How to increase diversity through your recruitment practices

Jeremy Tipper

The author
Jeremy Tipper is Managing Director of Capital Resource Consulting, London, UK and also a trustee of the Windsor Fellowship.

Increasing diversity whilst recruiting has been one of the hot topics in the UK employment marketplace for the last couple of years. The debate has often been driven by the public sector which has been the source of much best practice, whilst in the corporate sector, legal compliance has been the primary driver behind most diversity recruiting. The introduction of The Employment Equality Regulations 2003 has made it illegal to discriminate or harass in the workplace on the grounds of sexual orientation, religion and beliefs. However, the threat of being sued should not be the backbone of your diversity policy. Economics and commercial advantage provide solid foundations for most corporate initiatives and the business case for increasing diversity via recruitment should be no different. Outlined below is a plan for developing an effective diversity recruiting strategy.

Keywords
Recruitment, Equal opportunities

1. Know your market

In order to effectively recruit from minority groups, it is important to understand your available talent market. Use internal resources to help you get to know your market place. Market research, marketing and sales departments, and corporate communications functions tend to be a rich source of information in relation to the diversity of your customer base. Learn from your sales and marketing team who, given the commercial benet, will have developed a sophisticated strategy for attracting and retaining diverse customers. In addition, ofcial records exist, providing further information. For example, the 2001 census can give an accurate breakdown of the minority ethnic population of Great Britain which grew by 53 per cent between 1991 and 2001, from 3.0 million to 4.6 million (Table I).

Abstract
Increasing the diversity of an organisations workforce is a primary concern for many businesses with the realisation that it can bring signicant competitive advantage. The challenge lies in how organisations can best do this. This article highlights a pragmatic guide as to how organisations can increase their diversity through their recruitment practices through activities such as: market research into your potential recruitment pool; building a business case to inuence line managers and other stakeholders as to the need to recruit for diversity; using a variety of communication channels to reach your target candidates; and rewarding employees when they successfully increase diversity through recruitment.

Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0019-7858.htm

2. Build the business case

The linchpin to the success of any diversity recruitment programme is to win the hearts and minds of those it will most closely impact hiring managers. A sound commercial justication for recruiting for diversity is crucial. The diversity issue is now widely recognised in the marketplace and organisations as varied as Ford, BT, the Police and JP Morgan have all appointed senior executives as diversity directors. Most companies

Industrial and Commercial Training Volume 36 Number 4 2004 pp. 158-161 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited ISSN 0019-7858 DOI 10.1108/00197850410542392

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Table I UK population size by ethnicity in 2001 Total population Count % White Mixed 54,153,898 677,117 92.1 1.2 Minority ethnic population (%) n/a 14.6

Asian or Asian British Indian Pakistani Bangladeshi Other Asian Black or Black British Black Caribbean Black African Black other
Chinese Other All minority ethnic population All population

1,053,411 747,285 283,063 247,664

1.8 1.3 0.5 0.4

22.7 16.1 6.1 5.3

565,876 485,277 97,585 247,403 230,615 4,635,296 58,789,194

1.0 0.8 0.2 0.4 0.4 7.9 100

12.2 10.5 2.1 5.3 5.0 100 n/a

appreciate that there is a commercial benet to be gained by widening the candidate search to include diverse groups. Joely Wharton (ex-European head of lateral recruitment at Credit Suisse First Boston) comments:
Many companies simply recruit for diversity as it is seen as the right thing to do. However, the commercial benets of having a workforce with greater cultural awareness, more points of view, different approaches or best practice from different industries will lead to improvement to the bottom line. It will also generate greater respect and awareness for the individual amongst the workforce. Appointing a senior, visible diversity champion is essential. Often a companys employment brand will not attract candidates from certain groups. Therefore both the internal culture and the external employment brand have to be changed, and the best way to achieve this is to lead from the top.

the potential commercial impact (source: Diversity Recruiting by Dr John Sullivan, www.sfsu.edu): . Achieving excellence through access to quality. Diverse thinking enhances evaluation and problem-solving ability, in part due to different frames of reference. . Product sales. Product sales increase as a workforce reects the interests and needs of the customer base which, for most organisations these days, is globally dispersed. . Product features. Having diversity on product development teams helps ensure that products have features that are desired and can be easily utilised by more people. . Advertising and marketing become more effective. Having diverse people collaborate on the design of advertising campaigns results in a more effective project, because advertisements can be understood by and reach a culturally broader audience. . Globalisation. As companies become more global, it is essential that everyone thinks and acts with a broader understanding of the different ways to solve problems and sell products. . Employees and shareholders. Diversity is one of the key elements that attracts and retains top performers. Also, in a changing world where more diverse people own stock, expectations for a diverse workforce increase. . Customer service. Employees from diverse backgrounds understand and thus provide better service to diverse customers. Bola M. Ogun is the chair of the board of trustees at Windsor Fellowship (a charity which aims to demonstrate how a diverse population can add substantial value to the economic, social and political well being of the UK). He adds:
Increasing an organisations diversity is crucial to ensuring that businesses (whether public sector organisations delivering a service to the community; or a commercial company selling products or services) do not alienate any potential customers or consumers.

