Category: Candidate Attraction

Strategies for Building an Effective Talent Community

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Competition for talent is increasing across the globe, and employers are looking for innovative strategies to stay ahead of the competition. To gain a competitive advantage, employers are deploying a variety of methods. Wages are on the rise after years of slow growth. New graduates face strong prospects for employment. Even retirement is starting to look different for older workers with important skills. Finding new ways to source and attract workers with the skills of the future is a growing need.

In the U.S., years of job growth have led to the lowest unemployment rate in decades. Around the world, favorable job conditions are making it more difficult for employers to hire the talent they need. Adding to the challenge, employers are facing a skills shortage as they look to hire candidates who have the training, education and experience to bring their workforce into the future. This pressure is even greater in industries that are currently adapting to disruptive technology, like the auto industry. While reskilling and future degree programs can help increase the size of the talent pipeline in the future, employers still need to find and hire talent today. Building a talent community is a promising solution.

What is a Talent Community?

A talent community is a sourcing strategy that is an ongoing, multifaceted approach to candidate engagement that creates employment brand ambassadors and a talent pool that begins to feed itself. A talent community is a process rather than an event and takes continual effort to maintain.

Traditional sourcing starts with a job opening. From there, a job description is written and disseminated. A sourcing specialist may search their contacts and social media to find a candidate with skills that match, but the process largely involves posting a job and waiting for the right candidate to find you.

In a talent community, the process is cyclical. It starts before a job requisition is created, and it doesn’t stop when a candidate is hired. Employers consistently build profiles of the types of candidates they would like for roles they may need to fill in the future. Then, employers need to build pipelines through technology, partnerships and employer branding initiatives to connect with those people, whether the employer currently has a job opening for that candidate or not. Finally, when a candidate gets to the point of applying, the experience throughout that process needs to be so strong that even candidates who do not make it through the process will become ambassadors for that brand and continue to apply for open positions in the future.

Building a talent community sourcing strategy has a host of benefits for employers. A talent community is sustainable. It can feed itself. This means decreased time-to-fill and cost-of-vacancy because candidates who are interested in working for an organisation are waiting for a job to be posted rather than a recruiter posting a job and waiting for the right candidate to apply. It also leads to increased quality of hire because the employer has already determined the ideal candidate persona and has built a pipeline to find those people. When more qualified candidates are in that pipeline, the likelihood of making a strong hire goes up.

Why Talent Communities Alone Aren’t Enough

  • They have to be combined with great employer branding.
  • Your content has to be engaging and of value to the audience.
  • You have to have the right mix of viable candidates with the skills and experience that your company values, and ambassadors for your employer brand.
  • It is what you put into it, not what you take out–you have to cultivate the community or it will stagnate.

Using Employer Branding to Build a Talent Community

As employers work to create a talent community they need to build an employer brand that stands out from other organisations they compete with for talent. Organisations with a strong employer brand can stand out in a crowded landscape and draw in more candidates. There are several strategies employers can use to build their brands.

Online Talent Communities

An online talent community is a way to continue to communicate with candidates who may be interested in working for you in the future but can’t find a job opening that meets their skills and needs right now. It is also a way to engage with candidates who apply to jobs they aren’t qualified for yet but still have potential. An online talent community allows candidates to provide their contact information, resume and job interests. Then, the organisation can search those resumes when a position opens, and it can send matching job openings to the candidate. This keeps the employer at the front of a candidate’s mind and provides recruiters with a slate of candidates every time a requisition opens.

Recruitment Email Marketing

Many organisations use email marketing as a part of their traditional marketing strategy, but it is also important in employment branding. Email marketing can be used in partnership with an online talent community. Organisations can send recruitment marketing emails to share job openings, as well as information about their culture. One caveat to using email marketing as a part of an employer branding strategy is that the emails should be as personalised as possible. A candidate who has provided their resume should only receive job openings that correspond with their skillsets. Data about candidates can also be used to personalise how often candidate receive emails or at what time of the day they are sent. Regulations like CAN-SPAM in the U.S. and GDPR in the EU regulate email marketing, and we discuss those later in this post.

