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Some view the EEO statement as a checklist item to publish as a line item for doing business in modern society. For others, it’s a statement of purpose and a reflection of intention. It’s no wonder that it’s contentious and often falls short of the mark. How can you write one that reflects sincerity and truly works for your business? What Is an EEO Statement, Anyway? An EEO statement is a statement made by an Equal Opportunity Employer. It’s meant to give a tangible voice and commitment to equality and diversity in the workplace. Usually, it’s a simple paragraph, added to other forms of paperwork such as job applications, and is often published elsewhere. The EEO statement is typically short, but a company may have a more extensive and in-depth EEO policy published elsewhere and available for reading. Here’s a sample of an EEO statement from BetterTeam : “[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all employment practices within our organization, including hiring, recruiting, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, leave of absence, compensation, benefits, training, and apprenticeship. [Company Name] makes hiring decisions based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time. For more information, read through our EEO Policy {Add Link}.” As you can see, the statement doesn’t need to be complex, but it’s an essential part of a company’s commitment to equality and diversity. Is an EEO Statement Required? Why would a company create and publish an EEO statement if they aren’t truly dedicated to equality? The truth is, it’s complicated, as with many governmental regulations. Federal laws regulate company behavior and make discriminating against individuals or groups of people based on particular protected characteristics illegal. Companies can be sued for discrimination, including discrimination in the hiring process. However, there’s one caveat: the laws only apply to companies with 20 or more employees, companies that have federal government contracts, or governmental agencies themselves. “Unless you are a federal contractor, you are not required to have an EEO statement in your job postings. […] Employers with federal contracts of $10,000 or more are, however, required to provide notice in job advertisements that qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and national origin. If the federal contract is $15,000 or more, the notice must also mention disability. If the federal contract is $150,000 or more, the notice must include status as a protected veteran.” – Mineral . You can read more about what companies and entities are covered by equal employment law enforcement here . This means that your company generally does not need an EEO statement unless it is a federal contractor. You are subject to discrimination laws if you’re above a specific size, but you don’t need to have the statement present in every job posting. Of course, even if the EEO statement isn’t required, it’s often a good idea to create and include one to show your company’s dedication to equal treatment of all people. Why Does Sincerity Matter? One of the biggest shortcomings of the EEO statement is how frequently it ends up meaningless. Far too many companies include the EEO statement because they have to by law and don’t use it to reflect actual business practices or decisions. For example, a series of studies into “resume whitening” (the practice of making a resume appear less diverse and more reflective of a white person). They found that, in most cases, the presence of an EEO statement had little or no effect, and company practices were often discriminatory without it. There was no real difference between companies with an EEO statement and companies without one. In other words, it’s performative. It’s the same way that companies can take to Twitter and promote an ad campaign about recognizing women in the workplace while still paying them 20% less than men, or how they can promote LGBT rights while refusing to hire or support their LGBT workers. Because of mandated regulations, companies publish EEO statements as a line item to comply with the law while doing nothing more than the barest minimum to remain compliant. Even then, many companies either knowingly or unknowingly violate discrimination laws and are never called on it because the people subject to discrimination either aren’t in a position to see it (an individual who isn’t hired can’t exactly see how a factor like race plays into it internally) or lack the resources to pursue a lawsuit. The EEO statement is often a token effort with no action behind it. Companies who want to produce a sincere and effective EEO statement need to put their money where their mouth is. How to Write a Sincere EEO Statement The key to writing a sincere EEO statement is proof. As seen in the example above, the EEO statement itself is relatively generic and boilerplate. How do you stand out and show that you’re sincere in your statement when you’re one of a crowd of people making the same statement?  Keep the statement simple. The actual EEO statement is often meant to be little more than 1-2 paragraphs at the bottom of your paperwork or in an online job posting. It’s not there to be a full-page document your candidates will ignore. Instead, keep your EEO simple, include the details mandated by federal labor laws (if you are subject to their inclusion), and save the details for an EEO policy page on your website.  Leave out the legal language. Your EEO statement does not need to be drafted by a lawyer and phrased using absolute terms. In fact, in most cases, a legalese EEO statement is going to feel disingenuous and fake. People will (often correctly) get the impression that you are including it because you have to, not because you’re committed to the values you espouse in the EEO statement itself. Instead, write your EEO statement in plain language, stating that your business is committed to diversity in hiring. Consider all angles, and feel free to go above and beyond the bare minimum list of protected classes and categories.  Highlight specifics of company culture. Sometimes, parts of your company's operations and culture highlight diversity in and of themselves. This highlight can be beneficial to showcase that you’re doing more than just including a statement; you’re putting it into practice. You’ll see that more in some examples further down.  Provide proof. Again, an EEO statement is not meant to be an all-inclusive document proving that you’re committed to diversity. Instead, it’s a simple statement that brings attention to the fact that you’re putting effort into it. A deeper diversity and inclusion report can be made available on your website and linked to your EEO statement. An excellent example of this is HubSpot. HubSpot puts a lot of effort into diversity, inclusiveness, and equal opportunity throughout its global organization. They also do two things to back up their statements. The first is providing a diversity hub on their website, found here . This hub showcases everything from the individual stories of employees to reports about awards they’ve won for their inclusiveness to open letters they’ve published in support of minority movements. The second is their annual diversity report, found here . Every year, HubSpot publishes a detailed report on its workforce, including formal and informal measurements of diversity and links to past reports and analyses of their progress toward greater equality. If anyone is concerned about whether or not HubSpot is invested in diversity and inclusiveness in the workplace, this page does a pretty good job of showcasing that they’re putting real, tangible effort into it.  Take action. Providing proof of the actions you take is crucial, but it can only be done if you’re taking action in the first place. So, what sort of actions can you take? Offer or require inclusivity training . There are often complaints with required training (reverse racism is common, even though it isn’t real ), but typically the complaints relate more to bigots being challenged than to any real problem with training. Be aware of biases . In another post we wrote this week, we discuss the biases that can occur in the hiring process. Being aware of those biases is the first step towards minimizing or eliminating them. Everyone, and every process, has biases built in; no one is free from inherent, unconscious bias. Add structure and remove unnecessary information from the hiring process . For example, using “blind hiring” and anonymizing resumes can help remove some sources of bias that come from information like names and locations. Structure, like the use of interview scorecards, can be another way to add a more objective viewpoint and remove subjective judgment biases from decision-making. Ensure open lines of communication and proper channels to report issues . Equality and inclusivity are critical not just in hiring, but also in the workplace. Make sure there are lines of communication and policies in place to handle issues when they arise. This is just a selection of the actions you can take and report on as part of your overall commitment to equal opportunity. Every company has a different starting point and will need to take different actions to handle specific biases unique to their situation. What Does a Good EEO Statement Look Like? To round out this post, let’s look at a few good examples of EEO statements from actual companies and why they work. “SurveyMonkey is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.” – Survey Monkey. This is an example of a straightforward, plain-language version of an EEO statement. It mentions diversity and inclusion, avoids legalese, and does everything it needs to for a simple EEO statement. It’s light on details, but the company can make up for that elsewhere. “At Google, we don’t just accept difference — we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products, and our community. Google is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer.” – Google. Google is in a controversial place. They’ve tried to take action to push for diversity and had significant pushback from white male employees. As a fast-paced tech company, they self-select for certain kinds of people, while others (notably women and minorities) tend to burn out and leave faster. Regardless of their actual performance, their EEO statement is proactive, plain-language, and relatively effective. It will be a perfect statement if they can sort out the more tangible issues and back it up. “Dell is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Prohibits Discrimination and Harassment of Any Kind: Dell is committed to equal employment opportunity for all employees and providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at Dell are based on business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, national, social or ethnic origin, sex (including pregnancy), age, physical, mental or sensory disability, HIV Status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. Dell will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.” – Dell. This EEO statement is an example of a less-good one. You can applaud Dell for adding a long list of categories they care about, including several that are not on the typical lists of protected categories. The problem with this statement is that list itself. First of all, the more inclusive the company gets, the more it will need to add to the list. Secondly, if an individual has a specific concern that isn’t on the list, the specificity of the list will make them think they aren’t covered. Dell would do better with pruning the list down and making the language more casual. So, there you have it; several examples of EEO statements and how they work (or don’t). Hopefully, this can help you produce a compelling, effective EEO statement of your own.

