, we also have to recognize that workforce behaviors have evolved when it comes to tenure and the average time in a role is around 4.5 years and those aged between 24-34, it’s around 3 years, so employers have to adjust in order to maximize the impact employees can make in that timeframe.

Guest:
Great advice!! thank you so much!!!!

Melissa:
My pleasure!

On recruiting passive candidates

Guest:
Could you provide advice on best practices when it comes to sourcing passive candidates?

Melissa:
Hi again, of course! RESILIENCE. Candidates are cautious to leave jobs right now so don’t get offended if you don’t get responses to your reach out.

Personalization is key, show that you have a good understanding of their background and why you think making a move into your organization would be worthwhile. Projecting warmth and enthusiasm goes a long way and sharing as much about your company and why it’s a stellar place to work.

It’s difficult but you also have to do this as succinctly as possible. And don’t be afraid to use multiple methods of reaching out, direct email, LinkedIn or even a call.

Keith:
Think of it in terms of recruitment marketing. You are marketing yourself as an employer. You want to show your value as an employer to the candidate. Usually, it’s the other way around, in that candidates are trying to market themselves to you.

Show your value as an employer, in terms of what that candidate can gain from making such a move. As Melissa says, passive candidates aren’t just going to jump ship. You’re asking them to take a risk. You want to show them that you’re worth that risk.

Guest:
Thank you so much you two! I really appreciate it! I often do get discouraged when I don’t get a reply back. I will consider trying different approaches and watching which one works and have really been looking into recruitment marketing.

2. Lean recruiting

On start-up recruiting without benefits and perks

Guest:
What is the best way to recruit people into a start up that currently has no formal benefits and very few perks. It’s hard in the world of free lunch and a games room!

Keith:
Oh yeah, that is always tough. You’re in a very competitive space already. Workable CEO Nikos Moraitakis offered some great insights around that theme in an interview a few years ago:

To your point about free lunches and games rooms, he offered this: “No one ever came to work because of the ping pong tables. Even less so, stayed for them.”

He does have a point. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about benefits and perks – you can communicate the value of the work itself, which can be unique and interesting in so many ways compared with other startups.

You may also find this to be a good resource.

Melissa:
Hi! You have to capitalize on the things a startup does offer – a chance to be part of building and shaping structure, tech tools, teams and culture! Post your jobs in places that might draw in candidates that are inspired by that type of opportunity – AngelList, VentureFizz and Built In to name a few. At this stage of your growth, count on referrals too, they’ll have a better sense of what they’re walking into.

On sourcing diverse talent on a tight budget

Guest:
What are some strategies for sourcing diverse candidates when the organization doesn’t have the budget to invest in diverse platforms?

Melissa:
Hi … thanks for your question! To me, it’s about posting in multiple places to source from as many diverse job boards/candidate pools as possible. There are organizations who also focus and partner with companies to support diverse hiring. Also, using technology like anonymized screening will help.

Training hiring managers to identify biases is a crucial starting point when interviewing in order to to avoid unintentionally disqualifying candidates. Getting commitment from the hiring team will sometimes take longer than you wish, so patience is required.

Just so I can try to help further, what are the diverse platforms you’re referring to?

If you’d like to do some reading on the topic, here’s a great resource for you (and definitely, watch the video!).

Guest:
Melissa, thank you for the advice. This is very helpful. Currently we have looked in areas like Dice or POCIT. And I have been told we do not have a budget to post on paid platforms at the moment. Current postings are those provided via our current ATS. Thank you again for sharing this resource.

3. DEI in the recruitment process

On supporting DEI in hiring

Guest:
There are some new recruitment products, touting support of DE&I with this process, that is championing for even more increased “blind” selection criteria to go beyond hiding names, home addresses, school names, etc. which have been known to elicit hidden biases to not utilizing Zoom or video interviews to further cut down on unconscious biases from creeping into this process – ie. voice, dialect, dress, hairstyle, etc.

So these products are focused on the employer asking work-based questions for the candidate to submit in writing. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this new burgeoning recruitment strategy to further support DE&I efforts?

Melissa:
Hi … thank you for your question! This is a tough one, but definitely a good one. While there is research available that shows the positive impact of anonymized screening, it needs to be part of a wider DEI initiative to have an impact.

For example: According to a study completed by Harvard Business Review, “Before any anonymization, men outperformed women by about 5%. After just the removal of the names, that number dropped to less than 3%. When the applications were fully anonymized, women outperformed men by 1%.”

However, even if this method does improve your diverse hiring metrics, it does not guarantee the organization’s culture is inclusive. Anonymized screening is one piece of the puzzle – it’s a tool companies can utilize to meet their goals – but so much more needs to happen as well.

On the efficacy of Workable’s anonymized screening tool

Guest:
I also noted that you have anonymized the Workable ATS, could you please let me know to what extent this has reduced unconscious bias and how, in cases where the content of the CV or application either countries where one has worked, college or university can give an indication of nationality

Melissa:
Hi, great question! This article has a few screenshots that can help you visualize what our Anonymized Screening tool does. As you can see, college & country are considered identifying information, so these would be blocked out.

According to a study completed by Harvard Business Review, “Before any anonymization, men outperformed women by about 5%. After just the removal of the names, that number dropped to less than 3%. When the applications were fully anonymized, women outperformed men by 1%.”

Guest:
Great feedback, that’s good analytics. I noted that some panel members try as much as possible to have women in the shortlist and sometimes this can be at the expense of men.

This happened last time, I pointed this out to the team and they thought, it’s good to have an all-women shortlist. The results were anything but; we did go back to the longlist and selected the next group which was a mix and the second round was much better and men did better compared to the first group.

On hiring diverse candidates for a school district

Guest:
Hi! As a recruiter for a school district, my biggest challenge is to recruit diverse candidates for all positions. What suggestions or ideas do you have on how to do this?

Keith:
Hi – great question. We talk a lot about this in Workable’s own content. First things first, you want to diversify that initial candidate pool. In that, you’ll need to think about where you’re actually posting your job ads and where you’re announcing opportunities at your school district. The more diverse your outreach, the wider range of candidates you’ll attract, so to speak.

Another thing to think about is the overall messaging of your school district. An overt statement that shows you value diversity, equity and inclusion can do a lot in terms of candidate attraction.

If you’d like to do some reading on the topic, here’s a great resource for you.

If the challenge is about making a case for it with stakeholders, then this may be helpful.

Melissa:
Hi, thanks for your question!

I agree with Keith, you want to increase posting in multiple places to source from as many diverse job boards/candidate pools as possible. There are also many organizations focusing and partnering with companies in support of diverse hiring. Also, you’ll find using technology like anonymized screening will be helpful.

On the hiring manager side, training them to identify biases when interviewing to avoid unintentionally disqualifying candidates will get the ball rolling. When it comes to commitment from the hiring team, it will sometimes take longer than you wish, so patience is required.

4. Competing for talent

On compensation in different markets

Guest:
I recently joined a fully distributed company with employees all over the country. When it comes to hiring cross-country and compensation, what philosophy do you think makes the most sense? Different compensation for different markets? Same compensation regardless of market, which can mean you’re priced out of the most expensive markets?

What’s your advice when coming up with compensation recommendations knowing how much markets can vary?

Keith:
Hi! This is obviously a tough one, because there’s no “right” answer. It’s been debated widely, especially as more companies move to remote-first operations during the pandemic. There’s a great discussion from Forbes on it – highlighting Reddit and Zillow as companies that opted to pay the same regardless of location, and Facebook at the other end, preferring to pay based on location.

And if you wanted to go down the rabbit hole on the topic of distributed teams, we do have some great reading for you. First, an interview with SmartBug CEO Ryan Malone, whose company was fully remote way back before it was cool.

And another, on the topic of hiring in different countries.

Melissa:
Hi, thanks for your question. Definitely a hot topic right now. But really, it comes down to your company’s compensation philosophy. Do you want to lead the pack on comp or stay conservative or middle of the road?

It’s unrealistic to expect a company of a certain size and revenue located in one geography to compete with the likes of large enterprises in NY and San Fran.

So the best advice I can give is, make a fair and realistic budget for roles based on comparative comp data, budget approval and cast your net far and wide in your candidate search. You’ll soon get a pretty good picture from candidate feedback if any comp adjustments need to be reconsidered from there.

And sometimes, you have to accept, this is how much a role is going to cost to fill, and you gotta pay if that’s the position your company needs.

Guest:
Yeah, it’s interesting. We’re a small 30-person series A company so our resources are very different than many of the companies frequently mentioned in regards to this topic. I think the biggest challenge has been helping my hiring managers realize that our budget for a role is X.

We might find someone great in an expensive market, but there’s only so much flexibility we have in regards to compensation.

I think they are struggling to understand that there’s always going to be great talent out there that we simply can’t afford–and I know that’s not unique to just my company.

Melissa:
The way I look at it is, if budget is non-negotiable, then time and patience is required to advertise and source for this needle in a haystack. The other, less ideal option, a re-assessment of the job might be required and understand that you might have to get someone who checks 70% of the boxes or a more junior profile.

As much as we’d like to move mountains for our hiring teams, we’re also not miracle workers.

On finding top talent when you’re not the ideal

Guest:
Melissa, thank you for your time and expertise. I am at a small, regional, rural public university in the PNW and we are challenged finding qualified IT faculty to hire. Suggestions?

Our comp structure is “average”, benefits are very good, and livability is superb (if you don’t need a city to live in). Thanks again.

Melissa:
Hi, thanks for your question! Happy to help as best I can. IT / tech talent can notoriously be difficult to find. Do you find you’re not getting enough quality candidates to fill the pipeline? Or, are you getting candidates, but they fall off during the hiring process?

Guest:
Unfortunately – both. Lean applicant pool and quick bailouts when offers to our best candidates come in ahead of us. We cannot sponsor H1B visas and that portion of the labor market appears to be the applicants most available.

Melissa:
This is a tough one. Advertising and promoting those stellar benefits is key and the livability, it will help make your position stand out. Thank you for clarifying, if it’s a lack of qualified candidates, focusing your sourcing efforts on passive candidates at other educational institutions would be where I’d start first.

Keith:
Hi! Seconding Melissa’s comment that IT/tech talent is tough to find. We have written a lot about that in our website. You’ll probably find these articles particularly helpful, especially if you’re finding that talent attraction is a challenge:

• Office in an ‘unsexy’ area? Use these 5 talent attraction strategies
• Hiring tech workers when you’re not on their A-list

Guest:
Super! Thanks for the tips and online resources. We will move ahead optimistically!

Keith:
De nada! If you search “tech talent” in our site, you’ll find plenty of other helpful stuff as well.

Guest:
Thank you again. Your online availability is just great…

Melissa:
Our pleasure!

5. And one more for the road…

On hiring after COVID

Guest:
Any recruiting recommendations for hiring pre & post COVID?

Melissa:
Hi, thanks for your question!

In the past year, we opened our scope to other states offering greater flexibility on location, resulting in a larger pool of candidates. We’ve also focused on a higher utilization of video interviews. As we’re working remotely and will likely continue for the foreseeable future, that comfort with technology and video communication is key.

We’ve also been looking at our scorecards and how we assess candidates to evaluate autonomy and greater emphasis on communication skills. We’ve found by doing these activities, we’ve had greater success in securing hires that do well under our new ways of working.

Keith:
Melissa basically answered it… but thought you’d be interested to know that we surveyed our employees on the kinds of skills that are needed in a remote work world, with some great results.

We also sat down with a CEO of a company that has been fully remote for nearly a decade. He had some great tips on how to identify ideal candidates for that kind of environment.

Have more questions for us?

We are always here to support recruiters and HR professionals in doing what they do best. If you have any more questions that you wish you had the answer to, don’t hesitate to email us at content@workable.com with “Recruiting Q&A” in the subject headline. We’ll assemble your questions and have Melissa answer them for you in a future article!

The post Recruiting Q&As from Bamboo HR’s Employee Experience Week appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In the past year, we’ve experienced major change like never before. At home. At work. While some organizations are struggling with attracting and retaining talent in this new world of work, others are thriving. Why?

In this session, Josh will reveal his top 12 predictions for the future. If optimizing your culture, benefits, DEI, employer brand, candidate experience, or hiring technologies are on your priority list for 2021, this session is for you.

In just 60 minutes, Josh will give you a leg up on tackling 2021 and beyond.

The post Step into the future with Josh Bersin appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The post COVID-19 and gender equality: The conversation needs to keep going appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

7 stats on gender and COVID-19

Here are seven eye-opening stats for you on how women have are uniquely affected, shedding light on COVID-19 and its impact on gender equality.

Jump to the full infographic – or download it for yourself here.

1. Unbalanced scales

4.5% of women’s employment is at risk, compared with 3.8% of men’s employment according to McKinsey – as women work more in industries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. A mother’s burden

Mothers are more likely than fathers to scale back or consider leaving their job during the pandemic, the World Economic Forum reports. They found that 17% of mothers reported a reduction in their work hours, compared with just 9% of fathers who reported the same.

3. Where’s the support?

More black women report that they don’t feel supported by their manager, compared with women and men of other races. According to a report collaboration from McKinsey and LeanIn.org, 15% of black women reported that they don’t feel supported by their manager at work.

4. Burning the candle at both ends

Women in senior-level positions report higher levels of exhaustion and burnout than men, with 54% vs. 41% citing exhaustion and 39% vs. 29% citing burnout according to the World Economic Forum. This is likely due to a greater stress at both ends of the work-life balance as a consequence of the pandemic.

5. A matter of importance

According to Workable’s survey on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the workplace, 96.6% of women state that DEI in the workplace is important to them.

6. Strong leadership

The Harvard Business Review reported that women are rated as being more effective leaders than men during the COVID-19 crisis, with 57.2% of respondents in a survey saying women ranked positively in overall leadership effectiveness ratings, compared with 51.5% for men.

7. … and maybe this is why

Senior-level women are more likely than men to practice allyship at work, including active listening and mentorship according to McKinsey and LeanIn.org.

Important reminder: the pandemic isn’t solely to blame for the gender imbalance. It simply exposed the imbalances that have existed in the system for a long time, and we need to continue the conversation even after the pandemic is over.

We’ve got a lot of work to do yet to bridge the chasm – and it goes far beyond gender and COVID.

Progress depends on persistence – let’s keep at it.

PDF

Related content:

Gender inequality in the workplace: A lack of women in leadership

Gender inclusion in the workplace: Going beyond diversity

Why should employers care about the gender pay gap?

The post Gender and COVID-19: 7 stats on women at work in 2021 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this chapter, we address the following questions:

• What are the top takeaways from Workable’s DEI survey results?
• Which DEI initiatives are top priority, and which ones are not?
• What’s the difference between diversity, equity and inclusion?
• How do you build a DEI action plan?

Your DEI action plan

Including a DEI action plan as part of a company’s overarching vision, mission, and values is fairly straightforward in abstract terms, but it gets murkier when you get down to the granular details that are so critical to all areas of business: Who should own that strategy? How should they carry it out? What are the DEI action items? What are the target metrics? How do you measure those metrics? And so on.

That lack of deeper understanding of DEI actionable steps – and the lack of a clear road map, even – is confirmed by significant numbers of respondents saying that they don’t yet have a plan in place or don’t know how to proceed, and even larger numbers saying that establishing a sustainable, long-term DEI action plan and strategy is a leading challenge.

Also, our survey found that diversity and demographics are a clear area of focus for many respondents. Equity and inclusion aren’t as highly prioritized. We also noted the higher percentage of respondents who say there are no plans in place for affinity networks and mentorship programs as action items. We also recognized the lower scores placed on inclusive teams, inclusive leadership, and inclusive benefits and perks as areas of focus in DEI initiatives.

We also saw that some segments in the dataset feel more strongly than others about DEI progress – as indicated in the answers for male vs. female and minority vs. non-minority categories. Perhaps personal experience is a factor in their answers. Perhaps some segments do not feel as included as others think they are.

“From my understanding in my workplace and some of my peers in other organizations, DEI only became a priority after the current events in the media. Previously, there have been a handful of executives all over the media that have been removed for not being compliant with DEI standards […]. But it was not until the more recent events that every company now has some kind of DEI in place. Overall, as a minority, I felt like it should have been addressed a long time ago and now it feels disingenuous, just a reflex to what is happening across the United States.”

Finally, a fifth of respondents say their company only started considering DEI in 2020. It’s uncharted territory for many, and it may be that the surge in interest means a much steeper learning curve in building a thoughtful, sustainable, long-lasting strategy around DEI. Perhaps the spirit of English business mogul Richard Branson’s quote applies here: “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.”

“As important as DEI is to organizations, most are just giving lip service to it. It’s the cool thing to say currently and it’s certainly more acceptable than it was 18 months ago. Companies are still under the illusion that it’s a position for White women or a position that pacifies people of color, and so they’ll put a powerless person in as a figurehead. This survey proves a bit of what I’m saying with all of the softball questions.”

Our own lesson is that we must understand diversity, equity and inclusion as three separate elements of the bigger DEI picture, and that we should establish specific metrics and action items for each, while understanding that there will be many overlaps between them:

Diversity

Diversity is tangible and measurable – X% of your company’s workforce is A, while Y% of your workforce is B, Z% of your workforce is C, and so on, based on protected characteristics as well as other areas including class, academic history, etc. This is relatively easy to identify and track through company audits, recruitment strategies, and candidate / employee surveys.

Equity

At its most basic level, equity is also measurable in a DEI action plan in terms of salary, advancement, benefits and perks, and so on. However, when we start looking at individual contribution, distribution of responsibilities, assignment and ownership of tasks, and treatment of colleagues, that becomes a little harder to concretize and track – but not impossible. One can establish action items here such as targeted development and mentorship, management training, a more diverse and self-aware leadership, and operation audits.

Inclusion

Unlike diversity and equity, inclusion is more abstract than concrete. It’s the sense of belonging, value, support, and respect that one feels in society and in a company – and that’s largely impacted by individual behavior and collective company culture. While difficult to tangibly measure beyond employee surveys, inclusion can be augmented through inclusive leadership, psychologically safe work environments, affinity networks, sensitivity and management training sessions, company language audits, and other items in a DEI action plan.

The explosion in DEI as a topic of interest in 2020 has resulted in a vastly publicized wealth of actionable lessons from experts and influencers in the space that we can and should start working on right now to truly define DEI in tangible business terms. This means thinking about your company mission, vision, values, and positioning statement, followed by identifying areas of priority and defining data points to monitor progress, and finally, implementing clear action items to hit those goals.

The commitment is clear. The information is readily available. There is work to be done – and it involves every one of us. Real, tangible action speaks louder than words and statements, and your employer brand may depend on it. With time and business smarts, and a well-thought-out DEI action plan, we’ll all get there.

“I believe [2020] will be pivotal in future talent attraction success. Companies will be challenged by candidates with the question; ‘How did your company change after the [Black Lives Matter] Movement in 2020?’ and they better be ready with a game-changing answer! Similar questions are to be expected around LGBT, the #MeToo movement and how we treated parents during COVID who had to deal with juggling lockdown, WFH, and childcare.”

The post Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this chapter, we address the following questions:

• How many companies have initiatives in place for a DEI recruitment strategy?
• What are the most popular measurable data points in DEI recruitment?
• What are the top action items in DEI recruitment?

Do you have a DEI recruitment strategy?

Across the board, 56.1% say yes, they do have initiatives related to DEI in recruiting and hiring, while an additional 23.9% say they didn’t have initiatives yet, but plan on it.

When breaking down the numbers by industry, we found that 28.7% of those in IT / Technology / SaaS are more likely than average to not have hiring-specific DEI initiatives but plan on it, while those in HR / Recruiting (67.7%) and Consulting / Business Services (66.1%) are more likely than average to have a DEI recruitment strategy in place.

The numbers also differed starkly by company size and geographic area. Those in the 500-999 FTE (71.2%) and 5000+ FTE (62.5%) buckets stated that they have initiatives in place, while multinational companies are far less likely than overall to not have DEI initiatives in their hiring and recruiting (15.4% versus 20% overall).

Measurable data points

When asked about top measurable data points for measuring progress in their DEI recruitment strategy specifically, the top data points were all based on demographics, with demographics in final pool of candidates / actual hires (46.6%), demographics in existing workforce (43.8%) and demographics of applicants beyond compliance (43%) highlighted.

Demographics in hiring teams is further down the list at 24.8%, while feedback from employees (31.9%) and candidates (12.2%) is also not as highly rated.

Again, the numbers differ starkly by industry. Those in Accounting / Finance are more likely to look at demographics of applicants (56.7% compared with 43% overall), while those in Manufacturing are much less likely (30%) to prioritize that as a metric. Strikingly, those in Manufacturing (40%) highlighted demographics in hiring teams as much more of a priority than overall (24.8%) in a DEI recruitment strategy.

Action items

When it came to identifying action items supporting DEI initiatives in recruiting and hiring and when those were implemented, benefits / perks / policies led the way in already-established items before 2020 with 66.8% of respondents checking that box. Training for hiring teams was a leader in action items planned for future (17.1%).

“It’s [about] sourcing out of my network to ensure it’s diverse. We are a seed company and don’t have a HR team that can recruit.”

Leading the way in terms of “no plans for this item” are AI-driven shortlisting (56.6%), talent market segmentation (43.9), and blind evaluation (41.7%).

2020 saw a significant paradigm shift towards remote work as a result of COVID-19 as found in our New World of Work report published in August 2020, and that was evident in a very specific area: remote hiring. Perhaps concurrently, two out of five respondents (39.7%) in our DEI survey cite remote hiring to broaden their talent pool as an action item that had been introduced in 2020.

Promoting a DEI company culture (28.4%), training for hiring teams (24.8%), and diverse hiring teams (24.2%) are other popular action items introduced during the course of 2020.

However, when breaking those numbers down by industry, the numbers differ from the overall baseline. Those in Accounting / Finance are more likely to have already established action items in place before 2020 on average (55.1% vs. 43.3 overall), whereas those in IT / Technology / SaaS are more likely to have no plans for specific items on average (26.9% vs 23.3% overall).

 “I think putting a number on it, a percentage, or offering ‘perks’, is the wrong way to look at it. People should be treated equally yet completely differently at the same time. I believe people should be treated with respect and as equals and, as far as recruitment goes, the person best equipped for the job should be successful.”

Again, those in Manufacturing have very different priorities than others in their DEI recruitment strategy: 24.1% introduced blind evaluation in 2020 compared with 13.4% overall, and 27.6% plan to have more diverse job sites going forward compared with 13.9% overall. They are also much less likely than the overall to pick AI-driven shortlisting (34.5% vs. 56.6% overall) and talent market segmentation (36.7% vs. 43.9% overall) as non-action items.

At the other end of the spectrum of non-action items, IT / Technology / SaaS are much more likely to have no plans for AI-driven shortlisting (67.2% vs. 56.6%) and affirmative action (43.2% vs. 32.6% overall).

We hope you find our survey results on DEI at work to be helpful to you both professionally and personally. Any thoughts or questions, please feel free to share them with us via Twitter, LinkedIn, or direct email (with “DEI report” in the subject heading). We want to hear from you!

Check out the other excerpts from our survey report on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

1. DEI at work: It’s time to take a deep dive
2. What does DEI mean for you and your business?
3. Is there meaningful progress in DEI? Depends on who you ask
4. DEI leadership – and who’s actually doing the work?
5. Your DEI strategic plan: The road is fraught with hurdles
6. What are your top DEI initiatives for the workplace?
8. Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there

The post Your DEI recruitment strategy: What are your action items? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That means in order for an organization to see progress in a DEI strategy, there needs to be clearly defined and attainable goals, and tangible action items to reach those goals. That’s the nature of running a business. So, in our survey, we wanted to learn what DEI initiatives, goals and action items you can tangibly pursue to succeed in your DEI strategy at work.

In this chapter, we address the following questions:

• What are the top areas of priority in a DEI strategy?
• What are the most popular measurable data points in DEI?
• What are the top action items in DEI?
• Which industries struggle with the “know-how” in DEI initiatives?

Areas of priority

When it comes to areas of priority in a company’s DEI strategy – which can help a company define measurable targets – two thirds of respondents (64.8%) highlighted diversity throughout the entire company as an area of priority in its DEI initiatives, followed by equity in opportunity, contribution and advancement at 45.3%. One quarter (25%) of respondents listed diversity at the executive / management level as a priority.

In terms of inclusion, inclusive teams is the third-most popular area of priority at 26.4%, while inclusive leadership (16.8%) and inclusive benefits / perks / policies (12.4%) are further down the list of areas of priority in DEI strategy. Just 6.4% cite having an inclusive product or service as a priority DEI initiative.

“[It’s about] creating a company culture that provides an equitable work experience for everyone including employees in minority groups.”

Measurable data points

When respondents were asked about measurable data points used to track progress in DEI initiatives at work, demographics throughout an entire company (53.4%) far outranked demographics at the executive / management level (23.6%) as leading metrics.

Adding to the earlier point that the prioritization of DEI is democratically driven, 34.7% of respondents cited employee feedback as a leading data point to measure progress towards DEI goals.

Action items

To ensure progress, it’s essential to have clearly defined areas of priority and measurable data points when executing on DEi initiatives in the workplace. So we asked about the actual action items in our survey respondents’ DEI strategy, and when they started to apply them.

First, 61.6% of respondents say having DEI-friendly benefits / perks / policies – i.e. flexible working hours – was already established prior to 2020, and 51.5% of respondents say sourcing and recruiting more diverse candidates was an existing practice in their company before 2020.

“Moving forward, we will adopt more company-wide data that, when separated by minority groups, show declining or ideally no statistical difference amongst groups to measure our progress.”

The most popular action items introduced during 2020 are training sessions (25.7%) and sourcing and recruiting more diverse candidates (25.5%). Mentorship programs and targeted development are most likely to be planned in the future (21%). Affinity networks (33%), company audits (29%), and mentorship programs / targeted development (28.8%) are top choices by respondents as having no plans in place for those items.

By industry, we found that those in Accounting / Finance had the most action items in place prior to 2020 on average (53.5% compared with 43.4% overall), with those in Manufacturing most likely to not have plans for each action item on average (29.7% compared with 21.5% overall).

But there’s a lack of real ‘know how’

Despite all of this, what really stands out is an overall need to learn more about how to build a strategy with tangible DEI initiatives at work and putting those in action.

As stated above, nearly a fifth of respondents say that they are interested but either don’t know where to start or hadn’t started yet (17.6% combined). Combine that with the two out of five respondents (39.1%) who cite “creating a sustainable strategy that lasts over time” as a major challenge in their DEI strategy (leading all other challenges, including talent and buy-in), and it is clear that lack of “know how” is a significant hurdle in pursuing DEI initiatives.

When we broke down the state of DEI by industry, we found that those in Manufacturing are significantly more likely to be interested in DEI but don’t know where to start (22.4% versus 9.1% of all answers).

In short, our respondents say that they’re ready and willing, especially in making diversity, equity and inclusion a permanent, sustainable business strategy – but they also indicate that a playbook or road map would be helpful in building a playbook loaded with actionable, results-driven DEI initiatives.

We hope you find our survey results on DEI at work to be helpful to you both professionally and personally. Any thoughts or questions, please feel free to share them with us via Twitter, LinkedIn, or direct email (with “DEI report” in the subject heading). We want to hear from you!

Check out the other excerpts from our survey report on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

1. DEI at work: It’s time to take a deep dive
2. What does DEI mean for you and your business?
3. Is there meaningful progress in DEI? Depends on who you ask
4. DEI leadership – and who’s actually doing the work?
5. Your DEI strategic plan: The road is fraught with hurdles
7. Your DEI recruitment strategy: What are your action items?
8. Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there

The post What are your top DEI initiatives for the workplace? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We determined in the previous chapter that there are disconnects in terms of who should actually be in charge of your company’s DEI strategic plan. Some say it should be the executive leadership. Others say it should be HR. Others, still, say it should be everyone.

That’s fine. Responsibility and accountability can be a complicated thing, even in a smoothly operating business. Let’s say you do have someone in charge of executing on your DEI strategic plan – even then, our data finds some pretty clear challenges that make it difficult to attain results in your DEI strategic plan.

In this chapter, we address the following questions:

• What are the major obstacles to meeting DEI targets?
• What are the top challenges to a DEI strategic plan in recruiting and hiring?

Buy-in is a challenge

While the number of respondents saying that a DEI strategy is not a priority in their company is relatively small (just 11% overall), we did ask them why it isn’t a priority. The vast majority say there is no interest or buy-in from the executive level (45.3%) or from anyone in general (41.9%).

We also found that those who identify as female are much more likely to say lack of interest from executives (60.5%) was a reason for non-prioritization of a DEI strategic plan in their company, compared with those who identify as male (39.5%).

Again, there’s a major discrepancy here. Is it due to a correlation with a greater proportion of employee-level respondents identifying as female? Or is it due to underrepresentation of females in executive / senior-level / managerial positions?

Or is it because when DEI is emphasized as a topic by a respondent, there’s more resistance to someone who identifies as female? There are numerous potential variables here that deserve to be explored in greater depth.

Diversity is limited to available talent

Diversifying one’s workforce often starts with sourcing, recruiting and hiring more diverse talent – and that is cited as a significant hurdle in a company’s DEI strategy. Respondents say that the available talent pool in their industry (37.1%) and their location (25.7%) are major challenges in attaining stated DEI targets.

“I’ve never seen any minority or female candidates denied or taken less seriously, but the simple fact is that there just aren’t as many female, Black, and Hispanic CS [computer science] grads as there are male, white, Indian, and east Asian CS grads.”

While diversification efforts are limited to talent availability across the board according to our respondents, Manufacturing led other industries here. For those in Manufacturing, the available talent pool in their industry (48.3%) and in their location (34.5%) are cited as major challenges in a DEI strategic plan when recruiting and hiring.

One explanation might be that the manufacturing sector appeals to a specific demographic of the population that isn’t as diverse as the status quo. Perhaps it’s a more male-dominated sector for a variety of reasons – traditionally assumed physical labor requirements, for instance. An explanation for location-based challenges is that manufacturing may involve more physically present work than other sectors – and thus limiting the option to hire remotely to broaden one’s available talent pool.

The ability to operate remotely with distributed teams deserves attention here. Two out of five respondents (39.7%) did say that hiring remotely is a DEI initiative introduced in 2020 – which coincides with the significant shift to remote work in 2020 as a result of COVID-19.

Overall, the limitations are clear. To actively pursue a DEI strategic plan, you need people on board, both in opinion and in availability.

“As a White woman working on a team with 90% men, most of whom are White or non-Black, DEI is an extremely important initiative that needs to be nurtured and facilitated actively. From a hiring perspective, it can be difficult to make progress on DEI efforts when the talent pool largely consists of non-Black & White males. We do make an effort to seek out individuals who would diversify the workplace as this is something we value greatly, however the hiring decision normally comes down to talent, experience, and fit.”

We hope you find our survey results on DEI at work to be helpful to you both professionally and personally. Any thoughts or questions, please feel free to share them with us via Twitter, LinkedIn, or direct email (with “DEI report” in the subject heading). We want to hear from you!

Check out the other excerpts from our survey report on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

1. DEI at work: It’s time to take a deep dive
2. What does DEI mean for you and your business?
3. Is there meaningful progress in DEI? Depends on who you ask
4. DEI leadership – and who’s actually doing the work?
6. What are your top DEI initiatives for the workplace?
7. Your DEI recruitment strategy: What are your action items?
8. Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there

The post Your DEI strategic plan: The road is fraught with hurdles appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Business logic suggests that progress in DEI is dependent on proactively building and executing on a sound DEI strategy. So, we wanted to learn which industries put priority on DEI and which of those industries weren’t able to simply because they didn’t know how to proceed with such a strategy.

In this chapter, we address the following questions:

• Are companies making meaningful progress in DEI?
• Who thinks there is meaningful progress in DEI, and who doesn’t?
• Which industries put higher priority on DEI in business, and which ones don’t?
• Which industries want to progress in DEI, but just don’t know how?

Is there meaningful progress in DEI?

When we asked respondents if they feel their company is making meaningful progress in DEI – a clear majority (73.4%) answered “Yes”.

However, again, there are significant differences when breaking down the respondents across specific demographics. First, 71.4% of females think their company is making meaningful progress, compared with 77% of males who feel the same way.

The dataset also finds 71.1% of those who identify as a minority in both their work and home communities think their company is making meaningful progress in DEI, compared with 74.6% of those who didn’t identify as a minority.

We also identified differences in answers when breaking responses down by industry. Those in Accounting / Finance are much more likely to answer “Yes” with 85.2% seeing progress in DEI, while those in Business / Consulting Services (67.9%) and HR / Recruiting (67.7%) are less likely to answer “Yes” than overall.

Different companies, different priorities

While it’s generally agreed that DEI is the right thing to do, that people are the drivers behind that sentiment, and that progress is being made to some degree, the level of prioritization differs especially across industries or company sizes.

For instance, those in IT / Technology / SaaS are the most likely of the seven industries with a significant sample size to say that “DEI is not a priority for my company” (13.3% versus 11% overall). Those in Education, albeit a much smaller sample size, are the only ones with a higher percentage to not consider DEI a priority in their company, at 15.2%.

Those in Manufacturing are much more likely (22.4%) to report that they are interested in DEI, but don’t know where to start – more than double the percentage of any other sector.

When breaking the numbers down by company size, the disparity between numbers is more striking. Nearly one quarter (23.5%) of those in companies with more than 5,000 full-time employees say DEI is not a priority in their company, while nearly half (47.2%) of those with 1-9 full-time employees report that DEI is a permanent part of their mission / vision / values.

This doesn’t necessarily suggest that enterprise-level companies are less interested – perhaps it’s that the approval process for new initiatives takes longer or is more convoluted in a larger organization, while smaller companies are more nimble in making new decisions.

It’s also noteworthy that exactly one-fifth (20%) of those in companies of 5,000 or more FTEs report that they didn’t know what the current state of DEI is in their company, while 22.6% of those in the 1-9 FTE bracket answered the same.

“[We’re] currently in a state of exploration. We’re investors with a global portfolio, so [we’re] looking at DEI both internally and […] what it means for the companies we’ve invested in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.“

Local and regional companies (28.1% combined) are more likely to report DEI as not being a priority than their national and multinational counterparts (18.1% combined).

We hope you find our survey results on DEI at work to be helpful to you both professionally and personally. Any thoughts or questions, please feel free to share them with us via Twitter, LinkedIn, or direct email (with “DEI report” in the subject heading). We want to hear from you!

Check out the other excerpts from our survey report on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

1. DEI at work: It’s time to take a deep dive
2. What does DEI mean for you and your business?
4. DEI leadership – and who’s actually doing the work?
5. Your DEI strategic plan: The road is fraught with hurdles
6. What are your top DEI initiatives for the workplace?
7. Your DEI recruitment strategy: What are your action items?
8. Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there

The post Is there meaningful progress in DEI right now? Depends on who you ask appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this chapter, we address the following questions:

• What are the biggest DEI workplace trends?
• What are the biggest challenges in DEI at work?
• How do you take action on it?

Being a natural extension of society, the workplace is affected as well. So, we surveyed a wide range of HR and business professionals near the end of 2020 to better understand the status of DEI right now in companies, what the priorities are at this point in time, the subsequent action items and goals, and the challenges that hinder DEI progress at work. Nearly 800 completed the survey.

Major takeaways on DEI at work include the following:

• A combined 63% of respondents list DEI as a priority in their organization, whether it’s some initiatives in place or a permanent part of their mission, vision, and values.
• An additional 17.6% say they’re interested – but either haven’t started or don’t know how to start.
• 22.4% of those in Manufacturing said they are interested, but don’t know where to start.
• A combined 23.6% of respondents say they started considering DEI in their business strategy in 2020.

• A near-unanimous 96.7% of females say DEI is personally important to them – while 12.3% of males say it is not.
• 28.8% of those in entry-level / individual contributor jobs think executives, directors and managers should own DEI progress, compared with 22% of the latter who think the same.
• Moral obligation is a top motivator in prioritizing DEI in a company, according to 50.6% of respondents. The other traditional motivators – business case and compliance – lag far behind.
• Buy-in, lack of diverse talent pool, and know-how are major challenges to DEI at work.

We identified four major themes from the survey results:

The democratic driver

The prioritization of DEI at work is largely a response to an amplified call for action at the grassroots level, especially from employees.

We talk, but can we walk?

While the voice for DEI at work is clear and largely unified, there are disconnects in who should be leading it and how.

The gender division

There are stark differences in responses by gender identity – particularly in terms of personal opinion and perceived progress.

Talent pool isn’t broad enough

For many respondents, talent availability is a major limiter in diversifying a workforce – this is especially the case in Manufacturing.

In short, there are optimistic – and very much actionable – lessons here that will help reconcile the chasm between “talking the talk” and “walking the walk” when establishing a tangible and sustainable DEI strategy in your organization.

We hope you find our survey results on DEI at work to be helpful to you both professionally and personally. Any thoughts or questions, please feel free to share them with us via Twitter, LinkedIn, or direct email (with “DEI report” in the subject heading). We want to hear from you!

Check out the other excerpts from our survey report on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

2. What does DEI mean for you and your business?
3. Is there meaningful progress in DEI? Depends on who you ask
4. DEI leadership – and who’s actually doing the work?
5. Your DEI strategic plan: The road is fraught with hurdles
6. What are your top DEI initiatives for the workplace?
7. Your DEI recruitment strategy: What are your action items?
8. Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there

The post DEI at work: It’s time to take a deep dive appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

“If you have diversity initiatives in your organization, that’s fantastic. If you have initiatives but you don’t know the ethnicity of your workforce and you don’t collect this data, then how do you know if any of those diversity initiatives work? How do you even know if you’ve got the right initiatives?” Siobhan asks.

So once you’ve collected the right data, then you’ll know exactly what initiatives to introduce. To make this happen, it’s crucial to understand your business priorities and needs.

D&I data collection

What kind of data does Multiverse collect from apprentices to track the progress of their own D&I business goals? For Multiverse, what’s important is taking an intersectional approach and having a holistic view of both the diversity of their apprentice candidate pool and their own workforce. Here is their typical data list:

• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Sexual orientation
• Neurodiversity
• Disability
• Education
• Socio-economic background
• Dependents and caring responsibilities

“It’s then important to be looking at the data across the apprentice and employee lifecycle,” Siobhan adds. “From the point of application, each stage of the recruitment process and then once hired we’re looking at outcomes like progression and retention.

“For our apprentices there are also educational outcomes like successful completion of their qualification, satisfaction with their programs and many more to ensure everyone has the opportunity to thrive.”

Siobhan highlights that sharing this data is optional for everyone:

“People always need the opportunity to be able to say ‘prefer not to say’ that might not be information that they’re comfortable to share with you. But for us, it’s about having a really holistic and intersectional understanding of who our staff and apprentices are so that we can build an inclusive environment and rigorously monitor our processes and systems for areas of improvement.”

The data will not only show you the way to increase diversity in your workforce, but it will also help you understand each person’s needs so that you can build an inclusive culture.

“All of these different things are what make me, me and are what kind of impact how I experienced the world, whether that’s privilege, whether that’s prejudice or whether that’s systemic disadvantage that’s taking place in the different processes and systems that we have across education and the workforce,” says Siobhan.

D&I data contextualization

So if Multiverse’s mission is to democratize access to top careers and lifelong learning how do they treat data such as socio-economic background and education? In this video Siobhan explains how they contextualize data in the application process, through a contextual flagging system and academic out-performer status:

These data contextualization features support young people who are underrepresented in the sectors Multiverse works within or who are facing barriers to employment, by helping recruiters and hiring managers to understand each person’s unique achievements and what challenges they had to overcome to meet their goals in a given context. This approach allows them to recruit apprentices more based on future potential rather than prior attainment.

“We recruit based on five competencies, which include things like grit, resilience, conscientiousness, intent, how much does the individual want it, interpersonal skills, and communication,” explains Siobhan. “By looking at those things, we feel that you can more holistically assess what an individual is going to bring to your company. That’s what really shapes our processes. That’s us.”

D&I data strategy: measuring success

To grasp how successful your D&I actions are and what you need to improve, data will also prove to be life-saving in the process. Here’s what to do:

Set clear goals

For Siobhan, the more precise your goals are, the easier will be to track their progress.

“You need to really pinpoint what you’re trying to achieve,” says Siobhan. “You then need to look at the data. What is your baseline? Set yourself a target. Look at your process. What are the initiatives that you’re going to put in place?”

Once you choose those initiatives, you can test what you think is going to move the needle on that specific target. Siobhan adds:

“You do that for a period of time and then have a look at the data again. What is the data like since the baseline, when you didn’t have those initiatives?”

In short, it’s a process that you have to vigorously monitor and improve over time.

Run frequent surveys

Running internal employee surveys is another way to collect data on how successful and suitable your D&I approach is. For instance, Multiverse conducts bi-annual surveys to measure inclusion:

“We have two kinds of key questions around inclusion, and there are two statements where people can agree and disagree and share their views. One is that I feel included at work and one is that I feel respected at work. So that’s something that we measure over time. We also do pulse surveys that are much more about wellbeing”.

At Multiverse, they also ask apprentices if they have access to the resources they need to do their work and how they could help set them up for success.

“We’ve been really proactively pulse surveying to understand, do people have all of the resources that they need to do their job? Do people have an appropriate working environment so that they can really do their job? And if any of the answers to those questions are no, what can we do to support them?”

Thus, they create a safe and inclusive space for everyone, by taking their individual needs into account. And that’s what inclusion is really about.

Step by step…

Data is critical for Siobhan – and should be for you, too – to ensure that diversity and inclusion initiatives count and really make a difference in a company. This D&I data strategy also gives valuable, tangible information to hiring experts about how they attract young people with their messaging and what they can improve to support all potential candidates going forward. But, Siobhan advises, patience is a virtue here.

“Diversity and inclusion is not an overnight fix. It does take time and it’s very much systems based. So it’s about understanding what your system is and then proactively disrupting any bias that could be taking place at any point in that system. So you kind of need that structured process of reviewing to be able to see whether with the data that you started with, whether that is changing with the initiatives that you are putting in place or not.”

So identify your D&I goals based on your business needs, determine your measurements for progress, and regularly collect data to see how your initiative evolves. The more concrete the goal you set is, the easier it will be for you to monitor it, and tweak your strategy as needed. And remember – take it step by step. Progress takes time, but with commitment, it’ll happen.

The post Looking to improve your D&I data strategy? Learn from Multiverse’s example appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is inclusion in the workplace?

Inclusion at work refers to an organization’s intended effort and actions to integrate everyone equally in the workplace, no matter their differences. Inclusion initiatives aim to increase psychological safety and the feeling of belonging, and allow everyone to feel accepted and valued.

According to ZeShaan, fostering inclusivity in business is not just the right thing to do – it offers a competitive advantage compared to organizations that don’t have an inclusion plan.

“Inclusivity leads to diversity, leads to innovation, leads to success,” says ZeShaan. “The inclusivity leads to diversity of perspective, which by proxy means you limit your blind spots, which therefore mean that you are able to innovate further, which gives you a competitive advantage.”

He’s quick to point to the positive impact this can have on the bottom line of a business.

“If you have that competitive advantage, you are going to succeed by whatever metric of success your company chooses, whether it’s revenue, whether it’s market share, whatever it might be. Ergo, inclusivity leads to success as well.”

In brief, inclusion of diverse perspectives and characteristics leads to higher performance and innovation, and benefits both organizations and employees. This has been widely documented.

It’s up to business leaders

ZeShaan believes that decision makers play a key role in promoting inclusivity, as they can carry the message across different company levels. In ZeShaan’s own words:

“It’s all well and good having a diverse workforce and having representation and while representation is important, if you’re not actually at the table when decisions are being made and you’re able to not just be at the table – but also articulate and be comfortable sharing that perspective without fear, without retribution, without any negative connotations – then that means that you’re not actually being truly inclusive of diverse perspectives.”

As a team or business leader, you should remember that not all people have access to the same resources. Be aware of this, and explore your own blind spots and unconscious biases, through self-education and reflection.

For example, ZeShaan acknowledges the burden a typical business hierarchy draws to employees from underprivileged backgrounds to climb the business ladder.

“All of the systems that we have in our society from government to education to policing is built on a structure of hierarchy and certain people at the top have that privilege and certain people lower down have to fight tooth and nail, just to make that step up,” ZeShaan says.

“That’s what needs to be dismantled. And that is inclusivity. You’re dismantling that system of hierarchy and actually all things are equal, all people are equal.”

Take real action

Once business and HR leaders define what measures they want to take to foster inclusion while taking organizational needs and characteristics into account, they should communicate the action plan with managers and employees in a simple and digestible way.

“You don’t need to overcomplicate it,” says ZeShaan.

But what you definitely should do is to ensure that your actions are proactive, not just performative.

“Make sure that their [leaders’] actions don’t just support, but supersede their words because it’s incredibly easy to talk the talk right now, because it’s in the current zeitgeist and en vogue to do so,” adds ZeShaan. “Deeds, not words. That’s the important thing. And hold people, hold leaders particularly accountable.”

One way to get closer to your goals is to create a culture of communication. If employees feel psychologically safe and valued, they’ll be more likely to discuss their needs and sort out potential problems with their managers and teammates going forward.

“You’re creating a culture of proactive communication,” adds ZeShaan. “And that’s essentially what it boils down to: People having the environment where they can speak openly, but with tact. Understanding and having empathy and compassion, but then also being tolerant of other perspectives.”

To help employees from underrepresented groups to feel they belong, encourage them to form diversity groups where they can discuss their concerns openly in a safe space. Then, invite the rest of employees to those discussions:

The “remote” challenges to inclusion

When asked how easy it is to promote inclusion in remote workplaces, ZeShaan was a bit skeptical. He believes that as humans we are not built to be remote and isolated. He explains:

“We are made to connect and interact and not primarily through video. But all of those other visual or other senses in terms of body language – even though we don’t notice it, smell and all of these other aspects, these non-verbal cues – we’re missing out on [those]. And actually, this is why it’s been so hard for people because we are fundamentally built to be interconnected social beings, right?”

In a remote workplace, we’re missing out on little moments that create human connection. This makes it harder to detect who might feel left out or disconnected from their team. Not everything is readily visible in a remote setup, including cases of discrimination or employee burnout. That’s why you have to ensure that you can replicate organic interactions and check-ins virtually.

“My role is not just as a leader for you to be able to speak to me but to speak to each other,” says ZeShaan. “To create that platform. Now it might be a weekly stand-up, a Monday morning. It might be on Friday afternoon. We get together for half an hour to check in as a team.”

It’s also worth finding ways to encourage employees to connect with different teams in the workplace. They might find people with characteristics or personalities they identify more with to nurture that feeling of belonging. ZeShaan explains:

“What a lot of people have said is they’re only really spending time with their teams, which is great. But if you have no real interactions with other teams or departments, but when you were in the office you would occasionally have a coffee or you’d go for lunch with some of the team or you’d be in the same place so you have those interactions, you’re becoming more and more isolated even within your company.”

Be flexible and open-minded

Remote work can be very beneficial for employers who want to increase diversity in their business, as they can expand their talent pool across common borders. But will they still be able to ensure inclusion for people from different backgrounds and locations? And can anyone thrive in a remote setting?

To overcome this challenge, ZeShaan suggests that businesses should offer flexible arrangements around remote working. For example, if somebody wants to work hundred percent remotely, you can allow them to and suggest some amendments, such as visiting the office once per quarter, to sync with the team if needed.

“Companies will need to be, again, inclusive of people with diverse perspectives and requirements,” concludes ZeShaan.

Inclusion in the workplace: the road ahead

More and more leaders are starting to realize the significance of inclusivity in our society and workplaces, so it’s best to act now – if you haven’t done so yet. Take ZeShaan’s insights for starters and see how you can tailor them to your own business needs, especially if you’re transitioning to a remote workplace.

As for business leaders, remember how impactful your voice is for employees and set the right tone. You might be surprised at the benefits this brings to your business and bottom line.

The post How leadership and remote work can impact inclusion in the workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

“I think a lot of organizations are now realizing, they have missed out a whole, big chunk of diversity and inclusion,” says Chikere. “And when they look into their businesses, there is a blatant lack of representation at all levels but especially at mid to senior level – C Suite. So organizations are really sitting up and saying, we need to really address this.”

Data seems to confirm this observation. According to a workplace discrimination survey from by EEOC, 1,889,631 discrimination complaints were filed in the US from 1997 to 2018, and 34% of were related to race, based on an additional report from 2017.

Would those numbers be the same if we educated ourselves more on racial discrimination, diversity and inclusion? How different workplaces would be if we stood up for minorities when needed? Chikere explains how we can become a part of the anti-racism solution, by becoming true allies.

The definition of allies at work

What does being an ally in the workplace mean? Chikere starts with a quick but comprehensive definition:

“An ally is someone who uses their power and privilege to advocate for others. Allies are not members of marginalized groups. Allies support Black, Brown and minority employees, colleagues and friends by understanding what they go through. Allies educate themselves on issues that affect Black, Brown and minority people, speaking out on injustices, educating colleagues, friends and family about being an ally and acknowledging their privilege and being actively anti-racist.”

So how can White employees turn into allies for racial and ethnic minority colleagues? It all starts by acknowledging their heavy loads:

“Allies support and make an effort to better understand the struggle,” Chikere notes. “Allies are powerful voices amongst marginalized ones. And the reason why I say that is more than likely, an ally would have friends and family who look like them, that they can go and talk to about being an ally. And obviously, the key thing is, we need more people to take action and stand up.”

A privileged employee who wishes to make an impact should find the right way to advocate for marginalized groups. Chikere says that the conversation about allyship in the workplace in most cases starts with human resources, team managers or external DEI partners and needs the buy-in of senior leaders. It’s not always easy at first, but this discussion should start as soon as possible. Chikere reminds us:

“If you have minority employees within your organization, talk to them. What do they want? But I think the thing is, not to leave it on the minority employee to lead these initiatives. That is not their job. Their job is not to educate people or lead the initiative.”

The sensitivity of this matter can make those conversations uncomfortable for many, but this is not a sufficient reason to avoid them. We should remember that change happens at the edge of our comfort zones.

How to foster allyship in the workplace

According to Chikere, allyship should start with self-education. Before forming allyship groups, learn what type of struggles and injustices minority groups face at work. This will help you understand their needs and start constructive conversations with them. Chikere explains:

“To be an ally you have to educate yourselves. Listen to Black, Brown and minority colleagues, employees, friends, and voices. Listen to what they have to say. Have conversations with other White people, family, friends, employees, about being an ally and help educate them.”

She also states that to become a good ally you must acknowledge your privilege and be “color brave rather than color blind”. When you realize how privileged you are compared to other people, you’ll feel more obliged to contribute to the change.

It’s also critical to learn other mechanisms that might block the progress, for example, the “bystander effect”, a phenomenon during which people are less likely to address a negative incident, such as an act of racial injustice, if many people witness it at the same time.

One possible explanation on an organizational level is that observers may leave it up to employees of greater authority, with stronger bonds with management to act, and avoid potential conflict. This is an implication that might distract us from being allies and to prevent it, we ought to acknowledge it. Same goes with unconscious biases we might hold against people who look different to us.

