Diversity efforts maintains vital role in recruitment

Recruitment techniques – aimed at promoting a diverse workforce – have maintained a high stature among the HR professionals, where more than half report using these strategies, according to a new survey from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the SHRM’s Diversity & Inclusion survey note that current recruiting strategies are aimed to increase diversity among their company’s workforce. Also, approximately 38% of the nearly 300 HR professionals surveyed highlight that retention efforts are made to maintain diverse workforces.

Top diversity initiatives include efforts to provide for inclusive hires based on ethnicity, gender, race, age, disability, veteran status, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, language spoken and gender identity, according to survey.

Heralded for bringing a fresh perspective to business, a diverse workforce is “critical to have a leadership team who understand the value of employing people from a multitude of backgrounds,” says Shirley Davis Sheppard, vice president of diversity & inclusion at SHRM.

With only 15% of respondents saying they having a dedicated staff member devoted solely to diversity and inclusion, the onus for implementing and leading diversity initiatives usually fall on HR and the president/CEO. One tactic used is incorporating these policies into company vision statements, which approximately 27% end up doing.  

Also, while 14% say CEOs are tracking diversity metrics and progress, this method may differ among different organizational sizes. The SHRM finds that larger organizations were three times more likely than their small counterparts to use advisory groups and volunteer committees to provide dialogue on diversity and inclusion.  

“Not having diversity initiatives at an organization does not necessarily mean it is not a company priority,” explains Evren Esen, director of SHRM’s survey research center. “The research shows that it may be harder for smaller organizations with fewer resources to incorporate these initiatives.”

Of the HR professionals weighing in, there is still much more to be done when gender discrimination in the workplace. Sixty-four percent report having a written or informal policy for sexual orientation discrimination and only 24% have similar policies for gender expression, the SHRM study finds.

However, the study finds that return on investment for diversity efforts is still unknown. Approximately 93% report that their organization does not conduct analyses to determine its ROI on diversity recruiting programs.