D
Catalyst | Diversity
W
hile most
business
l e a d e r s
now readily
acknowledge
the moral and commercial impetus
behind creating diverse and inclusive
organisations, few are wholly
succeeding in doing so.
“I’d say the business case is proven,”
says Paul Modley, director, talent
acquisition & diversity and inclusion
(D&I) at Alexander Mann Solutions.
“People get that it’s the right thing
to do. It’s proven commercially that
if you bring more diverse people
into your business, and have greater
diversity of thought, you’ll deliver
more profit. But it’s a bit like turning
the tanker; this stuff takes time.”
To make sustainable progress,
b u s i n e s s e s m u st a l i g n t h e i r
diversity practices with long-term
organisational goals and integrate
D&I into every people process –
beginning with recruitment.
The candidate lens
Tarek Dawas, talent acquisition and
mobility leader at international law
firm Allen & Overy, highlights the
key phases of the hiring process –
candidate attraction, selection and
onboarding – pointing out that D&I
practices must be incorporated into
each. Initial sourcing should involve
being “thoughtful about the words
and channels used”, with language
in job descriptions and role profiles
made as balanced as possible, to
appeal to a broad audience.
“We look carefully at the language
we use,” he explains. “There are tools
that help ensure your language is
balanced. When we started running
our job descriptions through
checks, we discovered some were
actually slightly more feminine than
masculine. That’s interesting to
know, because it’s still bias, and has
led us to make adjustments.”
Neutral language benefits
everyone, asserts Nathalie Clavijo,
assistant professor of management
control at NEOMA Business School
in France, arguing that “we have
very strong stereotypes around
characteristics of gender, when in
reality it’s a continuum.
“It’s wrong to make strong
categories around what is masculine
and what is feminine. Not all men
are in line with the strong masculine
stereotype and, somehow, we’ve made
women one homogeneous category.
In reality, women are different, one
from the other; we’re not educated
the same way, we don’t have the same
backgrounds, ethnicity, religious
beliefs and so on.”
While this sounds complex, getting
messaging right mostly involves
considering wording through the
candidate lens.
It’s about “taking a step back and
having more awareness”, stresses
Modley. “When you go to market,
think ‘how does this sound? How
does it connect with different groups
of people?’ It’s about that kind of
common-sense approach more than
anything else.”
Articulating D&I goals
As well as casting nets wide to attract
a broad range of applicants, targeted
efforts can help organisations reach
specific demographics.
“We go out into the market for
some of our clients,” continues
Modley. “If they say, ‘we want to
recruit more women into our tech
team’, we’ll do specific insight-led
sourcing to identify senior-level
talent in that sector, and start building
relationships with those individuals.
It means that when the opportunity
comes up, the team has relationships
with the right people. We’re starting
to see a lot of organisations growing
those relationships with potential
diverse talent.”
Clarifying your long-term
D&I vision and sharing this with
third-party suppliers is key to
future-proofing your strategy.
“When using search firms and
agencies, we hold them to account
for the pipeline of people they
bring to us,” says Dawas, explaining
that preferred suppliers are given
a scorecard, listing a number of
weighted criteria against which they
are measured.
“Organisations should be using
tried-and-tested methods that have
been shown to be impactful in
eradicating barriers to inclusion”
Issue 4 - 2020
59