How DEI is carving out space for itself in modern recruitment

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is becoming a more dominant consideration in company policies every day.

Sally McKibbin, senior national account manager at Indeed, spoke to The HR Leader to tell us how inclusive strategy must be included at every level of recruitment and onboarding.

“It's great to try and be inclusive, but it's a lot more than just trying to hire a person of a specific gender, race or ethnicity,” Ms McKibbin said.

She argued that efforts need to be made so workforces and recruitment processes cater to more people, rather than hiring a more diverse team without making any internal structural changes.

“The other thing in recruitment is thinking about ‘how flexible or accessible is your office, or the role that you are recruiting for? Are the managers equipped to hire, motivate and lead these types of people?’

“I really think there's a huge element of training needed to help educate not only managers, but employees about what diversity in the workplace looks like and how to make everybody feel included when they do join.”

HR Leader found that a study done by Stanford showed that women experience stronger ‘zoom fatigue’ after working online, as the ‘self-focused attention’ of the camera screen is more likely to give women a heightened awareness of their appearance while trying to work. This is an example of discrepancies between workplace experiences that could only be identified by feedback from specific groups.

According to Ms McKibbin, recruitment specialists and managers “can always apologise and fix any mistakes”, and need to keep working towards a recruitment model that considers input from a variety of groups.

“It's taking us a while to get there, because I think we're learning along the way, but it's important to make that start, that's for sure.”

She went on to say that gender-neutral language in job advertisements is a critical element of DEI-friendly recruitment, and that a diverse array of job boards need to be taken into consideration.

“We know that women are less likely to apply when there are really masculine sounding words, or also if they don't feel like they match the job description nearly a hundred percent. So it’s really thinking about, ‘What does this ad look like?’” Ms McKibbin commented.

“Where those roles are placed, the types of job boards, or places that you are putting these roles will also attract different types of people from all different walks of life and different groups.

“There are so many specialised job boards, whether that be for women, or people with varying disabilities, or the LGBTIQ+ community, where you can actually tap into those different candidates.”

Ms McKibbin believes that there is a “mutual benefit” for managers and candidates alike in diversifying recruitment and onboarding processes.

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Sally McKibbin, click below: