What Diversity Means in this Era

Diversity is now reported to be the No. 1 recruiting trend for businesses. However, despite decades of trying to improve workforce diversity in the workplace, the commercial sector has yet to make much progress. This in part is due to the evolution and many different forms of diversity emerging.

Diversity discussions founded decades ago in social justice objectives have evolved beyond simple categories. Diversity explorations have also expanded as research has found strong correlations between improved business results and diversity on teams, in leadership and in the workplace at large.

•Women in leadership correlates with greater business returns

•Racial and gender diversity of the workforce matter even more than gender alone

•Being around different kinds of people makes us all smarter

As the reasons for building a diverse workforce expand, so does the idea of what kind of diversity produces such improved results. In this newsletter, we will review the best practices and ideas that generate new and better ways of thinking to support greater diversity in the workplace.

Adopt a more diverse definition of diversity

Increasing diversity means embracing and advocating differences from person to person within the organization – ethnicity, gender, age, origin, disability, religion, etc. Although gender and ethnicity are still the major focal points, organizations are starting to invest in multiples areas of diversity.

The most recent HR survey by Harvey Nash asked, “Which areas are your organization actively pursuing to be more diverse?”

•60% Gender

•41% Ethnicity/culture

•38% Age

•14% LGBT

Moreover, with aging populations and more people delaying retirement, age discrimination is gaining attention and will be a big topic this year.

Sourcing candidates with non-traditional credentials

With unemployment at a 16-year low, there’s a general talent shortage, but one industry that’s really feeling the hurt is tech.

There will be less of a focus on traditional majors (e.g., computer science), therefore it is important to open up the candidate pool to those with non-traditional credentials who are still able to show evidence of the desired skill set.

Whether this means candidates with non-STEM degrees who taught themselves how to code or learned from a coding boot camp, tools that better assess candidates’ skills and knowledge are going to be more widely adopted in the new year.

Testing diversity initiatives with data

One of the big bottlenecks for increasing workplace diversity has been relying on practices that sound good on the surface but haven’t proven to be very effective.

Companies are recognizing that they need to start testing their diversity initiatives by collecting the data.

For example, Airbnb’s interviewers had been previously trained to find commonalities with candidates (e.g., hobbies, educational background, experiences) to help build connections.

While it seems like a good idea, this type of behavior leads to similarity bias: liking people who are similar to us more in lieu of focusing on their work-related skill set.

Airbnb changed their recruiting process to explicitly avoid looking for commonalities and using objective scorecards to make sure all candidates are evaluated equally and fairly.

In 2018, companies are going to stop accepting things on face value and start using data to see how effective their initiatives actually are.

Apply Goal Setting and Accountability to Diversity

Goal setting is a must for organizations that want to reach new heights and transform the workplace. Create a shared sense of responsibility and accountability, especially for establishing and maintaining a diverse and inclusive workplace by enrolling all employees in big picture planning and execution.

When the team is on the same page, it’s best working toward a common goal and preparing to fight inequality.

Industry experts like Bersin argue the most effective way to move the needle on diversity is to create personal accountability.

Bersin suggests that one way to do this is to tie compensation to diversity and inclusion outcomes.

Make a long-term commitment to maximize diversity and inclusion

Change take time, days, weeks and maybe, months. No matter what, stay focused on the big picture and do whatever it takes to make diversity and inclusion practices right, fighting through any frustration, misunderstanding, exhaustion and spirited debates that might happen.

Success is reached when your organization’s culture gets stronger and the team, as a whole, can harvest the benefits that come with increased diversity and inclusion.

Overview:

An organization that succeeds in diversity and inclusion is one that transforms conceptual differences into practical and implementable strategies that work.

Application of the practices above, such as sourcing candidates with non-traditional credentials and applying goal setting and accountability to diversity will best equip us to succeed in this growing diverse world.

Diversity 2018:

Ji-A Min. (2018). 6 Best Workplace Diversity Trends for 2018. Ideal. Retrieved from https://ideal.com/workplace-diversity-trends/

Mariama-Arthur, K. (2018). 4 important ways to increase diversity and inclusion in the workplace. HCI. Retrieved from http://www.hci.org/blog/4-important-ways-increase-diversity-and-inclusion-workplace