Vodafone is one organisation that has a positive approach to attracting international talent across key European locations. It is conscious that it is a global business and wants its workforce to reect this, recognising that sharing and learning about cultural differences is key to its ability to succeed on a global scale. Capital has run many recruitment projects for Vodafone, and building a diverse talent pool has been a key objective on the majority of these projects. Dr John Sullivan, head of the human resource programme at San Francisco State University, and ex-chief talent ofcer globally for Agilent Technologies, suggests the following key facets to

3. Channels to market
The key to success in diversity recruitment is to widen the pool of recruits that you are targeting, and to have an effective strategy to reach your target audience. Ogun explains:
The most important aspect of recruitment from a consumers or customers point of view is that the best people are recruited to do the job. Employees

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are the backbone to an organisations competitive advantage, and if the organisation does not target mature workers, or women, or ethnic minority communities, for example, then it is a failure to use the widest talent pool available to nd the best employees.

Outlined below are examples of best practice to help organisations reach as wide a talent pool as possible: . Communicate why you are targeting diverse employees: Ogun comments:
For well-founded historic reasons, many minority groups might be suspicious of organisations reasons for targeting recruitment strategies at them. Organisations must take deliberate steps to counter these fears and suspicions, and clearly state that they recognise individuals talent, and are aiming to recruit the best people for the available roles to deliver competitive advantage.
.

for diversity hires becomes an essential element of success. Really successful companies in this eld also ensure hiring managers are rewarded for great diversity recruiting. A signicant portion of all individual hiring managers pay (between 5 and 10 per cent) should be based on diversity recruiting and retention results. In addition, senior management should have their pay based on producing results. In the challenging world of investment banking, Morgan Stanley has implemented such a strategy and its impact has been enormous on the diversity of its workforce even in the traditionally white male-dominated environment of the trading oor.

5. An ongoing focus
Recruiting for diversity cannot simply be perceived as successful, once new diverse employees have joined the organisation. Equally important is the integration and retention of a diverse workforce. Organisations need to invest time in understanding these employees personal drivers and motivators, which may vary signicantly from existing staff. Kit Thacker, learning and development consultant at MaST International, believes that organisations should take a proactive approach to understanding and promoting diversity throughout a business and encourage all employees to value their colleagues as individuals and for the talents they have. He advocates that an organisation should: . ensure its top team has bought into the need to increase diversity and understands the challenge of retaining a diverse workforce; . conduct an internal audit to measure the perceptions and feelings of employees to identify any potential retention issues; . consider implementing a diversity programme to address any issues arising from the audit (e.g. running a programme that can help change peoples attitudes towards diversity, ensuring all see it as positive); inserting short diversity sessions into all training programmes; raising the issue at companywide conferences; and . communicate its diversity policy, and highlight how employees can raise any issues that may arise. Ogun agrees:
Organisations must treat all employees as individuals, and should not make new recruits from minority backgrounds feel that they have been singled out because they are different. They must

Employee referrals: there is a school of thought that employee referral programmes are actually anti-diverse in that they perpetuate the lack of diversity of the existing workforce. However, if used imaginatively they can be hugely valuable. Proactively approach employees from diverse backgrounds and ask them to support your diversity programme by referring people known to them. Also use the induction process to gather names of people from new starters previous employers and local communities. Think laterally about your media strategy: use both traditional and on-line media that is read by your target audience rather than stereotypical trade magazines and national press you might normally use. Use your Web site to promote diversity: highlight practical examples of diversity in your organisation (for example, case studies of employees from different backgrounds or ages) as well as the policies you have in place. Develop evangelists for your business on the benets of the companys diversity recruiting and its impact on the business.

4. Reward greater diversity recruiting

Traditional measures of success in the recruiting area are cost and time of hiring. Most rms refuse to give recruitment agencies extra incentives for identifying diversity candidates or for successfully recruiting diverse individuals. In recruiting, what you want done gets done faster when it is rewarded, so measuring and rewarding recruiters

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provide a clear communication avenue where employees can feedback any concerns or issues they may be experiencing, so the organisation can address these. Organisations are often very fearful of having harassment or discrimination accusations raised and much energy is expended on denying the issues exist or in unnecessarily wrapping employees in cotton wool to protect them from these issues. However, more important is the approach a company takes to address issues of unfair treatment when they arise, rather than the issue itself.

Capital Resource Consulting helps organisations design and execute solutions for recruitment best

practice. The Windsor Fellowship is a leading educational charity that works in partnership with leading global corporations, FTSE 100 companies, leading government departments, schools, education authorities and parents to deliver personal and professional development programmes for black and minority ethnic school students, undergraduates and graduates. For more information, please visit: www.capitalconsulting.co.uk and www.windsorfellowship.org

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