Social Media

Every organisation should have a strategy for sharing its employment brand on social media, though that strategy may look different for different companies. One option is to create a separate “careers” social media page where the organisation can post job openings and information about the workplace, culture and current employees. At PeopleScout, we recommend this strategy to our clients and work with them to optimise their existing pages to showcase their employer brand. This strategy works well for employers with a strong brand presence and large volume of hires. Another option, especially for smaller organisations, is to include some employer branding on their traditional social media accounts. In this approach, employer branding related posts that share information about the workplace and culture should be interspersed between standard social media posts.

Video

Many employers are familiar with video interviewing, but video can enhance employer branding in several additional ways and doesn’t always need high production quality. One example is video job descriptions. A job posting could include a short video of a hiring manager talking about the job and what they are looking for. A video like this gives a candidate a better understanding of the job and gives them a glimpse into the culture of the organisation. Additionally, organisations can use video to show workplace tours, so job seekers get an idea of what working for an organisation might look like. If an organisation is hiring for a lot of entry-level roles but frequently promotes within the company, a video that shows an employee’s career path from entry-level to a leadership role can also motivate candidates to apply for hard-to-fill entry-level jobs.

Chatting and Text

Another method of building a strong employer brand is communicating with candidates in the ways candidates want to communicate. Chat and text are growing in popularity. Some employers are deploying chatbots throughout their recruitment process. For others, a chat window with limited hours but access to a live recruiter can be successful. While many employers may be cautious to start a system to text messages candidates, several PeopleScout clients have found success and higher rates of candidate engagement.

Using Innovative Technology to Power a Talent Community

While a compelling employer brand is important for attracting strong candidates, it’s not enough to stay ahead in the current competitive landscape. Innovative technology solutions can help employers source top talent faster than the competition.

Geofencing

Geofencing can be used in a few different ways during the sourcing process. Much like targeted ads for restaurants or stores can be delivered to a person’s cell phone or computer based on where that person is located, job ads can be targeted to candidates in a specific geographical area as well. This can be valuable to employers that have a variety of locations spread across a large geographical area. Geofencing can be used to target job ads at candidates near specific branches. It can also be used for industry events or expos where a large number of potential candidates could be in one location at the same time.

AI Sourcing

Artificial intelligence sourcing can provide recruiters with a solid slate of candidates as soon as a requisition is opened, giving the recruiter a strong head start to fill the role. An AI sourcing solution that uses predictive analytics modeling can also provide the recruiter with information about how well the candidate matches the job opening and how likely the candidate is to leave their current role. With this information, recruiters are able to work more quickly and efficiently, filling the role with the best talent in less time. In the end, it saves companies time and money. At PeopleScout, AI sourcing is built into AffinixTM, PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology solution.

AI Data Tracking

AI data tracking can be used to make other sourcing and employer branding strategies more effective. Artificial intelligence and predictive analytics can understand and predict candidate behaviors. By tracking what time of day candidates apply, open emails or use social media, employers can schedule email marketing and social media posts to maximise the number of candidates who will see and click on job postings. Employers can also use this data to optimise their ad spend on job boards, so the ads appear when the best candidates are most likely to be online. One PeopleScout client had data that showed most of its applicants applied after lunch on Wednesdays. By posting jobs just before that timeframe, the employer saw a 15 percent increase in applications.

Finding a Partner

As employers work to build their own talent communities, an RPO provider can be a valuable partner. The right RPO partner will have a wealth of knowledge gleaned from experience solving a wide variety of problems and successfully sourcing and recruiting in a number of markets and industries. Employers can benefit from that collective knowledge.

Additionally, working with an RPO partner provides compliance benefits. Many of the sourcing strategies addressed in this article are impacted by GDPR, CAN-SPAM and other regulations, as well as regulations by the OFCCP. RPO providers have years of experience with these regulations and strong checks in place to ensure all sourcing strategies are compliant. This can provide peace of mind for employers.