Once you accept the blessings of your own privilege and the duty that comes with it to support marginalized groups, it’s time for action. Start by using your exact position to amplify discrimination and make sure to promote racial representantion and inclusion in the organization. For example, if you’re a recruiter, you can start by diversifying your talent pipeline:

“What is stopping you as a recruiter from diversifying your pipeline?” wonders Chikere. “Getting more diverse candidates? Why is it the case that we are hiring the same type of people? That really has got to stop. So I think the key thing is, as an ally, you really have to go out there and educate yourself.”

One way to diversify your talent pool, according to Chikere, is to search for diverse candidates in different places to avoid getting the same type of people. Advertise your jobs through diverse channels, highlight diversity on your website, and teach your hiring team how to avoid biases. These will be proactive approaches to diversity and inclusion.

The difference between performative vs. proactive action

With this suggestion, Chikere makes it clear that being proactive when it comes to allyship and inclusivity is far more beneficial than sticking to performative actions. For example, joining the Blackout Tuesday initiative on social media without introducing any other organizational changes – also known as slacktivism – is performative and not useful in the long run. Chikere clarifies:

“During George Floyd’s murder and the BLM protests, a lot of organizations put out solidarity statements and took to putting up black squares on social media. Great. Amazing. But it’s the case of, what are you doing after that?”

But many businesses decided to go to the proactive direction by introducing drastic changes, such as increasing Black managerial representation or creating DEI advisory boards. These efforts will hopefully serve a long-lasting effect going forward.

Apparently, a leader’s role is crucial in promoting allyship in the workplace. When C-suite level and managers build a psychologically safe environment, minority groups find it easier to express their needs and feel more accepted.

In a nutshell, if you want to become a true ally at work, start by educating yourself more on diversity, equity and inclusion. Learn about racism and injustice and try to empathize with underprivileged groups more. If you are in a leadership position, remember that your responsibility is bigger; as a role model in business, you need to embrace the anti-racism and allyship conversations and solutions at their core.

Below, you’ll find some book suggestions from Allyship BookClub that’ll help you start this meaningful journey:

1. Subtle Acts of Exclusion: How to Understand, Identify, and Stop Microaggressions by Tiffany Jana and Michael Baran.
2. Why I’m No longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
3. The Purpose of Power: How we come together when we fall apart by Alicia Garza.
4. White Fragility: Why it’s Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.
5. How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi.

The post Allyship in the workplace: Be color brave, not color blind appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The post Know your unknowns: Check your unconscious bias when screening candidates appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• Chikere Igbokwe – Founder and D&I Consultant at Inclucive and Allyship
• Siobhan Randell – Inclusion and Diversity Lead at WhiteHat
• ZeShaan Shamsi – Partner at The People Collective

Below, you’ll find some of their most valuable points around representation at work, DEI data analytics, diverse recruitment and inclusivity.

Embrace uncomfortable conversations

The Black Lives Matter movement gained solid ground in 2020 in response to widely publicized videos of George Flloyd’s death in late May. Racial discrimination became the core focus of DEI conversations. These conversations are tough, especially for businesses that don’t have diverse talent.

According to Chikere, that absence of representation, especially when it comes to race, is one of the main reasons why DEI initiatives fail or are hard to follow for many:

“How can you talk about race if you don’t have any representation?” Chikere posed. “If you don’t have people who look different from you, how do you know how to talk about it? I think that’s the issue that a lot of organizations they say are really having. A lot of the hiring managers, a lot of the recruiters, I think, the issue that I see all the time is that people tend to hire the same type of people.”

With no representation it’s difficult to get to the core of these delicate issues as most people who are part of a minority find this topic uncomfortable. But this is not an excuse, says Chikere:

“I think we really need to have an open and honest conversation about hiring black, brown, people that don’t particularly look like you.”

Your attitude is key in this phase. For ZeShaan, accepting that you’re not an expert and that you’ll probably fail at times is crucial to discuss those issues in an open way:

“Brené Brown has a wonderful turn of phrase and it can be applied here and to many things, which is, ‘I’m not here to be right, I’m here to do right.’ Just going in with that kind of humble, vulnerable mentality to say, listen, we’re trying to unpack such a complex thing. […] You don’t have to have all the answers.”

Use data to back up DEI initiatives

All panelists agreed that a data-driven approach is mandatory for a successful DEI strategy. Before implementing any practices or initiatives, look closely at data you’ve collected of your workforce and job applicants.

Then, invest your time and energy exactly where you see fit to drive evidence-based changes, as Siobhan suggests:

“If you have initiatives but you don’t know the ethnicity of your workforce and you don’t collect this data, then how do you know if any of those diversity initiatives work? How do you even know if you’ve got the right initiatives?” Siobhan asks.

“For me, [kind of] before you are reactive, and perhaps book a workshop or kind of put together something so you feel like you’re doing something, it’s really important to actually have that really thorough internal look at the company.”

Organizations should also organize data in a meaningful way to achieve representation. Using acronyms such as BAME – a mainly British acronym meaning “Black, Asian and minority ethnic” – to group different minority populations is misleading and limiting, according to Chikere:

“I think the issues that lots of organizations are having is that there’s no data. We use acronyms, the acronym BAME, as catch-all tick boxes. I think the problem is, how do you identify the individuals within your organization? I hate the word BAME, because black, Asian, minority, ethnic is the case of it’s white against everyone else.”

Instead of simply subscribing to BAME, think carefully about the categorization of data you’re looking to collect. Once you have the right data, you’ll be able to restructure your sourcing and recruitment processes to track DEI progress. You will also be able to form a business case based on evidence and connect it to organizational success.

In ZeShaan’s own words:

“Inclusivity leads to diversity, leads to innovation, leads to success. The inclusivity leads to diversity of perspective, which by proxy means you limit your blind spots, which therefore mean that you are able to innovate further, which gives you a competitive advantage.

“If you have that competitive advantage, you are going to succeed by whatever metric of success your company chooses, whether it’s revenue, whether it’s market share, whatever it might be.”

Revisit the recruitment process

So how can you use data to create a diverse recruiting process? Siobhan explains how WhiteHat’s team contextualizes data in each recruiting stage and gives equal hiring chances to entry-level talent from various backgrounds. With a dedicated sourcing team and partnership with charities, they reach out to young people who are not in education or employment.

Siobhan explains how they help young people move down the recruiting funnel successfully and how they reframe applicants’ achievements based on context:

For Chikere, educating hiring managers around DEI should be a priority. When everyone is on the same page, they can boost DEI initiatives and promote diverse recruiting. Here are Chikere’s top techniques:

• Make sure job adverts are inclusive
• Use diverse job boards to attract different candidates
• Ensure your interview panel is diverse
• Collaborate with recruitment agencies that prioritize DEI

ZeShaan agrees with Chikere’s point on the value of training hiring managers – sometimes their expectations around job fits are so narrow focused that there is no room for candidates from diverse backgrounds to stand out:

He elaborates:

“Often what I’ve found, […] it’s the expectation of what hiring managers want. ‘I need somebody with a first from Oxford in computer science’, and my first question is, ‘Why?’”

“What we actually want to challenge is capability rather than just the qualification. Actually you don’t need somebody with a first from Oxford. What you need is somebody who is able to solve this problem,” ZeShaan says.

But can companies expand their talent pools to reach diverse people, especially if they don’t have a large value proposition? ZeShaan explains his sourcing approach, which he divides into inbound and outbound:

Siobhan adds that, at WhiteHat, they evaluate candidates based on potential and not prior academic achievement, which if often a misleading performance indicator:

“We recruit on five competencies, which include things like grit, resilience, conscientiousness, intent, how much does the individual want it, interpersonal skills, and communication. By looking at those things, we feel that you can more holistically assess what an individual is going to bring to your company. That’s kind of what really shapes our processes.”

Create an inclusive environment

Hiring employees with diverse characteristics is not enough if they don’t feel included and respected at work. Chikere believes in the power of DEI training and in the importance of promoting allyship at work to ensure diverse talent feel safe.

Siobhan puts emphasis on the role of leaders and managers in promoting inclusivity. They should act as inclusion gatekeepers and get all employees together on this journey – it’s not a single HR professional’s role to safeguard DEI for the whole business.

“That responsibility for inclusion, for living it every day, sits with every single individual,” Siobhan explains.

“How are you fostering that sense of ownership from one of your frontline devs, right through to one of your operations managers, right through to kind of somebody in finance? How do they really understand what their role in inclusion is? Because they’re going to have more daily interaction with colleagues than your diversity and inclusion lead, so it can’t just sit with them.”

ZeShaan believes that diversity groups have two facets. First, the diversity groups that identify with the same characteristics gather in an inclusive safe space where they discuss openly about their experiences and concerns. Then, at the second part they include everyone else harmoniously in this discussion.

According to ZeShaan, diversity groups should not work in isolation:

“When people feel that they’ve been part of the solution, you don’t have to sell it to them. You don’t have to armor up, and it doesn’t have to be a ‘who shouts the loudest’. If that works in harmony multiple times, you’re going to have people that are just going to be across all those diversity groups.”

DEI in the workplace – the time has come…

Long story short: if you’re about to set up a quick plan to introduce DEI initiatives into your business, you probably have it wrong. It’s a long-term game that requires thorough research and training.

So talk with experts, get your leaders onboard and most importantly, educate yourselves. You won’t impact the world with a few performative actions that seem just right; change needs to happen from the inside and throughout, to have that important lasting impact on the overall company culture.

The post DEI in the workplace: Three experts discuss appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That’s why we’re turning to Fadjanie Cadet, LEK Consulting’s Diversity Recruitment and Engagement Lead, to talk about actionable ways for you to succeed in your diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

She’ll talk us through…

• How these initiatives have changed over time
• What makes it unique now during these times
• How to start and make it sustainable for the future

The post How to build up your DEI initiative appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this webinar, we turned to DEI experts, Chikere Igbokwe, Executive Recruiter and Diversity & Inclusion Activist at Macmillan Davies, Siobhan Randell, Inclusion and Diversity Lead at WhiteHat, and ZeShaan Shamsi, Partner at The People Collective. They’ll walk us through how to launch and build a strategy that is sustainable for the future. They’ll break down where to start and will share actionable changes you can implement in your recruitment process and company culture right now. And bring your questions, we’ll leave plenty of time to ask the experts.

Tune in to hear the experts discuss how to:

• Dive into quantitative and qualitative data across your sourcing channels, recruitment process and workforce
• Identify immediate and long-term changes that your organization can take to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce
• Generate buy-in from your leadership team and across your organization

The post How to build a sustainable DEI strategy appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The post Need to build up your DEI initiative? Learn from an expert appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The conversation around remote work has shifted from short term to long term planning with companies looking to establish stable remote work policies and maintain business continuity.

For many businesses going fully remote is the most viable option, however it is not an easy decision to execute. Business leaders from HR, to Legal and Finance must work together to weigh the complex considerations that go with a move to fully remote work.

In this webinar Shopify, GitLab, Hired and Workable will discuss how they’ve transitioned to fully remote businesses and how to successfully navigate through this change.

Key Takeaways

• Legal, financial and operational factors to consider
• Cross functional partners to include in your decision
• Managing through change as a team

The post Managing the cross-functional transition to fully remote work appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Your organization has announced a hiring slow down during the COVID-19 pandemic. So what do you do?

Advanced People Operations teams are focused on projects that will impact their organization in the future. One area of focus, aided by a shift to a more distributed workforce, is increased diversity and inclusion initiatives.

DE&I goals won’t go away, and as companies become more familiar with remote hiring, diverse pools of candidates will be more accessible than ever.

In this webinar we’ll explore how to impact your DE&I goals in the near term and lay the foundation to source, recruiting and hire diverse talent in the future.

Key Takeaways

• Actionable near term DE&I initiatives
• Operationalizing pay equity and total compensation
• Setting the foundation for diversity recruiting

The post Building a Diverse Distributed Workforce appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We live in a diverse business world. There’s not just variability in our workforce, there is also diversity in the customers we want to attract, in the messages we share or consume via various platforms, and the markets we plan to expand to.

Inclusive leadership helps balance all these elements – inclusive leaders adapt quickly to diverse scenarios and alternate perspectives with an open, non-judgmental mind to bring on the best results possible. And research shows that, when done right, there are many benefits; teams perform better and more collaboratively, and make better overall decisions.

With businesses increasingly optimizing their diversity and inclusion activities, inclusive leadership is more relevant now than ever. No matter how great your company’s diversity metrics get – be that in new hires you make or deals you close – if you don’t have an inclusive environment that embraces all these differences and creates a workspace where everyone can bring their true selves to work, your D&I initiatives will fail. That’s why inclusive leaders are needed to set the right tone.

What are the top qualities of inclusive leaders?

According to Deloitte, these are the top strengths inclusive leaders possess:

1. They’re loyal ambassadors of diversity and inclusion – they never miss a chance to spread the word of D&I significance at work.
2. They accept that they’re vulnerable and show it.
3. They combat old-fashioned paternalistic leadership styles.
4. They’re aware of their own biases and challenge their habitual patterns.
5. They’re excellent communicators – i.e. they’re curious and great listeners.
6. They understand and adapt to various cultural norms.
7. They’re team players, eager to help and do what’s best for the team.

Tips to boost inclusive leadership at work

When recruiting for a senior role or promoting someone to a managerial position, it’s good to keep these traits in mind. There are also ways to reinforce these characteristics over time. Here are some best practices for inclusive leaders:

• Attend an inclusive leadership training: Through certain activities (e.g. storytelling) you can learn what the most triggering biases are for you and ways to overcome them. You can recall and practice them on a regular basis to stay bias-free.
• Find a mentor: Talk to someone with more experience in the area, and who has excelled in managing diverse teams. It doesn’t have to be your own manager – it can be an external source you trust and look up to for their inclusive leadership behaviors and skills.
• Ask for feedback: You can use your 1:1 meetings to discuss openly with your teammates how inclusive your managerial approach is. Do they feel valued as a member of their team? Do they feel like they can ping you when something is wrong? Leaders should not take all these for granted – it’s easy to get lost in translation when talking about biases.

The post What is inclusive leadership? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

On the flip side, there are still unconscious traps you could stumble on. Image and sound are powerful, after all. When you see a candidate for the first time and get cues from how they behave, talk, look and dress like you might get unconsciously triggered. No matter how trained or aware you are, biases will always surface and may sidetrack your attention away from what matters.

Video interview biases: most common risks

So, imagine this scenario: you’re about to evaluate 20 video interviews for an open role in marketing. You’ve handed over four interview questions to candidates, one generic (e.g. “Describe yourself and your career goals in two minutes”) and three job-related (e.g. “What metrics would you use to measure our social media’s performance?”). Each item has unlimited preparation time and the answer is set to a maximum of two minutes.

Despite those given constraints, there is variability in interview answers you receive. Some candidates took the whole two minutes to answer the questions while others spent less than 60 seconds on their responses. The actual responses varied, as well, and of course, you can still see and hear each candidate.

In brief, here are some tricky parts that could trigger video interview biases in this case:

1. Protected characteristics are now evident

What you controlled for during the blind hiring stage will be now visible. You need to be careful with this information and how they might unconsciously impact your evaluation. The umbrella of protected characteristics is huge.

It’s not always the obvious traits that trigger us, such as someone’s skin color or dress code. It could also be that a candidate’s accent might sound funny to your ears, or you might take for granted that a 50-year-old candidate won’t be a perfect fit for a senior position at a dynamic start-up environment. All those elements could be misleading.

2. Non-verbal cues can affect your judgment

Sitting in front of a camera presenting yourself to someone you cannot see is not always that easy for interviewees. Some candidates will feel confident and some won’t. However, this is not necessarily an indicator of how they’ll perform their day-to-day tasks – unless the role entails presenting at a high level or communicating in a similar setup as part of their work (e.g. call centers, telemarketing).

Beware of these no-verbal characteristics and how they impact you. There are some common video interview red flags that might mess you up during evaluation – a noisy background or a multicolored top could sway your judgment in ways you aren’t initially aware of.

3. Evaluating video interviews is a rather new thing

Since one-way video-interviews are relatively new to the recruitment landscape, there’s still a lot to discover going forward. We’re still learning and there are likely more biases that we haven’t identified right away.

Picture this in the above-mentioned scenario: you have two final qualified candidates – one answered their job-related question in 30 seconds while the other’s answer took up the full two minutes. If you don’t pay that much attention to each response, you may prefer the one with the longer answer as they had “more to say”.

But the reality could be that the first candidate had a more accurate answer and cut down the fluff. They were more direct and to the point. For certain roles – let’s say, for editors or public speakers– that would be a good skill to have.

Tips to reduce one-way video interview biases

So, as any other recruiting solution that you use to improve diversity in your business, if you don’t use video interviews the right way, there will still be some stumbling blocks.

No tool and feature will enable you to you to directly succeed in ensuring diversity – rather, it will be your mindset towards diversity that will do the job and your persistent attempts to establish diversity in the core of your business…
Click To Tweet

To build a strong approach from beginning to end, track all biases that could surface along the way – whether that’s judging a candidate for a facial piercing for “being unprofessional” to ruling out a single mother at the decision stage, taking for granted that she is not going to be as efficient at the job, with so many personal responsibilities at hand.

Here are some first steps you could follow to structure the screening process in a way that improves your diversity efforts before and during the video-interviewing stage:

Plan your early-stage screening

If you post your job ad to several job boards you broaden your sources for candidates – and in turn, the opportunity to diversify your candidate pool. You can also share the job ad through multiple social networks and find candidates where they usually hang out.

Use a blind hiring software at an early screening stage to eliminate unconscious biases from resumes and social media profiles, such as photo, age, nationality, etc. Later on, when you review a video interview, remember that content and attitude matters more than non-verbal cues and other physical traits or elements.

Conduct pre-employment assessments

Implementing pre-employment assessments is also crucial when screening applicants. They produce a mostly accurate result on job-related competencies and help spot what matters the most for a specific role.

Whether that’s an external assessment or an assignment you built yourself, it’s better to evaluate them before or coupled with video interviews to make sure that what you saw and heard during the video assessment doesn’t impact your judgment and your full attention is concentrated on those important job-related factors.

Structure questions wisely

What you really want to learn about a candidate from their one-way video is if they have the right skills for the role. To spot them, make sure to address the top must-have skills in the questions.

To achieve that, design interview questions that don’t require further explanation. For example:

• Describe a time when you faced a problem in project management and how you dealt with it.
• What is your biggest achievement in content marketing strategy?

It would be unfortunate to lose out on a great candidate because of an unclear or vague question that needs further explanation. You also must use the same job-related questions for every interview to make sure that you evaluate all candidates equally.

Share video-interview tips

It would be also helpful, both for candidates and you as an evaluator, to share some video interview tips with candidates so that they have clear expectations and useful resources to prepare the right way. For example, share some tech and troubleshooting tips with candidates to set up their gear.

Remember to try and ignore the background noise or distractions that could trigger unconscious biases, whether that’s the wall behind them or poor audio/video quality. Focus on answers and attitude.

Here, you can find top video interview tips for candidates that will help you unify the process even more, and prepare all interviewees equally for success.

Train recruiters and hiring managers

All hiring managers and recruiters should be well aware of the video interview diversity risks and biases they could come across with. Apart from not discriminating based on protected characteristics, they should learn how to evaluate answers properly, based on related competency and other screening assessments (e.g. resume, pre-employment assessments, etc.).

It’s important to be aware of some of the common video interview red flags mentioned above, such as poor body language, that are not necessarily valid. Once assessors become aware of those mental traps and how to detect them early, your road to diversity will be on a safe track.

You could also design a D&I training to help your employees understand their personal triggering factors that could enforce biases.

Remember – biases are everywhere

Dear George, as you understand, one-way video interviews will help you improve your company’s diversity, but you have to utilize them carefully and combine them with other features and practices. Tech and tools are not going to be the single factor in this effort; there needs to be a strong diversity strategy in place, in every step of the recruiting funnel – and one-way video interviews can only help you get closer to making your D&I vision a reality.

The post One-way video interview biases: potential risks for diversity appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this blog post, you can find the skeleton of a diversity and inclusion training program that you can use with adjustments within your company.

And to sort things out, we gathered practices you can execute in three different levels:

1. Personal level
2. Team level
3. Company-wide level

Bonus fact: Did you know that employee turnover is lower in diverse environments?

1. Make diversity and inclusion training personal

First and foremost, to be inclusive, each of us has to understand in depth what diversity means, both cognitively – i.e. what it is – and emotionally – i.e. how does a person feel when discriminated against. Once this is clear, employees could kick off their journey of self-reflection.

Let the lesson begin

Start diversity and inclusion training by setting up an educational course for employees. This can be either a pre-designed course or even some slides put together in a video.

Friendly reminder: No one likes to be forced to do anything they don’t want to do or they’re not comfortable doing. Be mindful of that. Try to use a friendly tone, simple and clear language and most importantly, make this training optional.

For this course, you can set goals and choose strategies that work for you, aiming to develop a holistic approach to D&I. You can use multiple media to address the matter and even prepare a questionnaire for a quick comprehension check afterwards.

Cognitive goals:

• Learn definitions: What is diversity? Inclusion? What are the different types of diversity? What are unconscious biases and what types are there?
• Get familiar with facts and stats: Anti-discrimination laws, and survey findings around D&I.

Emotional goals:

• Develop empathy: How discriminative actions affect people?
• Share stories through videos: Social experiments, TEDx talks.
• Initiate self-reflection: Ask optional questions and collect data anonymously. Questions could be, for example:
  • Have you ever witnessed an incident where discrimination or prejudice took place? Explain.
  • Have you ever been victimized or felt like a victim of discrimination? Explain.
  • Have you ever wronged someone – or felt like you did – due to unconscious biases? Elaborate.

It is also important to clarify in the invitation email that diversity and inclusion training is not an evaluation and it is not going to be used against any employee in a harmful way. Don’t forget to reassure your colleagues that all data collected and shared will be anonymous during the whole process.

In short: this is a safe space designed for educational purposes, and nothing beyond that.

Be inclusive

After an employee completes the first educational part, express your availability and interest in a personal open conversation with anyone who is willing and interested. Keeping your door wide open to everyone – whether they have completed the training or not – , is, in fact, an inclusive practice in itself.

When an employee enters your space, you should immediately grab the only and most powerful weapon needed: The ability to listen. Be it feedback, thoughts or even a personal experience, remember that everyone deserves to be heard and you should not only give this opportunity to your peers, but also encourage them to speak up – again, making sure they understand they’re speaking in a safe space.

You can also keep in mind the following questions to warm up the conversation:

• How was your experience of the course?
• What did you like the most/least?
• Do you have any thoughts or feelings to share?

And although it’s good to be prepared and have a plan for your conversation, it’s not a panacea. Open conversations are far different from interviews or work meetings – although it’s good to have a set of questions ready in a pinch to keep the conversation going, take care not to control the interaction.

Just grab a cup of coffee with your coworker and listen.

2. Work with teams

Once you have completed the first level of diversity and inclusion training, you can then proceed to group learning practices; During this stage, the main focus is on increasing awareness and empathy with interactive games or exercises, and discussions.

Get-ready tips:

• Set SMART goals and metrics to build an evaluation form to fill out after each session (e.g. # of participants who shared personal story, # of participants who did not talk).
• If possible, build groups of 5-6 people from these forms, preferably with diverse backgrounds (gender, race, role seniority, etc.).
• Find a quiet place where you can all form a circle with your chairs.
• Select 1-2 quick icebreaker games to loosen up any potential tension and build an environment of trust.

Note: In these practices you can start by moderating the group as the facilitator of the exercise – but as people start to loosen up and participate further, you can gradually give the controls to other people, who have already experienced and are able to lead the way.

Storytelling

Set the scene:

• Arrange chairs in a circle around a box and encourage everyone to take a seat.
• Explain that each team member will have to draw a random card from this box that they should read only when their turn is up.
• Ask for a volunteer to read the index of the card.

On each card is an anecdote about an incident in which discrimination occurred. In other words, it’s a story.

A quick side note: Storytelling is one of the most powerful techniques in adult learning and, in this case, the perfect tool to help identify discriminatory behaviors and craft inclusive consciousness.

Did you know? Three in five of us have at least witnessed or experienced discrimination firsthand.

Write down – in your own words, changing names and any other identifiable factors – some of the stories you collected anonymously via questionnaire in the previous phase. You can also add incognito stories of friends, family, or famous people who have shared their own stories, keeping in mind they need to remain unidentifiable. You can even share your own personal experience.

After each member reads the story out loud, ask this person, and afterwards the whole group, to express an emotion or thought in response to the story. Ask them: – “How do you feel about this story? Why?” In some cases, you can let a conversation flow freely from there. There may be some interesting revelations.

When those who want to share their card with others have done so, thank everybody for joining in the session and express your availability and willingness to hear and discuss more if someone wishes.

When you’re left alone, fill out the evaluation form you have prepared.

Note: Try to choose stories showing different types of discrimination (gender, age, background, etc.) in different environment (workplace, university etc.). Be careful not to expose any employee, employer or institution. What we are interested in is understanding what diversity is and what it looks like in real life, so as to promote inclusion.

3. Build an open culture

Even though companies can benefit from diversity and inclusion training programs, it is essential to understand that training alone is not enough. Workplace diversity requires an open culture which not only operates under the guidelines of EEO, but also includes daily practices and activities oriented indirectly towards inclusion.

Let’s take a look at some of these.

Time to play

Who said playing is only for children?

Gamified activities boost employee performance, encourage belonging, and when it comes to training, increase motivation levels.

