A growing number of companies nowadays are placing a high value on promoting employee diversity and inclusion, but a recent survey by InternMatch have found that not all of these companies actually succeed in making their internship programs as diverse as they desire them to be.
For hiring managers who are looking for ways on how to make their intership programs more diverse and inclusive, here are some tips that may help:
1. Track the number of diverse interns your company hires every year, as well as the sources for these hires.
2. Network with groups and organizations with a national reach to help you find talented minorities.
3. Invest time and resources in mentoring young students.
4. Communicate your company’s diversity initiatives and support them with concrete programs and visible actions.
5. Look beyond traditional hiring strategies to engage potential hires.
Visit diversityworking.com to read the full story.
Showing posts with label diverse employees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diverse employees. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
How can a company make its internship program more diverse? Here’s how!
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Phillips 66 reports strong Q1 earnings
Phillips 66 announced this week that the company's earnings for the first fiscal quarter have more than doubled this year amid the persistently low prices of U.S. shale oil and natural gas.
The company's first quarter earnings jumped from $636 million last year to $1.4 billion this year, according to the report. Phillips 66 Chairman and CEO Greg Garland said this strong growth resulted from favorable refining and chemical margins.
"We also are investing in the continued growth of our business. Our plans for a new natural gas liquids fractionator on the Gulf Coast reinforce our commitment to the American energy landscape and highlight our unique opportunities across the downstream value chain," Garland said.
The company has stakes in 15 refineries. It also operates other businesses including Chevron Phillips and DCP Midstream.
Phillips 66 is one of the companies that support and implement workplace diversity initiatives. As a member of DiversityWorking, Phillips 66 ensures that its employees in all its facilities enjoy equal benefits and privileges in the workplace. Find out more about what Phillips 66 is doing to tout workplace diversity and inclusion by clicking through this link.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
The importance of diversity in the workplace
Discrimination and unfair biases still
exist in the workplace at present, and diversity advocates still work round the
clock to push for a more inclusive job market that provides a level playing
field for all people regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age
and appearance.
All over the world, companies and
organizations that tout workplace diversity boast of significant growth in
their bottom line after they embraced the idea of diversity. As employees
become empowered and feel comfortable to work with their bosses and colleagues,
they feel more motivated to contribute to the company’s well-being. Many
studies have shown that increasing workplace diversity yields business success,
better productivity and improved customer service.
Because of this, a growing number of
companies are beginning to create diversity and inclusion programs in a bid to
break cultural barriers and bridge the gap between employees.
Now, for business owners and employers
who want to embrace workplace diversity, you can begin by engaging your employees
to embrace diversity and work hand in hand to promote diversity. You may also
implement programs and policies that give equal business and employment
opportunities.
Respect and fairness are the foundations
of a truly diverse workplace. See to it that your company promotes these values
in all your dealings, particularly in hiring new employees and managing your
workforce. In the end, your efforts and initiatives will pay off as your
company achieves significant growth.
To learn more about diversity, visit
diversityworking.com.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Diversity Recruiting is Not the Job of the Recruiter!
By Eliana M. Hassen
Corporate America finally got the memo - Diversity is a tool that can help build a stronger, more competitive and forward thinking company. So now, with guns blazing, diversity recruiting has become a major business initiative, often left in the lap of HR to figure out. I hate to tell you, but diversity recruiting is not the job of a recruiter; it's the job of every employee!
Diversity recruiting is not a task. It is a process that, if mastered, becomes an art. With the growing demand of talent, finding diverse employees is more difficult than ever. The key to successful diversity recruiting is to build a program that is embedded in the corporate culture. This will quickly make it everyone's job.
So where do you start? How do you build a program? How do you embed diversity recruiting into the overall company culture and make it everyone's job? There are specific steps that an organization can take to jump-start their overall diversity recruitment initiatives.
In recent years, companies have been hiring Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) that report directly to the CEOs to ensure that aggressive diversity initiatives are met. Having dedicated resources to cultural diversity is a step that should not be missed by any organization. Your company may not need a CDO, but there should be a team that is dedicated to diversity recruiting.
Five steps to build a diversity recruitment process, making it everyone's job!
