Diversity
Jodie Grove Relationship manager, Meet and Engage
THE ART OF CONVERSATION – 21ST CENTURY STYLE
Amazingly, 74% of people in a minority group still expect to face discrimination when applying for a job and won’t disclose relevant details to a perspective employer. With most organisations being targeted on improving diversity, it’s clear that something must change when it comes to getting your message out there. Jodie Grove, a relationship manager at Meet and Engage, explains how technology can be an enabler to facilitate peer conversations and how different organisations approach this.
Why is diversity and inclusion so important?
The stats on this are pretty conclusive; the more diverse an organisation, the better it performs. Recent Diversity Matters research concludes that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians whereas companies in the bottom quartile are statistically less likely to achieve above- average returns. Furthermore, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. So, it’s fair to say that your business will benefit from having a more diverse workforce.
It goes without saying that a welcoming, considerate and inclusive working culture will create a happier and more productive workforce which will, in turn, deliver tangible results. Research carried out by Stonewall reports that people who have a supportive workplace climate with robust, inclusive policies feel more comfortable to be themselves - which then increases their productivity and performance. If gender and racial diversity can deliver the above stated benefits, it seems likely that
16 TheStudentEmployer
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other kinds of diversity, such as age and sexual orientation (to name two), will also bring some level of competitive advantage for companies who are able to attract and retain such diverse talent.
Diversity and student recruitment The world we live in is diverse and younger generations expect to see this diversity reflected in the workplace. When stepping into the world of work, it is important to feel you will be supported to build your career with your chosen employer unhindered by prejudice. Policies are important but role models also play a key part. However, when you consider only one in 16 current FTSE 100 board members is from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background and only 15.6% are female, you start to see why many organisations are not considered inclusive.
To attract talent, particularly candidates aged under 24, companies need to advertise what they stand for. A study by LinkedIn shows that an organisation’s purpose is a deal-breaker for 52% of UK professionals when considering a job offer and that number rises to 56% among those aged 16 to 24. But in truth, regardless of how good your D&I
initiatives are, a few pages on your careers website are very unlikely to be doing them justice. And let’s be honest, your target candidates may not even be visiting your website in the first place. So, it might be time to take the conversation to them.
If there’s one thing the growth of sites like Glassdoor has taught us, it’s that there is an appetite to look beyond the glossy brochure and get to the heart of what it’s really like to work at an organisation so switching your mindset from ‘sell’ to ‘tell’ could be a good place to start. Your website and marketing materials will always be an effective way of reaching the people who are already interested in working for you but, if you want to reach a wider, more diverse audience, you’ll probably need to do something a little different.
Peer-to-peer engagement
Conversation is the most powerful tool we have but, with the advancement of automation and people-less processes, we actually crave human interaction now more than ever. But this doesn’t necessarily mean having hundreds of face-to-face or phone conversations; we are now able to connect and have
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