What you can do is find or make some quizzes with simple online tools and spread the fun across random generated teams throughout your company. You can also adapt those quizzes to your specific needs and make them either for:

• Fun (e.g. trivia quiz game)
• Training (e.g. product-related)
• Educational (e.g. D&I)

Blind coffee date

What more brings people close together than sharing a cup of coffee? When it comes to larger corporate environments, you can arrange so as every employee gets the chance to socialize with everyone within the company. And when we say everyone, we mean everyone – even the CEO.

Online tools that integrate with Slack offer the opportunity to randomly pair people for blind coffee dates. This practice facilitates employee bonding, builds new working relationships, provides a basis for exchanging ideas, and encourages more interaction between colleagues of different backgrounds.

Let ’em talk

Each year on May 21, actively recognize UN’s World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development:

• Let minority groups or even individuals organize lectures and share their stories or experiences with the rest of the world (or even your company)
• Invite Diversity & inclusion experts and psychologists to provide support and guidelines for recognizing discrimination and suggesting what to do in these situations
• Organize open conversations based on employees’ preferences gathered from prior polls

Work can also be school

An inclusive workplace isn’t just about numbers ‘proving’ the diversity among employees. It’s a mindset, or better yet, an active realization and appreciation that each and every one of us is unique. And although we reminisce about our years as students, that does not mean that we have stopped learning and evolving.

In fact, workplaces too are part of our education and it is time to focus on investing more on developing our humanitarian aspect and building a more diverse environment. It may be that you and your colleagues will benefit as well – and your employer, too.

The post Diversity and inclusion training: How to apply it in the workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Headquartered in Dubai, GCC operates in countries ranging from Iraq to Indonesia to Australia. Over the past two decades, they’ve established a strong reputation for excellence in their facilities management, providing top-caliber service in kitchen and dining solutions including staffing, facilities, maintenance, and much more. In response to COVID-19, in partnership with Workable, GCC transitioned onsite interviews to virtual interviews when hiring for their global workforce. 

As Roda Collado, Recruitment & HR Operations Lead emphasized, they were already familiar with some video interview technologies when candidates were overseas, but in-country interviews needed to be quickly reestablished virtually.

“What changed is that even the in-country interviews are done either through internet web conferencing or over the phone.”

As the company responded to urgent employee needs and abrupt changes in work-life balance, the corporate team worked to figure out how they’d continue to hire and meet the expectations of their partner companies in these uncertain times. As this was happening, Workable launched their native one-way video interviewing product and GCC jumped at the opportunity to try it out. During this difficult time, GCC started using video interviews right away without expending valuable time and resources learning how to use it. 

“I’ve received good feedback from our hiring managers – even the candidates themselves. I feel that it’s easy to use and that, [on] the recruiter’s side, it’s integrated into their profiles.” 

By eliminating the time-consuming and restrictive phone screen process, everyone on the hiring team could review the candidate profile in their own time, in a previously unachievable way. Instead of the recruiter conducting the phone screen on their own and sharing feedback with the rest of the hiring team, hiring managers got involved earlier and could more actively step in and provide insight on who they wanted to move forward.

There’s the consistency in terms of questions being asked, so the hiring manager, or the hiring team are able to compare one candidate [with another], based on a consistent set of questions.

Candidates were so pleased with the process that they went out of their way to tell the GCC team. Asynchronous video interviews made it easier to schedule (eliminating the need for back-and-forth email communication) and put candidates at ease, enabling them to conduct the interview on their own time and in their own space. This proved especially crucial in that first screening round, before either party had developed a relationship, and increased candidate interest. It also spoke to GCC’s ongoing emphasis on an inclusive hiring process. When Roda compared video interviews with phone screens, she felt that video interviews were less subjective and less prone to bias. 

Speed up your hiring process like GCC

GCC quickly implemented Video Interviews, and in turn actually sped up the hiring process, allowing hiring team members and other company people to focus more on working through this very unusual time while maintaining a high-quality hiring process across all locations.

The post GCC Services fosters a more inclusive hiring process with Workable Video Interviews appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

More than that: do we really know what inclusion means?

Diversity vs. Inclusion: why they’re not the same

It’s not by chance that when we talk about diverse teams and diverse workplaces, we, ultimately, mention diversity and inclusion (D&I). Sure, one could say they’re two sides of the same coin, but it’s important to make that distinction between ‘D’ and ‘I’. For example, if you’re hiring employees from underrepresented groups (e.g. people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, people from the LGBTQ+ community), you’re doing a great job in boosting diversity in your company.

But that’s not enough.

Think about it: After being hired, do these people feel like they belong? Are they confident and comfortable bringing their true selves to work or do they feel the need to hide their unique traits and points of view?

That’s where inclusion in the workplace matters. Simply raising the number of people from underrepresented groups that you employ – and ticking off those boxes – doesn’t guarantee that you’ve built a work environment of equal opportunities.

Back to the gender inclusion in the workplace discussion – if, for example, your sales team have quotas that require travelling, do you make adjustments to accommodate soon-to-be or new mothers? Another example could be the language used in corporate documents or during meetings – is it gender-inclusive or does it make some people in the room feel that they don’t belong there?

Gender discrimination in the workplace takes many forms

It’s not just about a pay gender gap. It’s not just offensive, sexist comments during meetings. It’s not just promotions for like-minded ‘bros’. It’s all of that and many more behaviors and stereotypes that poison the workplace culture.

TrustRadius recently published the 2020 Women in Tech Report in which men, women and non-binary respondents share their perspectives around gender dynamics in the workplace. Findings show that women are indeed feeling left out at work, whether it’s because they’re being paid less than their peer (or even less experienced) male colleagues or due to the overall office culture that favors men.

Here are some examples of what they had to say:

Lately, changes in law and global movements, like #MeToo, encourage women and other people from underrepresented groups to speak up when they experience inequality at work. One recent example is the story of Riot Games, the video game developer company behind popular games including “League of Legends”, where current and former employees accused the company for sexism and harassment. In the end, Riot Games agreed to pay $10 million as part of a settlement over alleged gender discrimination.

Similar stories on the lack of true inclusion in the workplace are all over the news. In 2018, Spotify was sued for equal pay violation and, a few months later, Oracle was also sued. But this is not limited to tech companies. Former Nike employees have filed lawsuits against alleged pay discrimination, Walmart has faced gender bias legal issues on more than one occasion, and Disney was hit with a lawsuit in early 2019.

The list continues to grow with lawsuits involving WeWork, firefighters, the US Women’s National Team, and others. That’s proof that we’re not talking about one-off incidents. It’s also proof (and a good sign) that employees do feel comfortable enough to file complaints. But you of course don’t want to be in the employer’s position in the first place. Not only is it expensive regardless of whether you’re found liable or not, it’s also debilitating to your employer brand and overall reputation as a company especially if it goes public. So, you’ll want to get ahead of it before anything happens. Think about what you can do before reaching this stage.

Inclusion requires a reality check

Let’s face facts: diversity is at first glance more easily measurable. You can track how many people from underrepresented groups you attract, hire and promote at your company. You can monitor how these numbers change over time, how they differ from department to department and if they’ve been positively impacted by any proactive diversity-inspired initiative you take.

Inclusion in the workplace, on the other hand, has less tangible metrics. You could track, analyze and correct any pay gender gaps you find – that part’s easy. You could enforce anti-harassment policies – that’s not hard to track either.

But how do you identify and address those less obvious sexist behaviors? Based on the TrustRadius report, 71% of women have worked at a tech company where bro culture was pervasive. That’s not a number to ignore. It might be now a good time to check your own company culture and try to discover in which ways you support – or don’t support – women in your workplace.

“Even companies that sell tampons are run by men”

This is the title of a not-so-old article from The Huffington Post that explored the impact of having men be responsible for feminine products. And while this particular situation has now been rectified to a degree, the story raises a good thinking point relevant to the workplace, in general: can we let a privileged group (men, in this case) decide what’s best for the least privileged group (women)? Or, even deeper, because stereotypes are largely infused in our way of thinking, can we recognize our unconscious biases?

When you want to boost D&I, the #1 step is to raise your awareness. In other words, to realize that if you don’t have diverse teams, you’re not building products or you’re not offering services that appeal to a broad audience. You’re missing out on opportunities to solve problems and to grow your business.

Taking this story to another level: it’s often argued that tampons would have been rendered obsolete a long time ago if men had periods. Of course, the business gains that are associated with diverse teams go beyond companies that sell feminine products.

And that brings us to step #2: perception. You now realize that you need diversity, but how diverse your company is? You’ll get that information if you look internally at how your teams are built, how you’re making strategic decisions and whether your workplace provides equal opportunities to all employees.

If you find that you’re not as diverse as you could be, your step #3 is decision: the decision to change internally so you increase diversity.

And that goes hand in hand with step #4: analysis. You shouldn’t look at the numbers only at a high level. For example, if you currently employ 10% female employees and decide to increase that number to 40-50%, it doesn’t mean that you’ll solve the issue. It’s not enough to just hire those women; you need to give them a seat at the table where decisions are being made.

The following graph shows that while S&P 500 companies have almost 50-50 balance in male and female employees, the female representation at the more senior levels is significantly lower. When that’s the case, can we really talk about an equal workforce?

That’s when you can move on to step #5: action towards inclusion in the workplace. By default, ‘bros’ cannot recognize and define what bro culture is. Neither can they fix it. To use a simplified metaphor, a fish doesn’t know it’s in water.

Likewise, you can’t decide if your female colleague is feeling left out at work. She’s the one who knows what sexism, bullying or discrimination in the workplace looks and feels like, because she’s the one experiencing it. But the onus is on you as an employer to build a culture where she feels strong enough to raise that voice.

Perhaps you think that your company culture is inclusive. But the only way to know for sure is by going to the source: ask those who are usually affected by discrimination. Perhaps you assume that avoiding a discussion helps a group of people don’t feel excluded. But that’s not the same as actively including those people in the discussion.

Now, if it was you making the decision, would you choose to ban sports talk at work?

The post Gender inclusion in the workplace: Going beyond diversity appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It’s already a challenge for people with disabilities to get a job. Even when they do, they’re often trapped in dead-end careers, menial tasks and sub-minimum wages. It doesn’t have to be this way, though. Better, it mustn’t be this way.

Disability employment in action

According to statistics there are [more than] 1.1 million people of working age with disabilities in the UK who are unemployed. Clarity & Co’s Head of Employment Services, Gillian Austen says “75% of our employees have a disability. We would like to hire more, but we don’t have the capacity to do so, therefore we need other employers to help. Of course we don’t enjoy seeing some of our best friends and colleagues leave, but we’re happy to be a stepping stone to help them land their dream job.”

Approximately 50% of the staff at Clarity & Co. have the ability to progress into mainstream employment. Using their time there (6 months to 2 years) to build up their skills and confidence before they transition to an external role This then frees up a supported employment space, allowing Clarity & Co. to offer a role to someone else with a disability that is struggling to find work, thus decreasing the overall disability unemployment rate.

The decision to hire people with disabilities was not random; there’s a whole philosophy that drives it. The organization was formed back in 1854 by Elizabeth Gilbert, who herself was visually impaired (VI). She wanted to give other VI individuals the chance to work, Gillian says. “We may now be a pan-disability employer and manufacture a very different product range compared to back then, but the vision and values have never really changed in all these years.”

Is there such a thing as positive discrimination?

“We have a mixed workforce,” Gillian explains, “but, wherever possible, we like to give opportunities to those with a disability or health condition. Everything that we do is focused around supporting people with disabilities into work.”

“We invest time in this, as it is why we exist.”

You may call it positive discrimination, or affirmative action, or something else, but, according to Gillian, there is a place for it when recruiting is done for the right reasons. At CLARITY & Co., for example, the goal is to help change perceptions of disability.

As a not-for-profit organization, sales don’t only help the company operate. Products reach high-street retailers, large companies such as PwC and BNP Paribas, online customers, and companies in the hospitality sector across the UK. It’s through these products that CLARITY & Co. gets to spread the message of the disability employment gap to a wide audience.

“We also attend networking events and functions and present across a wide range of corporate and other events to talk about our social values and raise awareness about disability unemployment,” Gillian adds. “And we host many people at our factory from the business world and beyond, offering tours and team-building sessions.”

It’s not an easy journey

Gillian admits that there are some costs involved in making adjustments in your workplace. But it shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. “In most cases, companies can get assistance in covering those costs through work funding.”

She also advises employers to expand their candidate sources.

“There are so many people with disabilities out there who want to work. We source our candidates via various partnerships; for example, with the local Jobcentre Plus and other training providers who have individuals furthest from the job market on their caseloads, local council employment schemes and other disability organisations that support individuals with disabilities or health conditions into work.”

And certainly, those efforts needn’t to happen in isolation. Companies can learn from each other and work together to fight the disability employment gap. The #StealOurStaff campaign from BECO. is a good example of how to make an impact.

“In the first week alone, for example, the campaign achieved over 25 million social media impressions and gained a lot of media coverage, with retweets from Richard Branson, Deborah Meaden and Sara Cox,” Gillian says. “This certainly helped raise awareness of the disability employment gap, which was one of our aims.”

And it goes more than that. She adds that they’re already in discussion with a number of employers regarding the campaign with a few interviews underway. Those are the real gains from opening up the topic of disability inclusion at work; removing the barriers and reducing the unemployment rates among people with disabilities.

As Gillian concludes in a powerful message:

“We see workability, not disability.”
Click To Tweet

The post How a bold initiative can boost disability employment appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You won’t see a list of diversity-specific features, though. And that’s on purpose. We believe that D&I is neither a couple of boxes that you just tick, nor a quota that you want to reach. It requires a holistic approach, re-thinking and updating your processes, and adopting practices that contribute to an inclusive workplace. We do offer features that will help you comply with anti-discriminatory laws (e.g. EEO/OFCCP regulations), but we’re mostly focused on delivering solutions that will help you interact with candidates and hire employees bias-free.

Let’s explore how you can increase diversity at each step of the hiring process using Workable.

1. Advertising your jobs: How to attract diverse candidates

When you want to increase diversity within your company, your first priority should be to diversify your outreach when you’re promoting your job openings. If you’re constantly posting jobs and looking for candidates in the same places, you’ll likely come across people with the same background. But researching and trying out new candidate sources can be time-consuming.

Here’s how Workable can automate and speed up your job advertising process to maximize your outreach:

Post to multiple sites and social networks

Instead of creating accounts and logging in to different sites in an effort to increase your candidate sources, you can do all that within the platform with just a few clicks. Pick the free and premium job boards where you want to advertise your open roles, add social media to your advertising mix, and we’ll automatically publish your job ads. This way, we help you get your job opportunities in front of a broader audience without wasting any valuable time.

Find potential candidates where they are

While job boards are the go-to place for job seekers, it’s worth casting a wider net. You can reach out to people with the right skills in the places where they spend a lot of their time daily: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn of course.

Customize one of our inclusive job descriptions

We may not always realize it, but even one word can make a difference in a job ad. Would a boomer apply for a job that highlights the company’s youthful environment? Or, what would a female candidate think if she saw a job ad for a salesman? We’ve built more than 700 job description templates for a wide range of industries and business functions, paying attention to using gender-neutral and inclusive language. You can directly upload and edit those templates when you create your job ad inside Workable:

2. Screening applicants: How to remove biases

Once you’ve advertised your jobs, you’ll start receiving applications. At this stage, it’s important to make sure you evaluate resumes, application forms and portfolios using strictly job-related criteria. It’s common to be influenced by non-relevant factors, so here are two ways that can help you stay on track:

Turn off social media profile pictures

While Workable gives you the option to gather information candidates have shared online in order to build a robust profile, you also have the option to disable their profile pictures. If you think that you or other hiring team members might get distracted by candidates’ pictures and miss out on important skills, you can turn this feature off.

Screen candidates consistently with video interviews

First impressions are powerful. You can instantly like or dislike a candidate as you walk them to the meeting room or during small talk before the interview. What if you could go straight to the interview, though? Picture this: you can send all candidates for the same role a set of questions, which they’ll answer by recording themselves. This way, you only receive their answers to job-related questions, you can avoid the potentially bias-inducing small talk, and can compare candidates without showing unduly favoring one over the other.

3. Making your hiring decision: How to evaluate candidates objectively

You’re now in a good place. You’ve enriched your candidate sources to ensure you reach a diverse audience, you’ve screened applicants with job-related criteria and you’re ready to interview and hire your next star. You have a good base, but the challenge is that they’re multiple people involved at this stage, for example, a hiring manager or senior executives. How can you tell if they are also free of biases?

You probably can’t. And maybe you don’t have the time – or even the power – to train them on D&I practices. What you can do instead, is build a hiring process that eliminates biases:

Ask all candidates the same interview questions

More or less, hiring managers will ask similar questions to learn whether candidates are qualified for a role. However, because interviewers are human and questions may go off in tangents at times, it’s easier to stay consistent when questions are prepared in advance. In Workable, you can build interview kits to evaluate skills and include as many questions as you want. The result is a structured interview process, where interviewers ask all candidates the same questions in the same order and use a scorecard to evaluate answers.

Share your interview feedback impartially

We all get influenced by other people’s opinions, but hiring decisions should be well-rounded, not biased. This means that interviewers should be able to openly call attention to any red flags they spotted in candidates, regardless of what others in the team think. To allow for objective evaluations when there are multiple interviewers in the same hiring stage, each interviewer will be able to see feedback and comments from the rest of the hiring team only after they’ve already submitted their own evaluation. This way, they’re encouraged to share their honest opinion without being subconsciously influenced by the reviews of other hiring team members.

Technology alone is not enough

Diversity and inclusion go beyond software, of course. Technology can help, but it’s the people who make the hiring decisions and it’s the people who are responsible for embracing different traits in the workplace. So, the onus is on people who are involved in hiring and team management to let go of biases or, at least, to be aware of them.

There’s no tool that can enforce diversity. Perhaps your recruiting software prompts you to justify your feedback after you interview a candidate, but it won’t stop you from commenting; “I really liked this candidate”. Likewise, you might get a shortlist of 49 candidates who come from underrepresented groups and still hire the one who looks and thinks most like you.

Technology is not a cure; it can only support your D&I efforts. If you rely only on tech to boost your company’s diversity, you risk being short-sighted or, worse, see the opposite results. For example, if a software helps you gather candidate data to uncover areas for improvement, you could raise legal issues. Candidates might be worried about how you’re going to use this information, even if your intentions are good.

If you are experimenting (or considering to experiment) with masking candidates’ personal details, such as their name, race and school, don’t rest assured that you will indeed pick diverse candidates. Research shows that this is not always the case. Likewise, an overreliance on technology can lead to adverse results in your hiring process. D&I practices should be addressed throughout all your procedures, not just at the beginning of your hiring process.

At the end of the day, diversity is not in the numbers. To build a truly diverse and inclusive work environment, you need to be an advocate for differences, you need to embrace people as they are and you need to actively look for a variety of skills inside your company. Diverse candidates will want to work with you, not because you claim to be an equal opportunity employer, but because you are one. And there’s no shortcut to becoming one.

The post Diversity in the workplace: how to use Workable to boost D&I appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Contents:

• What is diversity in the workplace?
• Diversity and discrimination
• What is diversity and inclusion?
• The importance of diversity in the workplace

To better understand and define diversity, we can think about it in a social context. For example, at work, you might interact with coworkers of different genders, age groups, faiths and so on. Likewise, at school, students may come from different socio-economic classes and have different personalities and physical abilities.

While the first things that come to mind when we talk about diversity are race and gender, there’s more than that. For a deeper analysis, you can refer to the breakdown of the different types of diversity.

What is diversity in the workplace?

To come up with a workplace diversity definition, we have to think about all the different characteristics that employees (could) have. First, we have the protected characteristics, such as race, age, gender and sexual orientation. And secondly, we have all the different:

• Experiences
• Talents
• Skills
• Opinions
• Personalities

These differences, for example employees’ talents, are less obvious and require the organization’s effort and proactiveness to shine.

Diversity and discrimination

Diversity in the workplace is also closely tied with discrimination. Bias and discriminatory employment practices exclude people who have specific characteristics, making it difficult for organizations to achieve and maintain diversity. That’s why many companies take action; here are some more examples of diversity in the workplace along with ways to tackle discrimination:

• Hiring women in the tech space
• Bringing gender diversity in sales
• Fighting gender inequality in leadership roles
• Dealing with age and gender discrimination
• Fostering an age inclusive workplace
• Building the case for disability inclusion
• Considering candidates with a non-traditional background
• Removing unconscious bias from the hiring process

What is diversity and inclusion?

In the recruiting and HR space, you might often hear the phrase “Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)”. There’s a reason why these two terms are distinct; diverse employees don’t automatically form an inclusive workplace where every employee is valued and given opportunities to thrive. To achieve both diversity and inclusion, companies could have people or teams (e.g. a D&I Manager) dedicated to designing anti-discrimination policies across the organization and ensuring that all candidates and employees get equal opportunities regardless of their protected characteristics.

The importance of diversity in the workplace

Building a diverse company means that you don’t discriminate against protected characteristics and that you’re an equal opportunity employer. This will help build up your employer brand and keep employees satisfied and productive (and it’s also the right thing to do).

While you might be obliged by law to be unbiased when hiring and managing employees, it’s not mandatory to actively aim to build diverse teams. However, there are some business benefits associated with diversity in the workplace, that you should take into account.

Diverse companies:

• Reflect societies and demographics more accurately
• Speak to a broader market
• Get more creative and profitable

Read some studies and interesting stats that can help you build the business case for building diverse teams.

Want more definitions? See our complete library of HR Terms.

The post What is diversity? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

EEO is giving everyone the same opportunity to thrive, while affirmative action is actively supporting those who’ve been consistently deprived of fair and equal treatment.

To make this distinction clearer, let’s dig deeper into their individual definitions:

Contents:

• What is EEO?
• What is affirmative action?
• EEO VS affirmative action

What is EEO?

The idea behind the equal employment opportunity definition is that everyone should be treated fairly and have the same chances to succeed when they’re considered for employment decisions (such as hiring or termination). This implies people responsible for those decisions have succeeded in combating any systemic or individual biases they have against particular characteristics (most often protected characteristics like race, gender, age, disability, etc.)

More about EEO:

• Everything you need to know to be an equal opportunity employer
• How to file an EEO-1 report
• Understanding EEO categories
• EEO policy statement

What is affirmative action?

Affirmative action describes all initiatives that support members of a disadvantaged group that has suffered past discrimination. We see affirmative action programs mostly when it comes to education or government jobs. The underlying idea is that equal opportunity means nothing if past inequalities haven’t been corrected.

For example, several countries have implemented hiring quotas (like the caste quota in India or the Employment Equity Act in Canada) or have special admissions programs for higher education to give opportunities to underprivileged children. This is because large disparities in early opportunities will result in the more privileged getting hired more often for better-paying jobs (those privileged are usually white males, but often, members of non-preferred groups also have greater privileges than other members of their group – think about the difference in educational opportunities between a black girl from a village and a black boy from a large city, like New York).

An example from the workplace itself is when organizations decide to set goals of a 50-50 balance between male and female employees in senior positions, and when governments introduce legislation to enforce similar goals as seen recently in California.

EEO VS affirmative action

Equal opportunity is almost universally accepted as desirable. Affirmative action, on the other hand, has gone through various legal battles and heated debate in the U.S. and other countries. This is because some affirmative action practices, like racial quotas, can be thought of as discriminatory against people who don’t belong into underrepresented groups (in other words, “reverse discrimination”). That’s why some U.S. states, for example, have declared these types of affirmative action as generally unlawful. Internationally, countries such as Sweden (in 2010) and the UK (described as “positive discrimination” under the Equality Act 2010) have also declared it unlawful.

Though the validity of this view is up for debate, there are types of affirmative action (or positive action) that are lawful and can help build a fairer workplace. For example, an organization that steadily receives applications from white men could launch a targeted campaign to encourage minorities and women to apply.

Generally, organizations should look at EEO, diversity, discrimination and affirmative action more holistically, and consider everyone’s point of view. Bias training, communication training and objective employment processes (e.g. structured job interviews) can help employees be more accepting of colleagues belonging in different groups and also help eliminate unconscious biases.

So we shouldn’t be talking about affirmative action vs equal opportunity but rather, how equal opportunity and affirmative action principles can be applied in complementary fashion to improve the balance of our workplaces and society in general.

Want more definitions? See our complete library of HR Terms.

The post EEO vs. affirmative action appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So, not only are millennials starting to dominate the workplace, but they might currently be some of your most promising team members, or some of your company’s youngest managers. And they’re here to stay, as most have more than 25 years of work ahead of them (for me, it’s more like, sigh, 38).

You, of course, want to know how to manage millennials in the workplace – and also, how do you keep them engaged?

First, let’s dispel the myth

You may have heard a lot about the characteristics of millennials in the workplace; the terms “entitled,” “lazy,” “narcissistic,” and “disloyal job-hoppers” often come up. Yet, research supports the idea that millennials are not so very different than the previous generations, at least when it comes to what millennials want in a job.

For example, according to research published in Harvard Business Review (HBR), millennials, GenXers and Baby Boomers all want to “make a positive impact in their organization”, “help solve social/ environmental challenges” and “work with a diverse group of people” in equal measure.

Instead, the differences that are actually observed can be explained by age. HBR quotes a 2013 article written by Elspeth Reeve in The Atlantic:

It’s not that people born after 1980 are narcissists, it’s that young people are narcissists, and they get over themselves as they get older.

(Well… most of them, anyway.)

Even job-hopping, which is a habit attributed to millennials even by reliable ‘millennials in the workplace’ statistics, may actually pertain to young people instead of the entire generation. A study by the Pew Research Center suggests that millennials are as loyal to their employers as the preceding generation was at the same age.