Step 1 - Build an internal team. This should consist of recruitment or HR professionals and business unit participants. The more people throughout the organization that are involved, the more exposure diversity recruitment gets. There are many advantages to building this team, including a constant line of communication with the business units regarding cultural diversity challenges and initiatives. Senior level managers should also be targeted to join the team. This will help solidify the overall culture and drive the diversity recruiting initiative into their various groups. This not only strengthens diversity in the corporate culture, but it quickly engages different employees on different levels - creating an area of development or interest for many.
Different people on the team can have various roles. Some can serve as a board and drive the initiatives. Others can participate in marketing to candidates and even interact with candidates, relating the corporate diversity goals to potential new employees. The key is getting as many people involved in the process as possible.
Step 2 - Define the corporate goal for diversity recruitment and then brand it. Diversity recruitment - like every major initiative in a company - should have a communication strategy outlining its audience, purpose and desired results. Everyone in the organization should have access to this information.
Educating the organization on cultural diversity is a big part of that. Don't take it for granted that everyone in the organization understands diversity. Diversity is defined to include groups beyond race and gender; now it addresses age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and language as well. Getting everyone educated and in sync with the diversity recruitment goals can be as simple as featuring information in the company newsletter, receiving a memo from an executive, or featuring the message in a section of the intranet.
Step 3 - Talent acquisition marketing is the next step. Diversity recruitment should be strategic, targeted and measured for results. Often, a company doesn't follow basic business principals in recruitment that they would in other business areas. If a campaign were being launched for a new product marketing research, analysis, and development would be required. Then strategic and tactical outlines are created: how to market, define the audience and how to measure the results. This process will yield the best results in diversity recruitment, as well.
I encourage you to define the goals for the various diversity areas and then create a targeted marketing plan to recruit those groups. Then, identify what the audience reads and how it searches for employment. An even bigger part of this is the ability to write compelling ads and optimize technology. Use the Internet and word of mouth to make the path from diverse candidates to your organization clear as the sound of a bell. (This should be a big hint to invite members of your marketing organization to be a part of the diversity recruitment team!)
Step 4 - Employee Referral Programs (ERP) have proven to be invaluable in many organizations around the globe - use them to drive diversity! Create different incentive plans or programs around diversity recruitment in your existing ERPs. This turns every employee into a diversity recruiter for the company. Employees should not only understand the diversity initiatives around recruitment, but also participate in them. Regular information, with goals, metrics and new initiatives should be communicated on a regular basis to every employee.
Step 5 - The final step to creating a concrete diversity recruitment process is to build a diversity employee development program. It may seem like a function outside of recruitment or talent acquisition, but it isn't. The reality is that everything drives recruitment and talent to an organization. What better way to attract top diverse talent than to have a proven track record of your success in developing and retaining them? Creating a development plan to ensure that diverse talent is equally distributed in different business areas and growing within the company creates a buzz. It also stands behind your overall commitment to diversity. Work with your career planning folks, find volunteer mentors, define job stretch and opportunity for the diverse employees you have now - and watch the reaction through word of mouth. It will impact the bottom-line.
In summary and succinctly put, the five building blocks to create a diversity recruitment program for your company:
• Build a team dedicated to diversity recruiting.
• Define your diversity recruitment initiatives and brand them internally.
• Focus talent acquisition marketing.
• Create diversity referral programs.
• Develop and retain the diverse employees you have through a special development plan just for them.
Recruiting diverse candidates is everyone's job and you must give everyone the tools they need to do it.
Source : The Adler Group
Corporate America finally got the memo - Diversity is a tool that can help build a stronger, more competitive and forward thinking company. So now, with guns blazing, diversity recruiting has become a major business initiative, often left in the lap of HR to figure out. I hate to tell you, but diversity recruiting is not the job of a recruiter; it's the job of every employee!
Diversity recruiting is not a task. It is a process that, if mastered, becomes an art. With the growing demand of talent, finding diverse employees is more difficult than ever. The key to successful diversity recruiting is to build a program that is embedded in the corporate culture. This will quickly make it everyone's job.
So where do you start? How do you build a program? How do you embed diversity recruiting into the overall company culture and make it everyone's job? There are specific steps that an organization can take to jump-start their overall diversity recruitment initiatives.
In recent years, companies have been hiring Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) that report directly to the CEOs to ensure that aggressive diversity initiatives are met. Having dedicated resources to cultural diversity is a step that should not be missed by any organization. Your company may not need a CDO, but there should be a team that is dedicated to diversity recruiting.
