Honestly, I don't understand this brouhaha over diversity hiring. Just recently, the human resources (HR) head of a snack food company told me: "we are doing a hell of a lot of work in the area of diversity hiring". Really? Like what? Like replacing the entire institutional sales team of 20 people with an all-woman team. Why? It seems the company suspected that there were a lot of "leakages" in their institutional sales processes apart from the fact that "guys simply joined and left quickly". "Young men in this age group [22-27 years] are not committed at all," she said. "They join and leave, and we have to go through the whole process [of recruitment and training] all over again."
Plus there were those "leakages" to take care of. The company had proof that there was a bit of hanky-panky somewhere along the line: in all probability, these guys were misusing their travel budgets and the discretion they had in terms of doling out commissions to clients.
Net-net the company now has a spanking new team of young women to deal with the institutional clients. And guess what? The rate of churn has come down sharply and the HR department feels that it has been able to eliminate the so-called "leakages" in the system. Sales were up by a certain percentage and the bosses were happy.
Good job, thank you. But that got me thinking: what has diversity hiring to do with all this? If I am not wrong, it was a pure business decision. The place had a high turnover - which meant employees are either unhappy with the work or compensation. So, they went ahead and disbanded the demotivated team and filled it up with a new set of people - this time with women. The thinking in the organisation obviously was that women as a species were completely different from men; they were perhaps easier to please at the workplace - if nowhere else - and less fidgety. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is completely in line with the outlook that projects girls as being more attuned to the intricacies of social groups and relationships, and dudes to online games like "13 More Days in Hell" or "Mafia Wars".
Completely understandable, but why take the moral high ground? At the end of the day, what is the job of the HR? Identifying and hiring good people, getting the best out of them, ensuring they stay on and the organisation gets the best value for the money it spent on hiring and training. And if you have a "diverse" talent pool out there, why ignore it? After all, such a workforce will reflect a diverse range of interests, abilities, experiences and worldviews, and that can only enhance the mission of the organisation.
So, if your aim is to establish a meritorious hiring practice that is age, sex, origin/caste/minority neutral, dipping into a diverse talent pool without any prejudices is the way to go. Indeed, the war for talent, of hiring and retaining the best people, today is like nothing we have seen before. In "Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets" (Harvard Business Review), authors Douglas Ready, Linda Hill and Jay Conger say recruiters have to offer much more than fancy paychecks and a fast-track career paths to find and keep employees in markets like Brazil, Russia, India and China that are growing by leaps and bounds. The authors note, "Emerging-market job candidates prize a company with a game-changing business model, where they can be part of redefining their nation and the world economy. They are also attracted by a mission that focuses on helping the unfortunate - many have experienced poverty firsthand - and expresses the value of global citizenship."
So, where does one start? First, drop the public relations spiel and take the real issues head on. In all fairness, diversity staffing must take careful aim at the overall business goals of an organisation. As the workplace becomes global and more women enter the workforce, leaders have no option but to understand the demographic changes. Committed leaders will eliminate perceived roadblocks right upfront. So, your big task is to ensure that all levels of management are on-board with the so-called diversity issue, and recognise it as inevitable. You have to take it upon yourself to guarantee equality and fairness in career advancement.
The next place you would need to work on is your HR team - it really needs to be on the ball. Even these HR guys need some training once in a while. Ensure your hiring managers and their staffs are trained to interview candidates from different backgrounds, and encourage them to learn cultural norms of the diverse pool of candidates that you have to dip into. If you get all that right, this will improve retention.
And you won't need any excuses to do the right things.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
