Below are five recommendations that Chris Joseph made to help improve diversity in the workplace.
Widen your recruiting base
If you focus your recruiting and hiring on one specific area, you may miss your opportunity to develop a diverse workforce. One suggestion would be to use the internet to recruit because this could target more people than those just in the general area of your business. You could also use magazines and publications that appeal to and are often read by minorities. This will help guarantee exposure to them and increase the chances of them being potential candidates for future positions with your company.
Offer language training
One of the biggest issues surrounding diversity is the presence of a communication barrier. If people can’t communicate, they can’t work together effectively and efficiently. It will also remove language barriers as a reason for not considering an applicant, resulting in a lessened chance of a discrimination lawsuit. The cost of providing this training would be well worth saving even more cost from unnecessary lawsuits.
Create an evaluation form
Creating a standardized evaluation form is key in avoiding discrimination lawsuits. These forms will help to make sure that all employees are evaluated on the same criteria. This will also help with employee morale because if your employees feel that they are being held to different standards than others, they tend to be upset and less productive, which in turn causes turnover to rise.
Make use of current staff
If you already employ quality employees that are of a minority group, use them to recruit people that they know and think would be qualified for the positions you are hiring for. Not only does this help provide a diverse flow of candidates, but also keeps recruiting costs down.
Clarify the benefits
Emphasize to your employees how diversity helps the company as a whole and how it benefits each individual employee.
Joseph, C. (2016). Recommendations on Improving Diversity in the Workplace. Retrieved from Chron Small Business: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/recommendations-improving-diversity-workplace-1810.html
If you focus your recruiting and hiring on one specific area, you may miss your opportunity to develop a diverse workforce. One suggestion would be to use the internet to recruit because this could target more people than those just in the general area of your business. You could also use magazines and publications that appeal to and are often read by minorities. This will help guarantee exposure to them and increase the chances of them being potential candidates for future positions with your company.
Offer language training
One of the biggest issues surrounding diversity is the presence of a communication barrier. If people can’t communicate, they can’t work together effectively and efficiently. It will also remove language barriers as a reason for not considering an applicant, resulting in a lessened chance of a discrimination lawsuit. The cost of providing this training would be well worth saving even more cost from unnecessary lawsuits.
Create an evaluation form
Creating a standardized evaluation form is key in avoiding discrimination lawsuits. These forms will help to make sure that all employees are evaluated on the same criteria. This will also help with employee morale because if your employees feel that they are being held to different standards than others, they tend to be upset and less productive, which in turn causes turnover to rise.
Make use of current staff
If you already employ quality employees that are of a minority group, use them to recruit people that they know and think would be qualified for the positions you are hiring for. Not only does this help provide a diverse flow of candidates, but also keeps recruiting costs down.
Clarify the benefits
Emphasize to your employees how diversity helps the company as a whole and how it benefits each individual employee.
Joseph, C. (2016). Recommendations on Improving Diversity in the Workplace. Retrieved from Chron Small Business: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/recommendations-improving-diversity-workplace-1810.html