Five steps to build a diversity recruitment process, making it everyone's job!
Step 1 - Build an internal team. This should consist of recruitment or HR professionals and business unit participants. The more people throughout the organization that are involved, the more exposure diversity recruitment gets. There are many advantages to building this team, including a constant line of communication with the business units regarding cultural diversity challenges and initiatives. Senior level managers should also be targeted to join the team. This will help solidify the overall culture and drive the diversity recruiting initiative into their various groups. This not only strengthens diversity in the corporate culture, but it quickly engages different employees on different levels - creating an area of development or interest for many.
Different people on the team can have various roles. Some can serve as a board and drive the initiatives. Others can participate in marketing to candidates and even interact with candidates, relating the corporate diversity goals to potential new employees. The key is getting as many people involved in the process as possible.
Step 2 - Define the corporate goal for diversity recruitment and then brand it. Diversity recruitment - like every major initiative in a company - should have a communication strategy outlining its audience, purpose and desired results. Everyone in the organization should have access to this information.
Educating the organization on cultural diversity is a big part of that. Don't take it for granted that everyone in the organization understands diversity. Diversity is defined to include groups beyond race and gender; now it addresses age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and language as well. Getting everyone educated and in sync with the diversity recruitment goals can be as simple as featuring information in the company newsletter, receiving a memo from an executive, or featuring the message in a section of the intranet.
Step 3 - Talent acquisition marketing is the next step. Diversity recruitment should be strategic, targeted and measured for results. Often, a company doesn't follow basic business principals in recruitment that they would in other business areas. If a campaign were being launched for a new product marketing research, analysis, and development would be required. Then strategic and tactical outlines are created: how to market, define the audience and how to measure the results. This process will yield the best results in diversity recruitment, as well.
I encourage you to define the goals for the various diversity areas and then create a targeted marketing plan to recruit those groups. Then, identify what the audience reads and how it searches for employment. An even bigger part of this is the ability to write compelling ads and optimize technology. Use the Internet and word of mouth to make the path from diverse candidates to your organization clear as the sound of a bell. (This should be a big hint to invite members of your marketing organization to be a part of the diversity recruitment team!)
Step 4 - Employee Referral Programs (ERP) have proven to be invaluable in many organizations around the globe - use them to drive diversity! Create different incentive plans or programs around diversity recruitment in your existing ERPs. This turns every employee into a diversity recruiter for the company. Employees should not only understand the diversity initiatives around recruitment, but also participate in them. Regular information, with goals, metrics and new initiatives should be communicated on a regular basis to every employee.
Step 5 - The final step to creating a concrete diversity recruitment process is to build a diversity employee development program. It may seem like a function outside of recruitment or talent acquisition, but it isn't. The reality is that everything drives recruitment and talent to an organization. What better way to attract top diverse talent than to have a proven track record of your success in developing and retaining them? Creating a development plan to ensure that diverse talent is equally distributed in different business areas and growing within the company creates a buzz. It also stands behind your overall commitment to diversity. Work with your career planning folks, find volunteer mentors, define job stretch and opportunity for the diverse employees you have now - and watch the reaction through word of mouth. It will impact the bottom-line.
In summary and succinctly put, the five building blocks to create a diversity recruitment program for your company:
• Build a team dedicated to diversity recruiting.
• Define your diversity recruitment initiatives and brand them internally.
• Focus talent acquisition marketing.
• Create diversity referral programs.
• Develop and retain the diverse employees you have through a special development plan just for them.
Recruiting diverse candidates is everyone's job and you must give everyone the tools they need to do it.
Source : The Adler Group
Monday, January 28, 2008
From Diversity to Inclusion
By Katharine Esty, PhD
In the last few years, the focus of efforts in companies across the land has shifted from diversity to a focus on inclusion. This sea change has happened without fanfare and almost without notice. In most organizations, the word inclusion has been added to all the company's diversity materials with no explanation. This article is a short account of why this shift has happened and what it means.
Probably the most widely-read article on cultural diversity in organizations was Roosevelt Thomas's "From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity," which appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 1990. Diversity, said Thomas, was no longer about complying with a legal mandate but about seeking to create a diverse workforce because it would be beneficial to the organization. Before 1990, most large companies had an Employment Equity and Affirmative Action Officer, usually a lower-level employee who worked in the bowels of the organization compiling statistics about how many employees were in targeted groups, eg, people of color and women.