Recruiting is a tricky business. There are many different ways it can go wrong, and every person out there has blind spots to some of them. Some might mean not knowing enough about a subject to miss the characteristics indicative of a great candidate. Others are worse, like relying on implicit bias and implementing accidental discrimination in your hiring practices. “I didn’t realize” isn’t a valid defense against unfair recruiting practices or discrimination. Not putting thought into your hiring practices is a great way to ensure that you end up with a sub-par workforce. How can you put oversight into practice and ensure that you’re eliminating as many sources of unfair hiring, discrimination, and adverse impact as possible? Here’s a guide on what to avoid. Understand Protected Classes and Characteristics The first thing to do is recognize that there are laws and regulations about hiring. Many protections are designed to apply fairer treatment across the board, typically protecting specific characteristics. By removing these characteristics from consideration, you remove the option to discriminate because of them. You can’t make a hiring decision influenced by a candidate’s race if you don’t know their race, after all. So, what are the protected classes? Sex and Gender . Some states also add transgender status as a protected class, and all employers should follow suit even if it’s not legally required. Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Related . In practice, this ends up being gender discrimination through another lens. Race . Racism and racial bigotry are some of the most prominent forms of discrimination, and many techniques are available for avoiding it, some of which we’ll discuss later. Nationality or Origin . Discrimination along with nationality is closely linked to racism and thus is also a protected characteristic. Skin Color . Again, a form of racial discrimination, most typically. Religion . Discrimination against religious practices is prohibited. Age . Various laws apply to age in hiring, including child labor laws, but age discrimination is specifically for people over 40 years old. Disability . There are thousands of small ways disabled applicants get discriminated against in hiring, and many of them are easy to avoid if you know what to look for. Veteran Status . A relatively recent addition to anti-discrimination laws; this protects veterans and active service members. Genetic Information . You cannot require or make decisions based on the results of any genetic test, including simple ones like Ancestry.com results. Additionally, many states have more protections than the federal-level protections listed above. These can include creed, code of ethics, political ideology, gender identity, sexual orientation, and more. In a sense, it’s easier to say “make decisions based on education, skills, and experience, and nothing else” than it is to list all of the protected categories. Remember, every category on this list is there because of high-profile discrimination successfully fought in courts. Don’t do something that can make your company the next prominent example. So, what specific practices might sound tempting but should be avoided? Maintain an Accurate Job Description Your job description is the core of your hiring process. It attracts candidates, allows them to self-filter, and gives you a framework to apply further filtering. To that end, your job description must be accurate. Unfair hiring practices include: Writing an overly strict job description . This practice can cause candidates to self-select in a biased way, particularly along gender lines. Writing a job description for a job that does not exist, with the intent of harvesting resumes for other purposes . This practice is disingenuous and unethical, though not overtly discriminatory. Changing the job description in the middle of the hiring process . Many companies get in trouble for picking a candidate that doesn’t meet the job description, then changing the description to fit the new candidate, disregarding more qualified applicants. This often ties into nepotism or other forms of unethical treatment. Altering the job description to be inaccurate . Writing deceptive changes into a job description to attract candidates who otherwise wouldn’t apply is considered unethical. A primary example is a highly inflated salary range (the top end of which would never be signed). In general, the job description should be as accurate as possible and remain unchanged from the start of the hiring process to the end. If you need to make significant changes to the job posting, take it down and create a new one instead. Just make sure not to do this to specifically disregard some applicants and hire someone else. Beware Exploitative Recruiter Tactics Many companies hire recruiters to handle their hiring. These recruiters act as middlemen and service providers, and they can provide a valuable service to their clients. However, they may also use exploitative or underhanded techniques that can, at best, be considered unethical. At worst, they can be labeled discriminatory. Examples of such methods include: Altering a candidate’s resume, either to make them appear better or worse than they are . These alterations are often meant to game the system of an ATS but may result in bias for whoever the recruiter wants to pick. Using “expiring offers.” Job offers typically do not expire unless your job is genuinely on a time limit and needs to get filled ASAP. If a recruiter is setting “take it or leave it” offers to pressure candidates to decide, it can be considered an unfair hiring practice. Soliciting money from candidates . Good recruiters get paid on commission based on the contracts they fill successfully. If they solicit money from their candidates or applicants, they often suppress the best candidates, who know better than to pay. Undermining existing employers . If a recruiter is targeting passive candidates, some might be tempted to spread unfounded rumors (“ I heard they’re looking at bankruptcy proceedings, how do you feel about your job? “) to undermine a sense of confidence and stability in the candidate and encourage them to move. Again, this is considered unfair hiring. Not disclosing themselves as a recruiter . Some recruiters will claim that they’re HR employees, hiring managers, or have a personal and direct connection to the hiring decision-makers for their companies, and on this pretense, try to convince candidates they have a better chance. It’s called “rusing,” and it’s unfair and unethical. Working with a recruiter is not a bad thing, but you need to make sure your recruiters are on the same page and that they have worked to minimize bias and unfair practices in their processes. Seek to Minimize Unconscious Bias Unconscious bias is, in a way, the opposite of overt bigotry. It’s implicit and fundamental, often hard to detect, yet still discriminatory. For example, say you are hiring for an engineer position. You have two candidates who are, on paper, identical. They graduated with the same GPA and degree from the same institution. They have the same amount of experience and have listed the same skills. The only difference between them is that one is male and one is female. Which one do you hire? Implicit bias might make you think the male is the better candidate because there’s a significant gender disparity in engineering, skewing more toward males. You’re more used to seeing male engineers, and so the male candidate “better fits” the role, even if they’re both perfectly qualified on paper. Of course, in reality, this scenario will rarely happen. No two candidates are ever perfectly identical save for one protected characteristic. But, this is how unconscious bias sneaks in; your personal experience indicates a trend that you unconsciously follow. “However, having a panel of interviewers does not always eliminate bias in the hiring process. Sometimes, having a panel of interviewers can still lead to one person influencing the opinion of others, especially if that person has a lot of authority. ‘Groupthink’ is often a result of this occurrence and can be just as ineffective in eliminating hiring bias as having a single interviewer make the decision.” – ThriveMap . How can you minimize unconscious bias? Recognize that you have bias . No human being alive is without bias; this is why many hiring decisions should be made by teams, preferably diverse teams. Use technology where applicable . For example, anonymizing resumes can strip names, which usually bring biased connotations with them. Invest in training . Today, many organizations provide training on recognizing and fighting bias in the workplace; invest in using this training throughout your organization, including management. Unconscious bias can never be entirely removed, but it can be mitigated. Be Cautious with Technology Many modern applicant tracking systems claim to use machine learning, pattern matching, and advanced AI to help filter and pick the best candidates. The trouble is, that technology is itself not unbiased. As a simple example, a neural network will take a data set and look for patterns within it. It might take a look at a group of highly successful people (such as, say, the list of Fortune 500 CEOs) and then look for those characteristics in the candidate pool. It will then select candidates who meet those characteristics. Unfortunately, that sample pool might not be representative in a positive way. For example, in the Fortune 500 list, there is a higher concentration of men named “David” than women . Thus, the AI might choose a man named David over a more qualified woman. To us, this doesn’t sound sensible. To an AI, it’s a pattern, and all patterns are as valid as any pattern without other validation. This is proven time and time again with machine learning and AI technology. They can be helpful, but they reflect the biases inherent in the data fed to them and the people designing them. This is an emerging field of study , and it’s why reliance on machine learning without validation is likely to enable and reinforce bias in your hiring practices. So: you can use modern technology, but be aware that it can be biased, and watch for those biases to appear. Set Diversity Goals Diversity is essential in hiring, not just in minimizing bias but in maximizing productivity and creativity in the workplace. Thus, hiring more diverse candidates will benefit the organization. However, this must be done carefully. “Diversity goals are worthwhile,” says Bohnet. “They make the issue front and center” in organizations. And yet, she says, be careful when you broach the idea with colleagues. These goals “are sometimes controversial for companies because they can undermine the people who are hired in those categories or lead to a backlash from the traditionally advantaged groups.” Data can help you get buy-in. A growing body of research suggests that diversity in the workforce results in “significant business advantages,” says Gino. She recommends that “at the end of every hiring process, leaders track how well they’ve done against the diversity goals they set out to achieve.” This also encourages those involved in the hiring and in other parts of the company “to keep diversity and equality top of mind.” – HBR Remember: employees should not be hired because of their diverse characteristics alone; they must still meet the criteria outlined in the job description. This helps ensure that they’re a productive team member and not a checkbox to avoid discrimination suits down the line. Remain Vigilant Many sources of bias are self-evident, and many unfair hiring practices are clearly unfair. They work simply because the people in charge don’t notice or don’t care to look for them. Thus, the number one thing you can do to minimize unfair hiring practices and discrimination in your hiring is to remain vigilant. With the proper safeguards and reviews in place, you can work to reduce any instances of unfair hiring that may sneak into your process.

Your thoughts are shaped by the pressures that formed you into the person you are today. These pressures can be social, they can be cultural, they can physical; they are the sum total of your experiences, viewpoints, education, and more.  In other words, no two people think in the same way. While it might seem as though one of the best things you can do to build a team is to find like-minded people who “think the same way as you” to avoid conflict and keep everyone focused on the same task with the same perspective, this is, actually, detrimental to a business. The truth is, that diversity – in culture, in religion, in background, and in thought – is a critical component of a great modern business. Thought diversity breeds conflict and disagreement, which are not harmful when approached the right way. Conflict brings ideas, resolutions, and thinking outside the box to find new solutions. Disagreement fosters discussion and new ways to approach a problem. To quote myself from a previous article: “Diversity is critical for a high-performance team. An effective team should consist of people from different backgrounds, demographics, skill sets, and knowledge bases. Drawing from a diverse teams’ thoughts, experiences, and histories leads to more varied discussion, more diversity of ideas, and better end-results.” Diversity in background, diversity in perspective, and diversity in thought are all critical components of a highly effective business. What is Thought Diversity? Thought diversity, also known as cognitive diversity, has been taken up as a buzzword, which is dangerous because it risks the concept becoming just another piece of jargon. When taken seriously, thought diversity is a critical component of business success. There’s just one question: what is it? Thought diversity is diversity in how you think, how you attempt to solve problems, and your experiences that inform your potential solutions. Consider: A graduate of Yale and a graduate of a local community college will have different approaches to solving a problem. A white male and a black female will have different perspectives on issues. An able-bodied individual and a disabled individual will, again, have different views. The Center for Talent Innovation describes two kinds of diversity: inherent and acquired. Inherent diversity is the diversity that stems from “traditional” diversity characteristics. Those characteristics include race, ethnicity, religion, background, etc. Acquired diversity comes from experiences, such as education level, lifestyle, and participation in extracurricular activities of various sorts. Both forms of diversity can be necessary for building a high-performing team and an effective business, and both contribute to thinking in different ways. Thought diversity is, essentially, conflict. However, it is a conflict that is both reasonable and mediated. Reasonable conflict means conflict over, for example, an approach to solving a problem. Irreconcilable differences (such as unquestioned bigotry from one party) are not reasonable conflicts that can lead to productive outcomes. Mediated conflict is a conflict that is channeled in a constructive manner. If a conflict between the hypothetical Yale graduate and community college graduate leads to one party disregarding the other, the conflict does not lead to solving a problem, just to driving away an employee. Thought diversity can be difficult to leverage, and it’s hard for many people to internalize if they’ve never encountered it before. To quote Titus Talent , thought diversity in the workplace means: “Implementing processes that celebrate thought diversity means opening yourself up to the idea that your way is not the best way. Reordering day-to-day operations can improve thought diversity by making the workplace more accessible to a larger group of people. A diverse workplace makes employees feel safe to express their perspectives and their needs.” Confronting diversity in thought without downplaying, minimizing, or disregarding opposing perspectives is difficult but essential. What Thought Diversity is not Thought diversity is distinct from neurodiversity. Neurodiversity is the viewpoint that differences in mental state, cognitive perspective, and brain chemistry/structure are not deficits but rather normal variances.  Neurodiversity includes things like ADHD, autism spectrum, dyslexia, and other former “disorders” that are increasingly being recognized more as differences in natural thinking that deserve accommodation rather than oppression. While neurodiversity is a form of diversity and can lead to thought diversity, the two are not the same. Another thing that thought diversity is not is an enforced change in perspective. All too often, business owners (typically white and male) try to train thought diversity into existing employees rather than bring it in from the outside. This is ineffective primarily because the individuals attempting to think in diverse ways will still default to their natural thought patterns. True thought diversity stems from diversity in natural thought patterns and perspectives rather than some trained, temporary cognitive exercise. Thought diversity cannot be turned on and off and is not an experiment; it is the natural consequence of differing perspectives encountering one another in a tempered, controlled environment. Where Does Thought Diversity Intersect Recruiting? There are three places where thought diversity is important in recruiting. Identifying, monitoring, and paying attention to thought diversity throughout the recruiting and hiring process is extremely important.  