Podcast: Diversity, Technology and Human Resources

Diversity Grid

Transcript

Mark:

Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m Mark Feffer.

Mark:

Improving diversity seems like a very human exercise, but my guest today brings data and technology to the task. She’s Helen McGuire, the CEO of Diversely. Their platform and framework are designed to take the bias out of sourcing and help employers understand and apply their diversity data. How? That’s one of the things we’ll talk about on this addition of People Tech. Helen, it’s nice to see you. Thanks for being here. Now, can you tell me about Diversely and how it works? I mean, is it a platform? Are you consultants? Is it some combination?

Helen:

I suppose you might call it something of a combination. The idea for Diversely is to help businesses become more diverse from an employee perspective. We start at sourcing. The heart of Diversely is the platform and the DNI dashboard that we’ve created. That helps you to understand, number one, how diverse you are currently and we can help provide the data around that if you’re currently unsure. It helps you to set your goals around five elements of diversity, and then to track your progress in attracting more diverse talent with our three scientifically backed online tools that we’ve created. They’re all work in one space in the platform and can integrate into ATSs and other recruitment software.

Helen:

In order to help businesses to implement this within their day-to-day, we do offer a step-by-step approach. We call it the CMA Framework. It stands for Clarified Measure and Achieve. If you need some assistance in ensuring adoption within the business, a little bit like HubSpot helping you to understand the why, the what, and the how of diversity, then we can certainly help to provide that as well. But, it’s really around implementation of the tools and the platform itself, as opposed to any specific wider training around DNI.

Mark:

Now, it seems like a lot of companies are sort of waiting into the whole diversity challenge right now. What makes Diversely different?

Helen:

Diversely starts at the very beginning, at the very source of the problem, if you like. What our research found was that although 80% of businesses said they wanted to do something about DNI, 60% had some kind of measures in place. Only 20% were satisfied with their results and only 5% could actually measure whether the things that they were putting in place, to improve diversity, were actually working or not. We start with data. We have an API that plugs into data that helps you to understand how diverse you are across three different elements. Gender, age, and race and ethnicity.

Helen:

We are also geographically located. There are other tools and platforms out there that might assist with this on a specific basis, depending on where you are in the world. We are very mindful of the fact that diversity looks very different depending on where you might live and the area in which you want to hire. We help you to understand what those benchmarks are for your specific location and then obviously to reach a better level of diversity, depending on the specific ethnic, racial, age, even things like sexual orientation and disability factors that you might want to hire for.

Mark:

Who’s the end user? Is it HR? Is it the hiring manager? The recruiter?

Helen:

Yep. Generally when we speak to businesses, we speak at a much higher level. Let’s say CHROs global talent, acquisition directors, heads of DNI and recruiters, recruitment leads within recruitment firms, but the end users are talent acquisition recruitment, and sometimes hiring managers as well. Really what we try and do is connect the dots between those two groups of people, because obviously there needs to be an understanding of the “why” around diversity and of the goal that are in place from a strategy perspective in order for the end users to want to use the tools and the platform itself.

Mark:

Now, the topic of diversity’s gotten a lot of tension, the subject of diversity over the last couple of years. And I’m wondering, have you found that peoples and employers perceptions about diversity have really changed?

Helen:

I’ve been working in this space for many years. I previously set up a women’s careers platform before even hashtag me too, or black lives matter in its current form. And certainly at that point, I was having to convince people as to why hiring more women was a good idea, let alone actually getting them to do so.

Helen:

Attitudes have massively changed over the last five to 10 years. And particularly over the last couple of years. I think there is… There was always an awareness around, we need to do better. There are an awful lot of stats out there that point towards diversity being something that helps businesses, helps their bottom line and helps push them forward in terms of ingenuity and innovation, amongst many other things. I think there just weren’t as many ways to actually address the situation. There was far less action oriented movement in this space. What we see now is businesses truly understanding the value of diversity to that business. Also, understanding that they need to get a grip on where they are currently and to be more inclusive. You really need to wisen the funnel at the very beginning of the process in order to attract diverse talent, if you’re going to solve the problem internally further upstream. There’s just a better understanding of the processes and the action needed to make the difference as opposed to just the problem.

