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If you want to boost diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, a “diverse slate” hiring strategy is a great way to achieve this goal.
Here’s a quick “diverse slate” definition:
Diverse slate hiring is a talent acquisition strategy where you start with a diverse pool of qualified candidates. And, you’ll intentionally search for (and interview) talent from diverse backgrounds, identities, or experiences.
Maxine Williams, Global Director of Diversity at Meta (formerly Facebook), made a point about diverse slate hiring in 2017:
“The more people you interview who don’t look or think like you, the more likely you are to hire someone from a diverse background.”
Tip: Using job description software (like Ongig) that scans for unconscious bias is a great starting point for a diverse slate approach.
Why does “diverse slate hiring” matter?
Slate diversity is vital in a world where only 7% of techies are Black. Where women hold only 26.5% of executive roles and only 21.1% of board members at S&P companies are women. Also, women of color hold fewer than 1% of all CEO positions at S&P companies. These are just a few statistics solidifying the need for a diverse slate hiring strategy.
Where did the concept of “diverse slate hiring” come from?
The NFL, interestingly enough, helped launch diverse slate hiring with the implementation of the Rooney Rule in 2003. This rule requires minority representation among the coaching staff.
With the rule, the number of coaches belonging to underrepresented groups increased from a low 6% to 22% in 4 short years. After the success of the strategy in the NFL, it’s been implemented in many other American businesses.
The NFL even created a diversity committee in 2022 after being sued by former Miami Dolphin Head Coach Brian Flores for alleged discrimination and racism in hiring practices.
Which brands have adopted “slate diversity” in hiring?
Two companies who are vocal about successfully implementing the diverse slate approach are Meta’s Facebook and BASF.
Facebook launched its diverse slate approach to hiring in 2015, and in 2017, the company gave an update:
- the number of women globally rose from 33% to 35%
- the number of women in tech increased from 17% to 19%
- women make up 27% of all new graduate hires in engineering and 21% of all new technical hires
- In the US, they increased Hispanic representation from 4% to 5% and Black people from 2% to 3%
BASF‘s diverse slate hiring commitment is to increase the proportion of women in leadership positions to 30% worldwide by 2030.
And, In 2015, BASF set out to increase the proportion of women in leadership roles to 22-24% as of 2021. At the end of 2019, they achieved it ahead of schedule at 23%.
How do you implement a “diverse slate” approach?
So, how do you start implementing slate diversity?
Here are some takeaways from a Harvard report you might try first:
1. Think of diversity and your staffing needs. Diversity is a broad concept. Craft a solid definition of what diversity means to your company with your team. This involves looking into your own biases, conscious or unconscious. It’s essential to be aware of these biases when hiring. And last, assess the diversity of your current team so you can find the best people to fill in the gaps. Gather details on your workforce’s demographics, particularly race, gender, age, disability status, veteran status, etc. Then, benchmark your organization’s diversity metrics with industry standards and best practices.
2. Get leadership support. Gaining support from the leadership teams is an important factor for the success of your diverse slate hiring initiatives. Here are several strategies to effectively secure and maintain leadership support:
Show how diversity slate hiring contributes to your company’s overall business goals by explaining the positive impact of diversity, such as market competitiveness, reduced employee turnover costs, enhanced employee engagement, and expanded customer base. Share research, case studies, employee stories, and testimonials to demonstrate the positive effects of your diversity efforts.
Additionally, explain to leadership how the company must strictly adhere to D&I-related legal and regulatory requirements to avoid lawsuits, penalties, and damage to its reputation.
- Include the management team when creating your diverse slate policies. Encourage them to join the process by participating in diverse hiring panels to understand how it works and its importance firsthand. Involve them in mentorship programs that support underrepresented employees, fostering direct engagement.
- Offer diversity training sessions on unconscious biases, inclusive leadership, and the benefits of diverse teams for all leaders
- Create a supportive infrastructure. Provide leaders with the resources and tools they need to understand and support diversity hiring initiatives, such as access to recruitment and D & I reports
- Create a dedicated diversity and inclusion team to support leaders in executing and measuring diversity initiatives.
3. Set clear goals and objectives. Once you understand diversity, HR leaders should set SMART goals to actualize your target diversity outcome: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.
Examples:
- Increase the number of women in leadership roles (e.g., director level and above) to 30% within the next two years.
- Increase the representation of person of color (e.g., Black, Latinx, Asian) in the overall workforce to 10% within two years.
- Ensure all job postings and hiring processes are accessible to candidates with disabilities within the next six months.
- Improve the retention rate of underrepresented employees by 15% over the next three years.
- Implement unconscious bias training programs for talent acquisition teams and hiring managers within six months.
