Recruiting for Diversity: What’s the Point?

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This week we bring you a bunch of articles on Recruiting for Diversity.
I think that most people see themselves as reasonable, and would state that they do not discriminate when making hiring decisions.  Most people don’t intend to discriminate when making hiring decisions.  However, I do think that we are all limited by our world view and by our experience, and the result is that we can unconsciously discriminate through our actions.
And this is why I believe a strong Recruiting for Diversity strategy is necessary to achieve a diverse workforce.
Here are two examples to illustrate how Diversity could have resulted in a better outcome:

• Last year, Gisele Mesnage launched a claim of unlawful discrimination against Coles Supermarkets because their online shopping site is not accessible for vision impaired people.
• Last week, the RBA announced it has designed tactile bank-notes so that vision impaired people can identify the different denominations. This is the result of a young man, 13 year old Connor McLeod, who lobbied the RBA to change (what a hero by the way).

Two large organisations totally missed the need to cater for vision impaired people.  In hindsight, it is ‘blindingly’ obvious (no excuses for the pun).  I’d be surprised if the designers of the Coles website or the RBA designers deliberately set out to discriminate against vision impaired people.  But the impact of these design short-comings has resulted in just that.  Imagine if either of these organisations just happened to have a vision impaired (or other kind of disability) employee on their team who would say “ah, excuse me, how about we look at accessibility issues?”
To my mind, many people with disabilities have to solve problems all the time, every day, just to do ordinary things that able bodied people take for granted.  And as a result, they bring innovation and a different perspective.  And this is the real argument for diversity in recruitment.  It is all about innovation and perspective.
Recruiting for Diversity is a topic we will explore at our ATC2015 Recruitment is Marketing conference in June.  Amy Cato, Director, Executive Women Shortlist and Emma Gee, inspirational speaker, are teaming together to present a half-day pre-conference workshop, “Attracting and Recruiting People with Disabilities”; and Amy will spar with Duncan MacKay, National Manager, Recruitment and Resourcing at Superpartners, as they debate “Do You Need Metrics to Measure Diversity?”
So take a look around you, at your work colleagues.  If you are all of the same gender, similar age, similar world view, etc. then maybe you should consider how to inject some Diversity into your organisation.
Trevor Vas, Director, ATC Events
PPS. Don’t forget about my cost-of-hire webinar on Thursday the 12^th of March. We’ll be examining the relevance of measuring cost per hire in 2015, how it may be used, reported on, or substituted with a metric that really matters. You can register to participate here
—- Diversity —-
Amy Cato – Gender and Global Competitiveness
John Eales – The Many Faces of Diversity
Emma Gee – Disabilities and Recruitment
Michelle Ellner – Prioritizing Diversity in Your Recruiting? Why Video Interviewing is a Must-Have
Jane Porter – Can Blind Interviews Finally Solve Tech’s Diversity Hiring Problem.
Geert-Jan Wassdorp – Female International Job Mobility – 6 Things You Need To Know 
Mart Tortorici – How You Can Source Diversity
Faye Aylward – 5 Steps to Drive Your Diversity Strategy