Diversity recruiting: Do you know the success factors for a diverse workforce?

Find out here how you can promote diversity in your company with the right measures. What does it bring? More innovation, better customer understanding and an attractive employer brand.

Diversity is not a trend, but a necessity: companies today need to ensure that their workforce is as diverse as the society they serve.

Diversity recruiting aims to promote a diverse corporate culture by approaching and hiring candidates from different backgrounds, genders, ethnic groups, age groups, sexual orientations and abilities. A diverse workforce creates a wide range of perspectives, experiences and skills.

That is why diversity recruiting not only helps to reduce prejudice and discrimination, but also brings new perspectives to all company processes, which can lead to innovative approaches. We not only promote innovation, but also achieve a better understanding of (international) customers and markets and, last but not least, increase the attractiveness of the employer brand.

Basic requirements for successful diversity recruiting in the company: a real strategy.

Without the commitment and support of senior management and the anchoring of all diversity measures in the corporate strategy, nothing will come of it. Senior management should recognise the importance of diversity and inclusion and actively promote these values - internally and externally.

It follows that clear targets and metrics should also be defined for the diversity strategy in order to track and monitor progress. As with any other change process, success depends on continuous investment, measuring the effectiveness of measures and permanently checking whether the right methods are being used.

Specifically, for example: What are the target values for the diversity dimensions for the individual teams, for management levels and for the entire company? How many people with the corresponding diversity dimensions do we want to reach with the job advertisement? And also: Inclusion of diversity indicators in variable remuneration systems.

Without a target, as we all know, every shot is a hit.

Start with the people involved in the selection process.

Diverse recruitment teams: Make sure that the recruitment teams themselves are diverse. This can help minimise unconscious bias and ensure that different perspectives are considered when selecting candidates.

Strengthen recruiters: Recruiters look for the people that hiring managers need for their teams. Sometimes this can lead to (suspected or existing) discriminatory tendencies of the hiring manager - consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally - already being applied as a filter in anticipatory obedience. Recruiters should therefore be structurally strengthened in their role, and bonus systems between recruiters and hiring managers should be congruent.

Institutionalise training and reflection: Implement diversity and inclusion awareness training and programmes for all employees. These programmes help to create an inclusive work environment. However, training is not everything: the impact of training is quickly dissipated. Enable refreshers and regular reflection: for example, by scheduling time slots after interviews for personal reflection, or regular, institutionalised joint audits of the hiring processes that have taken place for potential discrimination.

Create structures in processes to invite diversity

Prevent structural discrimination: Check criteria and value catalogues for structural discrimination potential: Can someone with care responsibilities objectively fulfil the required criteria at all? Is a university degree really mandatory? Do your value systems automatically exclude people with other perspectives?

In this context, be sure to check the texts of the job advertisements: Who am I primarily addressing here? Who do I exclude?

Include interview processes: I have already described above how important it is to train the people involved. Here I would like to mention the topic of interview techniques and questions. There are questions that have a manipulative effect, or questions that are answered fundamentally differently by women than by men.

All interviewers should be trained in the type of questions that make sense to ask. Overall, structured interviews with standardised questions have a higher informative value for assessing future job success.

In addition, it has been proven that several assessors who assess the candidates independently of each other ensure a fairer assessment and more diverse attitudes.

In the pre-selection process, anonymous application procedures can help to structurally prevent unconscious bias and discrimination.

Diverse candidate pools: Actively search for candidates in various talent pools and networks. This may include working with diverse professional associations, universities and community organisations.

Last but not least, be aware that it is not only about hiring diverse talent, but also about fostering an inclusive company culture where all employees can feel valued and respected. Because this also has an effect - indirectly - on the talent in the recruiting process.