Employers working with RPO partners will also see financial benefits, including reducing or eliminating agency spend. At PeopleScout, some clients have gone from agency usage as high as 25 percent or more to zero. To accomplish that, employers need to be committed from the top down to building the sourcing infrastructure to implement a talent community.

To find an RPO partner who is a good fit, employers should look for providers who possess customisable offerings that can be adapted to meet every need. A one-size-fits-all approach ignores the specific needs of employers in different industries and the unique challenges that can arise in recruiting in different markets. To build a strong talent community, employers should look for an RPO partner who can successfully deploy and manage these innovative sourcing strategies.

Removing Barriers to Employment for the Long-Term Unemployed

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With record low unemployment rates in the U.S., the UK and other leading economies, recruiters seeking to attract talent may assume that everyone who wants a job already has one.

However, this not the case, even in the strongest job markets. In the United States, the long-term unemployed are defined as those who have been out of work for 27 weeks or more and are searching for work. In May 2018, when the jobs report numbers were so good that reporters ran out of words to describe it, nearly 1.2 million individuals had been out of work and seeking employment for more than six months. The long-term unemployed made up 19.6 percent of all unemployed Americans and May was the first month that this percentage fell below 20 percent since the Great Recession.


During an economic downturn, the primary cause of long-term unemployment is simple: there are not enough jobs to employ those who want them. With the robust job growth over the last year, the ranks of the long-term unemployed in the U.S. have fallen by one third. During times of economic growth, causes of extended joblessness can often directly be addressed and remedied by employers.

Minding the Resume Gap


Imagine being a qualified job candidate who has been unemployed for nearly a year. After months of disappointment, a job comes along that looks like a perfect match. The candidate is excited to fill out the online job application, but when they reach the job history section, they see: “Please provide the start and end dates for all of your jobs. If there is a gap of more than six months, please provide an explanation.” These types of questions related to job history can be used (or perceived to be used) as a way to disqualify candidates.


The Deloitte Handbook A Guide to Recruiting and Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed recommends removing filters and screening procedures that ask for dates of last or current employment and automatically eliminate unemployed and long-term unemployed applicants. It also recommends confirming that Applicant Tracking Systems do not screen out resumes based on employment status.

Avoid Date Limits on Valuing Experience


A candidate who has been unemployed for an extended period may possess years of valuable experience and required job skills. It is important for employers to consider whether their recruitment process gives undue weight to recent expertise over cumulative experience gained over the lifespan of a career. Recruitment processes should also be checked for any potential bias against older applicants. An OECD study found that incidence of long-term unemployment increases with age throughout many developed economies.

Addressing the Jobs Skills Gap


A lack of in-demand skills can be a cause of long-term unemployment. There are many resources for those with extended joblessness to receive training in marketable skills. Employers can build relationships with these agencies as part of their recruitment programme to target the long-term unemployed. In the UK, skills training can be included as a standard benefit offered to the long-term unemployed. In Australia, the government offers programmes which include training for young people and others who either have or risk having long periods of unemployment. Job training services are also provided by Canadian provinces and by state and local governments in the United States.


There are numerous local initiatives in which businesses combine with non-profit agencies to provide skills in an effort to fight all levels of unemployment. Employers can work closely with these agencies to source available talent (often at reduced sourcing costs) and even partner with them as part of their community engagement efforts.

Reaching the Hard to Reach Talent


Individuals without strong job seeking skills can have their period of unemployment unnecessarily extended. For example, the process of finding a job 15 years ago was completely different from today. Reaching candidates whose experience and skills may add tremendous value to your organisation requires specialised expertise in sourcing that may not be readily available in many human resources departments. Several leading employers have turned to Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) companies to successfully attract and recruit hard to reach talent.

Worth the Effort


For many companies, the incentive to attract the long-term unemployed may be to meet a need to recruit the last pool of available talent in a tight labour market. However, hiring those with extended unemployment can potentially be a valuable tool in retaining talent, which is critical in today’s economy. The Deloitte handbook cites a White House study that found that companies that hire the long-term unemployed experience higher retention rates and greater workforce loyalty. Given the potential for talent attraction and retention, employers who remove barriers for the long-term unemployed may gain an unexpected competitive edge in an increasingly challenging market.

