Simply Valuing Workforce Diversity is Not Enough.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 75% of American respondents value racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace. However, when it comes to hiring and promotions, the importance that respondents place on race and ethnicity diminishes. Only 24% believe that companies should take race and ethnicity into account in addition to a candidate’s qualifications.
Compounding the issue of diversity recruitment and hiring, a 2016 Harvard Business Review study found that when there was only one diverse individual in a pool of four candidates, the chances this individual would be hired were statistically zero. The odds were 193.72 times greater when at least two diverse individuals were finalists.
Given that individuals lean toward the status quo in decision-making, diversity recruitment and hiring at companies must become an explicit focus. Companies can start by understanding that simply valuing workforce diversity is not enough.
With only 1 in 4 white Americans reporting a lot of interaction with those of other races and ethnicities in the Pew Research Center survey, companies cannot rely only on homogenous referral networks to source diverse candidates. If companies want a more diverse workforce, then they must build a strategy for diversity recruiting that includes proactively creating talent pipelines by accessing candidates through diverse networks. Without this, workplace diversity will remain a concept that people support in theory and not practice.
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