Diversity - A Numbers Game
Throughout the 1990's, diversity continued to be about the numbers of different kinds of people in the workforce as a whole and at each level. Diversity staffs tried to increase the number of people of color and women in their organizations. They saw this primarily as a hiring task.
During that decade, the definition of diversity expanded. Diversity came to include many dimensions beyond gender and race: age, class, disability, ethnicity, family situation, religion, and sexual orientation. Companies started to pay attention to their representation of all these groups.
It became clear over the years that it was not enough to focus on hiring alone. It became important to retain "diverse" workers, as well. Some organizations were astonished to learn that after years of effort, they had fewer African Americans than they had earlier. Companies became aware that for the most part the upper ranks of their organizations remained heavily white and predominately male. These were the years when companies offered cultural diversity awareness training and diversity skills training to help their newly diverse employees work well together.
It's the Culture
Today, in the 2000's, as organizations try to retain diverse employees in their workforce, companies have started looking at the quality of these employees' experience in the organization. Do employees in all groups and categories feel comfortable and welcomed in the organization? Do they feel included and do they experience the environment as inclusive? To answer these questions, diversity staffs need to assess their environment and identify the barriers to inclusion, whether they are practices, policies, or the informal culture of the organization. Having identified barriers, the job of the diversity staff is to change the company culture and to create an inclusive workplace environment.
Systems and Policies
As inclusion becomes the focus of diversity work, the attention switches to the systems, policies and practices of the company. Several systems influence the degree to which the climate is inclusive:
• Communications
• Work assignment
• Training and education
• Performance management
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Hiring
• Career development
• Flexible work arrangements; and
• Managers' accountability.
Companies that are known for their inclusive climate do not rely on the goodwill of their managers but work hard so that each organizational system is equitable. Once barriers are identified, they take action to address them. Each system is analyzed to determine the degree to which it provides equitable access and benefits to all employees.
Creating an Inclusive Environment: A Case Study
Here is an example of how one company addressed inclusion issues:
A division of an institute in the defense industry had the reputation of not being welcoming to women. For years, they had experienced difficulty in both hiring and retaining female employees at all levels but particularly in the highest ranks of management. For years they clung to the idea that what they needed to do was to hire two or three high-level women. But to their chagrin, as soon as they would hire a new high-level female executive, it seemed one of the other high-level women would resign. At first they explained these recurrent departures in terms of the personalities of the women - "She has family problems," "She is too aggressive," or "She is too timid." Gradually it dawned on them that these resignations were not about the women, they were about the culture and the organizational climate.
This led to a whole new strategy. The director of the division created a Diversity Task Force to suggest and implement changes that would create a more inclusive workplace in order to support the efforts to recruit and retain women. The Task Force was supported with resources and time for its work. Guided by an organizational consultant and working in small action teams, they first conducted a series of focus groups to identify the issues and concerns of women in the division. Then they moved into action, devising a number of changes and short-term projects to address the important issues. As soon as a team implemented a change or completed a project, they took on another.
Here are some of their accomplishments over the first two years:
• They created a buddy system for all new employees
• Senior Managers hosted a series of lunches to meet lower-level women engineers and learn about their projects
• All brochures about the division were revised to include pictures of women
• They created a website where articles about women in the workplace were posted
• They developed a special relationship with a women's engineering college, inviting students from that college to come on-site for field trips and setting up summer internships for women undergraduate engineers
• They instituted networking and professional development events for women
• Senior managers attended two training programs, "Men and Women Working Together" and "Flexibility."
Two of their learnings about creating an inclusive climate were: 1) It doesn't take huge amounts of money to make significant progress; and 2) Changing an organizational culture is about doing many small things, not one or two big things.
In reality, as this story attests, creating an inclusive environment is about a hundred small changes. As you look at your own organization, ask yourself: What are we doing, in ways large or small, to move from yesterday's diversity to today's need for inclusion?
About the Author
Katharine Esty, PhD, is the Founder of Ibis Consulting Group, Inc., a diversity consulting firm based in Waltham, MA. She is a NEHRA member as well as a member of the NEHRA "Ask the HR Expert" panel. She can be reached at esty@ibisconsultinggroup.com.
Source : Boston.com
In the last few years, the focus of efforts in companies across the land has shifted from diversity to a focus on inclusion. This sea change has happened without fanfare and almost without notice. In most organizations, the word inclusion has been added to all the company's diversity materials with no explanation. This article is a short account of why this shift has happened and what it means.
Probably the most widely-read article on cultural diversity in organizations was Roosevelt Thomas's "From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity," which appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 1990. Diversity, said Thomas, was no longer about complying with a legal mandate but about seeking to create a diverse workforce because it would be beneficial to the organization. Before 1990, most large companies had an Employment Equity and Affirmative Action Officer, usually a lower-level employee who worked in the bowels of the organization compiling statistics about how many employees were in targeted groups, eg, people of color and women.
Diversity - A Numbers Game
Throughout the 1990's, diversity continued to be about the numbers of different kinds of people in the workforce as a whole and at each level. Diversity staffs tried to increase the number of people of color and women in their organizations. They saw this primarily as a hiring task.
During that decade, the definition of diversity expanded. Diversity came to include many dimensions beyond gender and race: age, class, disability, ethnicity, family situation, religion, and sexual orientation. Companies started to pay attention to their representation of all these groups.
It became clear over the years that it was not enough to focus on hiring alone. It became important to retain "diverse" workers, as well. Some organizations were astonished to learn that after years of effort, they had fewer African Americans than they had earlier. Companies became aware that for the most part the upper ranks of their organizations remained heavily white and predominately male. These were the years when companies offered cultural diversity awareness training and diversity skills training to help their newly diverse employees work well together.
It's the Culture
Today, in the 2000's, as organizations try to retain diverse employees in their workforce, companies have started looking at the quality of these employees' experience in the organization. Do employees in all groups and categories feel comfortable and welcomed in the organization? Do they feel included and do they experience the environment as inclusive? To answer these questions, diversity staffs need to assess their environment and identify the barriers to inclusion, whether they are practices, policies, or the informal culture of the organization. Having identified barriers, the job of the diversity staff is to change the company culture and to create an inclusive workplace environment.
Systems and Policies
As inclusion becomes the focus of diversity work, the attention switches to the systems, policies and practices of the company. Several systems influence the degree to which the climate is inclusive:
• Communications
• Work assignment
• Training and education
• Performance management
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Hiring
• Career development
• Flexible work arrangements; and
• Managers' accountability.
Companies that are known for their inclusive climate do not rely on the goodwill of their managers but work hard so that each organizational system is equitable. Once barriers are identified, they take action to address them. Each system is analyzed to determine the degree to which it provides equitable access and benefits to all employees.
Creating an Inclusive Environment: A Case Study
Here is an example of how one company addressed inclusion issues:
A division of an institute in the defense industry had the reputation of not being welcoming to women. For years, they had experienced difficulty in both hiring and retaining female employees at all levels but particularly in the highest ranks of management. For years they clung to the idea that what they needed to do was to hire two or three high-level women. But to their chagrin, as soon as they would hire a new high-level female executive, it seemed one of the other high-level women would resign. At first they explained these recurrent departures in terms of the personalities of the women - "She has family problems," "She is too aggressive," or "She is too timid." Gradually it dawned on them that these resignations were not about the women, they were about the culture and the organizational climate.
This led to a whole new strategy. The director of the division created a Diversity Task Force to suggest and implement changes that would create a more inclusive workplace in order to support the efforts to recruit and retain women. The Task Force was supported with resources and time for its work. Guided by an organizational consultant and working in small action teams, they first conducted a series of focus groups to identify the issues and concerns of women in the division. Then they moved into action, devising a number of changes and short-term projects to address the important issues. As soon as a team implemented a change or completed a project, they took on another.
Here are some of their accomplishments over the first two years:
• They created a buddy system for all new employees
• Senior Managers hosted a series of lunches to meet lower-level women engineers and learn about their projects
• All brochures about the division were revised to include pictures of women
• They created a website where articles about women in the workplace were posted
• They developed a special relationship with a women's engineering college, inviting students from that college to come on-site for field trips and setting up summer internships for women undergraduate engineers
• They instituted networking and professional development events for women
• Senior managers attended two training programs, "Men and Women Working Together" and "Flexibility."
Two of their learnings about creating an inclusive climate were: 1) It doesn't take huge amounts of money to make significant progress; and 2) Changing an organizational culture is about doing many small things, not one or two big things.
In reality, as this story attests, creating an inclusive environment is about a hundred small changes. As you look at your own organization, ask yourself: What are we doing, in ways large or small, to move from yesterday's diversity to today's need for inclusion?
About the Author
Katharine Esty, PhD, is the Founder of Ibis Consulting Group, Inc., a diversity consulting firm based in Waltham, MA. She is a NEHRA member as well as a member of the NEHRA "Ask the HR Expert" panel. She can be reached at esty@ibisconsultinggroup.com.
Source : Boston.com
10 Steps to Finding and Hiring Diversity and High-Demand Candidates
Creating a process out of hiring the best
By Lou Adler
Here are two basic principles of recruiting that you need to apply when targeting passive candidates, diversity candidates, or any type of candidates in high demand:
• The more competition there is for a group of candidates (like nurses, pharmacists, sales reps who always exceed quota, design engineers who were elected to Tau Beta Pi, diversity candidates, etc.), the more recruiting effort is required to attract and hire them.
• Top people want top jobs, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or religious background or gender.
With these principles in mind, here are ten things you must do if you want to hire more top people and diversity candidates. All are essential. Nine out of ten is not good enough.
Here's the 10-step recipe:
1. Create compelling jobs. If a top person is fully employed or has multiple offers, then the quality of the job will be one of the top four factors determining which job the person will ultimately take (the other three: the manager, the company, the comp). If your online job descriptions start with a part number (or the requisition number) followed by the official title, the location, and some list of skills and requirements, you won't hire many good people. The title and the first two lines of the ad determine whether it will be read, so make sure that these first two lines create a buzz. The next paragraph must describe some of the projects and challenges in the job. Focus on the possibilities -- what the person will do, learn, and become -- not the requirements. I refer to this type of job description as a performance profile (here's an article for more on this). Make the person want to click the "apply" button. Referred candidates will always read the online job description before getting too interested. So don't ignore this step if you want to hire more culturally-diverse candidates or any type of person in high demand.
2. Job brand the job. Somewhere in the job description, tie the job to the company vision, its mission, a big project, or some important strategy. This makes the job bigger than itself. "Help us land the next generation of moon walkers," will be Northrup's and Boeing's message for the next shuttle program, even for those people working at the rec center.
3. Culturally brand the job. Do you really have a culture that thrives on diversity, or are you just meeting some corporate objective? How many African-Americans, Hispanics, and women have been promoted this past year as a percent of all promotions? You need to capture cultural diversity directly into the job with more than just a legal-sounding EEO statement.
4. Develop marketing-oriented sourcing programs based on how your future employees look for and apply for jobs. Top people and candidates in high demand don't look for jobs or accept offers using the same job hunting approach as most people. For one thing, they're much more discriminating. The primary decision to take a new job is based on the future opportunity and current challenges. That's why steps 1-3 above are critical starting points. Since these people look for jobs infrequently, the jobs must be easy to find when they do look. We're now doing a big research study on how different diversity candidate groups look for new jobs (send an email to info@adlerconcepts.com if you want to participate or learn more). The results so far indicate that you can't go wrong by making jobs highly visible with compelling titles and great copy wherever your jobs are posted. As part of this, your career site must be easy to find, and it must make a diversity statement tied to the company strategy on the first page. Rather than hyperbole, why not have bios and pictures of real people who represent the opportunities for diversity candidates and women within your company?
5. Reach out and find your candidate. If your target audience won't come to you, you'd better go out to them. This means you must leverage your employee referral program, and creatively use tools like ZoomInfo, Jobster, and LinkedIn, as well as advanced Internet data-mining techniques. For a start, establish an aggressive employee referral program targeted to your current diverse employees. Personally ask these pre-selected employees for the names of the best people they've ever worked with. Then get on the phone to recruit and network with these people, to leverage these names to get more names. You might want to conduct a Jobster campaign in combination with ZoomInfo's ethnic searching capability to jumpstart your efforts here. Regardless, make sure the job descriptions are compelling -- or everything else you do will be wasted.
