Is your company investing enough in diversity? Well, with the new recruiting season quickly approaching, every company should know best practices of diversity recruiting to attract top talent.

Diversity is one trend that companies need to embrace in 2020. The evidence of the positive impact of workforce diversification is all over the place, suggesting that those investing in this trend will get nice dividends. For example, in organizations with diverse workforces, employee performance and intent to stay are higher by 12 percent and 20 percent, respectively, says Gartner research.

Creating an effective strategy to attract diverse talent is no small effort. You need to think about completely new recruiting techniques and be aware of the latest diversity statistics to increase the chance of this season being successful.
In this in-depth guide, we will cover:

• The latest diversity statistics so know what your competitors are doing and what to expect
• Diversity as a necessity in 2020 as well as the benefits of diversifying your workforce
• What top talent is looking for when it comes to a diverse workplace
• The most common mistakes of diversity recruitment.

1. The Latest Diversity Statistics to Keep in Mind when Recruiting

In order to be in a better position to understand the importance of having a diversity hiring strategy, we’ve compiled this great list of diversity statistics. Let’s dive right in.

1.1. Diversity Statistics: Job Search

• More than 60 percent of job seekers consider diversity important when assessing organizations and job offers (Glassdoor)
• If the job posting contains words like “aggressive” to describe the workplace, 33 percent of male job seekers and 44 percent of female job seekers say they would be discouraged to submit their resumes. (source: LinkedIn, Language Matters report)
• 25 percent of female job seekers say they wouldn’t want to work in a company whose job postings describe their workplace culture as “demanding” (source: LinkedIn, Language Matters report)
• The number of job postings related to diversity and inclusion increased by almost 20 percent between 2017 and 2018 (source: CNN Money).

1.2. Diversity Statistics: Benefits of Having a Diverse Workforce

• Businesses with more culturally and ethnically diverse management boards are 43 percent more likely to generate higher profits (source: Glassdoor)
• For every 10 percent increase in gender diversity on top management boards in the UK-based companies, there’s a 3.5 percent performance increase (source: McKinsey)
• On average, gender-diverse and inclusive decision-making teams outperform less inclusive and gender-homogeneous teams by 50 percent (source: Gartner)
• Inclusive companies are 120 percent more capable of achieving financial goals (source: Business2Community)
• Inclusive companies generate 1.4 times more revenue and 2.3 more cash flow per employee (source: Business2Community)
• Top management teams with more than 15 percent of female members have a 5 percent higher return on equity (source: Business2Community)

1.3. Diversity Statistics: Workplace Culture

• • More than 40 percent of companies provide holiday leaves for employees based on a cultural or religious reason (source: Business2Community)
  • Women occupy more than 26 percent of leadership positions in Google, and the number is constantly growing. The company plans to increase the representation of women, African American, Latino, and Native American employees (source: Google diversity annual report 2019)

• Google introduced a non-binary self-ID approach for gender data that now includes voluntary data such as disability status and military experience. As a result, 7.5 percent of employees identified as having a disability, 5.2 percent said they either are or were military members, and 8.5 percent self-identified as LGBQ and/or Trans+ (source: Google diversity annual report 2019)
• 38 percent of top managers say that the primary sponsor of the organizational inclusion and diversity efforts is the CEO (source: Deloitte Insights)

1.4. Diversity Statistics: Barriers and Challenges

• 40 percent of women say that they are judged by different standards in the workplace, which is a major challenge to their success (source: McKinsey, Women in the Workplace 2019 report)
• 74 percent of HR leaders say that a lack of sponsorship of women is the biggest challenge to their success in the workplace (Source: McKinsey, Women in the Workplace 2019 report)
• 34 percent of women are bullied at work, and women tend to bully more women than men (source: Forbes).
• 38 percent of top managers say that the primary sponsor of the organizational inclusion and diversity efforts is the CEO (source: Deloitte Insights)

2. Diversity Statistics: Takeaways for Your Company’s Recruitment Strategy

Now that we’ve looked over the latest diversity statistics, we know that there’s a lot to think about. Every stat is a powerful insight that defines the planning, implementing, and adjusting diversity hiring strategy, so let’s now talk about the takeaways from the previous section.

Takeaway 1: Your recruitment strategy should also be about the positions you need to hire for

There’s a misconception about diversity hiring that says that companies should focus on who they hire as well as where the diverse candidates come from. While this is important, another critical consideration to keep in mind is the positions.

