Your company is likely having important conversations right now surrounding diversity and inclusion. Where does everyone stand? What should the company do? Are we evaluating enough diverse candidates and creating an inclusive culture? Is it time to evaluate our recruitment process?

For many companies, creating a diverse workforce does not happen overnight. Hiring managers and organizations, on the whole, have a lot to think about as they work through assessing existing demographics, evaluating conscious and unconscious biases, and figuring out their plan for moving forward with a diverse workforce to support company growth.

Your internal team of hiring managers or recruiters need to be on the same page with company initiatives, have an unbiased hiring process, create goals to increase diversity, implement action steps to achieve those goals, and evaluate how to be an employer where all people feel welcomed by not just focusing on diversity, but diversity & inclusion.

Getting Everyone on the Same Page

As recruiters focused on diversity recruitment, we at Goodwin understand that sometimes the hardest part of this process is getting the dialogue started. As you kick off conversations about diversity and inclusion in the workplace, do so with an awareness that each person in your company may be in a different headspace. Some are excited and ready to jump in, some are genuinely interested and overwhelmed, and some go through the motions but aren’t really bought in. Once you acknowledge that, you can manage your messaging more effectively.

Creating an Unbiased Hiring Process

Put yourselves in the shoes of a job seeker considering your company as their employer. Are you presenting an environment where they will feel included, appreciated, and not completely alone? Review your website, core values, branding, pages that describe your company, and the interview process itself. Review your job descriptions for any implicit bias or words that could potentially discourage particular groups or genders from applying to a job. Are the people involved in interviewing representing diverse groups, or can they answer questions candidates may have about the company’s diversity or initiatives to become more diverse and inclusive, if not already?

Goals to Increase Diversity

If everyone is on the same page regarding recruiting diverse employees and evaluating your talent acquisition strategy, it’s time to set goals. Depending on your organization’s size and your current hiring needs, these goals will vary from one organization to another. But the bottom line is that we treasure what we measure. Putting some metrics in place regarding how you would like to see your organization’s workforce shift is important for keeping everyone on the same page and rowing in the same direction. Do you need to diversify based on ethnicity? Gender? Age? Nationality? Sexual Orientation? Set your goals, and move forward toward workplace diversity.

Action Steps to Achieve Those Goals

So now that you have goals outlined, how do you go about achieving those? First and foremost, you must have a diversity recruiting strategy. Looking in the same places for different people is not going to work. Evaluate your job description, find new groups and organizations through social media, develop new sourcing methods, or even work with a recruitment firm like Goodwin Recruiting to help you find people of diverse backgrounds who will add to your company culture. Goodwin Recruiting has diversity initiatives in place and provides training to our team on everything from unconscious bias to creating processes and recruitment strategies to find potential candidates of different backgrounds and perspectives to present to our clients. If you need help taking action on your organization’s plan, reach out.

Becoming an Employer Where All People Feel Welcome

It’s one thing to start hiring a more diverse workforce of qualified candidates, but the term inclusion comes into play when discussing how to retain these talented new employees. Make sure your workplace is inclusive and inviting to all who join. Having a retention strategy in place will help you keep this great new talent and lead to referrals of more wonderful people to join your organization, providing new and different perspectives to help facilitate growth.

Consider watching a webinar presented by Goodwin’s VP of Training and Development, Jessica Diamond, to dig into these areas a bit deeper and learn some specific ways to attract and source more diverse candidates.

Goodwin embraces diversity in the workplace.

Goodwin Recruiting is an equal opportunity employer. Additionally, all applicants are considered for positions with our clients without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status, or any other class protected by federal, state, or local law. We would love to advocate for you if you are on a job search or partner with your company if you need to hire the best person for the job. We are experts at making great matches without discrimination. Our Core Focus is to be the Recruiting Company of Choice for our Partners, Clients, and Candidates, and we are proud to be “Enhancing Clients’ Businesses and Changing Candidates’ Lives,” one placement at a time. We are here to be a part of the solution in our nation’s quest for equality for all, including in every form of employment.