6. Stay involved. Make your marketing a process, not an event. My old UCLA MBA buddy, Henry Hernandez, now the VP and chief diversity officer at American Express, gave me this sage advice many years ago. The basic theme: Don't just show up for some recruiting event. Instead, you need to promote, sponsor, be involved, and be committed -- every month, every year, and not just a few days here and there. Providing the resources and time is how you convert lip-service into reality.
7. Get hiring managers involved early and often. The recruiting department can't do it alone. Managers must be committed to the process and they must devote extra time and effort to make it work. They must devote even more time upfront to get it started. If you do everything else right but fail on this step, the process will collapse.
8. Conduct a professional and thorough interview. Too many people think the purpose of the interview is to assess candidate competency. Most of these same people don't even do this part too well, either. But the interview can and must be much more than this when hiring top people in any field -- and even more importantly when there is competition for these people. In these cases, the interview must meet these multi-factor criteria:
I've written a lot of articles on these pages on how to do this. Have many of your managers know how to accomplish the above?
9. Recruit and close. You'd better be able to handle every objection in the book, offer competitive compensation packages, and know how to use the interview to create opportunities. You do this by describing compelling challenges and having candidates describe relevant past accomplishments. Dig deep to validate the candidate's true role. Candidates need to earn the job during the interview. If you oversell, under-listen, or give the job away, you won't hire many high-demand candidates.
10. Conduct a great on-boarding experience and get more referrals. Now that you've hired some great high-demand candidates, use the performance profile prepared in step 1 above as the primary on-boarding tool. As you're reviewing it, ask for the names of other top people who might be interested in this type of compelling job. Then start over the 10-step process all over again. This is how you make the process of hiring cultural diversity and other high-demand candidates self-sustaining.
Hiring top people, including diversity candidates or any top person in high demand, is about much more than just finding names. That's the easy part. Having a recruiter call the person and then convince him or her to engage in a conversation takes skill and persistence. Having the recruiter then network with this person to get more names is even harder, but it's also that much more essential. Getting hiring managers and every person on the interviewing team committed to the process is a major challenge just by itself. Now all you need to do is train them on how to do it right.
Ten steps. That's all there is to hiring top passive and diversity candidates. I've seen it done. In every case, it started with someone in HR and recruiting taking the lead. It's not an event or a box being checked. It's a process.
Source : The Multicultural Advantage
By Lou Adler
Here are two basic principles of recruiting that you need to apply when targeting passive candidates, diversity candidates, or any type of candidates in high demand:
• The more competition there is for a group of candidates (like nurses, pharmacists, sales reps who always exceed quota, design engineers who were elected to Tau Beta Pi, diversity candidates, etc.), the more recruiting effort is required to attract and hire them.
• Top people want top jobs, regardless of their cultural, ethnic or religious background or gender.
With these principles in mind, here are ten things you must do if you want to hire more top people and diversity candidates. All are essential. Nine out of ten is not good enough.
Here's the 10-step recipe:
1. Create compelling jobs. If a top person is fully employed or has multiple offers, then the quality of the job will be one of the top four factors determining which job the person will ultimately take (the other three: the manager, the company, the comp). If your online job descriptions start with a part number (or the requisition number) followed by the official title, the location, and some list of skills and requirements, you won't hire many good people. The title and the first two lines of the ad determine whether it will be read, so make sure that these first two lines create a buzz. The next paragraph must describe some of the projects and challenges in the job. Focus on the possibilities -- what the person will do, learn, and become -- not the requirements. I refer to this type of job description as a performance profile (here's an article for more on this). Make the person want to click the "apply" button. Referred candidates will always read the online job description before getting too interested. So don't ignore this step if you want to hire more culturally-diverse candidates or any type of person in high demand.
2. Job brand the job. Somewhere in the job description, tie the job to the company vision, its mission, a big project, or some important strategy. This makes the job bigger than itself. "Help us land the next generation of moon walkers," will be Northrup's and Boeing's message for the next shuttle program, even for those people working at the rec center.
3. Culturally brand the job. Do you really have a culture that thrives on diversity, or are you just meeting some corporate objective? How many African-Americans, Hispanics, and women have been promoted this past year as a percent of all promotions? You need to capture cultural diversity directly into the job with more than just a legal-sounding EEO statement.