The diversity statistics suggested that

• Gender and ethnically diverse top management boards perform better
• Diverse candidates say that having a diverse top leadership team is an important thing they keep in mind during a job search

To begin building your recruitment strategy, reality-check your leadership team. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Does it resemble your workforce diversification effort?
• What steps did you take to increase diversity?
• Is there anything your company can do to increase the representation of diverse employees in leadership positions?

Takeaway 2: Diverse candidates want to know your company’s religious and cultural leave policy

If your company gives employees days off for cultural or religious reasons, indicate that in job offers and other recruitment content you share. This is a major benefit for job seekers who have religious and cultural needs, so they need to know.

Besides, this sends a powerful message that you don’t treat anyone differently because of their religious affiliations, but encourage them to observe religious holidays or cultural events. Anyone reading this in a job posting will be much more likely to think that your company is employee-friendly. So, include your cultural and religious leave policy in your recruitment strategy. If you think that it needs some polishing, don’t hesitate to improve it.

Australian Government’s Fair Work Ombudsman, for example, recommends local companies to recognize and embrace diversity in the workplace and encourages them to support their employees’ wishes to celebrate religious holidays. You can read their recommendations for inspiration.

Takeaway 3: The choice of the job posting copy strongly affects the decision of female candidates whether to apply

As the LinkedIn survey of female job seekers showed, they pay close attention to the language of job postings. Words like “demanding” and “aggressive” discourage them from applying. For your recruiting strategy this season, this means one thing: to attract more female candidates, you need to be thoughtful about the way you describe your organization, workplace culture, and the job position.

When writing job or company descriptions, try using more neutral and positive words, says Anna Byde, a copywriter at TrustMyPaper. For example, “We work in a fast-paced environment” is a perfect substitute for “you should be good at working under pressure,” according to Anna. “When describing ideal candidates for a specific position, try referring to them as ‘supportive,’ ‘confident,’ and ‘diligent’ instead of using ambiguous or industry slang like ‘ninja’ and ‘guru,’” recommends Byde.

Takeaway 4: Use video employee testimonials to attract diverse candidates

Online reviews are huge now, and we’re so used to reading them every day. 82 percent of customers, for example, say they read reviews of local businesses, so they find them helpful in making purchasing decisions. Employer review websites are super popular now, too, with thousands of people sharing their experiences every day.

While I strongly encourage you to take good care of your employer profile on review websites, you can take your recruitment effort one step further with video testimonials. Basically, it’s a video where a current employee shares their experience working for a company. By doing so, they let job seekers peek inside your organization and form an idea of what it’s like to be there. Since people tend to trust other people more than companies and branded content, you should definitely use them.

Here’s an example, say they read reviews of local businesses, so they find them helpful in making purchasing decisions. Employer review websites are super popular now, too, with thousands of people sharing their experiences every day.

While we strongly encourage you to take good care of your employer profile on review websites, you can take your recruitment effort one step further with video testimonials. Basically, it’s a video where a current employee shares their experience working for a company. By doing so, they let job seekers peek inside your organization and form an idea of what it’s like to be there.

Since people tend to trust other people more than companies and branded content, you should definitely use them. Here’s an example to get you inspired. It comes from Je Dunn Construction and shares the history of Kevin, an employee who says the company has profoundly changed his life. He’s now a successful project engineer with a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience, but, when he came to the company in 2014, he knew absolutely nothing about construction.

If you create testimonials like these, make sure to share them on your website, social media accounts, and other places where job seekers might see them.

Takeaway 5: Let job seekers know that your company doesn’t underuse employees

Let’s imagine that a female candidate is interested in knowing more about working at your company after being contacted by one of your recruiters. The candidate doesn’t respond to them just yet and smartly goes to the website to do a little research.

There, they see only two males, one is the CEO and another is the VP. So, there are no women in leadership positions. To them, it means one thing:

A lack of women suggests the company either underuses or simply wastes female talent.

To avoid this and encourage diverse candidates to apply, always feature female leaders in the About Us page on your website.

Also, encourage every employee to connect with the company’s LinkedIn account so the job seekers could see how diverse your workforce really is.

Takeaway 6: Be Organized about Attracting Diverse Candidates

As you can see, a successful attraction of diverse candidates involves a lot of effort, so planning your strategy is a good way to succeed. Plan content types, interview questions, outreach strategies, copies for job descriptions - everything that you use for diversity recruiting.

Documenting your recruitment strategy is a good way to be organized, so trust your talent acquisition department with the creation of such a document.