Changing Workforce Demographics: Aging Talent

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An Aging Workforce in an Aging World

For the first time in history, the majority of people on earth will live to 60 years of age and beyond. This is true in high, medium and low-income nations. People are not only living longer, but they are working longer. In the U.S., 23 percent of workers are aged 55 and older. Over one-third of Canadians over the age of 55 are still working and in the UK, workers over 50 comprise 27% of the workforce. In Australia, labour force participation, (those working or actively looking for work), for those 55 and older has never been higher. The demographic shift towards an aging workforce brings both unprecedented opportunities and challenges for organisations that want to attract and retain talent.

A Talent Ticking Time Bomb?

The Deloitte 2018 Global Human Capital Trends Study notes that “population aging poses a workforce dilemma for both economies and organisations. Thirteen countries are expected to have ‘super-aged’ populations—where more than one in five people is 65 or older—by 2020, up from just three in 2014. These include major economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea. China’s 65-and-older population is projected to more than triple from approximately 100 million in 2005 to over 329 million in 2050. In fact, analysts have estimated that 60 percent of the world’s population over 65 will live in Asia by 2030.”

The study notes that almost all developed economies have a birthrate below the “replacement rate,” or the rate of babies born that will ultimately replace previous generations, leading to a potentially catastrophic talent shortage. Citing the example of Japan, now the world’s oldest country in terms of population, a shortage of approximately 1 million workers in 2015 and 2016 is estimated to have cost the economy $90 billion.

To bolster its declining talent pool, Japan changed its laws so that descendants of Japanese citisens living abroad would be attracted by newly available long-stay visas and work permits. It had particular success in attracting workers from Brazil with as many as 320,000 Brazilians of Japanese descent working in Japan ten years ago, although that number has decreased in recent years. China also faces a steep plunge in its working population in the coming years and has made it easier for those of Chinese descent to live and work there.

Despite these developments in Asia, addressing a workforce shortfall through immigration appears to be an increasingly remote option for many advanced economies. A recent article in the Economist explains that the trend in many countries has been to place increased barriers to foreign talent. For organisations seeking to successfully navigate this demographic reality, success may depend on leveraging the talent of an older workforce, mentoring, succession planning and redefining the concept of retirement from work.

Older Workers as Outperformers

There is evidence that older workers have an edge on their younger colleagues regarding work performance. A study conducted by a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business concluded that older workers often out-perform their younger colleagues, stating “when it comes to actual job performance…older employees soundly thrash their younger colleagues…every aspect of job performance gets better as we age…I thought the picture might be more mixed, but it isn’t.”

Creative solutions which include accommodating the needs of older workers can help utilise their talent and positively impact a corporation overall. The Economist cites an example from BMW:

“When BMW, the German car maker, faced an outflow of workers it applied an adaptive approach for older workers with great success:…facing an imminent outflow of experienced workers, [it] set up an experimental older-workers’ assembly line. Ergonomic tweaks, such as lining floors with wood, better footwear and rotating workers between jobs, boosted productivity by 7%, equaling that of younger workers. Absenteeism fell below the factory’s average. Several of these adjustments turned out to benefit all employees and are now applied throughout the company.”

Employer Brand Ambassadors and Mentors

Older workers, especially those with significant tenure in an organisation and industry, can serve a critical role in its talent lifecycle. Older employees can become employer brand ambassadors by effectively sharing their success stories with prospective candidates as part of an organisation’s recruitment marketing messaging. Older employees can be mentors for new workers being onboarded that not only teach necessary skills but also help acclimate a new employee to the organisation’s corporate culture. If a company’s workforce is reflective of the economy as a whole, then it should plan to see an exit of at least one-fifth of its employees due to retirement in the next ten years. These older workers form a natural base for a mentorship programme which can play an essential role in succession planning.