What are the three ways to use thought diversity in recruiting? First: Diversity in Candidate Selection As you might expect, the first is in who you choose to hire. When you build your candidate pool, and when you prune it down to the most highly qualified candidates for a given role, one aspect you should make sure to emphasize is diversity. There are many reasons for this. The obvious reasons include: Building a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Encouraging candidates of all demographics to consider your business a good workplace. Meeting industry or legal standards for diversity and inclusiveness (such as EEOC regulations.) Additionally, by building an employee roster of diverse employees , you naturally build up thought diversity. Individuals become coworkers, team members, and even friends, despite widely varying backgrounds and perspectives. Everyone can learn from one another. Second: Diversity in Sourcing The second source of diversity is diversity in sourcing itself. If you always work with a single recruiter or recruiting agency, always post on the same couple of job boards, or continually advertise using the same messaging, the same targeting, and the same channels, you’re going to have a relatively narrow pool of candidates. Conversely, what happens if you implement recruiting from a broader range of channels? You can gain applications from people with more diverse backgrounds. You can gain applications from people with more diverse geographic origins. You can tap sources of candidates from further afield. There is bias everywhere. Job sites have demographics, which are developed through the combination of their messaging, their chosen industries and skill levels, and so on. Some are intentionally narrow, while others are unintentional. The fact is, the more diverse your sources, the more diverse your resulting candidate pool will be. Third: Diversity in Interviewer Selection The third area where thought diversity can benefit you in recruiting is in the choice of individuals you pick to conduct your interviews . Group interviews are becoming more and more common and with good reason. One individual may be swayed by the charisma or connection to a candidate. Our hypothetical Yale graduate might favor another Yale graduate more than a community college applicant, even if no outward evidence indicates that an individual is a better hire. A panel of interviewers made up of individuals with diverse thoughts can be more difficult to sway. Candidates must navigate a more challenging environment, especially if they aren’t used to a diverse workplace or social situation. On top of that, diverse interviewers can see potential problems in behavior, answers, and questions that single interviewers or less diverse panels might miss. A common piece of advice for problem-solving is approaching the problem from different angles to get a more complete picture of a situation and trying out different solutions to see how they affect the issue. This technique for thought diversity becomes much easier when you have a team made up of people who naturally approach problems in different ways. How to Use Thought Diversity in Recruiting Thought diversity is critical for every part of a business, from top to bottom. Whether you’re recruiting your next C-level executive or Director, or you’re hiring a team of entry-level employees for customer service, diversity is crucial. The question is, how can you implement it? Step 1: Analyze Existing Diversity Everyone starts from somewhere, and that holds true for your business as well. Analyze your existing diversity as much as you can. Remember, though, that some forms of diversity aren’t necessarily something your employees want or need to disclose, including medical diagnoses, background, and more. You need to avoid stepping on toes or violating protection laws. Some clear indicators of diversity to look for include information that can easily be observed or identified from a resume. The geographic origin, race and ethnicity, and background of your employees are generally public knowledge. Look for gaps in diversity. Are your demographics heavily skewed to males? Is the majority white? Are they primarily young, single professionals rather than older workers with families? Are they all college-educated when that may not necessarily be required? Step 2: Remove Barriers to Diversity As you analyze your existing diversity, you may find explicit or implicit barriers in your hiring process. Some common barriers include: Requiring a college education for positions that don’t need it. Plenty of people get college-equivalent educations, or are perfectly intelligent and educated without a degree, and can be highly effective employees. Adding physical lifting requirements for jobs that don’t involve physical labor. This requirement tends to be discriminatory to physically disabled individuals, among others. Placing steep requirements in your job postings . It’s well-known that men will typically apply when they meet some of the job requirements, while women will usually only apply if they meet all of them. Thus, steep (unnecessary) requirements tend to suppress female applicants. Remember that thought diversity and demographic diversity are inextricably linked, and one leads to the other. By removing barriers to diverse hiring, you foster higher levels of thought diversity. Step 3: Don’t be Afraid to Make Significant Changes Often, diversity and inclusion require significant adjustments to implement. This adjustment can be anything from firing a toxic and bigoted executive to restructuring your organization to revamping your onboarding process . The onboarding process is a good example. If your onboarding process is slow and your new hires might wait 2-3 weeks before their first paycheck arrives, you end up suppressing certain kinds of candidates.  Those from impoverished backgrounds might not have the savings to wait that long. Thus, implementing a faster onboarding process to reduce time-to-first-paycheck helps. Step 4: Minimize or Punish Damaging Conflict Part of encouraging thought diversity in the workplace is fostering a safe place for individuals to express their views, argue constructively, and come to solutions together. That means you have to be aggressive in stopping the conflict that does not lead to productive outcomes. Managers, leaders, and team members who downplay, ignore, or fail to encourage participation from new hires will find those new hires “fall in line” and never voice their opinions. They may be an excellent resource, but they have been conditioned not to speak out, leaving that value on the cutting room floor. Is Thought Diversity Important? Unquestionably. Study after study has been conducted and shown proof that diversity in hiring, in demographics, and in thought leads to better results for any business at any level. Businesses with greater thought diversity find better, more agile outcomes to problems, implement better solutions, and navigate issues more efficiently. The hardest part is getting the ball rolling. Once you’ve begun implementing measures to encourage greater thought diversity, it becomes easier to keep it going. Have any questions or concerns regarding thought diversity and how you can implement the idea into your recruiting? We are here to help, contact us to learn how we can help ! Getting started with implementing thought diversity into your business isn’t going to be simple for everyone, so we would be more than happy to assist you or your business with any of your concerns.

Adverse impact is a term that comes up in discussions related primarily to recruiting. Still, it can also influence advertising (both commercial and job advertising), business practices, reputation building, and every other department in a business. It’s essential to be aware of adverse impacts, as well as the ways that you can mitigate them. So what, specifically, is it? The Definition of Adverse Impact A good, concise definition of “adverse impact” comes from Mighty Recruiter : “An adverse impact results from employer practices that seem to be neutral, but that disproportionately and negatively affect protected groups such as women and minorities. An adverse impact can occur at any stage of the employment process, including hiring, training, performance reviews, promotions, and layoffs. A practical means of measuring if an adverse impact exists is to evaluate whether a group’s selection rate falls below 80 percent of the group with the highest selection rate. For example, if you give a hiring test for job applicants, and the pass rate of a protected group is 80 percent of the pass rate of the group with the highest selection rate, the hiring test may hurt that protected group.” In other words, adverse impact is closely tied to discrimination . However, unlike intentional discrimination and bigotry, unintentional prejudice, and inherent bias, adverse impact is not outwardly discriminatory. Adverse impact is also known as discriminatory impact or disparate impact. This can crop up in many locations, and it may not be obvious. Some biases may also not be discriminatory, depending on the context. Some examples of discriminatory adverse impact may include: The inclusion of physical lifting requirements on jobs that do not have duties that include physical lifting, such as office jobs, is an example of discriminatory adverse impact. This example is discriminatory to disabled applicants. Machine learning or “AI” systems filter resumes and opaquely filter out applicants with education histories from foreign schools that are not in its database of valid schools. This strategy has an adverse impact on foreign applicants and may not be evident to anyone who isn’t double-checking the results of a software’s filtering. Your company issues a “general intelligence test” for applicants that asks questions unrelated to the job but related to a specific culture or area. This practice is discriminatory to anyone not part of that culture or location. The foundational court case that defines adverse impact is the case of Griggs v Duke Power from 1971. “In the landmark case, Griggs v. Duke Power, Willie Griggs and twelve other African-American employees of Duke Power sued their employer, alleging that the general intelligence test Duke used as a screening tool unfairly impacted African American applicants. These are the passing rates from Duke’s general intelligence test: Whites: 58%, African Americans: 6%. The Supreme Court ruled that if pre-employment tests had a disparate impact on protected groups (such as women and ethnic minorities), the organization requiring the test must prove that the test is “reasonably related” to the duties performed on the job.” Adverse impact is bias and discrimination, whether it’s part of a business process, a software system, or institutional habits. The 80% rule in the definition above, also known as the four-fifths rule, is the general standard by which employment procedures are judged. How to Avoid Adverse Impact Preventing adverse impact means being aware that it’s a thing that exists, understanding how it is measured, analyzing your existing practices looking for it, and implementing new processes to replace those that prove to include adverse impact. Measuring adverse impact means codifying applicants’ acceptance and rejection rates based on their demographics, particularly those related to a protected class. Measure whites versus minorities, locals versus foreign applicants, male versus female applicants , and so on. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) , these are the protected classes that you must be aware of: “Applicants, employees, and former employees are protected from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, and genetic information (including family medical history). Applicants, employees, and former employees are also protected from retaliation (punishment) for filing a charge or complaint of discrimination, participating in a discrimination investigation or lawsuit, or opposing discrimination (for example, threatening to file a charge or complaint of discrimination).” Measure the acceptance rates, success rates, termination rates, and other relevant metrics per group, and compare them using the fourth - fifths rule. Bear in mind that the raw numbers of people hired are not necessarily representative. Here’s an example, again from Hire Vue: “Let’s say an organization is looking to fill 25 open positions in its local call center. Five hundred men and 1000 women apply. Of those applicants, 10 men and 15 women are hired. In this situation, the selection rate for men is 2%, while the selection rate for women is 1.5%. Dividing 1.5 by two, we get 75%: below the cutoff. Even though the organization hired more women overall, the women were still adversely impacted.” It’s also worth mentioning that the fourth-fifth rule is merely a start. Disproportionate measurements in a short time and with small numbers of open roles and applicants are not necessarily a sign of adverse impact. The adverse impact must also be statistically significant. Other tests, such as the Z-Test or the Fisher’s Exact test , can also be used to judge adverse impact. To be able to judge adverse impacts, you need raw data. This raw data needs to accumulate demographic information about protected qualities, so job applications can ask for this information, with the disclaimer that it is not used in the filtering or judgment of candidates. Job Analysis is a Crucial Part of Monitoring for Adverse Impact A job analysis should look at a given role and distill it down to the core components. What does the job require? What specific activities make up the job? What particular qualities does an employee need to perform the job? What is the environment of the job? Codifying this is a vital strategy for many reasons, including creating accurate, effective job postings . We often point out that a job posting should only list requirements necessary to begin the job; you should consider leaving out requirements that are “nice to have” and not necessarily a firm condition. A minimal list of requirements is also helpful in avoiding adverse impacts. Many “requirements” may be discriminatory, even if they aren’t intended to be. Remember, as well, that reasonable accommodation must be made for protected individuals and categories. For example, an office job cannot list physical requirements such as heavy lifting because it’s not a reasonable component of the job. Sure, employees might be occasionally required to move reams of paper or heavy binders, but accommodations may be made. The same requirement can be relevant to a job as a roofer, where the inability to work on a roof physically disqualifies an applicant. Job Posting Analysis is Related To determine whether or not you have an adverse impact in your workplace, you’ll need to gather the necessary data. However, you can also look at your existing job postings to see if there is an adverse impact inherent in them. For example, listing “Requires 4-7 years of experience” can be discriminatory. It prevents applicants with less experience (who are often younger) or those with more than seven years of experience (who are generally older), a veiled form of age discrimination. You should also examine your job postings and your hiring process for consistency and unbiased judgment. A common technique to help remove bias from the interview and hiring process is an objective interview scorecard , which is formulated for specific roles and judges only the qualities and skills necessary to perform those roles and nothing else. Subjective “impressions” and other judgments can be a source of unconscious bias and, thus, adverse impact. Analyzing Algorithms is also an Essential Part of Bias Analysis Algorithms may seem objective – algorithms are code, after all – but all code is as biased as the people writing it. Time and again, examples come up in technology where bias occurs. It can be as blatant as facial recognition software that identifies minorities as more significant security threats, hidden as light-reactive hand dryers not working on individuals with darker skin. The Harvard Business Review has an excellent overview of how algorithms can create or amplify bias in many situations, and it is well worth a read. Recruit from Diverse Sources Even something as simple as choosing which recruiters to work with, which sites to use to promote your job listings, geo-targeting for your job postings, and advertising, can all be sources of bias and adverse impact. Bryq.com says: “If your recruitment team is not diverse, then that makes it far easier for unconscious bias to overtake the process. If you want to minimize adverse impact, your hiring team needs to be as diverse as your applicants. As the hiring manager, you will surely be on the interview panel. You need to select two people quite different from yourself to make up the rest of the panel. This strategy will offer a diverse range of views on the potential job candidates you are interviewing and can help you to hire a more diverse range of people.” Remember, as well, that diversity and inclusion are an ongoing process. Your hiring process may never be perfect. Your goal should be “good enough” with the addition of “continually improving.” Keep an eye on data, keep an eye on changing laws and cultural mores, and make adjustments as necessary. Even something as simple as your word choice in a job posting can have a significant impact. Dealing with Adverse Impact Say, for the sake of argument in a hypothetical, you’ve examined your company policies and have discovered a significant adverse impact. What steps should you take? First, it is good to have discovered it before it becomes a significant legal issue. People will have been tangibly hurt by the adverse impact, and they are within their rights to bring legal action against your company for it. Discovering adverse impacts and taking steps to rectify it prevents this from becoming a problem further down the line. The primary thing you need to do is adjust your practices – be it in job postings, in the hiring and interview process, in onboarding, in metric reviews, in terminations, in performance reviews, or anywhere else within your company where you remove discriminatory practices. This process can include adjusting the wording in a job posting, changing software filters, or revising the entire hiring process from the ground up. If no lawsuits come your way and you have removed your discriminatory processes, you may proceed with caution. Continue ongoing monitoring to watch for your new processes’ impact and continue to adjust them to remove bias. As mentioned above, some forms of “discrimination” are context-sensitive. An individual unable to work on a roof cannot be hired as a roofer; you can create a defense against discrimination for that requirement. Developing a basis of legal defensibility for your hiring practices is essential for preemptively protecting your company from legal challenges. You may also consider talking to lawyers who specialize in discrimination and employment law. They can assist you in protecting yourself, revising your processes, and uncovering more hidden biases that may not be obvious. Conclusion  There will always be an ongoing discussion about the issues of adverse impact, the presumption of equitable application and hiring processes, and how bias impacts company progress. One thing is undeniable, however. A more diverse, inclusive, and robust workforce is universally better for productivity, profitability, effectiveness, and success within a business. Study after study proves this, time and again. If your company is not actively working to remove bias present in hiring, review, termination, and other business policies, you can do better. I hope this guide has been helpful and a step in the right direction! Did this article shed some light on adverse impact, and did it help you rethink some of your company processes? Are you struggling with adverse impact in your industry or hiring practices, or have you been a victim of it yourself? We’d love to help you out through this entire process. Contact us today to learn what we can do to help you .