Takeaway 7: Explore Different Channels to Connect with Diverse Candidates

One big reason why companies like Google and Apple constantly increase the diversification of their workforce is their connection with educational institutions and communities and internship programs.

For example, Apple has a dedicated Inclusion & Diversity page on their website where they say that the company has a partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving educational organizations to recruit students.

Having an internship program for minority students or a partnership with HBCUs works for companies regardless of the size and is one of the best diversity recruitment practices. Just contact decision makers at educational institutions and offer them collaboration. This could be an internship program or another initiative that would help minority and female students to start their careers at your company. Refer to University Recruiting Playbook to get help with campus recruiting.

Takeaway 8: Let Job Seekers Know that Your Company Values and Respects Diversity

If there’s one thing that diversity statistics told us, it’s that job seekers do a lot of research to find out companies treat diverse employees. At the same time, generic statements like “we respect everyone” don’t work because that’s how every business should be run.

To really let diverse job seekers know that you respect and value them, consider doing the following:

• Establish a leave policy for cultural and religious reasons. It doesn’t have to be big - in many companies, it’s just three days a year - but leave some room for negotiation. Seeing such a policy would be a good sign for job seekers
• Share this policy in recruitment materials, job descriptions, and other content that job seekers might encounter while researching or applying to positions at your company. Online tools and assistants like Studicus, Grammarly, SupremeDissertations, and GrabMyEssay could be used to make sure that your descriptions are clear, concise, and culturally appropriate.

Takeaway 9: Make it Clear that Your Company Doesn’t Have Any Barriers to the Success of Diverse Employees

According to diversity statistics, there are many barriers that prevent diverse employees from being successful.

For example, female job seekers have claimed they perceive a lack of sponsorship of women, different standards of performance evaluation, and bullying are the problems that undermine their performance and eventual success.

By studying feedback like this, you can identify the barriers that could exist in your company and work on sponsoring those in need of your assistance. For example, you can support diverse employees by having a strong recognition and reward strategy as well as investing in their professional development.

With so many takeaways here, I’d definitely say that there’s one that stands out: Strategic and planned diversity hiring is an absolute necessity to recruit top talent in 2020.

The Most Common Mistakes of Diversity Recruitment

Mistake #1: Not Measuring the ROI of Your Diversity Recruitment Strategy

One of the most important things to keep in mind before starting a diversity recruitment strategy is measurable goals. You can define ROI in recruitment in your company by using these easy metrics and benchmarks:

• Cost per hire. This is the total costs of recruitment effort divided by the total number of hired employees
• Interviews per hire. This is the number of interviews conducted before any hiring decisions (this metric shows if the recruiters understand the company’s hiring needs).
• Candidate satisfaction. Conduct employee surveys to define how happy they are with working in your company and find out what problems they’re having
• Turnover rate. This is the number of employees leaving in their first year divided by the total number of leaves and multiplied by 100. A turnover rate that exceeds 15 percent is considered to be high.

Remember, you can’t manage something that you can’t measure.

Mistake #2: Not Investing in an Employer Brand

Employer brand, or the image of a company as an employer, can be a valuable asset in improving the outcome of your diversity recruitment strategy. You can think about it this way: a B2C company creates a brand that appeals to the target customers, so they want to buy its products. A similar approach is perfectly applicable to employer brand: you create it, make it appealing for the target audience, and inspire them to apply to open positions.

Mistake #3: Not Using the Right Technology for Recruiting

To maximize the reach of your diversity recruitment strategy, you should definitely use technology.

By adopting the right recruiting software, recruiters can monitor and assess important metrics strategically and make for less-biased hiring decisions. Diversity recruiting leaders who know how to harness the limitless possibilities from recruiting software can take out the guesswork, work out an evidence-based strategy for their diversity recruiting programs, and sell their team’s contributions to their overall organizations.

Final Thoughts

Getting serious about studying diversity statistics, as you can see, is a good way to inform your diversity recruitment strategy. Every stat you’ve read about here has its own, powerful message for employers, and every company should pay attention to make their diverse talent acquisition a success.

Author Bio

Dorin Martin is a copywriter working at content writing platforms BestEssayEducation and WowGrade. He’s very passionate about blogging about digital marketing, public education, and social issues. Dorian is also actively working on contributing to the review site IsAccurate, and Not Business as Usual, his personal blog where he regularly shares his writing. When Dorian is not researching or writing, he probably visiting SEO conferences or cooking some pancakes with maple syrup.