Redefining Retirement Age

The days when turning 65 meant the end of working life appear long gone. Some workers past the traditional age of retirement have no choice but to continue working due to a lack of savings. Others choose to keep working, on a full or part-time basis, or as consultants. Companies will also have to compete with the trend towards entrepreneurship for talent 65 and over because this age group is more likely than any other to be self-employed.

Having the Competitive Advantage

What does an aging workforce mean for the overall talent strategy of your organisation? Does your organisation have the necessary insight into the challenges and opportunities that an aging workforce presents? If not, this expertise can be provided by recruitment experts such as a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) company. Whether your strategy is developed in-house or with a partner such as an RPO, the current tight job market drives the need to build a talent programme that integrates the reality of this important workforce demographic. As the Deloitte study concludes “The demographic math is undeniable: As national populations age, challenges related to engaging and managing the older workforce will intensify. Companies that ignore or resist them may not only incur reputational damage and possible liabilities but also risk falling behind those organisations that succeed in turning longevity into a competitive advantage.”

How to Create a Workforce Equipped with the Skills of the Future

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Automation is transforming the way we work. The World Economic Forum calls this change the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is characterised by a “fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.” In short, technology is disrupting nearly every industry, at a pace that has never happened before.

This pace of change means that employers need to take a proactive role in ensuring they have a workforce equipped with the skills of the future in order to avoid skills gaps. To accomplish this, employers first need to understand the skills they will need to remain competitive and innovative. Then, they need to understand how best to prepare and train their current workforce, as well as prepare to source, recruit and hire the talent of the future. In this post, we’ll share the top skills of the future, how technology is changing the way we work and explore ways organisations can prepare for the workforce of the future.

Skills of the Future

According to the World Economic Forum, the top ten skills you need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution have shifted in the last several years, prioritising complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity as the top three skills and adding emotional intelligence to the list.

The following ten skills are listed as the most in demand for employers by 2020:

  1. Complex problem solving
  2. Critical thinking
  3. Creativity
  4. People management
  5. Coordinating with others
  6. Emotional intelligence
  7. Judgment and decision making
  8. Service orientation
  9. Negotiation
  10. Cognitive flexibility

This list reflects the fact that robots can complete many tasks faster than humans, but the machines still lack soft skills like creativity and emotional skills. As technology takes on more of the workload, the most in-demand employees will be those who possess the skills that computers cannot replicate. However, the need also increases for workers who have the skills to use, build and innovate the technology of the future.

Automation is Changing the Way We Work

It’s no secret that automation is fundamentally changing the way many industries operate, increasing the demand for tech and digital skills in the workforce. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, as many as 375 million people around the world will need to change occupational categories by 2030 due to automation.

Let’s explore this idea using the example of the impact of automation on the automobile industry. Some of the most well-known innovations in automation have happened in the industry – starting with Henry Ford’s assembly line. Now, companies around the world are racing to bring autonomous cars to market. We expect that the first autonomous cars will be available for sale to the public as early as 2021. The link to the potential disruption in complementary industries from delivery services to drive-through restaurants is overwhelming. However, it is an excellent example to use to illustrate the complexity of the skills needed for the future.

The skills required to deliver the cars to market are both highly technical and analytical.  However, the skills needed to design and operate the vehicles of the future are more complicated. Skills in design thinking and innovation will be critical. Programmers will need to ensure safety in weather conditions from blizzards to heavy rains and navigate autonomous cars and trucks through road construction and complicated intersections and interchanges.  They may be faced with programming life and death decision-making into the vehicles, which are inherently complex human behaviours requiring emotional and social intelligence skills above all others.

How to Prepare the Future Workforce

The Transformation of Talent

Automation and the skills transformation will affect many industries over the next decade, but lessons can be learned from the industries that have already come through the journey, transforming their workforce in order to deliver to a new business model. This transformation is illustrated with an example of one of PeopleScout’s clients, a company which provides research and risk management services.

