How to Build An Inclusive Team — According to a Product & Operations Expert and Hiring Manager

This content was originally published on Built In.

Diverse teams drive results — and the business case is now stronger than ever. A 2020 McKinsey & Company study titled “Diversity Wins” found that companies in the top quartile of gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than those in the fourth quartile. The case for ethnic and cultural diversity was even more compelling, at 36%. There is still so much room for improvement in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, especially within tech — and it’s a topic that’s important to me as a manager but also to the Opendoor business at large.

Building a diverse workforce doesn’t come as easy as one would like — even from those who have the best intentions. As a manager, I’ve had over more than two decades of hiring employees across areas of expertise. Here, I’ve compiled some of the best tips I’ve learned along the way, particularly from a recruiting perspective, to help other leaders, managers, and colleagues embrace and champion all voices when building teams.

• Acknowledge unconscious bias: We are all susceptible to unconscious bias, so the first step is to acknowledge you have them so you can keep them in check. Unconscious biases often cause us to be most comfortable with those most like ourselves, so start reflecting on past hiring decisions — from interns to senior-level team members — and consider if you’ve engaged in this behavior without even noticing. Then, begin adding this extra layer of mindfulness to future interviews and scenarios to challenge yourself to address those biases head-on.
• Look at your organizational structure: How you think about your organizational structure opens up the possibility for better inclusion and can be an easy way to diversify your team. For example, if you’re building out a marketing capability, consider the following: Is it essential to have a certain degree, or could you consider candidates with equivalent experience and transferable skills via non-traditional backgrounds?

Aim to hire diverse employees at all levels, including early in career hires. In the past, I have built operations teams with a mix of experience, looking for passion and intelligence, first, then training them on the job. Does your organization allow for that kind of hiring process? Check with Human Resources to be sure.

• Consider flexible work locations: When deciding on what roles you hire, consider whether you need employees in an office or not. Being flexible with work location naturally brings in diversity. Allowing employees to work from home opens up your roles to a wider group of applicants. Consider those who are disabled, the neurodiverse, those who can’t afford to live next to your office if it’s in a busier area, or parents who have to do a before (or after) school pickup.
• Perfect the job posting: How you post and describe a role is so important: It’s hard to hire a diverse team when you don’t receive a diverse applicant pool. At my last company, when we were trying to hire entry-level operations generalists, we posted the role as “marketing process managers” and most of our applicants identified as male. We took the same role and job description and posted it as “marketing analyst” and most of the applicants identified as female. To get a gender-inclusive applicant set, we left both job postings running and pooled the candidates. Try different versions of the job title or job description; after all, even how you describe benefits and company culture can have an impact on whether a potential applicant would feel included in the company.
• Leverage your inclusive groups: Lisa Kao, from the People of Color Employee Resource Group (ERG) at Opendoor, encourages leaders to leverage the teams already in place for recruiting: “Having ERGs host recruiting panels or events and making it a key part of the recruiting process lets recruits know this is a valued part of the company and will (hopefully) attract greater diversity.”
• Set up for bias-resistant screening: Next, focus on making sure biases don’t become part of the resume screening and interview process. We are wired to form opinions quickly, so you have to set up to make sure you’re making judgements on the right criteria, and don’t get distracted by factors that could introduce bias.

Where possible, I review resumes in an applicant tracking system (ATS) because I can be more systematic. There’s often a way to set up a view where you can paginate through resumes and avoid looking at things like names, education, and even extracurricular activities which can cause you to form non-relevant opinions about a candidate.

Applicant tracking systems can often be configured to inform you if the candidate has a certain type of degree, without you needing to scan the resume where you may get biased about where that degree is from — like whether the degree is from a university you recognize in the U.S. or is an international degree could introduce a non-relevant bias into your judgment.

• Be wary of small-sample negative bias: Lisa Kao also suggests to “be wary of negative bias assigned to those who are not like you and perhaps share a similar identity to previous colleagues/clients you did not enjoy working with. Particularly if someone is in the ethnic majority, their exposure to minority individuals in the workplace reflects, well, the minority of their experiences, so it’s easy to attach bias or stereotypes to an entire population based on very limited experiences.”

All of this is just a start: It’s a journey to build teams in the tech sector that are reflective of our communities, customers and partners. I’m happy to see how far things have progressed but it will take real work to make a permanent change. Be deliberate and acknowledge your biases to set yourself on the right path to building an inclusive team.

Interested in working with teams who prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion? Check out our open roles.

Fiona Lake Waslander is the Senior Director of Buyer Operations at Opendoor.