So what do millennials value?

What most everyone else does: meaningful work, autonomy, recognition, feedback and development opportunities. Contrary to popular belief, there actually aren’t many unique problems with millennials in the workplace that need to be addressed.

That’s not to say that each generation isn’t different from the other. For example, the work values of millennials may differ in some cases — millennials might be less impressed by the size and longevity of a business and more by its positive reputation (something you should take into account when writing job ads to attract millennials). Also, in an episode of Inside Quest, author and organizational consultant Simon Sinek points out that the millennial generation has taken a hit to their self-esteem and ability to be patient due to their upbringing.

Still, people haven’t changed significantly in what motivates them in their job and what can help them succeed – both of which are areas that managers or HR should take into account to build a healthy workplace for everyone. To support people with wavering self-esteem who are impatient to succeed, don’t put them into a generational box. Rather, apply the same strategies across generations, including post-millennial generations (such as Gen Z).

How to manage and retain millennials in the workplace

A good management strategy will help you engage and retain all employees. Here are five tactics to consider for engaging millennials in the workplace:

Be accessible and approachable

The model of the unreachable manager who stays in the shadows while their team does the work is counter-productive. The manager who always complains and mopes is even more so. People need to feel that they’re being trusted and valued, and that you have a genuine interest in helping them develop and improve.

Make sure you have regular 1:1 time with each of your team members. Have an open-door policy to give them freedom to discuss anything – ideas, thoughts, complaints, aspirations. Involve them in your plans, if you can, and be transparent about your strategic decisions. Don’t be afraid to be persuaded by a good line of reasoning, even if you’re the final decision-maker and this feedback comes from people who report to you.

Give them the resources to thrive

Most people want to do their jobs well and productively. But to do that, they need adequate resources, like training and tools.

It’s a good idea to promote learning and development opportunities for your team members. Ask what your team’s training budget is and discuss the different options with your team members. Some might have found useful conferences they can go to, while others might prefer learning from books and online courses. If there are specific skills you want your team to acquire, do some research and suggest relevant courses or workshops.

One good thing about millennials is that they’re familiar with technology; they’re the first generation to spend the developmental years of their lives on the internet and portable gadgets. Despite the problems that this brings, (for instance, in the aforementioned Inside Quest episode, Simon Sinek referred to social media as addictive as alcohol), familiarity with technology means that people will be very receptive to technological tools that can improve their work. They might even recommend these tools to you, so you can try to implement them on a larger scale. Discuss options with your team members when you can.

Help them improve on the job

Wondering how to train millennials in the workplace? Conferences and courses are useful, but it’s also about making room for mistakes and feedback. Especially because millennials are still younger and thus less experienced when compared with the overall workforce.

Try effective methods such as:

• Giving feedback on specific pieces of work. For example, sit down with them to review that report they submitted and point out opportunities for improvement.
• Arranging for job-shadowing with you or others. The opportunity to see others in action can be effective as part of onboarding new colleagues, and also as a means to help team members gain additional skills.
• Sharing relevant content with them. That brilliant article you found on the future of machine learning? Don’t keep it to yourself; send it to your junior machine learning engineer along with some commentary. Be available should they wish to talk further about it, and make sure they know that discussion is a two-way street.
• Trusting them with extra duties occasionally. On-the-job training is most effective when there’s real challenge involved. If you think a team member is ready to try something new, give them a small project and let them try their hand. Step in to help if they need you to.

Provide for them

There are some things that are important to most people in a job, such as job security, living wages, important benefits and recognition for their work. These may not be entirely inside your control, but doing the best you can will certainly earn your team members’ trust and respect.

Praise your team members for a job well done. Push for salary levels to be equal or above market when possible. Be fair to all and combat your unconscious biases if you have to.

Benefits are a little harder to get. Ask around what other companies of your size and industry offer as benefits and suggest ways to stay ahead of the competition. For example, some companies have employee benefits like generous vacation and sick leave, paid parental leave and health insurance. Some are specifically trying to retain millennials by offering student loan repayment support – dubbed the hottest benefit of 2018 according to Forbes – and co-signing support for auto loans.

Support their future and purpose

Succession planning or internal mobility opportunities help your team members realize their aspirations, and it’ll be good for the organization as a whole for various reasons:

• Internal promotions can attract top talent. People will see that your team and organization truly value employee development.
• Employees will feel they have a future in the organization. This can make them less likely to want to change jobs.
• Employees will become stronger professionally. And they might bring more ideas, innovation and smarter work in their company.

Also, millennials want to feel their work has a purpose that goes beyond their own self-development. Make sure you explain how each project contributes to the customers’ lives or the company as a whole, whenever possible, and never leave your team members solely with mundane tasks.

Another aspect is to help millennials plan long term. As Sinek said in the episode of Inside Quest, technology has taught millennials to expect instant gratification:

You wanna buy something, you go on Amazon and it arrives the next day. You wanna watch a movie? Log on and watch it, you don’t have to check movie times. […] Everything you want, you can have instantaneously –except job satisfaction and strength of relationships; there ain’t no app for that.

While all young people can be thought of as impatient to succeed, millennials may not have been adequately taught to wait. So, if your millennial team members complain they’re not making an impact or they don’t see where their job is going:

1. Sit down with them to create a long term plan for success.
2. Show them how each step contributes to the big picture and their goals.
3. Teach them by example to celebrate the work they put in individual tasks, instead of wanting to make huge impact at once.

In the end, what’s important when managing millennials in the workplace is to listen to your team members’ individual needs. All people want to have voice and support. So, keep asking your team members what they think is best for them and advise them accordingly. Meaningful working relationships make for easier retention and higher productivity, and your team members will thank you for it, whether they’re entitled millennials or not.

The post Millennials in the workplace: How to manage and engage them appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

There are some brilliant initiatives in this area, and most importantly, some truly inspirational female role models for women entering employment. I’ve been exceptionally lucky to work with just a few of them, including Rachel Bates, Workable’s SVP of Sales & Marketing, who shared her own strategies in building a gender-diverse tech sales team.

It seems as though the more forward-thinking of employers have woken up to the realization that a diverse workforce is a boon to productivity and the collective intelligence of teams. Yes, these are leaps forward but, while we should not become complacent, it’s in the implementation of these initiatives that I’ve seen some actions which are becoming counter-productive. Some recruiters, despite best intentions, are actually doing more to alienate potential female candidates than encourage them in the drive to hire more women in tech. That balancing beam can be a hard one to master at times.

Communicate, but don’t pander

I’m very interested in the candidate experience – which I spoke about extensively in a recent panel – and that applies specifically to the woman’s experience in the process as well; so whenever I get the chance, I ask female candidates for feedback. I’ll ask them: “How was the hiring process?” “What did you enjoy or appreciate about it?” “What could I improve?” These are questions I ask all the candidates I shepherd through their recruitment process. I’ll always find ways to improve the overall process, not only for experience but for results; in this case, a diverse and balanced workforce.

At a previous employer, we had a kind-of focus group of female developers and business analysts set to explore one question: “How can we hire more females?”. Whilst there were a lot of ideas in the room, there was one recurring theme that often stopped potential ideas in their tracks: no one wanted to feel or make others feel that the bar was being lowered for them. They didn’t want women-only interview days, they didn’t want women-targeted advertising and they didn’t want to be commoditized with the offer of increased referral bonuses for female candidates.

It is in trying to work against the stereotype of the “programmer” that recruiters often fall into the trap of pandering to an equally divisive stereotype. Whilst stand-out cases of obvious crassness make news, like the ad posted to the Ruby User group offering female co-workers as a perk or, at the other end of the spectrum, LinkedIn’s ban of a job ad showing a female web developer because it was “offensive”, it’s apparent that even when the industry thinks it’s doing the right thing it often just gets weird. From pink adverts to adverts featuring photos of lipstick and high heels (really), there have been some truly odd attempts to attract female candidates when filtered through the lens of a recruiting department.

Gender isn’t a checkbox

Recently, I met with a representative from a university women’s group. She described a meeting with the Diversity Recruiters at a large investment bank. They wanted to be involved with the women’s society and wondered what would be the best thing they could do. The women’s group leader suggested that they might like to sponsor a scholarship for one of the female students. A relatively modest award would ensure that a student would be “theirs”, branded as such and available for publicity. This would also ensure that the lucky recipient would be relieved of some financial burden, maybe give up a part-time job, devote more time to study, even fare better because of it.

The diversity recruiters at the bank didn’t agree that this would be the best use of the money. They wanted, in their words, a greater “return on investment”. So what was their suggestion?

Afternoon tea in a posh hotel.

The budget? The same as the scholarship.

This is a perfect example of not knowing your audience, of not understanding or at least not empathizing. It was the twee sensibilities of an HR department woefully out of touch with the audience they were trying to engage. A true opportunity to help was squandered in favor of cream teas. It’s exactly the brand of corporatism that sees a company say they do work for the environment because they have a photo of the CEO planting a tree on their website. It may well be benign but it’s also pointless. Gender, like any diversity characteristic, is too often treated as a checkbox item. It’s as though some recruiters, in looking to hire more women in tech, are more looking for Pokemon than people…

So how do I hire female programmers?

When I was a recruiter, I aimed to hire highly-skilled, passionate people. The adverts I placed aren’t for “Ninjas” or “Rockstars” or other “brogrammer” terms. They are for software engineers, for people who like solving problems, and who like having their work make an impact.

So how do I ensure I’m reaching out to technical women too? I source, a lot. As women are a minority of the greater tech population – both in the US and in the UK – you have to look through more of that population to find them. It’s labor-intensive but women in STEM and women in tech are there; you just have to look. I have still run women-only hackathons, and relied on the advice of organizations like Women in Technology and advertised in media aimed at a female audience, even increased the bounty for the successful referral of a female developer.

However, as a recruiter, first and foremost the thing I try to do is appeal to a passion for technology and find the best people I can. If I’m looking for highly-skilled people who are passionate about technology, I know that I’m going to find some females in that group, and I’m going to do my best to ensure that when I do talk to them it’s with a relevant and interesting opportunity.

But, then, that’s what I want for every candidate. It’s about putting in that extra effort – beyond intent – to ensure you come up with a healthy gender balance in your technology candidate pool.

Parts of this article were taken from an earlier post by Matt Buckland on The King’s Shilling blog. 

Related:
Gender inequality in the workplace: A lack of women in leadership

Gender inclusion in the workplace: Going beyond diversity

Diversity in the workplace: why it matters and how to increase inclusion

The post The balancing beam of diverse teams: On hiring women in tech appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It was March 5, 2018, when Frances McDormand during her Oscar acceptance speech for Best Actress sent a powerful message: women have ideas and, to put those ideas into action, they need a seat at the table.

This message goes beyond Hollywood and the film industry; women in the workplace today should be equal with their male colleagues. And it’s not just about representation for the sake of it; it’s not about striking gender balance in numerical terms. Of course, that’s a good start. But, to elaborate on McDormand’s point, what’s even more important is to bring gender balance in leadership roles, in the decision-making process and in the strategic part of the business.

With International Women’s Day just around the corner, now seems like the perfect time to further the discussion on gender balance, particularly in leadership. Every year, on March 8, the rights of women in education, equal pay and fair treatment at work are assessed worldwide. And while the battle against gender inequality in the workplace is not a one-day event, this day is still a good opportunity to assess where we stand right now, what has changed from this time last year and previous years, and where we can improve.

Gender equality at work in numbers

The good…

In a Pew Research Center survey, we find out that “today’s young women are starting their careers better educated than their male counterparts.” And as most women now get higher education than their mothers and grandmothers before them, they’re able to bring those skills to the workplace and this has started to show. In other research, we learn that Americans don’t find significant differences between women and men in their ability to run a company, with numbers varying based on sector.

In fact, in certain industries, women seem to have an advantage based on the survey’s findings. 31% think a woman would do a better job running a retail chain, while only 6% can say the same for a man. In healthcare, 19% think a woman would be a better choice as a hospital’s manager, while less than half (8%) would say the same for a man.

Various studies indicate that when women get senior positions, companies become more profitable. (Some examples here and here.) These numbers help investors look towards female-founded companies. They also make business owners consider diversifying their senior management.

… and the bad

Only 23 of 239 VC-backed unicorn companies across the world have female founders, while women are underrepresented in CEO positions, too, with only 4% of US Fortune 500 companies having a female CEO. For women of color, the numbers are even more disappointing, as only 4% hold a C-suite role among US companies. In the same 2018 Woman in the Workplace study, we learn that for every 100 men who are promoted to manager level, only 79 women are promoted and, if we break down the data even more, just 60 black women are promoted.

In a YoY analysis, we can see that women are getting more places in the board, but men outnumber women significantly in all regions. For example, between 2005 and 2014 European companies had 14% women in their boards and this percentage rose to 24% since 2014. In other areas the inequality of men and women is even larger: for example, in Japan, the same metric went from 1% to 2% and in North America from 15% to 18%.

Finally, working women may now get higher salaries than in the past, but they still make less than their male colleagues. Based on data from the US Census Bureau, a woman makes 80.5 cents for every dollar a man earns. And when it comes to the highest incomes, the job aggregating service, Adzuna, found that only 11% of those who earn more than $100,000 per annum are female employees.

Why is there such a gender inequality in the workplace?

Everyone is all about Diversity & Inclusion in the workplace these days. Still, the numbers above tell a different story. It seems like we want to bring more women in leadership, but we don’t really know how to do that.

There’s a long history of gender imbalance

One of the main reasons for this gender inequity is that we’re tied to old habits. Historically, C-suite roles are held by men and in certain industries, such as tech or manufacturing, the discrepancy is even more obvious. Think, for example, an engineering position. Traditionally, there have always been more male job applicants for a role like this, so naturally these male candidates get hired and eventually promoted to managerial roles.

Even if now things have changed and more women choose to study engineering and web development, it’s still tough for them to enter this male-dominant space. And when they enter, they come across a dead end. For men, the career path seems pre-determined; their (male) managers have already showed the way. But how can women compete with their male colleagues who are already in track of becoming managers? Most importantly, how can they advance their careers if no one’s advocating for them and if there are no other female leaders who can set the example?

Unconscious bias is all around us

“Men are more assertive than women, that’s why they request and get a promotion more often.”

“After a certain age, women will struggle to balance family needs with the requirements of a senior position.”

“Women are more sensitive, thus not able to handle the pressure that goes with leadership.”

These are all generalizations and stereotypes, yet they impact the way women are treated in the workplace. We’re inclined to think that women won’t be able to handle their management duties, instead of creating a work-life balanced environment for all employees or instead of building up those necessary leadership skills among our high-potential staff, regardless their gender.

Age discrimination in the workplace is also a common issue specifically for women. They’re often overlooked for a promotion under the assumption that they might get pregnant soon. Or, they’re not easily given a chance to move their career forward and take on challenging tasks once they return at work after a short break.

Bringing more women in leadership

In most countries, more women have now access to high education and they’re performing better than their male students. We’re surrounded by strong females who openly take a stand against inequity and influence other women to do the same. Global movements like #MeToo turn the spotlight on what once used to be a taboo issue. These are all signs that allow for some optimism.

But we can’t truly tackle gender inequality in the workplace just by sitting around and waiting for things to change, or even voicing a desire to make things better. We need to get proactive if we want to achieve gender balance.

Benefit from the ripple effect

The quickest solution to fix the lack of women in leadership roles is to hire women in leadership roles. Affirmative actions will bring you results in the short-term. But they will also have a long-term impact. Simply put: hiring one woman in a senior position raises the total number of females with a senior-level job by one. But in the future, this woman is likely to hire and promote more women too. So, eventually, that number will go even higher.

This happens for two reasons. First, that woman is able to better understand the potential of her peers and can advocate for them. She also understands how her team can benefit from gender balance and knows where to look for new female team members. Second, she acts as a role model for other women who might be otherwise more hesitant to apply for a job at an all-men team. Seeing a woman at the wheel, though, they get the message that this particular team (and company in general) values women and gives them the opportunity to grow.

Along these lines, Rachel Bates, Workable’s SVP of Sales & Marketing, described how – and why – she built a gender balanced sales team as a female hiring manager. And the need to do that was clear after she realized that, when looking for a new job in late 2016, 49 out of 50 times she was interviewed by a man.

Opt for tailor-made support to women

The fact that men outnumber women in senior positions makes the workplace look like a boys’ club. And we’re not just talking about toxic situations where male coworkers engage into locker room talk or female employees get harassed. A “boys’ club” exists when there’s no representation for women in decision-making. Because that’s when female voices are rarely heard and their needs are overlooked.

To change that, we don’t need more discussion on why gender balance in the workplace is good; we need tangible steps. But that’s a hard thing to do when you’re the only woman in your team. Sharing advice with other successful women; having a female mentor; actively participating in women’s groups: these are all ways for women to learn from each other and get empowered in the workplace. Organizations like She Geeks Out do exactly this: create a network, a safe place for women who want to advance their careers. Recently, we collaborated with SGO for an event dedicated to age and gender discrimination and learned what companies can do to tackle these challenges. You can also watch the recording of our event:

Here’s another aspect of that “boys’ club” mentality: 98% of VC funding goes to men. Women with great business ideas still struggle to get financial help. And it’s this exact unfairness that certain VC companies try to address, by funding only female-led startups.

Make a sustainable change

Gender balance in the workplace, and specifically in leadership roles, it’s not a quota you want to reach. Let’s say you actively look for and hire more women in senior-level jobs at your company. If you don’t support those women, then they won’t be able to make a difference in the organization. If you don’t support career growth for the rest of your women who now hold an entry-level position, then soon you’ll face gender imbalance again.

If you want to fix gender inequality in the workplace, you have to fight the problem at its roots. You need to implement company-wide policies that promote equity, you need to train executives and employees across all levels on biases and you need to engage the “privileged” group – men – in discussions on why gender balance is important.

Only when we’ve all realized why equity in the workplace is important and when we’re all committed to fight discrimination, we’ll be able to truly create work environments where every employee has equal rights in leading and thriving. It’s not just the movie industry that Frances McDormand is referring to – it’s the workplace at large.

The post Gender inequality in the workplace: A lack of women in leadership appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

While millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) are the prevalent generation, they’re often the target of criticism. They’re known as “entitled, lazy people who are addicted to social media and their biggest concern is whether their next office will have ping pong tables.” But they’re not the only ones who face age bias.

In fact, age discrimination in the workplace takes on many shapes and forms. And it starts even before hiring. For instance, consider the possibility that female candidates in their 30s get rejected or turned down for promotion because they’re mothers or “might get pregnant soon”. Or when millennials are looked with suspicion and are considered unreliable because of their increased tendency for job-hopping.

But it doesn’t end there. Think of the following examples of age discrimination in the workplace:

• Baby boomers who don’t apply to jobs they’re fully qualified for because they’re afraid they won’t fit in the “youthful and vibrant startup culture”.
• Millennials who try to apply new methodologies and tools when working at traditional industries (e.g. manufacturing or logistics) but come across a “this is how we’ve always done things here” mentality.
• GenX employees who prefer childcare and job security over flexible work schedules but have to settle for benefits less meaningful to them when they’re not the prevalent generation at work.
• GenZ employees who are expected to pick up very quickly how systems work, since they grew up with unlimited access to information and technology.

It’s getting clear from these examples that there are two main issues when different generations coexist in the workplace. First, different age groups have different needs and expectations and this can turn into a game of power: whose needs will be met? And, second, the generation gap widens even more as we make assumptions and over-generalizations about our younger or older colleagues.

With baby boomers, millennials, GenX and GenZ employees around at the same time, work environments are by default diverse – at least as far as age is concerned. We need to foster a more inclusive environment that engages each group’s strengths and motivations.

From ageism to inclusion

When the topic of diversity and inclusion is raised, what are the first topics you think of? If you’re like many recruiters and HR managers, you’re likely thinking about gender and race. Women who don’t get promoted, ethnic minorities who are not included in key decision making processes – these are common themes you try to tackle when you want to achieve a more diverse and inclusive work environment.

This is great, of course. It means you’re already heavily invested in D&I in your office, but the expansive coverage of gender and race equity may have monopolized your efforts. There are so many other aspects to D&I that you may not have thought of – which brings us to age.

Tackling ageism poses an extra challenge, though. The way people perceive or define D&I does not vary much in the gender and race categories, however, it does vary widely among people of different ages. Older generations, including GenXers and baby boomers, define D&I as equal representation of and fair opportunities for all employees, regardless of any bias towards race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. They primarily care about the moral side of D&I, seeing it as the right thing to do. They have a more anthropocentric approach while taking into account demographic differences.

On the other hand, younger generations such as millennials and GenZers interpret D&I as the existence of diverse perspectives and ideas in the workplace and the inclusion of these ideas in achieving business goals, also known as cognitive diversity. They value the impact that different opinions and experiences can have on productivity and business innovation and emphasize the importance of connection, collaboration and formation of relationships in order to deliver results.
These diverse perspectives have a strong influence on daily work life.

So, in short, the standard approach to D&I isn’t always applicable here. Tackling age discrimination in the workplace has its own unique angles for HR.

How can HR fight age discrimination?

Take a strong stand against ageism

Apply anti-discrimination policies that clearly indicate how you hire employees, how you train them and how you promote them, regardless of age or other factors. Also, establish ways for your employees to speak up when they face age discrimination in the workplace and explain how you’re going to investigate any complaints.

Acknowledge existing issues among your employees

Age bias is often unconscious. Whether you realize it or not, your company culture may put some of your employees off. For example, when you organize team building activities or after-work meals, do you take into account that some older employees who have families might not be able to adjust their personal schedules? Don’t assume that everyone enjoys or uses the same benefits; it’s best to ask so that you ensure that what you offer is inclusive and offers options for each age group.

Provide training on new technologies

Younger generations are usually more familiar with modern tech stacks, as opposed to baby boomers, for example, who’ve been working with the same tools for years. As millennials now are getting managerial positions, it’s natural that they’ll want to apply new systems and tools with the expectation that others adapt quickly to them. Don’t let people feel out-of-date; make sure everyone knows how to use company-wide software and provide additional assistance if needed.

Rethink career paths

Different generations have different challenges when it comes to career development. Older employees might feel pressure seeing their younger coworkers bringing their fresh ideas and ambitions on board, while they’re stuck in the same position. On the other hand, younger employees may think that it’s not worth investing (and staying for too long) in a company where they won’t have the chance to get promoted for at least 10 years due to an inflexible structure. To change that, consider non-traditional career paths inside the company, develop employees’ professional interests and apply mentoring and reverse-mentoring techniques.

Consider the similarities, too

Yes, age groups have differences, but they have things in common, too. Perhaps, though, we’ve heard the stereotypes for so long that we’re now too biased to see past them. For example, we often hear how millennials are all about digital communication against face-to-face. But other studies show that this is not necessarily the case: younger generations actually value in-person meetings and networking. Another mythbuster? Contrary to popular belief, millennials are only job-hopping as frequently as GenXers did in the past.

Finding that common ground among different age groups could be the key to narrowing generation gaps. There is no magic solution, of course, but there are many steps towards building a healthy, inclusive work environment where employees feel included every step of the way regardless of the life stage they’re in.

The post Tackling age discrimination in the workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Presiding were:

• Carolyn Birsky (moderator), Director of Business Development at She Geeks Out
• Felicia Jadczak, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of She Geeks Out
• Jeff Whatcott, Entrepreneur & Startup Advisor
• Kristin Cronin, VP of People, Culture & Communications at Localytics
• Britta Schellenberg, Marketing Executive
• Allison Grinberg-Funes, Content Marketing Manager, Co-marketing at Appcues

Because ageism and gender are already broadly covered topics in the area of diversity and inclusion, this event attempted to shine a light on the unique issues in the area where they cross. A video of the hour-long panel talk is below – meanwhile, read on to learn the key takeaways from the event:

1. Focus on the greater good

The office environment tends to be competitive, especially for women, and Britta called attention to the tension that comparing oneself to another can bring: “As the old saying goes, ‘Show that you’re a leader by your actions, and be outspoken, be yourself.’ That can really help you be perceived that way. But I think in general, I would shy away from any kind of competition or any kind of thinking that ‘I’ve worked for five years, I should be at this position and why am I not at this position’, and so forth.”

She said this was particularly important for women to be aware of themselves:

“This is [an] inherent idea that we have as women to have to look better. We have to perform better. We have to make the best pie. We have to order the best pizza. Be aware of that. Be aware of why you’re doing things. Make sure that you’re doing them for the right reasons. Then as manager, or even as peers, bond with your other female co-workers.”

Britta, as a manager herself, said she took a practical approach:

“If you’re older like me, and you see younger women, is there something that you can give back to these women? Overcome your own way of looking at yourself and who you are, try to reach back and try to pull women in.”

Felicia also noted the urge to compete:

“There’s a sense […] where if someone else gets support or resources, then that takes something away from me. Or I need to hoard everything for myself, so I’m not going to give advice or support.”

Rather, Felicia said, the opposite is what women should strive for:

“What I like to come back to a lot is this idea of a rising tide that lifts all boats – because it’s not just about women competing or supporting with each other.”

“It’s about everyone supporting and not having to be us trying to get our piece of the pie and keep that to ourselves.”

Britta emphasized the importance of not falling into that competitive mindset:

Keeping an eye on the big picture is essential, Kristin added. “This is maintaining the focus on the greater mission, the greater good. The makeup of how you get there and who makes that up should not matter. It should just be the best people that will help you push to that mission. So if that’s someone who is fresh out of college, great. If not, that should be the case.”

2. Don’t assume or presume

A recent Bright Horizons study found that 41% of working Americans perceived working moms to be less devoted to their work. As a manager with many years of experience under his belt, Jeff warned of the importance of not assuming something about a woman’s contribution when it comes to a life event such as getting married or having children.

