In their quest to achieve better hiring and retention results, organizations see improving the speed and
quality of hiring as a corporate imperative and are often ready to make significant changes to win the
talent they need. This desire for improved results is not new, though: organizations have wanted to hire
faster and better for a long time (often targeting skills that are in scarce supply). But they have
struggled to do so well and consistently. What's new and different today is the fact that organizations are now genuinely interested in increasing the
number of people of color—specifically Black talent—in leadership positions. The impetus for this shift was
of course the murder of George Floyd, along with the subsequent high-profile Black Lives Matter awareness
campaigns and marches world wide against systemic racism. Companies can no longer ignore the data: The confluence of these factors has inspired some organizations' senior leaders to work harder than ever to
make measurable and sustained improvements to the diversity of their workforces. Proper recruitment, selection, onboarding, and performance management routines are critical for the success
of any new executive. This holds particularly true when companies seek to make their leadership ranks more
diverse. The old routines that may have worked reasonably well with primarily White leaders must be examined
and adapted to successfully and consistently win top, diverse talent. It's time for companies to implement
new strategies. Analyze at least two years of hiring, internal movement, and attrition data by level, job type, geography,
business unit, compensation, ethnicity, gender, age, and other relevant factors Key questions to answer include:
Before using the future needs analysis to determine the priority areas for diversity hiring, first define
what diversity means with regard to job type, location, etc. Does this mean women? Black people?
Any person of color? Clarity on this issue is key to moving diversity hiring and retention outcomes
forward. Because the competition for top talent remains fierce, any company that wants to hire more
high-performing diverse employees needs to examine how it measures up in the following areas: Because companies need to not only hire diverse talent but also ensure that it stays and performs well
over time, they must assess their onboarding and retention practices. The data obtained by the initial
diversity analysis will indicate where (in terms of geography, roles, levels, etc.) in the organization
diversity hiring is succeeding and where it is failing. With this information, the company can answer
the following questions: The need for new approaches to achieve workplace diversity is clear. By taking bold steps to retool their
hiring practices, organizations can make the shift from merely wanting to hire diverse talent to
actually doing it. 1 Jeanne Sahadi. 2020. "After Years of Talking about Diversity, the Number of Black Leaders at US
Companies Is Still Dismal." CNN website, June 2, www.cnn.com/2020/06/02/success/diversity-and-black-leadership-in-corporate-america/index.html.
2 Vijay Eswaran. 2019. "The Business Case for Diversity in the WWorkplace Is Now Overwhelming."
World Economic Forum website, April 29, www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/business-case-for-diversity-in-the-workplace.
2 Lisa Leslie. 2020. "What Makes a Workplace Diversity Program Successful?" The Greater Good
Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley website, January 21, greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_makes_a_workplace_diversity_program_successful.
Conduct a diversity audit of the company's recent and current workforces.
Determine workforce needs for the near future.
Identify priority areas for workforce diversity.
Assess the organization's current ability to win passive talent.
Assess the organization's current ability to effectively onboard and retain talent.