Diversity is important in any workplace. Diversity also means more than just making sure different genders and races are represented. You can, and should, hire people with disabilities as well. Yes, you will probably have to implement extra accommodations to make sure such employees can thrive in your workplace. Yes, you may have to combat some resentment or ill will from other employees. The rewards, though, are well worth the effort. Today we’re going to discuss deaf or hard-of-hearing hires. These people have to deal with a lot of misconceptions and discrimination in the workplace, but they can be just as valuable as any other employee when they’re allowed to thrive. Disability does not mean a lack of ability to perform in a role. Misconceptions Regarding Deaf Employees One of the first hurdles to leap when considering hiring a deaf or hard-of-hearing individual as an employee is learning, recognizing, and fighting misconceptions that might get in the way of either the hiring process or their role in the workplace. Misconception #1: All deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals know sign language. Sign language isn’t necessary for many hard-of-hearing individuals, and even some deaf individuals don’t know it or don’t like to use it. As with any culture and language, it varies from person to person. Some are fluent in sign language, others only know a bare minimum to communicate, and still, others don’t know any at all, and prefer to communicate in different ways. Misconception #2: All sign language is the same. Sign language is not a universal language. The first thing that most will think of is ASL or American Sign Language . There are other regional sign languages, like British Sign Language, French Sign Language, and others. Attempts have been made to make standardized sign languages, resulting in languages like International Sign, but it’s not widely adopted. Misconception #3: Accommodating deaf employees is expensive. Many accommodations for hard-of-hearing individuals are cheap or free, and the average cost for many one-time accommodations is under $500 . For example, you don’t necessarily need an ASL interpreter on staff when email and a company Slack work just fine. Misconception #4: Deaf employees cannot hear at all. Hearing loss is a wide spectrum of disability. People who are fully deaf aren’t able to hear anything at all, but many hard-of-hearing individuals can hear some of what goes on around them but may have trouble making out words or identifying when someone is trying to get their attention. Additionally, hearing aids and cochlear implants can enable many hard-of-hearing individuals with an improved level of hearing. Misconception #5: Deaf employees cannot drive. Some employers are hesitant to hire deaf employees under the assumption that they cannot drive, making it harder for them to get to work on time and reliably through public transportation or other means. The reality is much more complicated. Deaf people can drive, and varying studies suggest that they’re as safe as any other driver . They often face discrimination in licensing but can drive just as well as anyone else when they’re given the opportunity. Besides, as part of your application process, you likely have a line saying “must have reliable transportation.” If they have reliable transportation, their license, and are insured, then they meet the requirements. Misconception #6: Deaf people can read lips. Lip reading is a skill much like sign language, and it’s not inherent to being hard of hearing. Lip reading is difficult; only 30% of spoken English is even visible on the lips. Facial hair can also make it more difficult to read lips.  It’s not some magic replacement for hearing; it’s a means to help interpret when hearing is muddled and difficult. Misconception #7: Deaf people have “super-senses” in other ways. Much like the stereotype that blind people have enhanced hearing, many people attribute enhanced sight or other characteristics to the deaf. The truth is, while deaf people may need to focus on using other senses to compensate for a lack of hearing – and thus might catch what others miss – it’s more a matter of attention and practice than any inherent advantage. As it turns out, many of the reasons that companies fail to hire deaf employees are more about personal biases, stereotypes, and lack of experience rather than a reason that would disqualify them from being able to carry out the duties of the position. Add to that all of the possible benefits a deaf or hard-of-hearing employee brings to the table, and you’ll wonder why these hard-working individuals have been excluded from many positions. Benefits of Hiring Deaf or Hard of Hearing Employees Why should you go about hiring a deaf or hard-of-hearing individual for your business? Well, first and foremost, they’re human beings with lives, experiences, and skills just like anyone else. Being able to hear doesn’t necessarily make someone more efficient or better at handling certain tasks. There’s also the inherent benefits of a diverse workplace, which shouldn’t need to be explained. But, to put things in more specific terms, here are some tangible benefits to hiring such people. Deaf and HH individuals are generally extremely adaptable. Lydia Callis writes: “People who are deaf spend much of their lives finding ways to adapt within hearing culture. Because of this, deaf employees may exhibit impressive patience and flexibility in the face of a challenge.” We’ve all experienced an employee who, when presented with a problem, simply locks up. They don’t pursue a solution, and they’ll only take action when pushed to do so. More often, they seem to use it as an excuse to do nothing. This is much less common with deaf employees, who are used to solving their own problems as necessary. Deaf and HH individuals bring unique life experiences to the team. This is one of the biggest benefits of workplace diversity of any kind. Everyone has their own unique life experiences, with different pressures and different perspectives developed from their unique situations. Whether it’s the color of their skin, their gender presentation, or their disabilities, diverse employees bring unique thoughts to the table. There’s rarely a time when this isn’t beneficial to a company. With deaf or hard-of-hearing employees, you can expect recommendations or suggestions for enhancing accessibility and accommodations for others with hearing loss, which can make your products, services and marketing more acceptable and applicable to an entire audience you previously missed. Deaf and HH individuals tend to be very loyal to their jobs. In a time when turnover is high and employee loyalty is tied more to a paycheck than a company, employee loyalty is a highly valued trait. Deaf individuals have a hard time finding a job – unemployment amongst the deaf is around 50% , though it depends on the precise definitions of both employment and hearing loss – so they know to value a job when they have it. That’s not just an assumption, either.  A U.S. Department of Education study found that: “Disabled employees, in general, are average or above average in performance, quality and quantity of work, flexibility, and attendance.” Deaf and HH groups have their own job boards you can use to hire them specifically. Given how hard it is for the average hard-of-hearing individual to be given the time of day by a typical hiring manager, it’s no surprise that deaf people have created their own resources. Sites like DeafJobWizard serve as job boards where the hard-of-hearing can browse open positions specifically offered to the deaf. More importantly, you as a business owner can use these sites to post jobs where you’re willing to hire a hard-of-hearing employee. Deaf and HH individuals tend to be very detail-oriented. This can be beneficial in a few different ways. For example, deaf employees often take good notes during meetings with clients or customers, and those notes can be a valuable asset for the team after the meeting is over. These individuals are also frequently good at reading body language and developing an impression of the people around them. This gives them more insight into a variety of different situations. As the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association says: “There can often be a mismatch between what is spoken and their body language, which may very well be overlooked by our hearing peers if they are just focusing on what they hear.” Businesses can qualify for tax credits for hiring hard-of-hearing individuals. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit, or WOTC , is a federal tax credit offered to businesses for hiring individuals from certain groups who typically face discrimination in hiring or in the workplace. Accommodations You Should Make If you’ve decided that it could be a good idea to hire a hard-of-hearing person to work for your company, you’ll want to make sure you can properly accommodate their disability. A lot goes into this, but thankfully, most of it isn’t very difficult or expensive. You also have a lot of options. For the application process , you hardly need accommodations at all. Make sure that any mandatory media is accessible, such as making accurate closed captions available for videos. Most applications are either paper documents or online forms, neither of which is impacted by hearing loss. For the interview process , you should start by asking the interviewee how they prefer to communicate. The ADA requires that your company cover the cost of an ASL interpreter if one is needed, but some hard-of-hearing candidates won’t want or need an interpreter. If an interpreter is present, make sure to focus on the candidate. A common etiquette mistake is addressing questions and making eye contact with the interpreter when it is the candidate you’re interviewing. Talk to and address the candidates, make eye contact with them, and – as hard as it may be – treat the interpreter as a tool or accessory, at least for the duration of the interview. Additionally, make sure to provide paper copies of any documents, itineraries, questions, and media you need to give the candidate. For an inclusive workplace , you’ll typically want to focus on a few different categories of accommodations. Emergency coverage, workplace training, and business process accommodations are the name of the game. First, you’ll want to provide training for existing employees on how to integrate a hard-of-hearing coworker. You want your employees to feel supported and at home, and a hostile work environment is not conducive to a positive workplace experience. Training should involve debunking myths, providing a venue for employees to ask questions, and providing training on the etiquette on dealing with hearing loss. Primarily, you’ll want to focus on making sure your other employees don’t discriminate against your new employee or make their environment hostile or toxic to work in. Next, you’ll want to make sure you have accommodations in place for communication. Phone calls may or may not be viable depending on the level of hearing loss the employee has, but there’s nothing wrong with using email, Slack, or another text-based communication channel. There are also technological options for phones , such as captions phones or video relay services that route a call through an interpreter via a video phone. Don’t forget to ensure that any disaster warning systems, such as fire alarms, are accommodating as well; flashing lights and visual markers for exits and directions are crucial. Another area where you can be accommodating is at workplace meetings. Meetings should be held in areas with good lighting, where your hard-of-hearing employees can always see who is speaking. You may also want to implement practices that better indicate who “has the floor” and is speaking at any given time. Visual aids, notes, and meeting minutes are all good as well. You may note that many of the accommodations for a hard-of-hearing or deaf employee are behavioral more than technological; this is why they’re as cheap as they are. It doesn’t take much to be accommodating . Bringing a deaf or hard-of-hearing employee on board can be a great boon to any company, with their unique perspective, their loyalty, and their skills. It might take a little adjustment, and you may have to smooth over some wrinkles in the general workforce, but the benefits are well worth the effort. Are you considering hiring somebody who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, or have you already? What have your experiences been? Let us know in the comments below!

