For an organization to have an inclusive and equitable workforce, it must first be exhibited in its recruiting processes. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), a considerable amount of employees who happen to be minorities face discrimination at their workplace. The ILO has also noted that many LGBTI individuals still endure discrimination at work and even at the recruitment phase. Many organizations allow subconscious bias to influence how they hire talent. So, it is important that more organizations make deliberate attempts to be inclusive even at the point of recruitment.
Studies have shown that in addition to preventing all forms of discrimination, an inclusive and equitable hiring process has business benefits, considering the fact that it helps with talent attraction and retention and helps organizations cut down recruitment costs. Similarly, the ILO has noted that 60 percent of organizations have reported increased productivity and profitability after adopting more inclusiveness and equality in their workforce and their hiring process.
A key way to ensure an inclusive recruitment process is to formulate or design inclusive hiring metrics. When an organization establishes a metric, it makes it easier to determine outcomes and ensure that the concerned stakeholders are accountable and assess the progress of their work. Developing inclusive hiring metrics also helps the organization to determine aspects of the recruitment process that might need improvement. An average inclusive hiring metric might stipulate the number of minorities that the organization intends to hire. It might also contain a concrete plan to increase the number of prospective minority employees that should fill a particular department within the organization.
Then, the organization should also ensure that they use inclusive language in their job description or their call for application. It is important that an organization considers job posting as an important marketing tool and understands that it might determine public perception of its work culture. For instance, drafters of the job description should do well to avoid gendered language or any form of language that might project a prejudice. An organization can gain public trust and gain more points if it explicitly states in its job description that it is committed to ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion in its hiring process.
In addition to developing an inclusive job description, the application process should also be inclusive. The process of filling out the application should be such that it does not use language or wordings that exclude a particular group of people. For instance, in order not to exclude people with visual impairment, the application forms should have large and bold fonts that are easy to read. Also, the application process should not exclude people based on their age, gender, race, or sexual orientation.
Also, organizations should make deliberate attempts to ensure that they diversify the talent outreach and sourcing strategies that they adopt. This requires organizations to make sure that they broaden and scale their network so that job postings can reach a more diverse audience. For instance, instead of announcing postings only via LinkedIn, an organization can reach a diverse audience by making these postings on their websites, social media platforms, recruitment blogs, newspapers and magazines.
Finally, to ensure inclusivity in their recruitment processes, organizations should standardize their screening and selection processes. They should ensure that subconscious bias, subjective opinions or inklings do not determine these processes. Rather, the screening and selection process should be clear, consistent, and objective.
