Employers are increasingly recognizing the value of improving diversity within their workplaces. Having a diverse range of staff is associated with numerous benefits, including improving a business's bottom line, increasing creativity, and leading to a happier and more productive workforce. A diverse team consists of individuals from various backgrounds, which offers an opportunity to drive innovation. Despite the opportunities, employers still face challenges developing, implementing, and promoting diversity recruitment strategies. The importance of diversity with the firm warrants web recruitment methods' specific needs with considerations such as leadership, compliance, and corporate culture as crucial determinants.
Importance of Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity recruitment is not only a necessary step to make; it is a smart business move. An article published by Harvard University highlights three reasons for having a diverse workforce. Firstly, a diverse staff features different backgrounds and perspectives, leading to various knowledge, experience, and ideas ("recruitment for diversity", 2020). Converging a team of members with varying social, economic, and cultural backgrounds widens the range of perspectives, approaches, knowledge, and ways of doing things ("recruitment for diversity", 2020). Through this, an employer like Company X has an opportunity to improve innovation in its IT department.
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Secondly, a firm that promotes diversity stands to benefit from an improved reputation. A diverse workforce sends a positive message about a company to various stakeholders, including the general public, customers, government, owners, and even potential employees ("recruitment for diversity", 2020). Workplace diversity leads to an excellent and more robust brand image. In turn, a more substantial brand reputation plays a vital role in attracting and retaining the best talents in the market with refined skills, perceptions, background, knowledge, and experience to offer ("recruitment for diversity", 2020). Workplace diversity, therefore, would help Company X realize more significant commitment and improved productivity.
Thirdly, diversity creates a positive work environment leading to improved employee engagement and performance. Creating a culture of inclusion enables a happier and relaxed work environment where employees feel valued, respected, and part of a family. Multiple research studies associate happier workplaces with engaged employees (Lightfoote et al., 2016). An inclusive work environment has a positive effect on workers regardless of their position in the organization. As a result, a happier and more engaged workforce is more likely to exhibit better performance that yields more revenues and profits. Companies with a diverse workforce produce tremendous success stemming from a more motivated, engaged, creative, and innovative workforce.
Diversity and Inclusion Considerations
The first factor Company X ought to consider in its workforce diversity expansion program is leadership. Leadership is vital to the success of the diversity and inclusion program. Company X's leadership, from top to bottom, must demonstrate the commitment to achieving a diverse workforce. Demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion involves assessing the company's stand on the phenomenon and defining the purpose and vision for reinforcing a diverse and inclusive workplace. Part of achieving this includes making the leadership team more diverse. For example, people in leadership positions should represent different backgrounds, including nationalities, ethnicities, genders, ages, and religions, among other sources of differences.
Another consideration is creating an inclusive business culture. A business that wishes to recruit and retain a broad range of candidates must create a welcoming environment for possible candidates. The likes of Dell and Coca Cola promotes an inclusive culture by incorporating training programs and enforcing inclusive policies (Shin & Park, 2013). For instance, Dell enforces mandatory annual training programs that address different diversity issues intending to create an inclusive environment. Toyota spends billions on human resources, advertising, leadership development, and community support to demonstrate its commitment to diversity and inclusion. Company X can learn from these two companies and establish an excellent inclusive business culture.
The recruitment management must ensure the company is reachable to all target candidates. Attaining a desirable level of diversity, to a certain degree, depends on the ease with which professionals can find a company. Employers often focus on recruitment mechanisms that deliver candidates with similar backgrounds (Fuentes et al., 2020). Company X intends to hire individuals who can work remotely. Thus, anyone from anywhere around the planet can apply for the open position. Therefore, the company should ensure the recruitment method reaches everyone qualified for the position by harnessing language, tools, resources, technology, and the likes. For instance, the internet offers excellent avenues for reaching out to a broader audience.
Addressing unconscious bias during recruitment is also essential. A majority of employers make assumptions regarding the suitability of candidates during the recruitment process. Some of the assumptions are related to age, gender, religion, ethnicity, disability, and other factors (Walters, 2017). A significant number of employers worry that potential unconscious bias is a significant hindrance in attaining a diverse workplace successfully. Thus, Company X's recruitment management needs to recognize possible sources of unconscious bias and eliminate them. Various strategies like anti-bias training, removing personal information from CVs, or incorporating professionals in assessing CVs can be adopted.
Recruitment Method
A good recruitment strategy considers the needs of the organization and the circumstances the company is facing. The company seeks to hire two IT customer service representatives. One of the representatives will work on-site, while the other is required to work virtually. A recruitment method employed must be one that addresses the diversity and inclusion needs of the firm. At the same time, it must be fair, relevant, cost-effective, and attract all candidates regardless of their backgrounds. There are many options to choose from, including referrals, talent pools, promotions and transfers, recruitment agencies, internships, and word of mouth.
Out of these methods, a technique that suits the needs of the company is online recruitment. Many employers are shifting to digital or electronic recruitment because of the numerous benefits involved. Web recruitment is an excellent option for diversity because it attracts a broader scope of candidates (Gaupp-Berghausen et al., 2019). Using recruitment software or other digital solutions helps an employer reach a more comprehensive number of candidates locally and internationally. Other benefits include the flexibility involved, reduced costs, increased personalization, wider accessibility, shortened hiring process, and is more effectiveness (Gaupp-Berghausen et al., 2019). Web recruitment is the most effective solution for achieving diversity.
Conclusion
The concept of workplace diversity and inclusion has gained massive traction in the corporate world in the past decades. It is the hottest topic as globalization continues to define the future of business operations. Diversity and inclusion are linked to numerous benefits. At the same time, achieving workplace diversity is a massive challenge because of unconscious bias, poor leadership, and unfriendly corporate culture. The discussion demonstrates that firms like Company X must pay attention to these factors when developing and adopting a diversity recruitment program. From available recruitment approaches, the most appropriate technique is the online or web recruitment method.
References
Fuentes, M. A., Zelaya, D. G., & Madsen, J. W. (2020). Rethinking the Course Syllabus: Considerations for Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. The teaching of Psychology , 0098628320959979.
Gaupp-Berghausen, M., Raser, E., Anaya-Boig, E., Avila-Palencia, I., De Nazelle, A., Dons, E., ... & Hössinger, R. (2019). Evaluation of different recruitment methods: longitudinal, web-based, pan-European physical activity through sustainable transport approaches (PASTA) project. Journal of medical Internet research , 21 (5), e11492.
Lightfoote, J. B., Deville, C., Ma, L. D., Winkfield, K. M., & Macura, K. J. (2016). Diversity, inclusion, and representation: it is time to act. Journal of the American College of Radiology , 13 (12), 1421-1425.
Recruitment for Diversity. (2020). Retrieved 28 November 2020 from https://hr.fas.harvard.edu/files/fas-hr/files/recruiting_for_diversity_9.17.13_0.pdf
