Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have become a critical part of ensuring the success of a company. For staffing firms, it has become a key component of the recruiting process. Making sure your hiring and onboarding process, supports your DEI initiatives is crucial to the success of your staffing firm and your clients. Make sure you are finding the right people for your placements. Ensure there is no hiring bias is essential for your success. Here are a few tips to help your agency be more inclusive in its practices.
How to Make Your Staffing Firm More Inclusive
Educate Your Hiring Managers
Your hiring managers play a huge role in creating a more inclusive staffing firm. Educate them about inclusive staffing practices. You can do this by rolling out inclusivity training for the leaders in the company. Talk about what inclusivity is and why it is important to your organization. Give them statistics about inclusive work environments and how it impacts the success of the agency as a whole.
Form a Council for Inclusion
Consider forming a council whose sole purpose is to increase inclusivity in your staffing firm. The council would consist of eight to 12 influential people from your team. These individuals will usually be one or two levels below the CEO of the company. Be sure you field them for their ideas about diversity and inclusion. Select those who mirror your company’s vision for inclusivity.
Get Feedback on a Regular Basis
Reach out for feedback from your candidates on a regular basis. You can conduct surveys to get information to help contribute to your inclusivity efforts. Use the information gained from the surveys to gauge your organization’s demographics and pinpoint where your company could be more inclusive. Ask candidates about your inclusivity efforts and see how effective they are. Moving forward, you can use this feedback to promote a more inclusive staffing firm. Make sure to include questions about your efforts in any exit interviews you conduct.
Communicate Your Goals and Progress Regularly
Communication is key! When it comes to communicating your inclusivity goals, you should relay progress reports on a regular basis and be clear about what your objectives are. Identify exactly how more inclusivity would benefit your agency. Provide data and draw up plans for reaching your desired level of inclusiveness. Generally speaking, you are more likely to reach your goals when they are time-bound and specific.
Hold More Effective Meetings
Speaking of quality communication, look for ways you can make your meetings more effective. When it comes to inclusion, your candidate’s experience matters. Make an effort to prepare yourself and team members for meetings by distributing any materials ahead of time. This gives everyone a chance to look things over and provide meaningful feedback at the meeting. You should also be willing to work around people’s schedules. You will need to adjust to different time zones to meet at the most effective times.
Use Technology to Eliminate Hiring Bias
Hiring managers tend to favor candidates that remind them of themselves. Unfortunately, that practice does not set your staffing firm up for more inclusive staffing. Utilizing technology during the recruiting and hiring process can help you eliminate this kind of bias. You can automate filtering through candidate resumes, skills assessments, and other key hiring tasks. The technology will identify quality candidates for placement without considering anything other than their skills and experience.
Find The Right Technology for Your Staffing Firm!
Having the right onboarding and HR technology can help your staffing firm be more inclusive and find a more diverse pool of candidates. Luckily for you, that type of technology already exists with Essium. Contact us to learn more about our one-of-a-kind staffing technology.