Mark:

What about the rank and file? Do you have any thoughts about their thinking? Is that evolving also or are they lagging their corporate leadership?

Helen:

Corporate leadership is leading the way in many respects because they are beholden to public opinion to their shareholders. There is a huge war for talent that’s happening right now, as many of us will. Be aware and in order to really stand out, we found that 76% of candidates see DNI as a real game changer, a real way in which businesses can stand out. This is kind of an easy win really for the corporates, if they can solve this problem, not only do they tick their legislation box in terms of reporting both externally and internally, they also attract the talent that they desperately need in order to grow and steal a march on their competitors as well. Where you see corporates making a noise about this, it drips down further down the line to SMEs and to smaller businesses as well, because we’re all competing for the same talent, right? If you’re not doing something that you are bigger competitor is doing, or if you can do it better, then you are more likely to get that talent through the door. There’s definitely a huge movement there.

Mark:

I’ve talked to a lot of technology vendors or solutions providers, and more and more of them seem to be waiting into some kind of diversity solution. Can you put technology into context for me? I mean, in terms of diversity, what role can technology really play?

Helen:

Diversity, and as we know, the hiring funnel is an incredibly long process. It starts right at the beginning where we begin and it ends up with selection, onboarding, retention, the whole life cycle. We’ve chosen to start at the very beginning of the process because we feel that’s where the biggest impact can be made. And you really can’t execute a good DNI strategy if you ignore that. However, there are now tech solutions at pretty much every stage of the hiring funnel and these tech solutions help to negate bias the whole way along help to improve inclusivity and of course, diversity. What’s really helpful, from a tech perspective, is if those solutions are integrated within your day-to-day. You never want diversity and inclusion to feel like an added burden, something extra that you have to do. TA and recruiters are busy enough as it is.

Helen:

Those solutions that integrate into the likes of greenhouse and workable and recruitee and Bullhorn and so on, as ours does, really night and day away from having a company away day or having some learning around it on a lunch and learn, it really is something that impacts a day-to-day process and changes the way that people view things and can attract more diverse talent. And that’s really how tech is changing DNI. It’s getting to the source of the problems and it’s becoming integrated into everybody’s way of working, because it simply helps you achieve better results. And it’s a very new way of thinking of it for sure.

Mark:

Do you have any advice for employers, executives and managers about how they should approach the whole question of ensuring diversity?

Helen:

There’s a lot of information out there that’s helpful. We have two downloadable guides. If you head over to diversity.io and a bunch of resources on the platform. One of which is exactly around a DNI start kit that helps businesses to understand how to get started across the whole hiring funnel. The other is around the HR tech. To your question, what is tech doing in DNI and how is it helping? There’s two guides there, but there’s plenty of other stuff across the internet as well. I think if you’re truly at the very beginning of your journey and you really don’t know where to start, of course, I’m going to say, start with sourcing, start at the very beginning of the process, but that’s not always relevant for every business, particularly much smaller businesses. But there are many excellent consultants out there. To mention a few, Dina Williams, Jenny Child, Joe Major, who are all doing brilliant things in the DNI space, and really just getting companies started if they’re really stuck.

Mark:

Helen, thank you.

Helen:

Thank you so much, Mark.

Mark:

My guest today has been Helen McGuire, the CEO of Diversely, and this has been PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM technology report. We’re a publication of recruiting daily. We’re also a part of Evergreen podcasts. To see all of their programs visit www.evergreenpodcasts.com. And to keep up with HR technology, visit the HCM technology report every day. With the most trusted source of news in the HR tech industry, find us at www.hcmtechnologyreport.com. I’m Mark Feffer.

Image: iStock

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