4. Recruit diversely.
Set your sights wide and recruit externally to build diverse candidate pools. Here are different strategies to execute inclusive hiring:
- Source candidates from diverse pools. Partner with organizations and institutions that support diverse groups. Attend job fairs, conferences, and events focused on diversity. Use diverse job boards and professional networks to advertise open positions:
Blackjobs.com – features the latest well-paying job opportunities for African American job seekers
Hispano Latino Professional Association (HLPA) – recruit professionals in the Hispanic / Latino Community.
Diversity Job Board – list job opportunities from employers targeting minorities, female candidates, and persons with disabilities
- Implement blind recruitment techniques. To minimize unconscious bias, mask candidate information (e.g., names, gender, and age) from resumes during the screening process. Use blind interview platforms for initial interviews that allow recruiters to interact with candidates via chat, email, or audio calls while keeping candidates’ details private. Evaluate job seekers’ skill sets and future work performance through skills-based tests or challenges.
And make sure your job descriptions are readable and bias-free. If you want to automate this process, Ongig can help you craft the perfect JDs…fast.
Ongig’s Text Analyzer flags gender and racial-biased language in your job descriptions and suggests inclusive alternatives so you attract more applicants of color. For example, you can replace ‘young and energetic’ with a more inclusive term, ‘motivated’ or ‘enthusiastic.’
5. Create diverse interview panels. Gather people who are different from each other when you’re putting together an interview team. This diverse team will have different but considerate ways of looking at candidates’ different cultures and characteristics.
To bring different perspectives, include members from various teams, departments, and levels within the company. Involve ERG members or Diversity and Inclusion committees. If diversity is limited within your organization, consider inviting external experts or DEI consultants to participate in the interview process.
Once you have established your interview team, rotate them regularly to allow different employees to participate and bring fresh points of view. Maintain a diverse pool of interviewers that can be tapped anytime during different hiring processes.
6. Build structured interview processes. Use standardized interview questions to ensure all candidates are assessed fairly:
- Job-related technical questions or practical exercises to measure the candidate’s competency
- Behavioral questions to evaluate past work experience
- Situational questions to determine the applicant’s problem solving skills and how to approach hypothetical work situations
- Standardized questions to examine the applicant’s basic qualifications and cultural fit.
Create an evaluation criteria and scoring system to evaluate candidates’ responses objectively.
7. Train Hiring Managers and Recruiters. All HR member teams should receive unconscious bias training. This training covers different prejudices, biases, and stereotypes and helps identify biases that might influence employment decisions.
Talent Dimensions offers inclusive recruitment, selection, and hiring training to help you better understand D & I and why they’re essential in the workplace. It will guide you in examining your current recruitment process and finding ways to make it more inclusive. You also gain skills for focusing on inclusive recruiting and selecting top talent.
8. Set KPIs. To know if your strategies are working, you need to measure them. As such, it’s critical to establish metrics to get concrete results for your recruiting practices. Some of the most common metrics are:
- Monitor the number and percentage of underrepresented talent at various stages of your hiring procedures: applications, interviews, offers, and hires
- Analyze the diversity of your talent pool to ensure that a diverse pool of applicants is considered for promotions
- Monitor your diversity recruiting channels, such as social media, job boards, and career events, to gauge which platforms are most effective in attracting diverse talent.
Regularly analyze your diverse hiring data to identify areas for improvement and adjust strategies accordingly.
9. Establish reporting systems. Create monthly, quarterly, or annual reports to review the progress of your diversity hiring programs. The information can be found on your ATS or recruitment analytics software.
Once you generate the data analytics reports, present the findings to your leadership team, employees, and external partners. Hold managers and leaders accountable for meeting diversity goals through performance evaluations and incentives.
10. Continuously improve and refine your diverse hiring process. Survey and interview candidates and new hires about the hiring process. In your reports, look for patterns or trends that indicate where the process is succeeding or failing in diversity goals.
Based on feedback and reports, adjust your hiring process as needed. It may be updating your job descriptions, changing job interview questions, or using different sourcing channels. Take advantage of artificial intelligence tools to boost your unbiased hiring practices.
Adjust your diversity goals and strategies based on feedback, progress, and changing business needs.
Why I wrote this?
Ongig enables your diverse slate hiring by eliminating biases from your job ads, so you attract a diverse pool of candidates. Please request a demo to learn more.
Shout-outs:
- Recruiting for Diversity (Harvard Whitepaper)
- Facebook Diversity Update: Building a More Diverse, Inclusive Workforce (by Maxine Williams, Meta)
- BASF wants to promote more women in leadership positions (by Antje Schabacker)
- How Effective is the Diverse Slate Approach to Hiring? (by Katica Roy, Pipeline)
- Does Diverse Hiring Work? (by Manasi Patel, Lattice)
- IT snapshot: Ethnic diversity in the tech industry (by Galen Gruman)
