We live in a diverse society. Our society is filled with people having different backgrounds. People belonging to different religions, castes, sexual orientation, gender identities, and abilities. So, our workplaces should be no different. They too should reflect the diversity of the society we live in. This is what most organizations fail to deliver. So, they tend to fail to replicate the diverse balance of society in their workplaces. Here’s where inclusive hiring comes into play. It is the only solution to fix the problem of lacking diversity in the workplace. So, here’s an ultimate guide on what is inclusive hiring and why is it important. Also, we will see how to ensure it is at the core of your recruitment process.

Inclusive hiring practices have become increasingly vital in the current time. Inclusive hiring leads to a diverse team. A diverse team brings in a rich set of perspectives and opinions. So, most recruiters often associate inclusivity with diversity. In fact, diversity is often given more importance. However, it is essential to ensure that inclusive hiring is given equal importance to ensure a non-discriminatory environment for your current staff. So, let’s take a look at this comprehensive guide on inclusive hiring.

What Is Inclusive Hiring?

During hiring, bias can determine your hiring decisions, even unknowingly. So, this is where inclusive hiring comes into play. Inclusive hiring is the practice of recruiting great talents without considering the constraints of gender, caste, religion, sexual orientation, or any other aspect. Inclusive hiring practices recognize a diverse workforce and embrace the various opinions and perspectives it brings.

Diversity is what makes an organization stand out from others. According to a Mckinsey report, ethnically and culturally diverse teams are 36% more likely to outperform their competitors. So, your workforce should have a perfect balance of millennials and other generations. It should have employees belonging to different castes and religions. All in all, to ensure you have a diverse workforce, inclusivity is a must in your hiring process. Let’s understand now why is inclusive hiring important.

Why Is Inclusive Hiring Important?

Inclusive hiring practices are vital to a company’s reputation and success. So, here are multiple reasons why inclusive hiring is important.

• The first and probably the most important point here is that inclusive hiring strengthens a company’s reputation and build its employer brand. So, by having inclusive hiring practices, you can attract great talent effectively in the competitive market.
• Inclusive hiring practices helps you build a more diverse talent pool. A diverse talent pool brings in a lot of newer ideas, unique perspectives, and enhances the productivity.
• An approach to inclusive hiring will help you build not just diverse but also a larger talent pool. The larger the talent pool, the more opportunities you have to hire the right candidate for the right job.
• It creates a sense of awareness about different cultures among your current workforce. This will help to build an understanding the clients belonging to different cultures as well.
• It helps in filling up the talent gaps and the leftover spaces. So, having people with different mindsets can generate more ideas likewise filling talent gaps.

Best Practices For Inclusive Hiring

Here are some of the best practices to ensure you have an inclusive hiring strategy.

Write Inclusive Job Descriptions

The first step you need to take is to ensure your job description is inclusive and all-encompassing. You need to make sure that your job descriptions do not reflect any gender biases or discriminatory terms. Any unconscious bias reflected in the job descriptions is ethically incorrect and also refrains great candidates from applying. Emphasize more on the job role and responsibilities instead of describing the kind of candidates you need.

Educate Your Team

Educating your team about the most common hiring biases is one of the most important steps you need to take to ensure impartial hiring. There can be many biases that can be incorporated in hiring. It all comes down to some basic aspects like gender, caste, religion, and sexual orientation. However, these barely scratch the surface of biases. So, it is very important to create awareness about these kinds of biases as well and ease the process of connecting with great talents.

Leverage Your Company’s Careers Page

We all know that career pages are a crucial part of an efficient recruitment strategy. However, when it comes to inclusive hiring, a great careers page plays a vital role. Ensure that your careers page content and language don’t reflect any kind of bias. Make sure you abide by the EEOC guidelines while designing your careers page. It should encourage all kinds of candidates, coming from different backgrounds to apply. Also, you can use your careers page to portray your company’s culture and build your employer brand.

Widen Your Candidate Search.

To ensure your hiring is inclusive, you need to analyze your candidate pool. If it contains too many candidates with similar backgrounds and education, you need to make some changes in your candidate search process. Perhaps, you need to widen your candidate search. In order to open your candidate search and get more diverse applicants, you have to be a little creative while choosing where to advertise your job openings. You can expand your candidate search by looking at places that you never even considered before.