The Essential Guide to Retaining Diverse Talent in the Workplace in 2023

Inclusive and diverse workplaces have several advantages, like improved innovation, lower attrition, and more engagement, but it can be challenging to discover or recruit diverse staff and attract diverse talent. 

The focus should be on going through every stage of the hiring process to look for any hint of bias or discrimination that may keep qualified applicants out of the hiring process.

Having a diverse and inclusive workforce is significant for your company’s success. The benefits of diversity and inclusion are well-documented: increased revenue, great employee retention rates, improved customer satisfaction, and better decision-making. It’s a terrific goal to revamp diversity among new workers, but how to proceed? How to attract more diverse candidates?

Measure Diversity & Inclusion at Workplace

Many companies are concentrating on making the workplace diverse and inclusive, but simply implementing the initiatives at the workplace will not help in understanding the impact of these initiatives. Companies can use metrics like representation, retention, recruitment, pay, benefits, and many more to understand if their approach to diversity and inclusion is working.

Measuring the important KPIs of diversity and inclusion will help in interpreting, and tracking KPIs and help in comprehending the metrics. After detecting the problems, the organization can collectively solve these problems. In the Harvard Business Review, a Gartner survey revealed that DEI executives across  global organizations planned to prioritize two essential factors for 2021– “setting goals and tracking DEI progress through metrics.” 

Review your HR practices, policies, and procedures

To start attracting and retaining a diverse workforce, it is important to examine HR practices, regulations, and processes. It is very important to ensure that there are no discriminatory practices or laws.

There should be a diversified group of recruiters who can connect with diverse candidates. If you typically hire from a specific demographic, try to widen your recruiting efforts. Review the onboarding process for new employees. Make sure it provides a variety of engaging activities for all types of employees—not just those who resemble you or have a similar background to you.

Develop a diversity and strategy

Developing a strategic plan for diversity and inclusion is a crucial step in creating transformation within the organization. Diversity attracts talent but it’s also essential to comprehend what diversity strategy requires to attract and keep diverse talent.

Identify specific goals for each initiative (for example, hiring more women or people with disabilities or different backgrounds) and further determine how you will measure progress toward these goals (for example, increasing the percentage of hiring candidates from the LGTQIA+ community).

Diversity goes beyond mere display; it refers to having a conversation with different viewpoints expressed at the table and a free space to agree and disagree with one another. This can be accomplished by creating an atmosphere where individuals can voice their thoughts without fear of judgment or negative consequences. It is a valuable strategy for attracting diverse talent. You want this primarily for the following two reasons:

1) It provides access to new ideas.

2) It promotes innovation, which enhances everyone’s capacity for decision-making and corporate operations.

Develop a hiring process focused on specific skills, not specific degrees

The best indicator of future success at work is past performance at work. Ask candidates about their career goals and what they’re looking for in an employer. You can use the information to determine whether they would be content while working with you and whether– they would fit well within your organization.

Having diversity in the workplace creates opportunities for improvement and advancement. Include employees from underrepresented groups in leadership training and mentorship programs, so they can become viable candidates for promotion when opportunities arise. 

Hire a recruiter to attract diverse talent

Ensure that the hiring procedure is as comprehensive as possible to attract the best recruiters. In other words, you need to ensure that people of various racial, religious, sexual, gender, and ability backgrounds can apply for jobs with your business, not just that you’re placing them on job boards with blind ads. 

Additionally, it indicates that no one should be prohibited from applying for a position because of their identity throughout the interview process. A savvy strategy for attracting a diverse workforce is to hire a recruiter that understands the meaning of DE&I. A competent recruiter will comprehend your needs and be able to introduce you to the best applicants for your open positions. And the recruiter will know precisely what type of candidate the company requires to fill each position within your organization, which makes it easier for them to find candidates who are qualified and interested in working with your company without any bias.

Write recruitment ads that attract minority candidates

Writing recruitment ads will help to answer how to attract minority applicants. Recruiting ads are a powerful tool for attracting diverse talent, they are effective because they put your business in front of job seekers.

