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If there is not enough diversity in your employee base or there
is high turnover with certain groups of employees, your
organization will not be able to leverage the power of
diversity. Building diversity in a company through recruiting
and retention is an important step to creating an inclusive
workplace. Are your recruiting efforts doing the following? Here
are some tips to help build diversity in your organization
through recruitment:
- Begin to recruit from middle and high schools. Attend career
days and come prepared to discuss the benefits of working for
your organization and your industry.
- Identify stereotypes of people who work in your industry and
develop strategies for changing perceptions i.e. Firefighting
should only be a male occupation.
- Use more inclusive language and visuals in rule books,
orientation, and recruiting materials.
- Create cross-cultural and cross gender mentoring programs and
provide training for mentors.
- Develop relationships with associations and organizations that
are geared toward underrepresented groups.
- Be aware of your own biases and stereotypes and their impact
on the environment.
- Create processes to make people who are different from you
feel welcome and included in your organization.
- Mentor people who are from different cultural or ethnic
backgrounds or gender from you. It will help you become more
comfortable with other people and will help your staff grow in
their careers.
- Incorporate ideas from other cultures to solve problems and be
more innovative.
- Use resources that are already in place and research what
other organizations have done to be successful.
- Provide cross-cultural communication training to help staff
work better together and serve the client population more
effectively.
- Survey and interview staff across demographics to determine
their needs in order to create a strategic plan for retention
and increased recruitment under represented populations.
- Examine your definition of leadership qualities to include
ways in which people who have different thought processes and
communication styles can lead. If you have been hierarchical in
the past, start learning that people with consensus styles can
also be effective leaders.
- Conduct exit interviews and identify patterns and themes if
they exist.
- Be willing to change to accommodate and use new ideas and
creativity.
- Too many people who own or run restaurants do not know enough
about conducting interviewing potential employees. Whether you
define your restaurant as fast food, casual dining, or upscale,
hiring the wrong person for the job can be expensive. Consider
the costs of advertising for candidates, interviewing time,
disrupted customer service, training, and severance pay. Select
a position in your restaurant, and estimate how much each step
of the hiring process costs in terms of time and money. You'll
see how important having an interviewing and hiring system is.
About the author:
Simma Lieberman helps organizations create environments where
people can do their best work and be successful. She specializes
in Diversity and Inclusion, Diversity Dialogues, and Eliminating
Fear and Self-doubt. Simma is the co-author with Kate Berardo
and George Simons of the book "Putting Diversity to Work." She
can be reached at http://www.simmalieberman.co
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