How to Integrate EDI in Your Recruitment Process

August 12 2022 - Diverse workplaces are healthy workplaces. The data speaks for itself, as a number of studies overwhelmingly demonstrate the various benefits approaching equality, diversity and inclusion - or EDI for short - can have for a business. Beyond the core ethicality of an equitable society, EDI measures can help businesses grow and compete meaningfully while securing the best talent for the long term.

But inequality and inequity are endemic, and require active efforts to effectively undermine. The starting block for building an inclusive and diverse business is recruitment; what EDI considerations can you make when recruiting for your business?

Flexible Roles

First and foremost, your business should be taking steps to ensure that the roles you are offering do not prevent applicants from certain backgrounds or circumstances from applying. More specifically: are the conditions of your employment contracts flexible and equitable?

There are numerous ways you can introduce flexibility to the roles you create. Flexible working hours can enable those with families to handle childcare or school runs, and remote working possibilities remove barriers to entry from those that might struggle to commute.

Two-Way Communication

While the burden lies solely on the employer to find equal and equitable solutions for their employees, there are also avenues by which businesses can guarantee moving on the right track. Equality, diversity and inclusivity measures can be shaped through the creation of a two-way communication system, between the business and the candidates it fields.

Rather than immovably rejecting candidates on the basis of failure to make certain commitments, your business could be asking what accommodations they would need in order to work - and implementing those accommodations in the event of said candidates being successful. In this way, your business improves its general approach to EDI while ensuring candidates are accepted on quality alone.

Company Culture

These are fundamental provisions your business can make to improve the diversity and inclusivity of your prospective candidate pools - but they’re only part of the story. In order for your EDI measures to bear fruit, there needs to be a comprehensive approach to EDI across your business. Your company culture needs to be EDI-oriented in order to be a welcoming and progressive one.

By fostering a positive and inclusive company culture, you can create a number of tangible benefits and knock-on effects, that include recruitment processes. For example, institutional bias can feed through to hiring processes, leading BAME and LGBT candidates to receive unequal treatment.

A proper approach to company culture can filter into hiring protocol, and ensure individual assessors are not impacting the future of potential candidates, or the business. There is also evidence to suggest that inclusive company cultures lead not only to increased employee satisfaction, but also increased motivation and productivity. The result: tangible gains for the progressive business.

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