How Your Business Can Embrace DEI

Whilst many companies have already taken strides in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion within their hiring process, there are still a surprisingly high number of organisations that haven’t.

Now, that’s not to say these companies aren’t interested in DEI within their business. More likely, they’ve simply not taken active steps towards embracing it.

If this sounds like you, then the start of a new year is the perfect opportunity to take a step back, look at your current hiring process and assess how you could make small changes that result in big differences to your internal DEI, now, tomorrow and in the longer term.

First, understand your starting point

Step back, take stock and assess the realities on the ground.

You’ll need to address the failures in your hiring process and take steps to understand why they’ve failed, and what you can do to change that. This requires an intense assessment of your hiring practices, past and present, as well as a deep exploration of your workforce and their diversity, or lack thereof.

Key questions:

• What are the benefits for my business to a more diverse team?
• Why is my team not diverse?
• Have we struggled to keep diverse talent employed?

Plan for where you want to end up

Chart a course for a more diverse, equal and inclusive workforce and all the benefits that entails. Recent statistics suggest, for example, that diverse management can lead to an increase in revenue of 19%.

Think of a target, set a time frame and then you’ve got something to aim for. Find a goal that is achievable and start planning how your hiring process is going to change to attract the applicants you’re looking for.

Key questions:

• How are we going to attract a more diverse range of applicants?
• What is a reasonable, achievable goal in the next 5 years?
• Who is going to be in charge of implementing this plan?

Discuss with your existing team

Your current team probably hold the most valuable insight into your workplace. They need to be an integral part of this new process – so be sure to question them and find out their thoughts on DEI within the team and what they feel should change.

If there are specific skill sets or mindsets that are missing, they’ll know. Only by directly talking to the teams on the ground will you be able to get a birdseye view of potential opportunities for hires that you may have missed.

You’ll also get the opportunity to create a more appealing value proposition for new hires, by asking staff what is important for them right now, if they were looking for a role within the company. This is also a fantastic opportunity to increase employee retention and engagement within your existing workforce.

Key questions:

• Where do you feel our teams could be strengthened?
• What core attributes do you believe are missing from our company?
• Why did you join, and what would make you stay at the company for longer?

Enact this new policy within your recruitment processes

Whether you’re hiring yourself or working with an external agency like Cititec, you can bring your new hiring process and policy into the world and start growing your team in the right way, even if that means it’s different to the usual way.

With new hiring cohorts, you can track your progression towards your stated goals and then use any achievements in DEI to help promote your workplace and make those targets even more achievable.

Need our help? Let’s get to work

As a company that promotes DEI extensively and has done for many years, we understand the power of building a team that encompasses people from all different backgrounds. Your business stands to gain an incredible amount of versatility, new viewpoints and opportunities for growth by doing the same.

Talk to our team about how you can optimise your hiring process, attract new pools of talent and keep moving forward fast with our help.