The company began migrating customers from the traditional print version of their core product to an online version available on multiple platforms. This was a complicated and highly-involved transformation which impacted everyone from their internal workforce to their heavily print-dependent end-user. To illustrate the skills transformation that occurred, since that point in time, the number of technology hires PeopleScout makes for this client has increased 500 percent. This includes roles like product analysts, product managers and implementation consultants. At the same time, hires for editorial roles like editors, journalists and content developers have increased only 14 percent. And, 100 percent of editorial roles filled were for their online research product; no positions filled were for the traditional print product.

In order to help guide this client through their talent transformation, PeopleScout worked closely with the internal HR function to adapt their candidate personas for both external hiring and internal mobility. We then developed sophisticated sourcing strategies to source candidates with skill sets that would meet the needs of the new organisation. In addition to sourcing new candidates internally and externally, there were also efforts to analyse which traditional roles had transferrable skills to the requirements of the new roles. This was a journey to take a traditional business and transform it into a technology company and substantially shifting the workforce to meet the new strategy.

Future Skill Degree Programmes

Another way employers can prepare for the future workforce is through working closely with high schools, colleges, universities, apprenticeships and graduate recruitment programmes to help develop degree programmes that meet the skills of the future. By building these programmes, employers can ensure that graduates have the skills necessary to succeed in the coming years.

The importance of high school programmes is not yet as obvious as those in higher education, but many businesses and universities have started working with high schools to source and attract new talent early. The programmes are particularly significant in industries where there is a forecasted talent gap. For example, Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy students in Sydney have the opportunity to partner with an engineering company to learn valuable job skills and open up thinking about new career pathways.

I recently participated in a panel discussion with other industry leaders as well as a professor at a university in Sydney. The professor shared that the university spent time with CEOs and business leaders asking them what skills they felt their organisations needed to ensure their business was successful in the future. As a result of those conversations, the university created a highly-innovative, cross-disciplinary degree programme designed to produce students with skills that include high-level critical thinking, future scenario building and innovation, as well as many other skills identified in the World Economic Forum top ten list.

However, in the first year of the programme, they had minimal applicants. Why would such an innovative and carefully-designed degree have so little applicants? More work may need to be done to ensure that parents and students are fully educated on the necessary skill sets to be successful in the future of work.

How to Prepare your Current Workforce

Employers cannot simply wait for the workforce of tomorrow to arrive. To stay ahead, it is necessary to train and prepare current workers for these shifts. To make this a priority, HR and the C-suite need to be aligned on what roles will be needed in the next three, five or ten years, as well as what skills will be needed to fill those roles. The roles that exist now may transform or disappear altogether, and new skill sets will be necessary for the business to drive growth and strategy. Both need to be open-minded about the transferrable skills in order to ensure success in having the talent to deliver key business outcomes.

Reskilling Programmes

In some countries, governments have taken on some of the burden of reskilling. For example, the Australian government has established the Skilling Australians Fund which provides $1.5 billion to support apprenticeships, traineeships and other employer-related training. The goal is to retrain more Australian workers with the skills needed in the tourism, hospitality, health, engineering, manufacturing, building and construction, agriculture and digital technologies industries. The programme is targeted toward automotive workers who lost jobs due to closing car manufacturing plants.

In the United Kingdom, the government plans to spend as much as 500 million pounds per year on worker training to combat low productivity. According to Reuters, the spending could reach as high as nearly 6 billion pounds on academic and technical education which will transform the system of technical education and increase the amount of training available by more than 50 percent.

Moving forward, governments could also potentially track metrics around reskilling opportunities as well as metrics for job creation in order to drive these initiatives even further forward.

How an RPO Provider Can Help Prepare for the Skills of the Future

An RPO provider can be a valuable partner for employers looking to prepare their workforces for the skills of the future. RPO providers can help organisations adapt their candidate personas, to ensure they are sourcing talent with the necessary skills and identifying new ways to target candidates who fit these personas. In addition, they can work with internal HR departments to demonstrate how candidates who may not have an exact profile for a role have the transferrable skills to be successful.

