The workforce is changing, and employers must now execute more diverse and inclusive recruitment strategies in order to attract and retain the best talent. Business leaders are being asked to increase workplace diversity to create a competitive differentiator. Diversity, as we know, can be a key driver for both internal innovation and business growth. By accepting each other’s diversity, we are more likely to make gains in creativity as well as a different way of thinking. The benefits for creating a diverse workforce are unquestionable.
One of the perennial difficulties around recruitment lies in the fact that unless individuals are specifically looking for a new opportunity, it may take weeks, months or even years to turn their head. But when your objectives include widening diversity within team, the in-house recruitment team and the senior managers they work with might consider going the extra mile and giving people with protected characteristics special treatment.
For instance, if an organisation wants to increase the number of women on the shortlist, it should be providing them with a red-carpet nurturing experience ahead of time. Doing so will help create meaningful pipelines of highly engaged candidates for the future.
When you’re working towards your diversity initiatives you need to understand what’s most likely to drive candidate interest in your organisation. Remember that people are not necessarily in the market for jobs, so are unlikely to give much weight to job descriptions or an employer brand. A better strategy is to nurture potential candidates with career advice, insights and skills, by developing a consistent ‘content strategy’ around skills and roles.
It can still be difficult to move the needle and an unconscious bias may interfere with your recruitment decision-making process.
Treasury teams are often small and lean, so there is often a tendency to focus on a candidate’s technical abilities rather than on diversity objectives and their fit within the team and company culture. However, working in partnership with HR or in-house recruitment, the following actions as part of your recruitment strategy will save you time in the long run and help you to build up a diverse workforce:
Fundamentally, creating strong, sustainable and inclusive talent pipelines is based on providing insight via great content, and great content is different for different people.
You do not only want to promote content about working for your organisation, or the training opportunities available. You should also be considering how diverse these pieces are. Are they all written by people of the same age group? The same ethnicity? The same sex? The chances are, they are.
To attract people into your treasury team, you need to write content from different perspectives, and with specific groups in mind. It is all too easy to make assumptions about who we are trying to reach and how best to go about it. But in making those assumptions we are often, unintentionally, excluding parts of our audience. Ensure to emphasise that you welcome candidates from all backgrounds. This will ultimately change your business culture and promote a rise in your brand and reputation.
Adam Gordon is CEO of Candidate.ID, a recruitment technology company