Recruitment: The 1^st Step to Delivering Diversity

McCarthy Recruitment has just won the UK’s Best Workplaces for Women 2019 Award (Small Business Category) for the second year running!

We’re thrilled to have our commitment to diversity recognised in this way. Diversity isn’t just about making the workplace better for women of course; it’s the celebration of any and every kind of difference and that’s something that sits at the heart of how we do things at McCarthy. We’re all individuals; even when we share certain similarities or characteristics, every one of us has a unique viewpoint on the world and that makes us different. For me, diversity’s all about creating a culture of true inclusion where people are respected as such and feel their contribution’s valued.

The Great Places to Work 2019 Women at Work report highlights the fact that employees who feel appreciated and engaged are more productive and perform better. Diversity makes good business sense so are you capitalising on the opportunities it offers? Many organisations say they do – but their version of diversity can be more about meeting targets and having token strategies in place. You have to buy into a culture of inclusion that celebrates difference and it must be a focused part of the way you do business. Like anything worth doing, it takes time and effort to get it right and it all starts with your approach to recruitment.

Does your recruitment help deliver diversity?

There are still organisations out there who struggle to see a vacancy as anything other than a gap that needs to be filled quickly with the least amount of hassle and cost. What an opportunity missed! Because it’s actually a chance to embrace diversity at a critical stage, to proactively seek out individuals who’ll bring fresh perspectives and ways of thinking into your company.

What’s your brand attraction strategy? How’s your organisation viewed by the wider world? And how you are perceived by potential candidates? How do they feel throughout the recruitment process? Your brand attraction strategy runs through all aspects of the recruitment cycle… and it must embrace difference and foster inclusion at every stage of that cycle.

“But that’s the way we’ve always done it…”

Take job descriptions for example. Many companies kick off their recruitment process by drafting them but here’s the thing; in my experience they can often turn out to be the baseline for a non-inclusive approach. Quite often you’ll still see companies talking about specific years’ experience required and desirable criteria. Do you have genuine reasons for needing to include them – or is it just something you’ve always done? Surely it’s all about capabilities, not number of years’ experience? By imposing restrictions, you’re in danger of already building in barriers to diversity.

Challenge, challenge then challenge again!

I’ve run many recruitment diversity projects for various large corporate businesses during my 20 years in recruitment and I’ve seen what works. It’s the projects that challenge every nuance of the recruitment process at every stage across the entire spectrum of the organisation.

Is your business asking the difficult yet ultimately essential questions? Is everyone who has an input into the hiring process prepared to constantly ask ‘why’? Do you challenge hiring managers when they create a brief for a vacancy for instance? “This job is a full-time, five-days-a-week role”: well, okay, it might be but why? Are there steps that could be taken to enable it to be delivered across a 4 day week? Or could someone do the role flexibly? “This role has to be 100% workplace based”. Why?  Are there genuine reasons for someone having to be present in their workplace all the time or could you invest in technology for greater flexibility perhaps?

If these are the kinds of things your hiring managers are saying then challenge and educate them. Attracting a diverse pool of candidates needs an open brief. Recruiting for diversity needs an open mindset throughout from anyone who plays a part at any stage of the process.

Celebrating difference

Achieving diversity means not only respecting and accepting all that makes us different but nurturing it too. By actively setting out to attract and celebrate difference, you’ll create a culture that goes way beyond what you can see, one that’s truly inclusive and one that enables everyone to thrive and deliver at their best.

As you’d expect, we’re leading the way not only in ensuring diversity in McCarthy Recruitment but also with helping our clients understand and achieve it in their own businesses. Find out more about our Perfect Packages; options include the Superhero package that incorporates our innovative deposit scheme – a great way to secure our services to work on a role without fully retaining us. If we don’t deliver the end result you are safe in the knowledge you’ll get your fee back (but we’ve never failed to deliver!). If you’d like more information please do get in touch with us