Utilizing paid advertising channels like Facebook and LinkedIn is one of the most effective methods to achieve this. Target the ads so that the interested candidate can see your adverts. Recruitment advertisements are a fantastic approach to drawing in individuals from various backgrounds.

To avoid receiving applications only from people with similar backgrounds, the first step is to determine that your job descriptions are inclusive and mirror the variety of your firm. Share your diversity credentials in your job advertisements without hesitation. You’re more likely to draw in a broad pool of candidates if the company demonstrates that creating a diverse workforce is intertwined with the very ethics of your company.

Offer networking opportunities

Employers simply can’t underestimate the importance of networking to lure and keep diverse talent. An online presence of the business on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is necessary to inform employees and potential candidates about your company. According to  Statista, as of the third quarter of 2022, Facebook has approximately 2.94 billion monthly active users. Also, Linkedin stands with more than 810 million users. Creating diversity in the workplace isn’t an easy task, networking helps to channel the company’s views and ethics.

Encourage employees to participate in conferences and other gatherings where they can network with future hires and build important contacts. The connections they make on these occasions might help them later on recruit new employees.

Support employee informal meetings by giving them chances to interact outside of work hours, such as through sports teams, groups that are interested in community service, or other after-hours activities.

Showcase your commitment to diversity

Diversity is a fundamental factor in attracting and retaining top talent. The more diverse your workplace is, the more likely you are to have employees who can better represent your business to the world.

Achieving diversity in the workplace gives an edge as diversity makes companies stronger. Promoting inclusion will lead to higher employee retention rates and better customer response. Clients prefer to do business with brands that are culturally competent and inclusive, especially millennials.

In 2022, Google released a diversity annual report. After facing the consequences of the worldwide pandemic in 2020. They paid close attention to how people at Google and elsewhere were affected by social and economic injustices. They took active action after reflecting on what they had learned in 2021.

Create an inclusive culture

Inclusion is a growing topic in the business world. Before building an inclusive workforce, it’s important to understand that diversity and inclusion are not identical. Diversity refers to differences of opinion, experience, and perspective. Inclusiveness is about sharing those differences with others so that everyone has a fair chance at success.

Inclusive cultures go beyond recruiting procedures; they focus on fostering an atmosphere where people can be themselves without feeling uncomfortable. This means avoiding language and behaviors that can be interpreted as derogatory or offensive. Creating an inclusive culture also means assuring that all employees feel valued, respected, and included regardless of their background or identity.

Give managers diversity training

Diversity training is a great way to help managers understand the importance of diversity, building a diverse workforce, and how they can help foster it in their teams. It’s a good idea to give managers diversity training before they begin hiring new employees so they know what to look for in candidates. 

Managers should also be trained on how to deal with unconscious bias. Managers are often unaware of their biases, so this is an excellent method for them to become aware of them and learn how to control them or even eliminate them through their hiring practices.

Also, managers must go under training on how to manage diverse teams effectively. Building diversity in the workplace can affect team dynamics, so managers must have the tools necessary to work with people from different backgrounds. 

Provide new hires with a mentor

One of the most effective ways to ensure your organization’s diversity initiatives are successful is to provide new hires with a mentor. Mentors help guide new employees through their first days on the job, but they can also serve as valuable resources and sounding boards during times of transition and challenge.

While developing a diverse workforce, mentoring programs are highly effective at fostering diversity in the workplace because the relationships they form are built on mutual respect and trust. This can benefit both parties: Mentees often view their mentors as powerful role models, while mentors tend to feel more motivated and enthusiastic when they work with people who share their values and interests.

To recruit and retain a diverse workforce, offering benefits and perks will make the company stand out. One of these is a mentorship program. Mentorships can help new hires learn how to navigate the office and develop professional relationships. They also offer valuable insights into how to succeed at the company, which can be especially helpful for attracting diverse candidates from outside the industry if the organization wishes.

 It can be challenging to hire diverse candidates. At Talent500, we have highly skilled people from all around the world and AI-powered solutions to help you recruit diverse teams more quickly. Schedule a consultation with us today.