Why Diverse Hiring Might Still Miss the Mark (and What to do about it)

The CIPD states that “promoting and delivering EDI in the workplace is an essential aspect of good people management. It’s about creating working environments and cultures where every individual can feel safe, experience a sense of belonging, and is empowered to achieve their full potential.”

Diverse hiring is a hot topic these days, but are we getting it right so that every hire can fulfil their full potential?  

How genuine is our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion? Is there the risk that it’s something we say as part of our Employee Value Proposition (EVP), but with no real substance?

While many companies proudly showcase their diversity stats, the reality behind the numbers can sometimes tell a different story, so let’s explore how we can move from token gestures to genuine inclusivity.  

A tick box exercise or a commitment?

Buzzwords come and go, but Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) must never be reduced to one. These aren’t just trendy talking points, they’re essential pillars of a progressive, resilient workplace.  

In today’s job market, candidates are considering this more in their career moves and job choices. They’re not just looking for a role, they’re choosing the kind of organisation they want to or already do align with. So, when looking at attracting these candidates, your EVP matters, and a superficial approach to EDI simply won’t be enough.  

If EDI can be boiled down to a bullet point in an annual report or an awareness week post on social media, it’s a good time to reassess.  As inclusion expert Dr. Joanna Abeyie MBE puts it: “Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance. But equity is making sure everyone has the opportunity to choose the music.” This is, arguably, not what many employees and candidates are experiencing.  

According to Personnel Today, the Independent Inclusion at Work Panel, led by then-business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch, it was found that there was ‘scarce evidence of measurable impact from EDI initiatives.’  

Without genuine intent, structure, and accountability, EDI risks becoming little more than an EVP message or tick box that employees won’t benefit from. That said, driving change is often not an easy task. It means changes to leadership behaviours, recruitment processes, data transparency, and that then filters down to the employee experience. So, embedding EDI into the core of an organisation requires a long-term plan and milestones so that it can be approached in an achievable way.  

And there’s a strong business case for doing this too! According to McKinsey’s Diversity Wins report: “Companies in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity on executive teams were 36% more likely to outperform on profitability.” So, commitment to EDI can support business growth as well. The question we can ask now is, ‘are we measuring what matters, or just doing what looks good?’  

The Hidden Challenge

According to an article by agencycentral.co.uk, “96% of recruiters think that unconscious bias is a problem.”  96 out of 100 recruiters felt that unconscious bias is a problem and action must be taken to address this now.

It would be very unlikely that a recruiter or organisation knowingly delivers an unfair recruitment campaign or process. But that is where the challenge is - it's the unconscious bias that can be unintentionally causing a process to be unfair.  Let's look at some of the types of bias;

• Affinity Bias: are decisions made because the recruiter or hiring manager relates to qualities or behaviours of their own?

• Beauty Bias: are decisions based on the appearances of the candidates?

• Contrast Bias: are things being judged in isolation without taking a holistic view of the candidate and their merits?

• Gender Bias: are decisions based on beliefs that one gender could do better than the other at that particular job?

• Halo Bias: is there a focus on one stand out attribute and use that to inform their decision making, disregarding other candidates and their performance?

• Horns Bias: the opposite to the above. Are decisions based on one stand out attribute for the wrong reasons?

Addressing hidden biases in recruitment is crucial for an organisation to build a truly inclusive and diverse workforce. By actively working to eliminate these biases, companies can ensure that every candidate is evaluated fairly based on their skills and potential, rather than preconceived ideas of a candidate and their potential performance (even if that bias is innocent and not intentional).  

That said, as we have said above about change being in all elements of an organisation from leadership through to data processes, this journey is not just at recruitment. It stays with the organisation and the candidates long into their employee journey.  

At the end of the day, diversity is a thing to be celebrated. Why would an organisation not celebrate empowering its individuals to be themselves? To create? To innovate? By empowering people to be themselves and bring their best self to their role, they will ultimately be happier and deliver the best for that organisation.