Employment Branding for Diversity

Diversity is more important than ever in the new global economy. Successful companies realize that diversity is an effective and necessary weapon. Diversity breeds all of the forces most essential to 21st century business: creativity and effective globalization. Broad personnel diversity refers to racial, cultural, sexual, and geographic differences within your employee teams.

Yet if we agree that diversity is a very important factor to a company's success, how do we go about promoting diversity in our new hires?

Diversity recruitment is very complex challenge, especially for large companies. There are many accepted methods for drawing upon diverse candidates, including specialized job boards, niche advertising, networking groups, etc... However if these sources of recruitment comprise your entire method of drawing diversity, your programs will most likely fall short of long term goals.

In addition to these recruitment sources, there must be a fundamental shift in your employment branding strategy. You must not only think of how to recruit diverse candidates, but how to develop an organization that diverse candidates are drawn to. It is therefore a much deeper issue than we might first think: we must transform our company culture and then promote and market that change.

This is a broad and difficult approach, but managed correctly, long-term success is almost guaranteed. Some of the core principles to implement include:

1. Internal branding: Create a diversity program internally. Tell your employees in no uncertain terms that you consider diversity critical to success.

2. Promote your internal programs regularly and routinely.

3. Go external: When you get involved in groups and programs, highlight your internal programs and speak to the principles behind them.

4. Keep promoting: Every job posting or career event is an employment branding opportunity. Keep promoting your culture and programs on every job posting and website that you advertise on.

5. Track it: Measure the success of your programs through regular anonymous surveys. Be sure to continuously refine your strategies according to feedback.

If you use this approach over time, you will experience radically different results than a less comprehensive approach. If you only look to recruit diverse candidates you will surely fail - you must drive the change within your company culture. Simply put, don't just try to change who you are hiring, change your company.