Author: This article was written and provided by Allegra Chapman, Watch This Sp_ce.
You may be aware that diverse and inclusive teams are 35% more likely to outperform their competitors, that they are 83% more engaged, and that they are 36% more profitable.
But if you work in a historically male-dominated industry – like, say, the restaurant industry – how can you increase diversity in your business and attract more female candidates for your jobs?
Unconscious bias in recruitment
First things first, let’s be clear that unconscious bias does not mean being overtly sexist or prejudiced. We all have unconscious biases, which are simply the shortcuts in thinking that our brains use to make decisions in the face of overwhelming amounts of information. They influence both employers and candidates when it comes to recruitment.
In businesses and industries that are heavily male-dominated, there will likely be a high proportion of men managing the recruitment process.
These people will be, subconsciously, more well-disposed towards candidates that seem similar to themselves. They can’t help it – everyone does it. So it’s important to have measures in place to mitigate the impact of unconscious bias so that you don’t end up simply recruiting more people like the ones you already have.
Similarly, female candidates looking at your business might, if they see that the senior team (or the team in general) is heavily male-dominated, might subconsciously assume that they won’t feel they belong there, or that there won’t be progression opportunities for them.
If you are serious about diversifying your team, you will need to put in effort to demonstrate your commitment to the world.
Mitigating bias in the recruitment process
In order to limit the impact of unconscious bias in the recruitment process, here are a few things that you can do:
Inclusive job adverts
Mitigating bias begins when you first advertise the role. Ensure that you are not using gendered language in your ads that might discourage female applicants (there are a number of tools available to enable you to objectively assess your adverts), and make sure that you are including all the information that people need – and not putting in unnecessary requirements that might unfairly disadvantage certain people. If you want to learn how to create an inclusive job advert, you can download a template here.
Anonymise CVs
Taking identifying characteristics – such as names and ages – off CVs or applications before they are assessed can help to ensure that only key areas like experience and skills are influencing the decision about who gets an interview.
Pre-released questions
When candidates are invited to interview, letting them know what questions they will be asked in advance gives them time to prepare considered and thorough answers, and reduces the role that personality type and societal expectations plays in answering those questions.
Want to learn more about how to create inclusive interview practices? You can access a free inclusive recruitment webinar here.
Diverse interview panels
Having a diverse range of people on your interview panels – in terms of gender, and other characteristics – helps to reduce the chance that the panel will all be reminded of themselves by the same type of person. It will also help candidates to feel that there might be a place for them in your business, as they can see that there is diversity in your team.
If you don’t have a range of people who can take part in interviews, you can always borrow some.
Organisations like Watch This Sp_ce can offer recruitment support and help you to check your biases, but you need to be honest with candidates that these aren’t members of your team, so that they understand that the team might not be as diverse right now as they might prefer – telling them that you don’t currently have a diverse team, but that you’re really keen to build one, so you’ve asked some partners to come and help you, may deter some people from taking the job as they don’t want to be a minority, but others will really value your honesty and want to help you drive that change.
Building a brand as an inclusive employer
The work really starts, though, before you even begin recruiting. To attract female candidates, you need to demonstrate a commitment to gender equity, and inclusion more broadly, and show the work you’re doing to create an inclusive environment.
Policies
Begin by thinking about what policies you can put in place to support and encourage female candidates. Do you offer a maternity package beyond the (rather pitiful) statutory minimum? Do you offer paid parental leave for non-birthing parents? Can you offer flexible working hours or job shares to enable staff to manage caring responsibilities?
Do you have policies for menstruation, menopause and other areas that might be helpful for female staff?
Are you analysing staff data to identify pay gaps, and taking steps to address those? Do you have the basics in place – policies on diversity and inclusion, bullying and harassment, and grievance policies, and have these been checked for inherent bias?
If not, Watch This Sp_ce can help you!
Promotions
There are steps you can take to ensure that your progression and promotion practices are inclusive, so that female staff have equitable opportunities to move into senior roles. Not only does this encourage more female staff to join you, it also helps you retain the women you have and helps you to increase the female leaders you have which further attracts more female candidates.
Start by auditing your processes for awarding promotions and supporting staff progression, looking for opportunities to mitigate bias and encourage equity.
You can also look at specific talent development programmes that can help female staff to build their skills and confidence to take on senior roles.
Storytelling
To build an inclusive brand, you need to tell the story of your business and your staff. Share information about the steps you’re taking towards greater diversity and inclusion, and why this is important to you. This is great marketing in general – 53% of UK customers say that their purchasing decisions are influenced by a brand’s diversity and inclusion efforts, and customers are up to six times more likely to buy from a brand with a strong sense of purpose. So it’s not just candidates you’ll attract!
You can also encourage your existing female staff to talk about their experiences in the business and how they’ve grown and progressed in their role.
This kind of content can also be shared with prospective candidates so that they get an insight into what it’s like to work with you. When you work on initiatives to support women – such as a talent development programme or bringing in a new policy – you can tell your audience about the successes you’ve had and the challenges you’ve faced along the way, and shout about the results you’ve seen. Make sure your work is truly impactful, though – if you’re just paying lip-service to inclusion whilst making empty gestures (like turning your logo pink for International Women’s Day), the general public and prospective candidates will be pretty quick to see through it and call you out!
If you would like to learn more about inclusive recruitment and attracting diverse candidates, contact hello@watchthisspace.uk.