No one is free of bias. Every last one of us makes judgments and decisions based on the collective influence of our upbringings, our experiences, our educations, and our societies. That “gut feeling” you have about anything from how your food looks to the impression you get when meeting someone new? That’s nothing more than a collection of biases manifesting. This can be potentially valuable in social interactions, but it can also lead to miscommunications, misinterpretations, and misadventures. As a tourist, your gut feelings might serve you well, or they may lead you into an exploitative scam. Even these situations are individual, comparatively minor. Where bias can truly become disastrous is in hiring. As a hiring manager or director in charge of making hiring decisions, you are not free from bias. It’s truly, 100% impossible to be completely free of bias. The best you can do, the best you can hope for, is to take steps to minimize the effect bias has on your decision-making and be aware of what you cannot eliminate to mitigate it. To that end, we’ve put together this list of the most common sources of bias in hiring. Examine your hiring process and your decision-making to see if any of these are present, and take action to adjust for them. The Halo/Horn Bias If you have an appointment with someone and they turn up late, dirty, and unkempt, you’re likely to judge them negatively. They might shine in their interview, ace the skill tests, and make a stellar impression on others, but you can’t shake that initial impression. In your mind, you’ll never see past them showing up looking like they dove out of a moving vehicle to make the appointment. Perhaps they did just that. You don’t know the situation that led to their presence. Yet you ascribe a value to it – the “horn” effect, for devil horns, indicating something negative – and that value judgment lingers despite other evidence. You might not hire them despite their tangibly great metrics because of that impression. The same thing can happen in reverse, the “halo” effect. Someone comes in for their interview, immaculate, charming, personable, and excellent at the skills tests. You hire them, but over time, you find that they’re abrasive, that their charm is entirely fake, and that they barely know how to do their job and don’t seem interested in learning. You give them plenty of chances and the benefit of the doubt because they were so charming that first time around. They cling on longer than they had any right to due to that initial bias. Avoid this simply by questioning your assumptions and judgments. You don’t know the depths of someone’s character based on one meeting and shouldn’t make an assumption about it. Confirmation Bias 60% of interviewers make a judgment about their candidates within 15 minutes of meeting them . Is that judgment accurate? Maybe, maybe not. Confirmation bias is the unconscious practice of focusing on information, answers, or behaviors that back up that initial judgment or gut feeling while disregarding actions, behaviors, or information that run counter to it. Consider that initial impression; you make a judgment that someone seems well put together for their interview. Throughout the interview, they stutter (oh, a speech impediment is fine, they’re working on it), shuffle papers (just nerves, not disorganization, right?), and show signs of not knowing what they claim to know. Yet that initial impression carries through; you unconsciously assign less weight to negative factors or disregard them entirely while giving more weight to minor details that support your impression. Everyone is guilty of this bias, which is why so much of hiring is about using objective markers, data from assessments, and interview scorecards to make more even judgments. Affect Heuristic Bias A heuristic is a shortcut. Heuristics are things like generalizations or attributions that are “good enough” to make a judgment, even though they may not be rational, consistent, or perfect. Affect heuristics are emotionally charged heuristic decisions. As a simple example, maybe you’ve had three or four kinds of foods with cheddar cheese flavors attached to them. So, when presented with a decision between a bag of cheddar chips and a bag of sour cream and onion, you know you like cheddar, so you go with that option. You make that decision, even though you don’t know the quality of the flavoring, whether cheddar will satisfy your current cravings, or if the cheddar chips are old and expired, but the other ones are fresh, and so on. You don’t have all the information, but you made a judgment based on your experience that is likely to be, at worst, maybe a little disappointing. How does this relate to hiring? Heuristics can be snap judgments using information that otherwise has little bearing on the situation. Consider: Your best friend from childhood is named Stephen. A new applicant makes it to the interview process and is named Stephen, so you have an initial good impression of them based on the emotional memories the name brings up. A candidate’s keychain has a logo of a sports team you dislike. Seeing it puts you in a bad mood – they just beat your team last night – so you judge the candidate more harshly. Neither example is rational or based on anything tangible; it’s a memory of an emotion that biases your judgment. Affinity Bias A Silicon Valley startup primarily consists of young men in their 20s and 30s, with computer science, business, and engineering degrees, Type A personalities, and a love of a good hipster brew. This company puts out a job ad and pulls in half a dozen candidates to interview. They choose a candidate who is a young man in his 20s or 30s, with a degree in computer engineering, a Type A personality, and a love of a good hipster brew. Like attracts like. Yet, time and again, studies show that one of the best things you can do to bolster productivity, agility, and resilience in business is to hire a broadly-based and diverse workforce. The startup in question knows that diversity is important, yet they value “cultural fit” over “tokenism” in their hiring. They tend to choose people who already resemble those who fit in rather than “gamble” on someone different. This is affinity bias – the bias towards people you share an affinity with and away from people who might challenge you – in action. There’s a natural and reasonable urge to minimize potential sources of conflict. After all, people work better when they aren’t fighting. Unfortunately, this suppresses diversity and leads to further self-reinforcing bias. The real solution is to invest in conflict resolution training so that when disagreements arise, they can be handled reasonably and consistently. Illusory Correlation Bias Correlation does not equal causation. You’ve probably heard that before. For example, a famous graph shows how ice cream sales rise and fall in sync with the number of shark attacks. That doesn’t mean that buying ice cream makes you more at risk of a shark attack, nor does it mean that shark attacks are somehow an inherent driver of ice cream sales. In hiring, an example might be an interviewer noticing that all of their best hires answered a specific way on a particular question in the process, which is otherwise just one of many similar questions. They correlate that answer to job performance, when the reality is, it’s more likely a coincidence. This bias is another reminder not to ascribe specific value or undue influence to an otherwise innocuous piece of data that is not an actual correlation with job performance or outcomes. Conformity Bias Many people want to be a part of the crowd and have an aversion to speaking up. Perhaps they have had poor experiences in the past, or they’re unsure of themselves. This can rear up as a bias in hiring, specifically in cases where a panel of interviewers is conducting an interview. Say you have five people conducting an interview. Four of them thought the candidate was great, but the fifth got a poor impression and thought they didn’t do well. Does that fifth interviewer speak up? On the one hand, perhaps they feel the candidate performed poorly due to another bias – perhaps Affect Heuristic – that they didn’t recognize and adjust for. On the other hand, perhaps everyone else was affected by a bias like Affinity Bias, while the fifth interviewer was not. Conformity bias pushes this fifth interviewer not to speak up, even when speaking up might foster discussion that can circumvent other biases and make for a more accurate hiring decision. Contrast Bias Stand out, make a good impression, and get your foot in the door. Common advice for candidates, but is it valuable for interviewers? As an interviewer, you are likely combing through dozens or hundreds of resumes for any given position. These have, presumably, already been through at least two filters. First, they’ve been through the self-selection filter of people who apply only if they believe they fit the role or are close enough to have a shot. Second, they make it through the filter on your ATS that pulls out the best resumes that most closely fit the open role. Due to these filters, the chances are that many of these resumes are pretty similar. People applying for a particular role with a specific set of requirements will, by definition, have a resume tailored to that role and requirement set. The monotony of reading so many resumes that are all, more or less, interchangeable becomes numbing. Any resume that stands out from the rest, whether it’s a particular skill or use of color or anything else, might be enough to make the candidate memorable. Is the candidate any better than the rest of the cohort? Not necessarily, but they stood out, and that contrast made them visible. Fighting Bias in Hiring There are many different ways to fight bias in hiring, but they all boil down to three generalities. First, use a system that removes the source of bias. For example, the candidate’s name can lead to Affect Heuristic bias or other biases related to inherent racial or experiential biases. Anonymizing resumes is an easy way to remove that potential source of bias, at least until the candidate has progressed a bit through the application and interview process. Second, be aware of the presence of biases. Knowing is, after all, half the battle. If you aren’t aware of the possible biases that can come up, you won’t be able to watch for them or combat them. Guides like this one can help, but it may require further reading. This guide isn’t a comprehensive list of biases because there’s no such list. Biases take many forms and are often unique to the individual. Third, question the source of your choices and work to minimize biases. Panel interviews help remove bias by looking at each candidate from several viewpoints. Tools like interview scorecards can help remove biases inherent in less objective judgments. Training can help keep your interviewers on top of their own biases. It’s impossible to remove all sources of bias. No one is capable of making unbiased judgments. That is why having multiple people review the hiring process is ideal; it can help to have multiple sets of eyes on any problem. No software is either; software is made by biased people, and those biases can be built into the software or crop up through reinforcement in machine learning. It’s a considerable challenge in modern AI development, in fact, and it’s not one that is easily surmounted. The best you can do is work to minimize the effects of bias on your hiring process and adjust for when they are noticed. Do you or your company have any questions about hiring biases, or do you require any additional explanation about how you can avoid them further? If so, please feel free to comment down below, and we’ll get a conversation started! The first step to avoiding biases is to recognize that they exist, and by doing so, you’re already off to a good start. We would be more than happy to assist you however we possibly can.