“You just can’t make any assumptions about what that is going to mean for them. Because it probably means something, but you don’t know. And you have to ask them, and just talk to them about it, or let them bring it to you. ‘Hey, congratulations on getting married. How can we support you in this transition?’

“And just make it open for them to bring it up. Because they might not bring it up at all, and that’s fine. If nothing ends up impacting their work in anyway, or that you can see, then it’s frankly none of your business to create a big issue where there might be none in advance.”

Jeff noted that it’s not just a ‘woman thing’. “As a manager, I think you have to strip off the gender labels and just say, ‘People are people.’ They have interesting things that happen in their lives. Those things often become very important to them, and there’s consolation of important things, and you have to adapt around that.”

Jeff also noted that just because someone’s at an age that commonly sees marriage or childbirth, that does not necessarily mean this is the only time a life-impacting event could happen. He related other examples, including a death in the family, aging parents, and the like. Ultimately, he suggested, take care not to presume someone’s situation.

Meanwhile, Britta, as a self-admitted GenXer, talked about how aware she was of the types of age discrimination and her own tendencies to prejudge candidates:

“When someone younger comes in, I’m like ‘Ah, they don’t have the experience.’ Or somebody older comes in, and I’m like, ‘Oh, they’re too old. They wouldn’t know how to use a computer anymore.’

Her solution? “Give everybody a chance,” she said. “You know, you’re aware of what your own thought process is. Try to get out of it, right?”

Likewise, Kristin warned of the tendency to go with “culture fit” – a term she admitted that she hated:

“If someone comes across your desk [who has] 20 years of experience, it can be easy to [think]; ‘I don’t know if they’ll fit in with the crowd here.’”

Another assumption is the tendency to recognize a gap in a resume as a blank space in one’s overall work experience, whether that’s due to children, health, or otherwise. Felicia called attention to this, reminding us to recognize personal experiences as well as professional:

“There’s a lot of really great programs out there, now. […] Programs that are out there specifically that are designed to re-ramp people up to get back up to speed. So, whether it’s a part-time internship, or a part-time job, or other ways of getting people back into the workforce. On the other side of the fence, if you’re in a company’s standpoint, looking at projects that people are working on and not dismissing it because it’s a personal thing.

“I don’t have children, but […] seeing friends and family who are in this position, [I can tell you], running things like a PTA meeting is no joke.”

Allison highlighted why it’s important to be aware of the possibility that some people may need to step back for awhile, and to utilize creative measures to maintain their work performance, by sharing another life experience:

“I know I had to be a caregiver and I had to work remotely for awhile, and you can get on to a team Slack group and still get up to date on all the meetings and all the team notes and some funny gifs and still feel like you’re part of the team.”

3. Be aware of self and others

Awareness was a common theme throughout the evening; being mindful of how you’re acting around others and how others are acting in the workplace. Allison touched on the importance of this:

“[Pay] attention to how others on the team are treating those that you’re managing, and how the employees are responding. [… ] Quite often we’re only subconsciously acting without realizing that we’re actually actively acting, etc. [Likewise], becoming aware of your own thoughts and actions and how they affect your direct team and overall company is really important.”

Felicia recognized that in herself and in others, sharing an anecdote about a time when, during a diversity training session, there was a discussion around whether women are more likely to step up and do the cleaning and other duties in the work environment. A woman had raised her hand and explained that this doesn’t actually happen – but then, later in the cafeteria, Felicia and other colleagues noticed that she was cleaning the tables and taking out the trash.

Felicia explained, in other words, that: “It’s so deep in us. Part of the work is being here at talks like this, but also not putting the burden of the work of dealing with the effects of emotional labor on the people who are in it.”

Sometimes you have to fight that urge to step in and do something, especially if you’re so accustomed to feeling the need to step up and prove yourself, as Kristin said. It’s all about, she says, “… just allowing yourself to sit in the discomfort for just an extra second to see how it plays out.”

She added that we are “subconsciously wired in certain ways to just operate.”

You don’t even know you’re doing it, but you’re bearing all this extra work, and you’re not compensated for it, you’re not really recognized for it.

Kristin went into detail about how some women subconsciously just take on the emotional management tasks in a given situation:

“We’re able to sort of subdue ourselves or do something else that helps the overall group flow in a way that feels better for everyone. … I do think a subconscious thing that women can do both professionally and socially is keep yourself in check, so that you don’t come off in a way that feels too much.”

Allison suggested that mindfulness practice could be a very useful tool in overcoming this challenge of the ‘subconscious urge’. “It’s a practice that I think is helping everyone learn to observe themselves, how they like to work and how they like to work with others as well.”

4. Maintain the balance

Balance was another major theme, in several different ways. For example, Kristin relayed her own feelings about being an expectant mother, referencing Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In initiative that made her feel like she had to push herself in her career despite feeling the opposite:

“Everything about you is saying, ‘Bring it back a few notches.’ So that was very good for me, to kind of say, ‘OK, I don’t actually have to operate in this formula that I somehow created because I thought that’s just the way to do it.’”

Kristin reminded us about the role of men in childbearing and childrearing:

“There are so many interesting articles around the concept of paternity leave, and how, really, so much of the family leave stuff is geared towards women, but men that take paternity leave are often sort-of punished, whether it’s out in the open, or not, for taking that time to go be with their family too, and so, there is a whole other set of stigma that exists for men.”

Allison also noted the tendency for work and life to mix together in unhealthy ways:

“Our personal lives do bleed into our professional lives. Especially when you are working so much of the time anyway that they really do blend.”

Felicia offered perspective on another area of balance: youth and experience, and the importance of bringing both together into the workplace.

“We need to value both youth and experience on a level playing field. A lot of times, especially in growing startups, we get a lot of young people who’ve never worked anywhere else. It doesn’t even matter how old they are, but they’ve never even had any experience working elsewhere.“

A slight tangent, for those who wonder why startups hire young people with little work experience: startups usually place tremendous value on adaptability, agility and creativity skill sets in a high-energy, fast-changing environment – which is tailor-made for younger people to thrive and build their skills in. Nevertheless, this can be one example of the types of age discrimination in the workplace.

To avoid falling into that monocultural trap, Felicia recommends looking at where you’re posting your job ads, and diversifying your outreach:

5. Humility goes a long way

A sense of humility and respect is essential, especially in recognizing what older colleagues can bring to the table.

Jeff shared a humorous but self-aware analogy about losing a doubles tennis match to older competitors:

“we were focused on power and serve, and they were focused on finesse and control.” He learned something important from that wakeup call: “The power game is not the same as the finesse game. I’ve seen so many times in workplace that we value activity and energy more than we value outcomes.

“They’re not the same. I would rather have outcomes every single day, and you’ll find that a lot of the older employees often will know how to achieve outcomes, and a lot of the younger employees will be more inclined to have a lot of activity because they don’t know things.”

“Humble yourself and ask things from people that are out there. You’ll just learn some things. I’ve had employees that were unbelievably just wise about how to do things.”

Allison reminded us that Jeff’s humbling experience doesn’t necessarily imply young versus old, but rather, suggests being open to the experience that others can bring to the table:

“People [at the same job level] can be more experienced than you; who might just have a different specialty or expertise. And I think that’s important to understand as well. But, remaining humble and not being afraid to ask questions to those within your organization, also taking advantage of your communities’ networks.“

This humble and open-minded approach means colleagues will be more receptive to feedback and more willing to incorporate that feedback into their own processes to do a better job overall. The added bonus that Felicia pointed out – a rising tide lifts all ships – applies here in that collaborative spirit between colleagues irrespective of age and gender.

Be open and philosophical

The event raised numerous discussions around age and gender discrimination in the workplace: notably, how easy it is to fall into the trap of presumption and prejudgement, and moreover, how easily that happens without our conscious awareness of it happening. Being cognizant of this is the first step to overcoming this challenge.

Jeff accounted for this, speaking to his own experience:

“The mistake that we often make as managers, and as men, frankly, is that you like to make certain assumptions. We’re like little machine-learning models in our head. We take patterns that we think we’ve seen, and then we try to apply those to generic data that’s lying across to make predictions about what the outcomes will be. And that’s where we’re [in] trouble. Because, just like in machine learning, you use limited amounts of data, and so your model will be off, and then you’ll come up with suboptimal outcomes for people.”

To really break down those barriers, ensure that your interactions with others is a two-way street, and recognize how important it is to keep those channels of communication open. Let people know that your door is open. Britta explained this:

“It takes a ton to get to that place, and you can try to progress it a little bit by talking about building a safe container and just be straight up with people and tell them, ‘if anything ever comes up, I’m here for you.”

Jeff attested to this, too:

“If you’re kind of clueless as a manager because you’re new and you just don’t have enough business experience before. You just don’t have enough experience. It’s super helpful to have somebody come to you as an employee and be like, ‘here’s what I need you to do for me.’”

Many office environments are quite diverse, particularly in terms of age and gender. Whether you’re young or old, male or female, there’s something to be learned and something you can offer to foster the building of a healthy environment free of age and gender discrimination in the workplace.

This sort of holistic approach was driven home by Britta, who took a moment to remind attendees of the importance of bringing your best self: “No matter where you are in your career, no matter where you are in your social life, believe in yourself, because that will come out, and you will shine and rise.

“I know this is all very philosophical […]. I have my Buddhist hat on today.”

Related content:

• Anti-discrimination policy template
  
• Can we discuss politics at work?
  
• Employee performance review policy template

The post 5 ways to fight age and gender discrimination in the workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

When 98% of the decision makers you come face to face with in the job hunt are men, that’s an embarrassingly telling statistic.

“I was amazed that it was so high,” says Rachel. “I started talking about it with people and I realized there was an appetite, especially after the [2016 American presidential] election, to talk about gender diversity in the workplace. People wanted to talk about why there was a lack of women in sales.”

Balancing act

Rachel’s experience is not just an anecdotal thing, nor is it an anomaly in the industry. In 2017, recruitment expert Carolyn Betts pointed out in Mashable that just 25% of salespeople in tech companies were women, and that number declines as you climb the ladder: just 12% of those in tech leadership roles were women.

That number calls for improvement, and there are reasons for the call: Microsoft’s Rakhi Voria writes in Forbes about the very tangible benefits of having women in sales, for instance, women are statistically better at sales than men are. She also points out that companies with a higher proportion of women in their employee base are more profitable, with that number even higher when companies have a higher number of female board directors.

More arguments for balance come forward: women are more collaborative and are excellent at building relationships; a crucial facet in sales where success comes out of building trust between parties. Rachel attests to this herself: “I’ve worked with many female sales executives, men too, who have different skills such as listening, [and] empathy that they can bring to the table, which is really important, particularly in inside sales.”

Plus, if the world out there is 50-50 in gender, that means your customer base is likely around that number as well. So, wouldn’t it make sense to build out a more gender-balanced tech sales team to best tap into the market?

Seuss wisdom

There’s a moment in Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax where Ted, the main character, is given a seed by the Once-ler and is told: “I know it may seem small and insignificant, but it’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.” That seed of opportunity, for Rachel, came in the form of her long-time capacity as Workable’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

“I started at Workable in November of 2016, and I was in a unique position in my career, because there was no sales team,” Rachel explains with a chuckle. “I was hired to build the sales team from scratch. I think there were two people in sales at the time, and then within the first couple of months, I realized we need to be at 50 by the end of 2017.”

That’s a significant task for a hiring manager; 50 hires in one year, or nearly one new salesperson per week. Rachel was upfront about the scale of that challenge, and realized this was her opportunity to lead the walk as well as talk the talk.

“I felt empowered, and this was the one time that I’m going to have a more gender-balanced team. It was my mission and it was really, really hard.”

Two years later, she points to her sales department and the presence of women is clear. As of December 2018, out of Workable’s approximately 65 employees across four different functions in sales, roughly 55% are women. Rachel considers this a significant accomplishment in her career, where she was able to step up and make a difference in her work environment and, she adds, cause ripples in Boston’s tech sector.

So, how did she do it? Rachel offers five tips for the budding tech sales diversifier:

1) Embrace the “nice to haves”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of hiring men to fill out your tech sales team because, for example, in Boston, the majority of those who meet your requirements of experience in tech sales are going to be men, says Rachel. After all, the disparity in gender is a self-perpetuating cycle – when tech sales is male-dominated, you’ll see more men than women applying for a job, which means more men being hired – by men – which means more experience on the resume for men than for women.

“If you put on your job description that you need two to three years of sales experience and you’re hiring in Boston, guess who you’re going to get?” Rachel says with a smile.

So, Rachel had to think about alternate ways to bring in female job seekers who could do the job. One way was to cast a wider net and consider those who have the skill sets you want to see in a salesperson but don’t necessarily have an expansive sales background. Rachel refers to Brooke Weimar, whom she hired in March 2017 to be an account executive. “[Brooke] lived in Alaska because of military history and had years of running a gym and hiring and running sales up there,” Rachel explains; “I was like, ‘Fantastic,’” and hired her for the position.

Brooke may not have possessed the traditional 2-3 years of software sales background that would be ideal, but the range of other sales skills in her resume was easily transferable in Rachel’s eyes. She’s now a senior global account executive at Workable.

Rachel emphasizes the value of assessing a candidate’s “other” skills and not being so quick to dismiss those without a comprehensive sales background.

“[You need to be] thinking about that on the job description: what’s required versus what’s nice to have. Then you might be open to more candidates.”

2) Broaden your announcements

Don’t just rely on the same sources for your candidates, Rachel stresses. There’s a danger in that, because many networks are limited to the same select few people with common links such as having attended the same university, worked together in a previous job, or are from the same area – which all lead you back to the same problem of lack of diversity in tech sales and, again, is a self-perpetuating thing. In a tech world where just 25% of the employee base consists of women, you’re going to find that same limitation in those professional networks.

“If you’re just using referrals, or perhaps only looking on LinkedIn for two to three years of experience, you’re only going to find the same type of candidates,” Rachel says. “Typically, I’ve found that women or even different types of people might not have access to the same networks that other people might.”

So, look outside of that traditional box. Broaden your horizons and look beyond the usual candidate resources by posting to specialized sites in addition to the popular ones, including those that cater to a specific niche such as She Geeks Out (SGO).

“[It’s] making sure that your job’s distributed and advertised in as many places,” Rachel says.

The result? More candidates to choose from.

“You are going to get a high volume of candidates. And there’s something to be said [for that]; once you have quantity, that you might get more at that level.”

3) Be loud, be proud

Don’t beat around the bush. Be overt and open about your initiative. Build active alliances with pro-diversity groups. Get involved in the conversation and insert yourself into it.

Rachel, for instance, participated regularly in events and podcasts hosted by SGO, outright promoting herself as an active proponent of gender diversity in tech sales.

“Be clear about what you’re doing and what you want to do with your tech sales team,” Rachel says of her experience working with SGO. “[This] developed a lot of internal conversations and I realized there was an appetite among the team that they wanted to talk about it, too.”

Rachel also established a reputation in Boston circles as someone who was not only passionate about gender diversity but was in a position to do something about it as well.

“And so,” she adds, “it became part of our conversation about ‘Why work at Workable?’ and ‘Why join the sales team?’, about the culture and the environment that we wanted to create.

“Recruiters started to talk into it, too. They said, ‘Rachel’s very passionate about it.’ And that made us more attractive to those female candidates who were applying.”

“Outright talking about the fact that you want to have a gender-balanced team is appealing in itself in developing relationships.” This can attract more female candidates to your team, too.

4) Build from the top-bottom

When you’re a female candidate looking for a job and you find that 49 of the 50 people who interviewed you are men, that signals a clear need for greater female representation in hiring teams in your industry. So, the fourth tip in Rachel’s arsenal is to ensure greater balance at that level and higher up.

“When [candidates] come in, make sure that they’re meeting with female leadership and they see people in these roles,” Rachel says, explaining that this wasn’t always the case in her career even when the team was clear about its priorities.

“I’d go in and we would hear about wanting to have a diverse sales team, and yet I’d only see males and I’d only meet with senior leadership who are men,” she says.

Having greater female representation at the start not only impacts your diversity initiative in a positive way, it also fosters greater inclusion.

“When they start, they feel more comfortable too, so it’s not just about your hiring process. It’s about the onboarding and making people feel welcome.”

If you don’t have female representation in your hiring teams or in the department, you can improvise: “If you don’t have them in the sales team, perhaps having some people from other teams for the inclusion aspect [will make a difference].”

In short: standing up and professing your support for diversity and inclusion is not enough. Take initiative and walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. Candidates will be more motivated to work for companies who represent and understand them, and back that up with action and culture.

5) Bolster the foundation

It’s not only about showing female leadership; you can also diversify your efforts at the entry-level positions and work your way up. Rachel refers to her own team as an example.

“Here, we have the SDR [sales development representative] team, which is more entry-level,” she explains. “We have people who come out typically from colleges, the recent graduates, or [those looking for a new career]. That’s a great place to start, because you’re not looking for experience, you’re looking for attitude, drive and other types of skills,” Rachel adds, alluding to her first tip of being open to those from different career backgrounds looking to move into sales and looking at the “nice to haves” in a resume.

Her efforts in doing so have benefited Workable as a whole. “I think we even have a higher proportion of SDRs who are now being promoted from within, so it’s building that long-term mix as well.”

Finding the balance

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither can diversity within your tech sales team. It’s a multi-pronged effort: cast a wider net by including more “nice to haves” in your job descriptions and advertising in more places, be clear and passionate about your initiative, bring in more women at the decision-making level, and build all of that up by filling entry-level positions with women.

But Rachel reminds us that once you take that step, you have to go all in to see those long-term benefits.

“Are you willing to wait another month because you want to interview three women before you hire the qualified men and make sure that they have criteria like that?” Rachel says. “You have to be prepared to put your business goals at risk to be able to do it ultimately. Which, I believe, will help your business succeed too.”

And the buy-in at the top level is essential. “You could do these five tactical things, but if you don’t have that executive leadership and want and drive to do it, it doesn’t make much of a difference,” says Rachel, noting that she had, and still has, the full support of Workable CEO Nikos Moraitakis – particularly when factoring in the impact to the bottom line of gender diversity in tech.

“It’s so much now that I think I have 60/40, and I need to recruit some more men,” Rachel laughs, before adding: “I think we’re just talking about having a more balanced workforce, right? So I think 50/50 is not a 60/40 or anything like that when we’re hiring at such a high volume; I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s bringing the needle closer to the middle.

“In building and growing our sales team I spend a lot of time thinking about balancing the types of people we have and might need on the team and the skill sets that they bring. I think when it’s 50/50, it’s not a minority. It’s like it’s a balance. It’s just about balancing it out.”

Related: 
Diversity in the workplace: the case for building diverse teams
Diversity recruiter job description
Diversity and inclusion manager job description

The post From 98% men to 55% women: 5 tips for gender diversity in tech sales appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Whether you’re the woman confronted with these challenges, or the people leader tasked with solving them, our Boston-based panel will share strategies you can use to address and overcome the unique issues that arise when age and gender biases overlap in the workplace.

The post Diversity in Gender & Age, Boston appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Create a hiring strategy

Skills involved in military service go far beyond combat training. Depending on their role, veterans may be skilled in computer repair, operating machinery, recruiting personnel or managing supply chains. Or they might be military doctors or engineers. Yet, hiring teams are sometimes unaware that military experience is relevant to civilian jobs. This might get accentuated by veterans’ lack of training on how to present their transferable skills in their resumes.

How do you bridge this gap? Here are a few ideas to start you off:

• Partner with organizations and use online resources. For example, explore the directory of Veteran Employment Representatives by the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS). Through this site, you can find an expert in your state οr nationwide and email them directly to ask for guidance. Also, look for local organizations that support veterans, like the Disabled American Veterans, Hiring Our Heroes and CareerOneStop. Reach out to a representative and ask them to coach your recruiters and hiring managers on how to look beyond the – often imperfect – resumes of veterans and how to evaluate their skills effectively.
• Set measurable goals and decide on tactics. This is fitting military lingo – formulating a targeted hiring and retention program can help you recruit veteran candidates in a systematic way. For example, BAE Systems, an international defence, security and aerospace company, has set monthly hiring goals and focuses on hiring women veterans through its branded Warrior Integration Program. You don’t have to start big, but having a structured approach to veteran employment programs is a good idea.

Be a veteran-friendly employer

Here’s how you can encourage veterans to apply at your company and help them thrive in your workplace:

• Consider creating veteran mentoring or support groups. These initiatives are important factors for veterans who’re looking for a job, according to Monster’s survey. Starting an apprenticeship for veterans is also a good option.
• Ensure you can accommodate veterans with disabilities. Some service members might have suffered injuries. Advocate for alterations to make your offices more accessible, (like installing a ramp or elevator) or offer remote work options.
• Think about the benefits you could offer. For example, what does your medical insurance cover? If it includes mental health services, it might be an extra incentive for veterans who battle post-service disorders.

Where to post veteran job listings

Posting job ads that reach your target audience brings you in front of qualified job seekers and helps you hire faster. Here are a few places where companies that hire veterans in the U.S. advertise their open roles:

• Military.com
• Vets.gov
• Recruit Military
• HireVeterans.com
• VeteranJobListings.org
• Veterans.gov
• HotJobs.vet
• National Veterans Foundation (NVF)

When creating your job ad for posting to one of these sites, it’s important to be aware of your audience. Personalize your job ad to appeal to veterans:

• Provide a clear description of the role. Veterans might not be familiar with what a civilian job entails.
• Explain your mission. Candidates who’ve served in the military will appreciate having a purpose.
• Mention coaching opportunities. Veterans are used to working in team environments and value mentorship.
• Share your company’s veteran hiring programs or initiatives. They’ll give an extra motive to candidates who are considering to apply.

Job boards often have candidate databases you can look through too. When you find candidates who match your criteria, send them a sourcing email to build a relationship and see whether they’d be interested in working with your company.

Show veterans that you want to hire them

Use social media to encourage veterans to apply to your jobs. For example, you could advertise a job opening on Twitter using hashtags like:

• #jobsforveterans
• #wehireveterans
• #jobs4vets
• #VeteranJobs
• #ExMilitaryJobs
• #HireaSoldier

Similarly, you might find Facebook useful for this purpose through groups like:

• Jobs for veterans, military spouses, their families and friends
• VetWorking

If you’ve already hired one or more veterans, you could ask them to share their experience on your site or social media accounts. For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has created a series of videos where existing employees explain how they use their military skills in their jobs. Here’s one of those videos:

Attend career fairs

Attending job fairs for veterans is a good opportunity to connect with lots of candidates in person. This will help you build your brand as an employer that supports veterans.

Many job boards for veterans host relevant career fairs, so you could ask a representative to let you know when these are happening. Also, reach out to organizations that support veterans to register to upcoming career fairs. For example, check out scheduled job fairs by the Disabled American Veterans, Recruit Military and JobZone.

When participating in job fairs, it’s important that your attending employees are familiar with military roles. Also, if you’re already employing veterans, invite them to come with you to talk to candidates about their experiences in your workplace.

Evaluate veterans’ skills effectively

When interviewing veterans over the phone or in-person, assess their transferable skills – just like you do with other candidates. You could also ask specifically about skills they gained while in service. Since they might not be familiar with traditional interview questions like ‘what’s your greatest weakness’, opt for behavioral or situational questions instead. (It’s best to avoid asking them about experiences in the battlefield. Questions focused on their day-to-day duties in the military are preferable).

Here are some sample questions to ask veteran candidates:

• How will your military training help you do this job?
• Communication skills are very important in this role. How did you hone these skills during your service?
• What other soft skills did you gain in the army/ marine corps/ etc. that you can use in this job?
• Describe a time when you had to make a quick decision/solve a problem for your team.

Use a structured interview process, where you ask all candidates the same questions for more objective decisions. Aim to keep in touch with candidates you didn’t hire – they may be the best people for future roles. And, maintain good relationships with organizations that support veterans to keep hiring qualified people and establish your company as a veteran-friendly employer.

The post How to hire veterans appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This is no easy feat, particularly, in tech sales, notorious for its lack of women.

And it didn’t happen by accident.

We committed to hiring more women in tech sales, because we wanted our workforce to be gender diverse.

To us, hiring women was a deliberate goal, not just a “nice to have.”

Why it’s important to hire more women in tech

It’s kind of simple: you’ll build a better product. I don’t think it’s ever helpful to your culture, or to your output, to have a homogeneous workforce.

Especially in tech. When you’re building a product, you want it to appeal to as many people as possible. But if you only have one subset of a population selling a product, you risk limiting its usability and marketability.

Often times, unconsciously or otherwise, hiring managers discriminate against female sales candidates. They perceive them as limited by familial responsibilities. Or less likely to travel for a prospect at the drop of a hat. Maybe even that women are neither technical nor aggressive enough. But that’s simply not true. Women bring unique strengths to this predominantly male industry, because they are talented at:

• Networking
• Multi-tasking
• Building consensus
• And forming long-term-business relationships

How we hired more women in tech sales

Hiring more women in tech begins and ends with a company’s leadership team.

The single most important way we hired more women was by having leadership — both male and female — that supported our goal to hire more women.

Our VP of Global Sales, Rachel Bates and our CFO, Lacey Brandt are committed to sourcing, recruiting and nurturing female talent.

Still, it wasn’t easy.

Recruiting women for tech sales is difficult because:

1. The recruiting funnel is full of men.
2. Talent Acquisition professionals, short on time, don’t prioritize sourcing or hiring women.
3. Hiring managers place too much emphasis on the requirements in their job description.
4. There is no buy-in from leadership to recruit more female talent.

