Bringing True Equality To Businesses
From a recent article in Grapevine Magazine
How can I bring true equality to my organisation rather than hiring to fulfil a quota?
The key point to remember is that people don’t respond to quotas because quotas don’t offer aspirational goals. What organisations really need to do is set aspirational goals so diversity is simply part of being a great business that delivers great results. Being told that we should recruit a certain number of women onto the board, or a certain number of people from an ethnic minority background, doesn’t work. What it actually boils down to is culture and meritocracy, rather than metrics and compliance.
For us, there are three key points when we talk about our approach to diversity.
- First, legislation, which looks at compliance.
- Second, representation, which ensures that organisations are representative of their customer base.
- Finally, innovation - you cannot have an innovative organisation without diversity, as a range of experiences is fundamental to encouraging creativity and innovation.
Innovation is hugely important in the workplace; it’s a key driver for the modern business. However what is happening more often than not is too many organisations are hiring by face or familiarity to fulfil the minimum requirements for the job rather than hiring candidates to meet the actual demands of the business. Companies need to look at defining what success in a role looks like and objectively hire against those criteria.
The other danger of simply hiring to fulfil a quota is failing to recognise the potential impact on the individual hired, or the executive team into which that person is recruited. For the individual, it can create a weight of expectation that has an adverse impact on performance; for a team, it can raise questions about genuine capability. Neither of these things are great ingredients for collaboration and high performance.
Finally, be aware of people’s own perceptions of fairness in the workplace, because that has a real impact on engagement, teamwork and collaboration across an organisation.
* Find out more about Talent Management at Alexander Mann Solutions.
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Tony HallTony Hall is Global Head of Talent Management at Alexander Mann Solutions |
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