C-level positions – also referred to as C-suite positions – start with the letter “C” for “Chief”. These are often the most important positions in any company. They’re the people in charge of daily operations, guiding everything from the overall direction of the company to the core responsibilities of individual departments. These positions require the most talented, intuitive, skilled, and ambitious people to fill them. There are also more of these C-level positions than you might realize, and some of the titles on this list may be entirely new to you. C-level employees are executives, but they are not always the people in charge of a company. Larger companies usually have more than one executive, and some of them may share similar roles. The Founder may or may not be the President, and the President may or may not be the CEO. The question remains: what are each of the C-suite roles, and what are their daily responsibilities? Let’s define them. CEO – Chief Executive Officer The CEO is traditionally the leader of a company and its most public face. CEOs are the people who make the overall decisions for the direction and goals of a company, though they take the opinions and considerations of other C-levels, executives, founders, presidents , and core team members into consideration. Typically, a CEO is nominally “in charge” of the business as a whole but rarely do they make decisions unilaterally. The CEO may be the founder of the company, or they may be an executive appointed to run the company in the founder’s stead. They may be a former C-level promoted to the role, or they may be a CEO or C-level from another company. COO – Chief Operating Officer The Chief Operating Officer is typically the “first mate” to the CEO’s “captain”. They take the strategies and business plans put forth by the CEO and enact them throughout the company. From Workable: “They ensure that the company runs like clockwork.” Smaller companies may not have a COO and can roll the responsibilities into those of the CEO, President, or another executive. CFO – Chief Financial Officer The Chief Financial Officer is another common and critical role in the list of C-suite positions. They manage all things financial within a company, from budgets to expense reports, overseeing all of the money coming in or going out from the company. They may not do all of this directly and may have a department of finances or an accounting department to do the daily work for them, while they make some of the more high-level decisions on budget constraints and expense approvals. CRO – Chief Revenue Officer Similar to, but distinct from, the chief financial officer, the chief revenue officer is the head of all things revenue. Any source of money coming in, from fundraising to profit margins to cost-cutting, falls under the purview of the Chief Revenue Officer. Per Marketo: “A CRO’s role is to look at ways to generate and retain revenue across multiple channels with a long-term perspective, rather than the short-term horizon usually embraced by sales departments.” Additionally, the title of chief revenue officer is a relatively recent one in comparison to many other C-suite titles. Critically, the Chief Revenue Officer is different from sales executives, marketing C-levels, and other revenue generation titles. CTO – Chief Technical Officer Also known as the Chief Technology Officer or the Chief Information Officer, the CTO is responsible for the technology and infrastructure upon which the company is built. Everything from the IT department and its array of servers and cloud services, to the platforms and services used for accounting, sales, marketing, and communications, are all beholden to the decisions of the CTO. The CTO is not just responsible for overseeing and maintaining the existing technology, but also investigating new options and determining when a change or upgrade is in order. CMO – Chief Marketing Officer The Chief Marketing Officer is responsible for the advertising and marketing the company pursues. They are responsible for high-level analysis and decision-making regarding what channels, platforms, and technologies that the company will use for its marketing strategy. They also ensure that marketing efforts are in alignment with the overall goals, values, and messaging the company wishes to pursue. They rarely interface with the day-to-day marketing, but rather tend to make their decisions based on overall reports, marketing trends, and high-level concerns for the business. CHRO – Chief Human Resources Officer The Chief Human Resources Officer is the head of the human resources department. They oversee human capital and are responsible for managing the workforce as a whole. They set hiring goals, oversee hiring, manage training, deal with promotions, and monitor employee performance. They also consider long-term human resources concerns, such as succession planning and overall talent acquisition. CLO – Chief Legal Officer The Chief Legal Officer is the executive responsible for managing the company’s legal presence. They manage legal risks and legal compliance. They oversee company lawyers, ensure compliance with regulations, monitor employee relationships and get ahead of potential legal issues with employee disagreements, and handle all of the legal paperwork relating to the operation of a company. This includes everything from licensing to auditing to oversight. The CLO is closely related to other c-level positions that may or may not exist within a company as distinct roles. Chief Risk Officer. This is a more specialized legal role, focusing on the specific risks a company may face in legal considerations. Chief Compliance Officer. This is also a more specialized legal role, focusing primarily on compliance with industry regulations, regulatory bodies, local, state, regional, and national government regulations, international regulations, and other compliance regulations. General Counsel. The general counsel for a company is typically the role they have in place of a Chief Legal Officer, before the company growing to a point to need one. A company may have one or the other, or both. CIO – Chief Investment Officer The Chief Investment Officer is a branch of the financial department and is typically a role that only appears in companies large enough to require multiple, distinct heads of different aspects of finances. The Chief Investment Officer builds and monitors the portfolio of assets a company controls, from subsidiaries to pension funds to traditional investments in tangible or intangible assets. ChEng – Chief Engineering Officer The Chief Engineering Officer is a specialized role that appears in two forms. The first is in a traditional company that does product research and development with an engineering department. The head of the engineering department is the Chief Engineer. The other common use is on ships, typically commercial and not military. The chief engineer is the most senior engineer on the ship and is a role comparable to captain. CDO – Chief Diversity Officer A relatively new addition to the c-suite, the Chief Diversity Officer is responsible for diversity and inclusion. They review and oversee the company from the top-down and the bottom-up, monitoring for issues. They may review and identify problems with discrimination within the company. They audit the workforce to identify percentages of minority groups and to address inequality in pay, benefits, and treatment. They typically also develop and implement strategies to address these issues and broaden diversity in the company . CSO – Chief Strategy Officer Also known as the Chief Strategist, the Chief Strategy Officer typically works directly with the CEO. They help to develop the overall long-term strategies for the company and are occasionally called a “mini-CEO” for their role in guiding the overall direction of a company. CSOs are typically most relevant in areas where the CEO lacks the time to guide the company strategy amongst their other duties, and are most common in academic and nonprofit organizations. Additional Modern C-Suite Roles In addition to all of the above, there is a wide range of additional c-level roles that have cropped up in recent years, or that are specialized roles within certain industries. Typically, any time a company grows large enough to have an entire department dedicated to a task, the leader of that department may be given a c-level title to reflect their importance. These roles are often overlapping with Director titles. Chief Medical Officer. A specialized role within hospitals and healthcare facilities, as well as in certain environments where medical issues may be an ongoing concern, such as manufacturing or mining. The Chief Medical Officer is the head doctor at a hospital. Additionally, the Chief Medical Officer may also be the Surgeon General or a comparable role, as the member of governmental leadership focusing on the medical and health concerns of the populace. Chief Data Officer. This specialized role applies to companies that need to produce, parse, and analyze large amounts of data. The Chief Data Officer is also the Head Data Scientist and is usually responsible for high-level analysis of reports, as well as the guidance of analytics and key performance indicator monitoring. Chief Digital Officer. The Chief Digital Officer is typically a role given to an executive who guides the transition of a company from analog, paper-based systems to more modern digital systems. They oversee the development and implementation of modern digital technologies and help companies continue to push the cutting edge of their fields. Chief Experience Officer. Another more modern role. As time progresses, the availability of a product is no longer the key differentiator in a market. Rather, the ease of access and use of that product is becoming increasingly important. The Chief Experience Officer is responsible for accessibility and user experience, promoting a holistic and curated experience for all users. This role is most often found in tech companies offering software or other digital products where the user experience may be the primary factor in differentiating them from the competition. Chief Culture Officer. From SHRM  culture Expert Debbie Robins: “The building, managing, and merging of cultures has become a full-time job in the new economy. These demands now exceed the capacities of most HR divisions and call for a new kind of specialist.” The Chief Culture Officer is typically an off-shoot of the Chief Human Resources Officer and has overlap with the Chief Diversity Officer role. Chief Happiness Officer. Another new branch of human resources , the Chief Happiness Officer is a position popularized by Google. Their primary goal is employee satisfaction, engagement, and motivation. They help enhance overall workforce productivity, employee retention, and engagement within a company. Chief Green Officer. The world is increasingly concerned about the climate. Individual clients and customers are beginning to make decisions based on a company’s awareness of and compliance with green initiatives, and the use of recycled materials, a carbon-neutral footprint, and other green concerns have become a deciding factor for consumers. The Chief Green Officer is similar to a Chief Compliance Officer, but with an emphasis on cultural and climate awareness, green processes and materials, and a carbon-neutral footprint. Chief People Officer. This is a rebranding of the traditional Chief Human Resources Officer. The term “human resources” is viewed by some people as a derogatory term treating employees as little more than human capital, a resource to be burned through in pursuit of business objectives. Thus, some companies are rebranding their human resources departments for a less potentially derogatory title. The core responsibilities and duties are the same. These are far from the only C-level roles out there. Again, any time a company department grows to the point that they appoint a chief, that chief is often given a C-level role. Some companies mint new C-level titles simply to add to the importance of their management team. Not all c-level roles are created equal, either. Obviously, a company shouldn’t feel the need to try and fill every C-level role. Roles such as Chief Genealogical Officer, Chief Gaming Officer, Chief Knowledge Officer, and Chief Process Officer are either highly-specialized or are simply alternative names for existing roles. While C-level roles are the peak of attainment within a company, they are not necessarily the peak of attainment within a career. Anyone with a C-level role can aspire to achieve greater heights by pursuing the same position in a larger and more globally recognized company. CFOs and CROs and CSOs can aspire to become CEOs, and CEOs can leave smaller companies for larger ones, even with a title cut. Often, these moves are motivated by a combination of money, recognition, and influence over an industry. Did I miss any? Do you have any questions for me? Drop a message in the comments section below. I reply to every comment and would love to hear from you.