4. Develop marketing-oriented sourcing programs based on how your future employees look for and apply for jobs. Top people and candidates in high demand don't look for jobs or accept offers using the same job hunting approach as most people. For one thing, they're much more discriminating. The primary decision to take a new job is based on the future opportunity and current challenges. That's why steps 1-3 above are critical starting points. Since these people look for jobs infrequently, the jobs must be easy to find when they do look. We're now doing a big research study on how different diversity candidate groups look for new jobs (send an email to info@adlerconcepts.com if you want to participate or learn more). The results so far indicate that you can't go wrong by making jobs highly visible with compelling titles and great copy wherever your jobs are posted. As part of this, your career site must be easy to find, and it must make a diversity statement tied to the company strategy on the first page. Rather than hyperbole, why not have bios and pictures of real people who represent the opportunities for diversity candidates and women within your company?
5. Reach out and find your candidate. If your target audience won't come to you, you'd better go out to them. This means you must leverage your employee referral program, and creatively use tools like ZoomInfo, Jobster, and LinkedIn, as well as advanced Internet data-mining techniques. For a start, establish an aggressive employee referral program targeted to your current diverse employees. Personally ask these pre-selected employees for the names of the best people they've ever worked with. Then get on the phone to recruit and network with these people, to leverage these names to get more names. You might want to conduct a Jobster campaign in combination with ZoomInfo's ethnic searching capability to jumpstart your efforts here. Regardless, make sure the job descriptions are compelling -- or everything else you do will be wasted.
6. Stay involved. Make your marketing a process, not an event. My old UCLA MBA buddy, Henry Hernandez, now the VP and chief diversity officer at American Express, gave me this sage advice many years ago. The basic theme: Don't just show up for some recruiting event. Instead, you need to promote, sponsor, be involved, and be committed -- every month, every year, and not just a few days here and there. Providing the resources and time is how you convert lip-service into reality.
7. Get hiring managers involved early and often. The recruiting department can't do it alone. Managers must be committed to the process and they must devote extra time and effort to make it work. They must devote even more time upfront to get it started. If you do everything else right but fail on this step, the process will collapse.
8. Conduct a professional and thorough interview. Too many people think the purpose of the interview is to assess candidate competency. Most of these same people don't even do this part too well, either. But the interview can and must be much more than this when hiring top people in any field -- and even more importantly when there is competition for these people. In these cases, the interview must meet these multi-factor criteria:
• Extreme professionalism is exhibited by all interviewers.
• The candidate spends at least an hour with key decision-makers.
• The process respects a top candidate's slower and more thorough decision-making process.
• The candidate is confident the interviewer has conducted a thorough and accurate assessment.
• The candidate has talked four times more than the interviewer.
• The candidate leaves wanting the job.
• The candidate spends at least an hour with key decision-makers.
• The process respects a top candidate's slower and more thorough decision-making process.
• The candidate is confident the interviewer has conducted a thorough and accurate assessment.
• The candidate has talked four times more than the interviewer.
• The candidate leaves wanting the job.
I've written a lot of articles on these pages on how to do this. Have many of your managers know how to accomplish the above?
9. Recruit and close. You'd better be able to handle every objection in the book, offer competitive compensation packages, and know how to use the interview to create opportunities. You do this by describing compelling challenges and having candidates describe relevant past accomplishments. Dig deep to validate the candidate's true role. Candidates need to earn the job during the interview. If you oversell, under-listen, or give the job away, you won't hire many high-demand candidates.
10. Conduct a great on-boarding experience and get more referrals. Now that you've hired some great high-demand candidates, use the performance profile prepared in step 1 above as the primary on-boarding tool. As you're reviewing it, ask for the names of other top people who might be interested in this type of compelling job. Then start over the 10-step process all over again. This is how you make the process of hiring cultural diversity and other high-demand candidates self-sustaining.
Hiring top people, including diversity candidates or any top person in high demand, is about much more than just finding names. That's the easy part. Having a recruiter call the person and then convince him or her to engage in a conversation takes skill and persistence. Having the recruiter then network with this person to get more names is even harder, but it's also that much more essential. Getting hiring managers and every person on the interviewing team committed to the process is a major challenge just by itself. Now all you need to do is train them on how to do it right.
Ten steps. That's all there is to hiring top passive and diversity candidates. I've seen it done. In every case, it started with someone in HR and recruiting taking the lead. It's not an event or a box being checked. It's a process.
Source : The Multicultural Advantage
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