Is diversity — and its important extensions, inclusion and belonging — among your company's top priorities for 2018?

If so, you’re certainly in good company. Organizations have become increasingly aware of and focused on diversity issues in recent years, and diversity was cited as “the biggest game-changer and most embraced trend” among almost 9,000 recruiters and hiring managers in LinkedIn’s 2018 Global Recruiting Trends report. Over half of surveyed companies reported they were actively working on diversity, and 78% consider it “very/extremely important.”

I recently discussed three big shifts in thinking the industry as a whole needs to make going into this year, to make further progress on these diversity goals that are so important to us. Today, I'm moving from the philosophical to more strategic and tactical ideas. We’re covering how you can supercharge your diversity efforts with the right tools and technology — with, specifically, the right talent platform.

5 Ways the Right Talent Platform Boosts Diversity Initiatives

There are five main areas in which having an intelligent, end-to-end talent platform makes achieving diversity goals easier and more efficient.

1. Rich Career Sites

We talked recently about the importance of communicating that diversity is a priority for your organization, and your careers site or page is an obvious and critical place to do so. This is a great space to feature “meet the team” sections, blogs and videos showcasing employee stories, and more, that send the message that your company is an open, welcoming place to work.

A good talent platform will connect to your career site, and collect and flow data through it; a great talent platform will use AI to determine who a prospective employee is, and serve up content tailored specifically to them.

2. Niche Talent Communities

To go even further with personalization and more powerfully demonstrate that you value diversity, find a talent platform that enables talent communities. These hubs provide individualized content and a unique experience for niche candidates groups, giving them deeper insight into, in this example, what you really mean when you say diversity is a priority for your organization.

Talent communities are dedicated show-and-tell spaces that are the perfect spots for companies to demonstrate they’re giving real attention and effort to being inclusive (see two of our favorite examples from customers here and here). The right talent platform supports and intelligently powers talent communities.

3. In-App Diversity Programs

A specialized recruitment marketing plan for engaging diverse candidates is a must for making significant progress on diversity goals, and a strong talent platform enables you to run and manage your plan inside the platform. From university outreach at historically diverse schools to targeted recruiting on diversity sites, a comprehensive talent platform allows you to post jobs, send email campaigns, and more, all without ever having to leave the app. It’ll track your efforts and reveal insights within the data, too.

4. Data-Based Interview Kits

If a diverse workforce is your goal, it goes without saying — and yet it needs to be repeatedly said — that you’ve got to take steps to de-emphasize gut feel and the beer test from your interview process. Gut feel lacks data, and the beer test (in essence, choosing a candidate who seems likeable and like-minded) is rife with bias. A smart talent platform powered by AI and machine learning uses capability models to generate data-based interview kits for interviewers, to guide them in appropriately assessing candidates.

5. Smart Succession Planning

Being a champion of diversity doesn’t just mean you hire diverse candidates — it also means you promote them. It’s common for succession planning to slip, to lack strategy and structure, and to become more of an informal process. Much like unstructured interviewing, if succession planning isn’t intentionally managed, bias can easily creep in. It’s human nature for people to choose folks like themselves as successor, and when this happens, the same type of employee is promoted over and over again.

A talent platform fueled by data intelligence makes succession planning smart and fair. The right people get the right opportunities.

Drive Diversity With a Smart Talent Platform

We’re all motivated to improve diversity in our organizations, yet despite the genuine desire to make things better, diversity is an all-around difficult concept. Technology certainly can’t solve it all, but the right tools can certainly optimize some of the processes and ease some of the headache.

If you’re working on diversity, make sure you've set yourself up for success with the right talent platform.