Embracing diversity and inclusion has become crucial for organizations aiming to thrive in the modern workplace. Recognizing and valuing the differences among individuals can lead to a myriad of benefits, including increased creativity, enhanced problem-solving, and improved employee satisfaction.  This blog post explores the significance of diversity and inclusion, their impact on business growth, and the role of leadership in fostering an inclusive environment. Furthermore, we will discuss the challenges in implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, measuring their impact, emerging trends in this field, and more. Understanding Diversity and Inclusion Diversity encompasses the range of unique attributes and characteristics individuals possess, such as race, ethnicity, gender, age , sexual orientation, disability, and more. It goes beyond mere representation and recognizes the inherent value and perspectives each person brings to the table. Inclusion refers to creating an environment where every individual feels welcomed, respected, and valued for their unique contributions. It involves cultivating a sense of belonging, promoting equal opportunities, and ensuring that diverse voices are heard and considered. Diversity and inclusion are interconnected concepts that complement each other. While diversity focuses on achieving a diverse workforce, inclusion is about creating an environment that embraces and leverages that diversity. Inclusion is the key to unlocking the full potential of a diverse workforce. By embracing diversity and inclusion, organizations can benefit in numerous ways. It fosters innovation by bringing together individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, leading to more creative problem-solving and better decision-making. It enhances employee engagement and satisfaction, as individuals feel valued and appreciated for who they are. Additionally, diverse and inclusive organizations have a competitive edge in attracting and retaining top talent, as they become more appealing to a broader range of individuals. Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace Diversity and inclusion have emerged as fundamental components in curating a vibrant and dynamic workplace. They cultivate an environment where individuals are free to express their authentic selves, resulting in heightened employee morale and productivity. Moreover, a diverse workforce equips organizations with the ability to understand and connect with an equally diverse clientele, thereby driving business growth. Research consistently demonstrates that diverse and inclusive organizations outperform their counterparts. A diverse workforce brings a variety of perspectives and experiences to the table, leading to better problem-solving and innovation. Inclusive practices also contribute to better employee engagement, reducing turnover and increasing productivity. Moreover, organizations that prioritize diversity and inclusion gain a reputation as socially responsible and attractive employers, positively impacting their brand image and market positioning. The Role of Leadership in Promoting Diversity and Inclusion Leaders are the primary drivers in fostering an inclusive workplace culture. They bear the onus of setting the organization’s tone and ethos, ensuring that diversity and inclusion are deeply ingrained as core values. Effective leaders embody transparency, facilitate open communication, and guarantee equal opportunities for all employees, thereby upholding the organization’s commitment to diversity. Leaders who are proactive in championing diversity initiatives allocate resources judiciously to these causes, demonstrating their dedication. They hold themselves and their teams accountable for maintaining and promoting an inclusive environment. They strive to lead by example, demonstrating through their actions that diversity and inclusion are not just buzzwords but are integral parts of the organization’s DNA. The commitment and actions of leadership significantly influence the success of diversity and inclusion strategies. When leaders prioritize and embody these values, they send a strong, unambiguous message throughout the organization, thus inspiring employees to adopt these values in their everyday interactions. Leaders who actively endorse diversity and inclusion shape a culture that celebrates differences and leverages them to foster collaboration, driving employee engagement, satisfaction, and overall organizational success. Challenges in Implementing Diversity and Inclusion Implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, while beneficial, is fraught with several challenges. Unconscious biases, lack of awareness or understanding, resistance to change, and inadequate resources or support are common hurdles that organizations often encounter. Unconscious biases, deeply ingrained and often unrecognized, can inadvertently influence decision-making and interpersonal relationships, hindering diversity and inclusion efforts. Organizations need to identify these biases and provide training to raise awareness, helping employees understand and overcome these latent prejudices. Resistance to change can be another significant challenge. Change, especially cultural change, can be unsettling and may lead to resistance from employees at all levels. Leaders need to communicate the reasons for the change clearly, detailing the benefits it will bring to individuals and the organization as a whole, to mitigate this resistance. Moreover, successful implementation requires significant resources and support. These might include financial investments for training programs, time allocation for planning and executing initiatives, and human resources dedicated to overseeing the progress. A lack of sufficient resources or support can stall these initiatives or limit their impact. Overcoming these challenges requires robust strategies, ongoing efforts, and unwavering commitment from the entire organization. The path to a truly diverse and inclusive workplace is not always smooth, but the destination is rewarding. Measuring the Impact of Diversity and Inclusion Measuring the impact of diversity and inclusion initiatives is vital to assess their effectiveness and make data-driven decisions. Some key metrics include: Workforce diversity representation  Employee engagement surveys Retention rates Promotion rates Customer satisfaction Regularly tracking these metrics allows organizations to identify areas for improvement and measure progress over time.  Workforce diversity representation provides insight into the demographic composition of the organization and helps identify areas that need more focus. These employee engagement surveys can capture employees’ feelings toward the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts and identify areas of improvement. Retention and promotion rates can shed light on whether employees from diverse backgrounds have equal opportunities for growth within the organization. High retention rates often suggest that employees feel valued and included, whereas promotion rates can indicate if there is a fair representation of diverse individuals in leadership positions. Customer satisfaction scores can reflect whether the diversity and inclusion initiatives are also appreciated by the organization’s clientele, which often translates to better business performance. Regular tracking of these metrics allows organizations to continuously improve their strategies and measure progress over time. Several organizations have achieved remarkable success in their diversity and inclusion efforts. For instance, Johnson and Johnson is a multinational company known for its medical devices, pharmaceutical products, and consumer goods. The company has a comprehensive vision for diversity and inclusion, which centers around leveraging the diverse experiences, abilities, and backgrounds of every individual. The goal is to foster collaboration that leads to innovative solutions for a better and healthier world. Johnson & Johnson achieves this by establishing employee resource groups, embracing diverse hiring practices, and integrating diversity and inclusion initiatives into its daily operations. Incorporating Diversity and Inclusion into Your Organizational Strategy Integrating diversity and inclusion into an organization’s overall strategy can provide substantial benefits. It requires deliberate effort, starting with an assessment of the current state of diversity and inclusivity in the organization. Companies can conduct diversity audits or surveys to gather this information, which can then guide the development of strategic objectives. In terms of integrating diversity and inclusion into the organizational strategy, it’s important to start at the top. Leadership commitment to diversity and inclusion must be clear and unequivocal. Leaders should outline a vision for a diverse and inclusive workplace and then establish policies and practices to realize this vision. Human Resources (HR) plays a crucial role in implementing diversity and inclusion strategies. From the recruitment process to training and development programs, HR can ensure that diversity and inclusion are considered in all aspects of talent management. For example, HR can work on eliminating unconscious bias in hiring processes, create mentorship programs for underrepresented groups, and facilitate training to promote an inclusive culture. Moreover, communication of the strategy and its benefits should be carried out across all organizational levels. Regular updates and progress reports can increase employee buy-in and reinforce the importance of diversity and inclusion to the organization’s success. Organizations can undertake several strategic initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion. This could include setting up employee resource groups, which provide a platform for individuals from underrepresented groups to connect and support one another. Another strategic initiative could be developing a diversity and inclusion charter that clearly outlines the organization’s commitment and the steps it will take to achieve its diversity and inclusion goals. Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management platform, is a shining example of successfully incorporating diversity and inclusion into its organizational strategy. Their “ Equality for All ” agenda not only drives their hiring and promotion practices but also influences product development, customer relations, and even their approach to public policy. Salesforce consistently works on closing the pay gap, champions equality in the tech industry, and supports various non-profits promoting equal opportunities. Their approach has earned them not only the admiration of their workforce but also recognition as a leading company in diversity and inclusion. By consciously incorporating diversity and inclusion into their organizational strategy, companies can create a more inclusive culture, attract and retain diverse talent, drive innovation, and achieve better business outcomes. This strategic approach ensures that diversity and inclusion are not just peripheral considerations, but fundamental to the organization’s success. Creating an Inclusive Culture: Going Beyond the Company Policy Creating an inclusive culture is about much more than drafting policies. It’s about transforming those policies into daily practices, making inclusion an integral part of the organizational fabric. It’s about moving beyond the rhetoric and genuinely valuing, celebrating, and leveraging diversity in all forms. One of the fundamental steps to foster an inclusive culture is cultivating awareness and understanding. This process often begins with training programs that focus on unconscious biases, privilege, and empathy. These initiatives aim to increase awareness about the diverse experiences and challenges different individuals may face and teach employees how to support their colleagues effectively. Another crucial step is promoting open dialogue. Encouraging conversations about diversity and inclusion can break down barriers, reduce misconceptions, and cultivate a more understanding and respectful work environment. This process includes creating safe spaces for individuals to share their experiences and perspectives, and ensuring that these conversations translate into actionable changes. Leaders also need to lead by example. Their commitment to diversity and inclusion, demonstrated through their actions, can inspire other members of the organization to follow suit. Leaders can show their commitment by acknowledging and celebrating diverse holidays, promoting diversity in their teams, and being mindful of inclusive language. Moreover, it’s important to provide equal opportunities for growth and development. This practice includes promoting from within and ensuring that underrepresented groups have equal access to opportunities for advancement. It also involves providing mentorship programs and leadership training to prepare diverse individuals for higher-level roles. A classic example of a company that has reaped the benefits of a truly inclusive culture is Google. The tech giant has long recognized the value of diversity and champions its “ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ” initiative. Google has implemented a variety of programs and policies to promote inclusion, from unconscious bias training to employee resource groups. As a result, it has not only been able to attract and retain a diverse pool of talent but also foster a culture of innovation and creativity, contributing significantly to its market dominance and reputation as a great place to work. Ultimately, the goal of an inclusive culture is to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, heard, and empowered to be their authentic selves. It’s about moving beyond mere policy to daily practice, ensuring that diversity and inclusion are not just checked boxes but woven into the very fabric of the organization. The Future of Diversity and Inclusion As societal norms and values evolve, so do the concepts of diversity and inclusion. This evolution brings forth new trends and practices, pushing organizations to adapt their strategies accordingly. One emerging trend is the recognition of intersectionality, which involves acknowledging the interconnected nature of individuals’ multiple identities. An intersectional approach to diversity and inclusion recognizes that individuals’ experiences are shaped by their different identities – such as race, gender, sexuality – and that these identities do not exist separately from each other but interact and intersect in complex ways. Additionally, organizations are increasingly focusing on creating diverse and inclusive supply chains, ensuring that their business partners uphold the same values. This practice not only reinforces the organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion but also positively impacts the broader business ecosystem by promoting these values among suppliers and partners. With societal attitudes towards diversity and inclusion constantly evolving, organizations need to stay abreast of these changes and adapt their strategies accordingly. By being proactive and forward-thinking, they can leverage the power of diversity and inclusion to drive innovation, enhance employee engagement, and secure a competitive edge in the marketplace. Conclusion In conclusion, embracing diversity and inclusion is no longer just a moral imperative; it is a strategic advantage in today’s modern workplace. By recognizing the value of diverse perspectives, organizations can foster innovation, improve employee engagement, and drive business growth. Effective leadership, along with strategies to overcome challenges, is vital in creating an inclusive environment. By measuring the impact of diversity and inclusion efforts and staying abreast of emerging trends, organizations can adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.  Reach out to us to learn more about our services and how we can assist your organization in embracing diversity and inclusion.

Hiring top talent is a crucial part of any organization’s success. To do this, companies need to have a comprehensive and effective recruitment strategy that aligns with their business goals. Talent mapping is an important tool that can help companies achieve this alignment and maximize the value of their recruitment process. In this blog post, we’ll explore what talent mapping is, how it can help align a company’s recruitment strategy with business goals, and some best practices for implementing it. What Is Talent Mapping? Talent mapping is a process used to identify the best talent available in the market. It involves a comprehensive analysis of the current and potential workforce, as well as an understanding of the competitive landscape. Companies use this information to create a talent map that includes the skills, experience, and abilities of the current and potential workforce. This helps companies understand the talent that is currently available and identify potential candidates for hire. To create a talent map, companies need to collect data from a variety of sources such as job postings, resumes, job descriptions, and interviews. The data is then analyzed to identify key skills and experience that are needed for specific job roles. This helps companies understand the talent that is currently available in the market and identify potential candidates for hire. Benefits Of Talent Mapping Talent mapping has several benefits for companies looking to recruit top talent. First, it helps companies align their recruitment strategy with their business goals. By understanding the skills and experience of the current and potential workforce, companies can create a recruitment strategy that focuses on hiring the right people for the right roles. This ensures that the company is hiring the best people to achieve its business goals. Second, talent mapping helps companies understand their competitors and get insights into critical information such as size, structure, organization design, top talent, and employer brand reputation . This helps companies make informed decisions about the talent they should be targeting in their recruitment process. Additionally, companies can use this information to gain a competitive edge in the recruitment market. Third, talent mapping helps companies identify gaps in their current workforce, allowing them to fill these gaps quickly and efficiently. It also helps companies identify potential candidates that have the exact skills and experience needed for a particular role. This helps companies quickly fill positions and reduce the time and cost associated with the recruitment process. How Talent Mapping Aligns Your Recruitment Strategy With Business Goals Talent mapping helps companies align their recruitment strategy with their business goals. By understanding the skills and experience of the current and potential workforce, companies can create a recruitment strategy that focuses on hiring the right people for the right roles. This ensures that the company is hiring the best people to achieve its business goals. In addition, talent mapping can help companies identify gaps in their current workforce, allowing them to fill these gaps quickly and efficiently. It also helps companies identify potential candidates that have the exact skills and experience needed for a particular role. This helps companies quickly fill positions and reduce the time and cost associated with the recruitment process. Understanding Your Competitors Through Talent Mapping Talent mapping helps companies understand their competitors and get insights into critical information such as size, structure, organization design, top talent, and employer brand reputation. This helps companies make informed decisions about the talent they should be targeting in their recruitment process. Companies can use this information to gain a competitive edge in the recruitment market. For example, if a company is looking to recruit a salesperson, it can use talent mapping to identify the top salespeople in the industry . This can help the company understand the skills and experience needed to compete in the marketplace. Additionally, the company can use this information to create targeted recruitment campaigns that attract the right candidates. Talent Mapping Best Practices When implementing a talent mapping strategy, it’s important to follow best practices to ensure success. First, companies should focus on collecting accurate and up-to-date data. This includes job postings, resumes, job descriptions, and interviews. The data should be analyzed to identify key skills and experience that are needed for specific job roles. Additionally, companies should be sure to use the latest technology to collect and analyze the data, as this will ensure the accuracy of the results. Second, companies should set clear goals and objectives for their talent mapping strategy. This will help them stay focused on their goals and ensure that they are making progress toward achieving them. Additionally, companies should create a timeline and milestones to measure their progress and ensure that they are meeting their goals. Third, companies should use the data collected to create a comprehensive talent map. This should include the skills, experience, and abilities of the current and potential workforce. Additionally, it should include data on the size, structure, organization design, top talent, and employer brand reputation of competitors. This will help companies make informed decisions about the talent they should be targeting in their recruitment process. The Long-Term Approach Of Talent Mapping Talent mapping helps companies develop a long-term approach to recruitment. Instead of focusing on meeting monthly hiring goals or immediate requirements, companies can use talent mapping to identify the skills and experience needed to achieve their long-term goals. This helps companies plan for the future and create a talent pool that can help them succeed in the long run. Companies should use the data collected to create a comprehensive talent map. This should include the skills, experience, and abilities of the current and potential workforce. Additionally, it should include data on the size, structure, organization design, top talent, and employer brand reputation of competitors. This will help companies make informed decisions about the talent they should be targeting in their recruitment process. Conclusion Talent mapping is a powerful tool that can help companies align their recruitment strategy with business goals. It helps companies understand their competitors and get insights into critical information such as size, structure, organization design, top talent, and employer brand reputation. This helps hiring managers make strategic decisions and use recruiting best practices for hiring top talent . It takes a long-term approach, rather than meeting monthly hiring goals or immediate requirements. By understanding the skills and experience of the current and potential workforce, companies can create a recruitment strategy that focuses on hiring the right people for the right roles. This ensures that the company is hiring the best people to achieve its business goals. Additionally, talent mapping helps companies identify gaps in their current workforce, allowing them to fill these gaps quickly and efficiently. Overall, talent mapping is an invaluable tool for companies looking to recruit top talent. By using talent mapping, companies can align their recruitment strategy with their business goals and ensure that they are hiring the best people for the right roles.

With over two decades of industry experience, this leader in Software Security Consulting has become a trusted provider for the world’s leading organizations. Specializing in software security, cloud services and mobile application protection, they reliably protect against risks associated with third-party or outsourced tech solutions – delivering peace of mind to clients around the globe. Challenges For years, the company struggled with their IT recruitment efforts. With market demand skyrocketing and an extremely small talent pool, they were in a tight spot. Their intensive recruitment goals seemed nearly unachievable due to overwhelming competition. Any misstep would backfire in this dynamic and highly saturated field. The client’s talent acquisition team had a daunting mission – to identify and acquire 36 outstanding software security IT professionals amid the fiercely competitive hunt for top talent. Results Emerge Talent Cloud was chosen to find the perfect blend of highly qualified professionals with extraordinary qualifications that fulfilled their client’s extremely specific requirements. To identify exceptional passive candidates, Emerge Talent Cloud relied on a comprehensive suite of resources and tools including email drip campaigns, candidate sourcing platforms, ATS systems for tracking applicants, recruitment marketing strategies and targeted outreach initiatives. ContractRecuirter’s impressive performance proved to be an outstanding success, surpassing the expectations of their client. In just a year they managed to fill all 36 positions. The Director of Talent Acquisition Manager was elated: “Our experience has been nothing short of fantastic. This remarkable feat is a testament to ContractRecuirter’s willingness and ability to pull out all the stops and persevere”.

Uptima approached Emerge Talent Cloud for assistance in driving growth in 2019. They were struggling to keep up with key hires which was jeopardizing their ability to maintain 30%+ revenue growth. Because of how critical these hires were. Bill Butler (CEO) was closely involved in the search process. What made this search particularly challenging for Bill is a combination of the high degree of technical skill required. plus a strong desire for the right culture fit. In addition. his search was restricted to a highly competitive geographical area. Urgency: we were working on a 11-week timeline to make 4 hires Roles: Practice Director. Practice Manager, Solutions Architect Services: 1 full-cycle Emerge Talent Cloud@ 40 hours per week Immediately, Bill realized that his internal resources were insufficient in making these key hires. When Emerge Talent Cloud partnered with Uptima and completed an assessment of their recruitment capabilities, it became clear that it was time for a new approach to solving this challenge. About Uptima About Uptima Uptima is a consulting and system integration firm specializing on soft­ware solutions for companies with non-trivial product development, manufacturing, sales & service processes. Founded in 2007 in San Jose, CA 35 Employees, average tenure 4.1 years Case Study, Q1 2019 Prior to learning about the Emerge Talent Cloud model, Uptima used traditional staffing firms when they needed to flex their recruitment muscle. They have not had good experiences with contingency-based recruiting firms, yet did not have the internal resources to make these hires. Q Performance Metrics: # Qualified Candidated # Hires ContractRecruiter allowed Uptima to work on multiple hires simultaneously. As a result. after 11 weeks Uptima placed 4 hires with salaries exceeding $68oK plus we deliverered 3 additional backup candidates to their recruitment pipeline. Q Results: Time to fill: 2.7 weeks Cost per hire: 5.5% “It was critical to us that we only hire the highest quality candidates. The continued dramatic growth in our business required a hiring spring which was well in excess of our capacity to manage internally.” – Bull Butler, CEO

I’m sure you are well aware that today’s employment market is very competitive. One of the best ways to lure and keep top talent is with employer branding.  Due to the growth of social media, businesses now have a rare chance to present their company culture and communicate authentically with potential employees. In this blog post, I’ll explain how you can build your own employer brand with social media. If you read to the end, you’ll see how three major companies used social recruitment to develop a strong employer brand. What is Employer Branding? Employer branding is essentially how a company is seen both internally and internationally as an employer of choice. It covers a range of topics, including the company’s beliefs, culture, working conditions, and benefits for employees. Increased employee engagement, improved retention rates, and a more varied talent pool are all benefits of having a good employer brand. The phrase “employer branding” describes the business’s standing as a wonderful place to work. Top talent is drawn to organizations with excellent employer brands, and retention rates rise. Essential elements that contribute to a successful employer brand include having well-defined company values and mission, fostering a positive work environment and culture, offering competitive employee benefits and perks, and providing opportunities for growth and development within the organization. Employer Branding and Company Culture A strong employer brand is a reflection of healthy company culture, and company culture plays a crucial role in shaping the overall employer brand. In the digital age, social media has become a powerful tool for employer branding, as companies can use various platforms to share updates, showcase their work environment, and engage with potential candidates in a more personal way. Social media matters in recruitment because it allows companies to reach a wider audience and provides an opportunity to showcase company culture and values in an engaging, interactive manner. Some of the top social media platforms for employer branding include LinkedIn, a professional networking site ideal for sharing company updates and job postings; Facebook, a versatile platform for sharing company news, events, and employee stories; Instagram, a visual platform perfect for showcasing your company culture through photos and videos; and Twitter, a real-time communication tool useful for engaging with potential candidates and sharing industry news. To showcase your company culture on social media , consider sharing stories of employee success and recognition, posting photos and videos of company events and team-building activities, and highlighting unique employee benefits and perks. Developing a Social Recruiting Strategy Building a strong employer brand through social recruiting requires companies to develop a comprehensive strategy. This includes setting clear objectives, identifying their target audience, and creating engaging content to attract top talent. To set goals and objectives for your social recruiting campaign, start by defining the primary goals, such as increasing brand awareness, attracting top talent, or promoting diversity and inclusion. Then, determine key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your campaign. When identifying your target audience, it’s important to understand the demographics, interests, and online behaviors of your ideal candidates. Customize your content and messaging to appeal to your target audience. Creating engaging content to attract top talent involves showcasing your company’s culture and values through photos, videos, and employee testimonials. Share industry news and insights to establish your company as a thought leader, and post regular job openings and career opportunities. Promoting employee advocacy on social media is another crucial aspect of social recruiting. Encourage employees to share their experiences working at your company, and provide guidelines and resources to help employees create and share content on their personal social media accounts. Best Practices for Social Recruiting To ensure the maximum impact of your social recruiting efforts, it’s crucial to adhere to best practices. These include optimizing your company’s social media profiles, utilizing hashtags and keywords for increased visibility, engaging with potential candidates via social media, and evaluating the success of your efforts. Optimizing your company’s social media profiles involves maintaining a consistent brand identity across all platforms, incorporating relevant keywords and phrases in your profile descriptions and posts, and using high-quality images and visuals that highlight your company culture. Increasing visibility with hashtags and keywords requires researching industry-specific hashtags and keywords that your target audience is likely to search for and incorporating them in your social media posts to enhance discoverability. Engaging with potential candidates through social media entails responding promptly to questions and comments, sharing content from industry influencers, participating in relevant online discussions, and proactively reaching out to potential candidates by liking and commenting on their content. To measure the success of your social recruiting efforts, monitor your KPIs and adjust your strategy based on the results. Analyze the engagement and reach of your social media posts and track the number of quality candidates applying for positions through social media channels. Incorporate Diversity With Your Social Recruiting  Social recruiting can significantly contribute to promoting diversity and inclusion within a company. Showcasing an inclusive company culture and addressing unconscious bias in social recruiting enables businesses to attract a more diverse talent pool. Social recruiting can support diverse hiring initiatives by sharing content that highlights a company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, showcasing diverse employee stories and perspectives on social media, and using inclusive language and imagery in social media posts and job descriptions. To promote an inclusive company culture on social media, businesses can highlight employee resource groups and diversity initiatives, share updates on diversity training and workshops, and celebrate cultural events and observances from various backgrounds. Addressing unconscious bias in social recruiting involves training hiring managers and recruiters to recognize and minimize unconscious bias, implementing blind recruitment practices to reduce bias in the hiring process, and regularly reviewing and updating social media content to ensure inclusivity. 3 Case Studies of Successful Social Recruiting Campaigns Gaining insights from successful social recruiting campaigns can be valuable for companies aiming to build a strong employer brand. A few examples of companies that have effectively used social media to showcase their employer brand include: Google is known for its innovative work culture and unique employee benefits, consistently ranking as one of the top employers worldwide. They use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and their own Life at Google Instagram account to share stories, events, and employee experiences, which highlight their employer brand. Salesforce has effectively utilized social media for recruitment, promoting its inclusive company culture and engaging with potential candidates on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Their #SalesforceOhana hashtag showcases their commitment to inclusivity. HubSpot has built a strong employer brand through its social media presence, highlighting its work culture, employee stories, and dedication to diversity and inclusion. They use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to engage with potential candidates and provide insights into life at HubSpot. Conclusion Building a strong employer brand through social recruiting not only helps companies attract and retain top talent, but it also leads to long-term benefits such as improved employee engagement and a more diverse workforce.  By implementing the strategies and best practices discussed in this blog post, businesses can leverage social media to create a compelling employer brand that sets them apart from the competition. If you need to recruit employees for your company, reach out to us and we can help you!