Here’s what we did to overcome these issues:

1. We deliberately sourced and interviewed women: I met with my hiring manager regularly to talk about strategy. We made hiring women in sales a real objective.
2. We were willing to accept a slightly longer time-to-hire metric to recruit more women: We had to scale our account executive and sales development representatives teams quickly, yet we managed to keep them 50-50 male and female.
3. We decided to home-grow female talent: We hired women who didn’t have the exact skill set, but, rather, transferrable skills a role required and chose to invest in them through on-the-job learning and coaching sessions.
4. We put women in charge of our revenue goals: The leadership buy-in was a given. But, Workable remains the only place I have ever worked where two women influence the company’s revenue goals.

How we plan to cultivate female talent

It is often said that, in order to get ahead, women have to mimic the bad qualities of their male counterparts.

I’m delighted to say that this is not true anymore. Women genuinely want to support other women in their professional ascent. And, it’s something Workable wants to help with.

In our mission to attract and retain the best and brightest female talent, we partnered with an up-and-coming organization known as She Geeks Out (SGO.) SGO creates a space for women in STEM environments to network, learn and socialize via monthly meetups and events.

We hosted one of those events right here at our Boston office. Our very own Rachel Bates, VP of Global Sales, was the guest speaker on a podcast about women in sales. SGO recorded the podcast, available here:

The post How to hire more women in tech sales appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s the business case for narrowing the gender pay gap:

The gender pay gap costs companies

The gender pay gap is difficult to measure. The gap is falsely framed as too big to fix, so half-hearted attempts to address it abound. These include flashy announcements on Equal Pay Day, and disingenuous reports of pay equity. But, the gap cannot be whittled down to simplistic phrases, like “women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn”, or “equal pay for equal work.”

These dramatized slogans don’t capture the finer points of the gender pay issue because:

• They don’t compare equal work. The numbers compare men and women of different jobs and pay-grades (e.g.: higher-paid software engineers to lower-paid truck drivers.)

• They don’t consider gender occupational segregation. The more female-dominated a field is, the lower its wages – and the gap grows as women and men climb the ranks.

• They represent old data. Recent research shows that younger women (ages 25-34) are closing the gap, which is about 90 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Still, wage gaps exist, even when comparing both genders in the same professions. Glamour magazine invited 12 people to its offices last year to discover the gap for themselves. Six pairs of men and women with similar jobs, titles and experience levels wrote down their salaries on large cards and “on the count of three” flipped their cards over to show to each other. Though this experiment was small and unscientific, it revealed poignant differences:

“In the silence afterward, you could feel the tension,” Liz Brody of Glamour wrote. “Nurul, one of the data analysts, looked around at the cards. “Almost all of us women,” she remembers thinking, “have the lower salary.”

Individuals suffer from the wage gap. And while the math is messy, the cost for individual companies is clear. Companies that don’t prioritize fair pay have to pay up in other big ways.

They end up with gaps in:

Performance

Companies that close the gender gap increase their skills diversity, collective intelligence and their bottom lines. Businesses with women in top management positions are more profitable. A study of 22,000 companies worldwide found that having at least 30 percent of women in the C-suite adds 6 percent to net profit margin.

Retention

Millennial women leave jobs for the same reasons men do. Those reasons include pay advancement, lack of meaningful work and the absence of learning and development programs. Fair pay, raises and bonuses communicate that you value all employees equally. Employees who feel valued are more likely to stay with their employer. Pay your people fairly to retain them and avoid wasting money on unnecessary turnover.

Branding

Your employer brand is your sharpest recruiting tool. Gender discrimination in the form of pay disparities can tank a company’s brand, in the form of Glassdoor comments, employee discrimination lawsuits and bad publicity. Paying people unfairly is a management blunder that affects your ability to attract good hires.

What employers can do about their gender pay gaps

Gender gaps grow gradually. CEOs rarely wake up one day and decide to discriminate with pay. Even Buffer, a company dedicated to salary transparency, was recently surprised to find out that it suffered from a gender pay gap.

Some companies can afford to spend millions on gap-closing initiatives. But there are simpler and cheaper ways to eliminate gender discrimination at all levels.

The single most important way to narrow the gap

End all questions about salary history

The salary history question is a divisive issue in the recruiting industry. Some recruiters feel this is a necessary question to ask:

But, there’s no other part of the hiring process where you assume a previous employer got things right. Employers independently assess references and credentials, regardless of whether a candidate’s previous boss did. Salaries should get the same treatment. Salary history questions keep women stuck in a lifetime of pay that is well below their market worth.

Katie Donovan, an equal pay consultant, firmly believes the salary history question perpetuates the pay gap:

“Every time an employer asks that question they have to take ownership that they’re growing the gap.”

Donovan helped author the Massachusetts equal pay law that bans employers from asking about previous salaries. The law, which goes into effect next year, will make it illegal for employers to ask “What is your current salary?” Savvy companies should follow suit, regardless of their state.

Other ways to narrow the gender pay gap

If you are an executive, hiring manager or business leader here’s what you can do:

• Offer all employees negotiation training. Some women are less likely to negotiate their pay, for fear of being perceived as aggressive or disrespectful. But negotiation skills help employees in all aspects of their work. Developing negotiation training workshops for employees and hiring managers will help them learn valuable skills and help them perform better in their roles.

• Adjust inequitable salaries. You don’t need to go big, like Salesforce did (by recently investing $3 million in closing their gap.) If you know you have a gender pay gap, take small steps to overcome it. Aim for pay equity one new employee at a time.

• Hire diverse leaders. Homogenous leadership teams leave companies prone to “groupthink” – when a workforce becomes so similar in its thinking that it closes the door on creativity. Groupthinking companies are less likely to challenge the gender pay gap status quo. Hire women to leadership roles -and pay them fairly- to fight groupthink, work smarter and attract diverse talent.

If you are a recruiter, here’s what you can do:

• Research market rates for salaries. Learn what’s fair compensation for the role you’re recruiting for. There are various ways to do this online.

• Be transparent about pay. List the compensation for each role either in the job description or in the first conversation you have with candidates. This will save you and your candidates time in evaluating whether the role is right for both parties.

• Promote gender-inclusive policies. Mentioning your company’s maternity and paternity benefits and remote work options, for example, may attract a more diverse candidate pool.

If you are an HR manager, here’s what you can do:

• Pull your salary data. Compile compensation reports of all people in each department to analyze how much men and women earn. These numbers may serve as a starting point for paying employees more equitably.

• Implement blind hiring. Unconscious biases cloud the hiring process. Gender bias is one of them. Consider blind hiring techniques that obscure your candidates’ genders to give every candidate a fair shot.

• Cultivate career-path programs. Building career paths for employees can help them grow within your organization. If a department suffers from a lack of gender diversity, consider career-pathing as a long-term solution to help close the pay and opportunity gap.

And, if you want to learn more about the gender gap debate, you can:

• Get acquainted with the gender pay gap. There are numerous resources that can help you understand the details of this issue. Here are a few:
  • “What Works: Gender Equality by Design” A book by Harvard behavioral economist Iris Bohnet, about the unconscious biases and behaviors that hamper gender equality and business, and what companies can do about them.
  • “What are Gender Barriers Made Of?”: A Freakonomics podcast that examines how the pay gap and gender stereotypes form.
  • “Ask the Headhunter: Women don’t cause the pay gap. Employers Do”: A Silicon Valley headhunter squarely blames employers for the gender pay gap and debunks the myth that women are responsible for earning less.
  • Aline Lerner’s blog for coverage on gender (and other) gaps in the technical recruiting world and our post on how tech recruiting is broken and how to fix it.

Many conversations about the gender pay gap take place on social media. Here’s a summary of Twitter perspectives on the gender pay gap. Most of them are compiled from Romper:

Women are underpaid for speaking engagements:

Spoke at a conference last year that paid everyone but me $5K-$15K. Told me they don’t pay speakers. Never again. https://t.co/3zGU01vBF5

— Melissa Perri (@lissijean) February 14, 2017

Women feel they are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” when negotiating for more pay:

On #EqualPayDay, remember that simply telling women to ask for more $ is not enough – because when they do, they’re often penalized.

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) April 4, 2017

Mothers feel the pay gap, too:

Mothers shouldn’t be punished — should be compensated for balancing motherhood &work. https://t.co/pNeW7rvs5Z #stoptherobbery #EqualPayDay pic.twitter.com/5j28KRu0j7

— Phumzile Mlambo (@phumzileunwomen) April 4, 2017

Women of color are at an even greater disadvantage compared to white men:

Women overall unjustly earn far less than men. For Women of Color, it is much worse.
Support programs that fight this injustice#EqualPayDay pic.twitter.com/grUCY6TLzv

— Tony Stark 2017 ? (@1IronMan2017) April 4, 2017

The gender pay gap grows through a series of small, silent cuts. Any amount of well-researched resources and thoughtful social media conversations will only scratch the surface of the gender pay gap issue. But, awareness, and the drive to make small changes will go a long way in narrowing the gap. And they’re worth it. Because the rewards of an equally-paid workforce are huge. You’ll be a more equitable, diverse and profitable company if you narrow your gap and treat your female employees fairly.

The post Why should employers care about the gender pay gap? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Employee monitoring is nothing new. Arguably, that’s what managers (and management consultants) were designed to do. But new opportunities to track employees proliferate every year. Old-fashioned watches are being displaced by ‘quantified self’ trackers that decode our days into data points. These technologies prompt a new HR question: should employers track their employees with new tools?

How companies answer this question says a lot about about their management approach and their company culture. We explore employee monitoring from the perspective of employees and employers. We talk to two founders of quantified-self-style companies who argue that businesses shouldn’t track employees—at least, not individually. And we consider some arguments for how companies can (tentatively) embrace monitoring, without being too creepy.

Against the clock: monitoring the wrong things

The oldest and most pernicious employee monitoring technology is the clock. The 8-hour day, or 9-5 grind, places a standard expectation for when employees work—and, often, where they should be. But, it’s a flawed measurement, because it focuses on quantity instead of quality. The 40 hour work week is an inherited norm, not a magic number. In theory, results should matter more than time. If employees could deliver superior results in less time, everyone would be better off. But that’s not how the corporate world works. Despite ample evidence that work hours have an inverse relationship with productivity, many managers erroneously equate facetime with work quality.

A few years ago, Robby Macdonell, the co-founder and CEO of RescueTime, harnessed his 9-5 frustration into a new kind of time management technology. He was inspired to code a simple AppleScript to account for the hours he was putting in at work.

I’d look up at the clock a 5pm and think, “that doesn’t look right – that many hours couldn’t have passed—what was I doing with my day?” I’d scan back to see what I had to show for the time I put in. The output didn’t seem to match up with what I thought I’d be able to get done with those hours. It was easy to assume that I must have been wasting a lot of time.

Robby’s AppleScript evolved into a company. Now anyone can download RescueTime to see where they’re spending their screen time. Often, people are surprised by their results. According to Robby, many people are scared of tracking their time because they “don’t even want to know” how much time they spend on Facebook or Reddit. But in his experience, after a few weeks’ worth of time-tracking, most people realize they aren’t spending half as much time on their guilty-pleasure site of choice as they thought they were. Instead, they’re sinking a lot of time into email, Slack and other kinds of communication tools.

Here’s an example of one user’s month of time tracking data. This user deems blue time productive, grey time neutral and red time unproductive. (Each user can classify different activities as productive or unproductive.)

And here’s a more granular view of where they were spending their time:

Employee monitoring for employees

RescueTime is one of the many ‘quantified self’ tools that can give workers new ways to measure their own work lives. Another is Exist, a service that compiles multiple self-tracking services into one, centralized view. It marries productivity data from RescueTime and Todoist, local weather reports from Forecast.io, songs played from Spotify and Last.fm, users’ self-reported mood logs, social media posts from Twitter and fitness tracking data from Fitbit, Withings, Runkeeper and other fitness apps.

After a couple of months, Exist can identify correlations in users’ data and reveal what matters to them. According to Josh Sharp, the co-founder of Exist, these correlations are often unsurprising: “Monday is one of the least happy and least productive days of the week for everyone—people just don’t want to go back to work.” People are also more productive when they sleep more and are usually happier on the weekends.

Exist also offers users benchmark data comparing them to other people on the platform. According to Exist’s benchmarks (based on aggregated RescueTime data), the average user clocks in a whopping 2 hours and 34 minutes of productive time a day. If that number sounds low, consider that Exist users are a self-selecting group who are interested in maximizing their productivity and tracking their performance. The benchmark could be considerably lower for the average office worker.

“It’s amazing how much of a work day can be taken up by things that aren’t actually productive” says Josh. He also notes that people tend to be more productive when they listen to more music.

“Personally, I think the big relationship we find between listening to music and productivity is a product of so many people needing to block out the harmful, distracting background chatter of an open-office plan.”

Of course, correlation doesn’t mean causation. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see your own correlations. It can also be useful to track different kinds of output data, like the number of words you write, if you’re a writer, or your number of Github commits, if you’re a coder (which Exist also collects). Tools like Word Counter, Asana, Trello, Zapier, IFTTT, Gyroscope and RescueTime can work in concert to arm employees with information about how they’re working. If so inclined, you can use this kind of data to help manage yourself and understand what works for you. But, as with any kind of data collection, it’s going to have its limitations, the number of words you write, or emails you send are easy to measure—but they mightn’t actually be important. Quality can be hard to quantify.

Employee monitoring for employers

Some employers argue that employee tracking is fair game—most companies get their employees to sign fair use agreements that explicitly acknowledge that employees shouldn’t assume privacy when they’re using work devices. But from many employees’ perspectives, desktop monitoring, keystroke logging and other kinds of tracking are intrusive and paternalistic.

Robby and Josh both agree that employees can learn a lot from self-monitoring, but that businesses shouldn’t get too Big Brothery. Josh worries that comprehensive employee activity tracking can further blur the line between employees’ work and personal lives. And, according to Robby, individual employee monitoring can cross the line between management and micromanagement very easily. Robby thinks things get particularly fuzzy when companies use fitness tracking leaderboards to motivate employees to move more; “it can feel like you’re trying to tell your employees how much they should exercise, and that just sounds kinda gross.” He also argues that:

“It’s a little myopic to think that a tool that helps you understand your screen-time should only be focused on maximizing your productivity with that screen-time. We can benefit from understanding our relationships with our devices, regardless of whether or not we’re trying to maximize our productivity all the time.”

Endorsement, not enforcement

Employers needn’t shy away from employee tracking altogether. Both Robby and Josh agree that opt-in, anonymized and aggregated tracking could be useful for employees and employers alike. For example, it could be good for HR departments to know that certain teams, or departments, are sinking an inordinate amount of time into meetings. That’s a cultural problem that could benefit from an HR (or executive management) intervention. RescueTime is launching a beta-version of its platform for this very purpose.

But, when it comes to individual employees’ work habits, it’s best to leave the tracking, and managing, to each person individually. Giving employees access to tools to help them manage themselves is the safest first step:

“Companies should encourage their problem solvers (who they’re already paying to solve problems) to be good at solving their own problems. Doing that in a data-driven way can be really helpful.” – Robby Macdonell

“Companies that want to boost employee happiness should look at existing research and be willing to implement big changes that give employees more autonomy to direct their own work days.” – Josh Sharp

Individuals know what works for them. If companies hire the right people and give them clear, measurable goals, they should be able to trust employees to manage themselves. That trust can take the form of endorsing self-monitoring tools, offering more flexible remote work options and welcoming discussions about what kinds of work environment, work hours and performance metrics matter to each employee.

Ultimately, empowering employees to take control of their own workdays is a lot more revolutionary than using the latest employee monitoring tools. It flips traditional management on its head. It’s based on trust. And it treats employees like adult humans. But companies need to be ready for the results: it might just become obvious that offices, 40 hour work weeks, meetings and management offsites are thoroughly useless. And employees could be well-armed with the data to prove it.

Related: How companies succumb to sunk cost culture

The post Employee monitoring: to track or not to track? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Who’s covering their identity at work? Image via Deloitte.

It’s a worthwhile goal for any employer to create an environment where employees of every demographic feel welcomed, supported and able to succeed. We’ll categorize those efforts under the term ‘inclusion.’ Inclusion puts diversity to work, encouraging respect for individual perspectives and cultures in the workplace.

An inclusive workplace also helps companies understand the needs of a diverse customer base. Ipsita Agarwhal, a startup founder, engineer and journalist, wrote about the misalignment between Internet.org and the everyday needs of millions of Indian citizens who don’t have access to the internet. She affirms that:

“The single most obvious reason to push hard for diversity is that promoting diversity means promoting understanding. And that leads to better products that solve problems for those who might’ve otherwise been sidelined.”

Meanwhile, the creative agency Anomaly New York has a track record of crafting campaigns that resonate with a diverse audience, such as their campaign for YouTube Music and YouTube’s #ProudToLove spot. “Our agency is flat and flexible—our teams are built on a diversity of talent,” says Kara Wilsher, a partner at Anomaly. They have a markedly inclusive culture, which includes a healthy attitude towards debate and conflict as well as including employees in every part of the creative process.

For companies that are just starting out, Patreon CEO Jack Conte rounded up a great list of replicable and effective tasks for kickstarting a diversity and inclusion program. For workplaces that are ready to scale up, here are a few big ideas for shaping an inclusive work culture and what inclusion looks like at some of the best companies around.

Inclusive company policies

Dawn Bovasso, VP and Group Creative Director at DigitasLBi reports that in most places she’s worked, expense policies disadvantage parents—especially mothers. Companies will often reimburse travel expenses, but won’t cover costs for employees to maintain their homes (e.g. babysitting) when they’re away. As a result, a company dinner that was a treat for her colleagues seemed like less of a treat for her:

“I’m a single mom living in downtown Boston, which meant that I’d have to arrange for a sitter from about 6 p.m.-midnight at $20/hour. Add in some Tasty Burger for my son and the sitter, her tip and Uber home, and this appreciation dinner was going to end up costing me about $200.”

What do family-friendly policies look like? For the sake of comparison, Zendesk offers ‘returnships’ for mothers returning to the workforce. And Patagonia covers the cost for on-site childcare for their employees. Policies (any of them: recruitment, promotions, paid time off) can always be rewritten so that some groups of employees are not left in the lurch. They’re a powerful and public way to stand up for employees’ rights and shape a more inclusive workplace.

Employee resource groups

“There’s increased enthusiasm for [Employee Resource Groups] on the national level,” says Nilda Mahrer, manager of human resources programs and diversity at AtlantiCare, a leading healthcare provider in New Jersey. “Organizations have realized the business value and impact on organizational outcomes—such as high employee engagement levels and customer experiences.”

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are internal communities led by employees and for employees. These networks are a win-win for employees and organizations. For employees, especially those from underrepresented groups, ERGs are a way to connect with peers and mentors who have had similar experiences.

For employers, ERGs are an effective long-term diversity and inclusion strategy. AtlantiCare’s ERGs boost employee engagement and improve the quality of patient care. Activities like providing dietary accommodations for staff and families during Ramadan (led by AtlantiCare’s interfaith group, PATHS) build loyalty by providing a positive, culturally-sensitive work environment.

AtlantiCare’s LGBT group, PRIDE, steered efforts to create a better experience for LGBT patients and their families. These results include more inclusive language on their Patient Bill of Rights, and more inclusive language on EEO, Harrasment-Free Workplace and Non-Discrimination policies. In 2014, their Patient Equal Visitation Policy was highlighted in the Human Rights Campaign Resource Guide for hospitals.

Community outreach

Image via NASA

There are business benefits to extending your efforts to the residents of your office’s neighborhood. From developing spaces for interacting with the public to collaborating with local artists on office design, Slack’s workspace manifesto makes it clear that they will be an active contributor to their local community. We wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Slack’s community outreach also helps them attract and retain local talent.

Speaking of recruitment, Pinterest’s outreach strategy includes hosting inclusive events, such as their Blacks in Tech event and their Future Female Founders event. These events build goodwill and help them source qualified diverse talent. Pinterest is also nurturing relationships with schools with more diverse student bodies in order to recruit diverse talent down the line.

More than a coat of paint

What are diversity numbers and mission statements without inclusion policies to back them up? Nothing but trouble, according to a recent article published by the Harvard Business Review. Used in isolation, pro-diversity rhetoric sparks distrust in minority groups and alienates majority groups. Tessa Dover, one of the researchers from the HBR piece, argues:

“If you’re going to say you value diversity, you need policies in place to support diversity, otherwise you make people [in the majority] feel vulnerable and less supportive of the cause.”

In addition to the strategies we’ve already shared, what else has been effective in shaping a more inclusive work environment? The most effective strategies, according to Harvard professor Frank Dobbin, are ‘responsibility structures,’ such as diversity committees and diversity staff positions. “If no one one is specifically charged with the task of increasing diversity,” says Professor Dobbin, “then the buck inevitably gets passed ad infinitum.”

One popular and costly option has turned out to be one of the least effective strategies. Diversity training, also known as sensitivity training, runs counter to the science of motivating people. “You won’t get managers on board by blaming and shaming them with rules and education,” explains Professor Dobbin. Studies show that compulsory diversity training can have the opposite effect: it can actually reinforce resentment and bias.

The post Strategies for building an inclusive workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In the United States, women earn 79 cents for every dollar earned by men. And in Massachusetts, women make 11K less than men every year, on average. Women are paid less than men in their first jobs, even when they’re in the same field and have the same educational background. Women are also penalized more than men for initiating salary negotiations and for having caregiving responsibilities outside the workplace.

“These are things that don’t just affect one job; it keeps women’s wages down over their entire lifetime,” explains bill co-sponsor and State Senator Pat Jehlen. Victoria Budson, supporter of the law and Executive Director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, puts it this way:

“What happens to people over time is if in that first negotiation or those first few jobs out of high school or college you are underpaid, then you really get a snowball effect where if each subsequent salary is really benchmarked to that, then what can happen is that type of usually implicit and occasionally explicit discrimination really then follows that person throughout their career.”

A rising tide lifts all boats. When the law goes into effect in 2018, it will pave the way for employers to correct the wage gap and provide equal pay for equal work. This will benefit all historically underpaid workers, including minority workers.

What’s good for candidates may also be good for employers. According to SHRM’s 2016 Job Satisfaction and Engagement Report, compensation is still a top contributor to employee engagement, and even more important than it was in 2015. Workers may be tempted to look elsewhere for the raises they missed out on during the recession. Paying workers a competitive wage means they won’t have to. In addition, excluding salary history from the interview process can create a more positive experience for candidates. LevelUp’s Director of Talent, Anik Conley-Das, says:

“The impact of not asking for previous salaries is ultimately a positive one, for both candidates and employers. Candidates can now focus on their value proposition for the role they are pursuing, and can now have more holistic conversations with employers without being discounted by the singular factor of pay, which often times is not even a good indicator of fit or success.”

Here are all the main ways that the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act promotes equal pay, and how both local and multi-state companies can stay compliant with these changes.

A broader definition of ‘comparable work’

Today, job titles and job descriptions are enough to legally define ‘comparable work,’ or ‘equal pay for equal work.’ Under this narrow definition, janitors (a job dominated by men) are paid 22 percent more than housekeepers (a job dominated by women). After the law comes into effect in 2018, these two jobs will be considered ‘comparable,’ because they share similar working conditions, job responsibilities and comparable skills. Comparable jobs will have comparable wages. A joint press release from the Massachusetts House and Senate details some exceptions to the rule.

How might ‘comparable work’ factor into recruitment? Jobseekers in search of higher pay may reference a wider range of comparable jobs in interviews. An Assistant VP of Human Resources, for example, might compare their role to that of a ‘VP of Talent,’ ‘VP of People,’ ‘Director of Employee Engagement,’ ‘Chief People Officer’ or ‘Global Head of Employee Experience.’

Illegal to ask for salary history

“What was your last salary?” Jobseekers who dread this question will be pleased to know that employers will no longer be able to ask it, at least not in Massachusetts. Massachusetts will be the first state to ban employers from asking for candidates’ salary history until after they have extended a job offer with a detailed compensation package. This prompts some questions. Would employers really ask for compensation after a candidate is hired? Would they require candidates to sign a pre-employment waiver? It’s an odd thing to write into a law, but if it helps candidates get paid what they’re worth, then we support it. Candidates can still volunteer to disclose their past salary in the hiring process, but this will never be required.

To be compliant, Massachusetts employers must remove this question from job application forms and interview processes. In addition, employers must ensure that anyone participating in recruitment is aware of this law. As for multi-state employers, their job applications must be updated to say that candidates in Massachusetts should not answer salary history questions.

No pay secrecy

About half of employees report that their employers discourage or prohibit them from sharing notes about how much they’re paid. Some employers even go so far as to mandate pay secrecy in employee handbooks. This is illegal and has been so for 80 years. Under the National Labor Relations Act enacted in 1935, employees have a legal right to engage in “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” That includes talking about our salaries. Most of us don’t even know this law exists.

Because of pay secrecy, women and minority workers are often unable to find out if they’re being unfairly paid. Similar to President Obama’s executive order in 2014, Massachusetts is giving this issue a much-needed signal boost by banning pay secrecy.

Penalties and protections

Noncompliance penalties are steep. The Equal Pay Act grants both employees and the Massachusetts Attorney General with the right to sue. Furthermore, employees can file claims on behalf of “similarly situated employees,” which could result in expensive class action lawsuits.

The Act does provide employers with protections. Employers may defend themselves against claims of gender-based pay discrimination by completing a self-evaluation of their pay practices. However, this ‘affirmative defense’ (a fact or set of facts that mitigates legal consequences) will not extend to violations of the Act’s salary history and pay secrecy provisions.

What employers can do right now

We caught up with Joel G. Kinney and Daniel Paradis from Fort Point Legal, PC in Boston to ask them how employers should prepare for 2018. Here are their recommendations. At the very least, employers should develop job matrices that document current and future roles. These should include the relative skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions and educational requirements or continuing education needed for each. They should then plug employees into the matrix to identify pay gaps.

Employers would also be well-advised to begin a written self-evaluation that they can use to predict their compliance once the law becomes effective. This evaluation can serve as an early benchmark to help employers scope out the work they need to do to be compliant with the Act.

Finally, but most critically: Employers should make sure they’re on the right track by seeking the advice of qualified legal counsel.

The post What does Massachusetts’ equal pay law mean for employers? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Tracking employee engagement can be tough. Employers could lookout for red flags to help them spot disengaged employees. But, with Gallup reporting that 70% of millennials are disengaged, this could turn out to be a full-time job. Some employers opt for exit interviews instead. In fact, 71% of companies use exit interviews to measure employee engagement, according to a 2011 SHRM/Globoforce survey. Still, that could be too little, too late.

Ask questions before sending surveys

Employee engagement surveys are a popular method and can yield good results, if used correctly. Yet, they have their share of limitations and problems. Anyone who wants to improve their employee engagement surveys should ask themselves the following questions:

• Are our surveys valid and reliable? Expertly-administered employee engagement surveys are costly. To cut back on expenses, many companies choose to create and administer their own surveys. Unfortunately, this can raise doubts about their validity and reliability. Questions should measure what they need to measure (validity) and should produce consistent results (reliability). Professional survey companies test their surveys many times to ensure they’re reliable. They’ll also control biases like selection bias and response bias to ensure surveys are valid. For example, good surveys avoid ‘leading questions’ that point to a right answer. Companies might not have enough time or know-how to ensure their surveys are effective. This often translates into skewed results.

• Do surveys answer the ‘why’? It’s useful to discover your employees’ engagement levels. But, what do you do with your results? If you discover high engagement, how do you maintain it? If your employees are disengaged, what actions should you take? Intuition and assumptions won’t do. You need to know the reasons behind employees’ answers. Without concrete reasons, you can’t know what you’re doing right and what you should change. For example, yes or no questions like “are you satisfied?” can tell you how engaged employees are. But they don’t tell you why employees think the way they do.

• Will employees actually respond? Surveys often struggle with response rates. If half your employees get around to completing your survey, it’d be a cause for celebration. Good response rates matter for employee engagement surveys, because they’re not designed to draw conclusions about all employees from a small sample. You want to hear as many voices as possible. Another possible problem with surveys is nonresponse bias, a common type of selection bias. Disengaged employees are less likely to bother completing engagement surveys. This means the majority of results might come from fully or moderately engaged employees. In that case, they won’t represent overall employee engagement.

• Are results accurate? As with any survey, you can’t be sure that responders will tell the truth. Social desirability bias is an issue, because people want to create a desirable picture of themselves, often misrepresenting their opinions and feelings. Also, employees might think they’ll be penalized if they reveal something negative. Even in anonymous surveys, people might give moderate answers if they’re afraid low engagement rates will affect bonuses, influence managers’ attitudes or cause unwanted disruptions.External factors could also pose a problem. For example, if you conduct a survey in the middle of an economic crisis, employees might report higher engagement than they really feel—either because they’re glad they have work or because they don’t want to upset their managers.

• Are surveys and results timely? If you conduct employee engagement surveys annually or semi-annually, it’s difficult to know what happens during the rest of the year. Plus, results can often take a couple of months to process. In the end, they’re nothing more than a snapshot of the past.

• Am I ready to act on the results? Companies can instruct employees to spruce up their office. But, they often fail to address the real underlying issues, the ones that take longer to change and are harder to get right. In other words, the ones that’ll make a difference to engagement levels. In fact, this is one of the reasons why employee engagement surveys could foster disengaged employees. Eighty percent of employees don’t really expect employers to act on survey results. Ignoring meaningful employee feedback isn’t a great way to maintain a good employee-employer relationship.

Even if surveys didn’t have all these issues, they still wouldn’t go far enough. An employer’s ultimate purpose is to boost employee engagement. Just gathering and analyzing results, no matter how valuable, won’t get them there.

Complement surveys with other approaches

The best way to make employee engagement surveys useful is to avoid relying on surveys alone. Direct, real-time feedback from employees (through regular 1:1 meetings) and open communication (through intranets or apps) are good ideas too. Combined with more frequent surveys, they could present an interesting picture of employee engagement. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of employee engagement surveys:

• Explain objectives. Emphasize that you aim to improve things for employees. Make it clear that employees won’t be penalized for negative feedback but will be listened to.

• Use the right tools. Many companies use tools like Officevibe and TINYPulse to track employee morale in real-time, analyze data and do pulse surveys. With SurveyAnyplace, you could also discover your employees’ opinions about events and training programs, as well as assess employee engagement levels.

• Consider an external service. Using a third party to administer surveys and collect results may make employees more comfortable. Response rates might rise and you could get more honest answers. Experts can also assist with benchmarking and analytics.

• Ask the right questions. Answers should be actionable. For example, don’t ask “do you enjoy collaborating with your team?” There’s nothing you can do with yes or no answers. Instead, ask employees to rate statements like “teamwork is valued and encouraged in the company.” Assess key areas like wellbeing, recognition and autonomy. Give employees an opportunity to speak their minds. Also, employees’ personal lives influence work engagement. For example, employees who have long commutes might not be happy when coming to the office in the morning and try to leave as early as possible. Use open-ended questions to find out if there are any personal issues that prevent them from feeling good at work.

• Take results with a pinch of salt. (Unless your response rates are phenomenal.) A larger sample size can help you get more reliable results. Encourage employees to respond. Making engagement surveys mandatory will boost your response rates, but it might also harm engagement levels, frustrating disengaged employees even further. Offering incentives could be a better option.

• Be ready to act. When results are analyzed, plan your course of action immediately. Communicate any changes you’ve decided and take small steps fast. If you haven’t found a way to deal with a problem yet, or think it’d be impossible to do so, tell employees. Explain your reasoning and tell them what you’ll do instead.

• Involve managers. Most managers and supervisors think HR have ownership of employee engagement surveys. It’s true that HR play a big part in the process. But, employee engagement won’t improve unless managers are involved.

Finally, it’s important to understand that employee engagement surveys measure, rather than drive, employee engagement. The key to driving engagement and employee retention is to build a pleasant and empowering workplace. And that can only happen through a systematic and holistic approach. Improving employee engagement should be an everyday goal.

The post How to approach employee engagement surveys appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Just a quick scroll through the viral #firstsevenjobs hashtag shows that straightforward career progression isn’t the norm for most people. The way we design our companies should reflect that.

#firstsevenjobs
Dish washer
Camp counselor
Fighter pilot
Astronaut
Commandant
Speaker
Author

Now Global Space Statesman!

— Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) August 7, 2016

In a previous piece we published, we talked about how ‘career pathing’ is just another way to say ‘training.’ That still stands. But career paths are a massive chunk of employee training and development. Career pathing is a roadmap for how people can progress in an organization. It is a structured process that includes development opportunities like classes and mentorships. Career pathing also includes formal criteria and guidelines for advancing to the next stage of their careers, such as transferring to a new team or earning a promotion.

Here are three different types of career paths corresponding to three different types of employees.

Lateral / diagonal paths

For career switchers and generalists

In this scenario, employees move ‘sideways’ into career paths that are more aligned with their skills and ambitions. They add new skills, become more versatile and gain new perspectives—all of which are beneficial to their company. Depending on where they work, they can advance diagonally, by being promoted or getting a raise. This isn’t always handled well, and sometimes employees who switch tracks feel like they’re sidelined or re-starting from scratch. There can be a lot of anxiety and ambiguity in transferring to a new team or field of expertise. Keep employees motivated by working with them to map out specific goals or milestones that mark progress.

Companies like IBM, Bright Horizons, and Cisco have effective systems in place for supporting diagonal employees. IBM has created a suite of software tools for employees to map out their career progression. These tools also link employees with other people at IBM who can help them.

At Bright Horizons, all employees participate in a formal career advancement program involving career planning and regular feedback. The program is also a succession plan. Employees are motivated to excel because they know Bright Horizons prefers to promote from within.

At Cisco, lateral moves prepare executives to succeed in their roles. Anna Corrales, former Senior Vice President of Product Operations, worked in several teams, which equipped her with the broad perspective she needed to lead the company as their Vice President of Global Business Operations.

Vertical paths

For people wranglers

This career path corresponds to the traditional corporate ladder. It’s the hardest path to get right because great employees don’t always make great managers. Leaders with a real knack for coaching people and managing team dynamics improve employee engagement by as much as 70 percent. An ineffective manager can decrease engagement by the same amount.

Many companies provide in-house training for developing more capable leaders. At CVS, all employees participate in training programs specific to their roles. Those who wish to take on more responsibility have a wide range of development opportunities to choose from. Retail employees on career paths for a pharmacy manager or district manager role can participate in an ‘Emerging Leaders’ program, which includes coaching and mentoring sessions.

At Procter & Gamble, future team leaders are charged with running a small business, providing ‘stretch assignments‘ and training beyond employees’ current skill levels and comfort zones to help them grow.

Radiating paths

For individual contributors

Fact: Only 34 percent of employees want to be leaders and very few (7 percent) aspire to be C-level managers. The other 66 percent are individual contributors. Individual contributors include industrial designers at a toy company, petroleum engineers at an oil company and the animators at Disney. They usually stay in the same role while they gain experience and grow their influence.

The majority of employees are individual contributors and half of them feel stagnant in their current roles. If they don’t see clear pathways for growth they will leave or consider the ill-fitting role of a manager. In the words of Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz:

“I worry today when an individual is great at their job and expresses their interest in people management… I worry that some significant portion of that expressed desire… exists because they want to level up their career and/or influence and believe this to be the only path.”

Career milestones for individual contributors tend to be less defined. At Spotify, the technology leadership team noticed widespread misconceptions about how people in technical roles could rise up the ranks. According to Kevin Goldsmith, Chief Technology Officer at Spotify:

“There was a strong belief within the organization that the way to be ‘promoted’ was to become a Chapter Lead (line manager)… In fact, switching to these roles at Spotify is more akin to a career change (to management or product) than it is to developing as an individual contributor.”

To support nonlinear career growth and define criteria for advancement, his team worked with HR to create a career framework called Steps. Steps is unique. One of their metrics for measuring progress is how many people employees work with and how much influence they have.

Image via Spotify

At Hootsuite and Help Scout, people who prefer to be individual contributors have support to stay within their roles but advance their knowledge and influence. Hootsuite’s support team has a ‘leader’ track for people who are interested in managing and mentoring people. Alternately, they have a ‘guru’ track for those who want to stay in their current jobs but acquire deeper expertise. At Help Scout, individuals can stay in their roles while acquiring new responsibilities. These responsibilities range from training new employees to writing about recent product improvements. As employees acquire more responsibility, their compensation rises too.

Formal career paths show employees that employers are invested in their success. They also dispel confusion about how things are done and answer common employee questions like:

“How do I find out about open jobs at this company?”

“What specific achievements will help me get that promotion?”

“How can I get the skills and experience I need to do the work I want to do?”

And ultimately, “Should I stay at this company?”

The post Creating career paths that put people first appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In the 70s, organizational psychologist John Morse conducted an experiment on company culture fit and found that workers whose personalities matched their jobs felt more confident about their job performance. In the 90s, hiring for culture fit hit the mainstream. Southwest Airlines famously screened job candidates based on their willingness to provide offbeat, fun experiences for passengers.

Today, the concept of corporate culture fit has been flipped on its head, as the public continues to scrutinize the lack of diversity in the tech industry. Instead of being a strategy for hiring and keeping talented people, culture fit is often seen as a convenient way of discriminating against otherwise qualified people. Of course, employment discrimination isn’t new to our times. But we have a lot of new outlets to talk about it.

“Culture fit” craze is turning tech from innovators to ideological fiefdoms https://t.co/hUEo48xbAQ

— Peter EG (@pevansgreenwood) August 7, 2016

i hear all the time companies interview for "culture fit". i think that's part of the problem. maybe you should hire for "culture shakeup".

— getify (@getify) July 16, 2016

“Culture fit is a means to keep people out of a protected and privileged circle, rather than to protect that circle’s values,” writes Mathias Meyer, CEO of Travis CI. Programmer Shanley Kane wrote an essay along the same lines. According to Kane, “we make sure to hire for cultural fit,” really means:

“We have implemented a loosely coordinated social policy to ensure homogeneity in our workforce. We are able to reject qualified, diverse candidates on the grounds that ‘they aren’t a culture fit’ while not having to examine what that means.”

When companies do it right, hiring for culture fit results in employees who fit their role, work well with their colleagues and share their company’s sense of purpose. Culture fit contributes to approximately half the variance of overall job satisfaction. And, most job candidates see culture fit as a top consideration when choosing an employer.

However, misusing and misunderstanding culture fit has consequences. Jobseekers, especially the largest, most diverse generation in the workplace (millennials), seek a diverse workplace with a thriving culture. When culture fit criteria emphasize a hiring manager’s personal enjoyment or reflect bias, candidates notice and spread the word. This can discourage entire groups of qualified people from applying and undermine a company’s efforts to reap the benefits of a diverse and inclusive culture.

What “not a culture fit” reveals

When hiring managers and recruiters say that a candidate is “not a culture fit,” what does it really mean? If a hiring team frequently uses the two most common objections below, they’re probably using culture fit as a mask for employment discrimination. Are their objections based on skills and qualifications? Do they reveal bias towards candidates from different cultures or social classes? Are they based on how well people will work together, or how well people will play together?

“Lack of relevant experience”

In some cases, candidates are truly unprepared to succeed in a role, particularly if the role requires specific hard skills and experience. In other cases, “being one of us” translates into having a specific academic pedigree, or belonging to the “smartest” group of people without having a quantifiable metric for smarts.

In our interview with interviewing.io’s Aline Lerner, she notes that “lack of relevant experience” is the number one reason for rejecting candidates’ resumes, but that it’s often a euphemism for “I don’t think this candidate is smart enough.” There are more reliable skills assessments than going to ‘the right’ schools or working at ‘the right’ companies. Hiring standards should be objective and measurable, not a mythical bar that can be raised or lowered at will.

The “lack of relevant experience” objection has variants. See: “lowering the bar” and “lowering our standards.”

“Not someone I would grab a drink with”

Questions like “Star Wars or Star Trek?” or “where do you vacation in the summer?” seem like a harmless way to get a sense of someone’s personality. It’s one thing if you work for a museum and are recruiting people who are passionate about art history. It’s something else entirely when you don’t work for a distillery but will hire someone based on a shared love for “sipping single-malt Scotches in the Highlands.”

“I’m not interested in ping-pong, beer, or whatever other gimmick used to attract new grads,” writes Kaya Thomas, a rising senior majoring in computer science at Dartmouth College. “The fact that I don’t like those things shouldn’t mean I’m not a ‘culture fit.’ …I want to create amazing things and learn from other smart people. That is the culture fit you should be looking for.”

When colleagues can be friends outside of work, it’s a happy bonus. But too often hiring morphs into looking for playmates instead of colleagues. This approach reveals class and personality biases. For companies with mission statements that boast about “making a difference” or “changing the world,” this is especially not a good look. Leveling the playing field for equally qualified but less privileged candidates? That’s change.

Consider ‘cultural contribution’

We’ve sung the praises of cultural sameness. Colleagues who share a similar approach to work can make happier, more productive teams. Think of diplomatic people-pleasers at a hotel who will go the extra mile to resolve a conflict or make someone’s day. Or healthcare professionals who stay calm under pressure, even in medical emergencies. However, when it comes to building a product or creating a five-year plan, too much sameness can lead to an echo chamber of bad decisions.

The philosophy of hiring for culture fit doesn’t acknowledge how a different point of view can raise the performance of an entire team. A study from Columbia Business School reports that diverse teams make better decisions, deliver greater financial returns and change how individuals think.

At AT&T’s research lab, the best researchers were not those who fit their original profile of “the best and brightest” hires. Their stars turned out to be the people plugged into the most diverse networks. According to the Harvard Business Review’s Alex Pentland:

“Middling performers saw the world only from the viewpoint of their jobs and limited their social learning to people in similar roles. Stars, on the other hand, reached out to people from a broader set of work roles, so they understood the perspectives of customers, competitors and managers.”

In this light, it makes sense to think about “culture add,” or what a person can bring to a team instead of how they can blend in. What training, skills, perspectives and ideas will boost creativity, drive constructive conflict and lead to well-reasoned decisions? Cultural fit is one side of the coin, cultural contribution is the other.

The post The problem with hiring for ‘culture fit’ appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So what is the EEO-1 report or employer information report? It is a compliance survey mandated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and it’s obligatory for employers who meet certain criteria. EEO-1 reporting is done through the completion of Standard Form 100. To complete this EEO-1 form you store employment data categorized by ethnicity, race, gender and job category.

Complying with EEOC guidelines can be time consuming and EEO mistakes can get you in trouble. It’s a headache but it’s worth remembering that the EEO-1 report is a means of tracking compliance for any equal opportunity employer.

If you are about to file an EEO-1 report for the first time, use these simple steps to get the job done.

Step 1: Determine whether you need to file an EEO-1 report

All employers with 15 or more employees have to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be considered an equal opportunity employer and avoid discrimination according to protected characteristics. However, you only have to file an actual EEO-1 report if:

• You have 100 or more employees
• You have less than 100 employees but you are owned, affiliated with or controlled by a company with more than 100 employees overall
• You have 50 or more employees AND you have a federal contract/subcontract worth more than $50,000
• You have 50 or more employees AND you act as an issuing and paying agent for US Savings Bonds OR serve as a depository of government funds

The Standard form 100 can be completed by all types of employers. Keep in mind that if you have 50 or more employees but you are exempt under regulation 41 CFR 60-1.5, you don’t have to file an EEO-1 report. You are also excluded if you’re located in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or other US Protectorates.

Step 2: Learn the basics of the EEO statement

The annual deadline for submission of an EEO-1 report is September 30. Sometimes an extension may be given officially by the EEOC or you can request a one time 30-day extension.

The EEOC states that online submission of EEO-1 data is preferable in an effort to reduce paperwork (Government paperwork elimination act of 1998). Paper reports will be accepted only upon request and approval. You can check the annual survey mailout memorandum for the website, telephone number or address from which you can get a copy of the prescribed EEO-1 data file.

Employers who operate in one location, as one establishment, are referred to as “single-establishment” employers and are obliged to file a single EEO-1 report.

Employers who operate as more than one establishment are referred to as “multi-establishment” employers. They must file the following reports:

• One report for the company’s headquarters (Type 3)
• One report for each establishment with 50 or more employees (Type 4)
• One list of establishments with less than 50 employees including a data grid on their employees by race, gender and job category (Type 6) OR a separate report for each of these establishments (Type 8 as per Type 4)
• One consolidated report (Type 2)

Be sure to check the EEOC Factsheet for more detailed information.

The EEOC may occasionally accept proposals from employers for alternative methods of reporting. If you think that this will benefit your company, you should file a written proposal to the EEO-1 Coordinator, EEOC-Survey Division, 1801 L Street, NW, Washington, DC 20507 as stated in official instructions. At any case, make sure you collect all needed information by visiting the EEO-1 survey website.

If you have questions pertaining to a specific situation, you may find help in the FAQ section. A checklist for the whole process can be extremely helpful.

Step 3: Register as a first-time filer

In order to file the report you need a Login ID and password. To receive these, the EEOC requires you to register for a first time submission. Completing this form serves as an application for credentials. It will also help you determine whether you are obliged to register as a first time filer.

Make sure you do this well in advance as it will take you some time to establish a procedure for recording data and completing the standard form 100.

Step 4: Collect the data for your EEO-1 report

Employment data can refer to any pay period from July to September. Generally, self-identification by employees is preferable to ensure the accuracy of data. A procedure to conduct this employee survey, allowing for ample time for everyone to respond, is essential. Make sure you provide self-identification forms to the employees and that they are collected in time. The headquarters or parent company must collect all forms from the establishments. In cases where employees refuse to identify themselves, the employer is allowed to complete the data on their behalf by records or visual observation (in the case of race).

All employees regardless of their status (e.g. part-time vs full-time) must be included in the report. The job classification is as follows:

• Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers
• First/Mid Level Officials and Managers
• Professionals
• Technicians
• Sales Workers
• Administrative Support Workers
• Craft Workers
• Operatives
• Laborers and Helpers
• Service Workers

Make sure that you have a clear understanding of these EEO-1 categories to avoid misclassifying an employee.

For race categories you can consult the appendix of the official EEOC instruction booklet where there are instructions for classifying employees according to race. The categories used are:

• Hispanic or Latino
• White (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino)

Generally, the instruction booklet can help you gain a better understanding of the different EEO-1 reporting requirements.

Note that you need to record employment data only. The EEO-1 report doesn’t require you to submit any data regarding candidates from your hiring process. See step 7 if you are wondering about the usefulness of applicant data.

Step 5: Prepare and submit the EEO-1 report

You can find a full sample of the report here. Note that the job and race classifications appear by default in the report. Your preparation must be done according to those guidelines. After you have collected self-identification data by employees, you can begin to list them by establishment, race/ethnicity, gender and job category (every employee should appear only once in the EEO-1 report). Double-check your data. If you are a multi-establishment company, remember that the number of employees in the consolidated report must equal the sum of employees in the Type 3, 4 and 6 or 8 reports.

You can submit your completed report through the EEO-1 Online Filing System or through other methods approved by the EEOC.

The EEOC guidelines make a special mention of the “certify report” button. Do not forget to press it, otherwise your report will not be submitted.

Step 6: Track changes in EEO-1 reporting requirements

Recently, the EEOC proposed changes that expand the EEO-1 categories that employers must report. From 2017, the EEOC may require EEO-1 filers to submit compensation data (W-2 earnings and hours worked) as part of their EEO-1 report. It has also published a proposed form for electronic collection of this data. You can find more information, as well as a comment section that is in effect until April 1, here.

Make sure you keep abreast of the EEOC decisions. Filing an incomplete or inaccurate report may have serious consequences such as fines or the termination of federal contracts for contractors and the banning of future agreements.

Step 7: Expand your data for complete EEO compliance

Overall EEO compliance should not be left to chance. Being compliant as an equal opportunity employer largely depends on the systematic recording and storage of data.  Especially if you are a federal contractor, the recording of applicant data is typically part of a mandatory internal audit and reporting system for your affirmative action plan.

For any equal opportunity employer, it can be useful to have a detailed view of the hiring process. For example, if an employer realizes that a recent job opening has attracted only male white candidates under 40 years old, this might mean there is a problem with the content of the job ad. This can mean the employer is unwittingly breaking the law. Analyzing applicant data can help you quickly correct mistakes that could otherwise land you in court. Spreadsheets may serve this purpose. However, if you want to save time and avoid mistakes you can use an Applicant Tracking Systems like Workable, where EEO reporting features are fully integrated and can be easily activated.

Further Reading

• What is EEO?

The post How to file an EEO-1 report appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Some employers choose to take out group short-term disability insurance for their employees as a benefit. While short-term disability laws in the US protect employees from losing their jobs in the event of a prolonged absence on medical grounds, these laws don’t protect their income, unless that absence was caused by something that happened on the job. Short-term disability leave is guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act if the disability occurred off-the-job (and 95% of disabling injuries and illnesses are not job-related). It provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave to qualified employees, usually after they have used up their sick leave and or vacation days. Even these legal protections only apply to companies with more than 50 employees.

Some other countries are more generous. In the UK, employees are entitled to fixed statutory sick pay (roughly $125) for the first 28 weeks of leave related to short term disability. A significant percentage of the workforce will be in need of short-term disability leave and US law (with the exception of six states) doesn’t guarantee any compensation. By having an employer short-term disability policy a part of your overall company policy handbook can make all the difference if and when something does go wrong.

Still not sure it’s worth your while as an employer? Here’s three reasons why it might be a good idea:

1. Productivity and retention

Nearly two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies are attributed to medical problems, according to a 2007 report. Although many may have been cases of sole-proprietors, many will have inevitably included employees. Aside from the human tragedy, this translates into a costly loss to the workforce. Employment benefits have been identified as a good way to power up efforts at reinforcing and retaining a productive workforce. By providing your employees with paid short-term disability coverage, you will give them added peace of mind. This may be a great contributing factor to having happier employees who will want to stay with you longer and work better.

2. An opportunity to attract top talent

Nearly half of all educated professionals have no short term disability coverage, according to a 2015 report. The proportion of uninsured employees in less qualified positions is even higher. This imbalance offers a great opportunity for an employer who is willing to invest to gain competitive advantage. By taking out insurance and having a good short-term disability policy you can reinforce your claims to being an employer who cares and provides for the well-being of their employees. The cost for access to short-term disability coverage has an average of $0.15 per hour for all workers, according to the bureau of national statistics. This is a cost that could be easily covered by the bump in performance typically associated with a secure and qualified workforce.

3. A way to provide maternity leave

Statutory paid maternity leave is non-existent in the US. Employers may choose to compensate their employees by drafting a maternity leave policy, thus building a more engaged and happy workforce. Conveniently, the definition of short-term disability in the US is quite broad to the point that it includes pregnancy and childbirth. Hence, short-term disability insurance policies may cover six weeks of pay after childbirth; longer in cases of complications. By having this provision, you can offer payment to your employees at a time they need it. Also, a policy will ensure maternity leave pay is consistently paid to all employees. Otherwise, you may be tempted to pay a more valuable employee more money to retain them, and that way you are risking a lawsuit.

The post 3 reasons to get a short-term disability policy appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.