An RPO can also help build graduate and internship recruitment programmes and partner with schools and government programmes to find candidates from new sources with new skills.

An experienced RPO provider can also help you build your talent pool from within your own company, by consulting to develop an internal reskilling programme and helping reevaluate your current positions and workforce mix to ensure your organisation is targeting the right talent.

To stay ahead in the rapidly changing talent landscape, employers should evaluate their current workforce needs, the skills they have within their current employee talent pool and seek out an RPO provider who can act as a partner in sourcing, recruiting and training employees with the skills of the future.

Benefits of Workplace Diversity: The Value of LGBTQ+ Employees

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While there are legal protections in place to protect LGBTQ+ employers from discrimination in the workplace in many countries, in over half of the world, LGBTQ+ people are not protected from discrimination under workplace law. In a survey by the Center for American Progress (Cap) in 2022, half of LGBTQ+ and “sexual and gender diverse” people reported experiencing some form of workplace discrimination or harassment due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. This rocketed to 70% for transgender respondents. In the UK, 40% of LGBTQ+ workers and 55% of trans workers have experienced harassment, compared with 29% of heterosexual, cisgender employees.

These issues are not only troublesome for LGBTQ+ individuals in the workplace, but they are also bad for businesses. In this post, we outline the value of hiring and fostering a positive workplace environment for LGBTQ+ employees.

The Importance of Workplace Diversity

Today’s workforce has become increasingly diverse. Companies are more aware of the benefits of hiring talent from various backgrounds and the incredible contributions these employees bring to the workplace.

A well-managed diverse workforce will both reduce costs and generate greater profit, with companies that employ a diverse workforce having 35 percent higher financial returns than national averages according to a McKinsey report on workplace diversity. This clearly illustrates the importance of diversity in the workplace not only for a company’s culture but also for its bottom line.

Diversity does not just mean including women and persons from diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds; it also means that businesses can benefit from hiring LGBTQ+ employees and creating a supportive atmosphere for them to thrive.

Research report

Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes

Read the Report

Workplace Diversity: Benefits for LGBTQ+ Individuals

For starters, LGBTQ-supportive policies will have an instant effect on individual employees, consequentially creating less workplace discrimination and improved comfort about being openly LGBTQ+ at work.

According to a survey conducted by the Williams Institute, The Business Impact of LGBT-Supportive Workplace Policies, LGBTQ+ employees who feel the need to hide their identity in the workplace often feel greater levels of stress and anxiety causing health issues and work-related complaints.

By creating an LGBTQ-friendly workplace, companies can reduce stress and improve the health of LGBTQ+ employees, increase job satisfaction and create more positive relationships with co-workers and supervisors.

Workplace Diversity: Benefits for Businesses

Following the individual benefits, organisational outcomes will also improve. Employers with LGBTQ-friendly workplaces will benefit from lower legal costs related to discrimination lawsuits as well as lower health insurance cost, through improved health of employees.

In fact, a study by Out Now Consulting, LGBT 2030 – LGBT Diversity Show Me the Business Case, states that the U.S. economy could save $9 billion annually if organisations were more effective at implementing diversity and inclusion policies for LGBTQ+ staff.

By recruiting LGBTQ+ candidates, companies will open up the talent pool to more potential hires, making finding the right talent for a company easier than if they ignored a large and talent-rich demographic.

How to Successfully Recruit LGBTQ+ Individuals

Learning how to recruit LGBTQ+ individuals is the first step in creating a more LGBTQ-friendly workplace. To recruit LGBTQ+ talent, businesses need to tailor their recruitment approach to meet the unique expectations LGBTQ+ individuals have when in a job search. Below are three ways to better recruit top LGBTQ+ talent.

Do Market Research

To better understand the unique concerns and needs of LGBTQ+ individuals, businesses need to identify positive factors that appeal to LGBTQ+ candidates along with the negative factors that repel them. A good way to identify positive and negative factors is by surveying current LGBTQ+ employees. If a company lacks a large enough sample size, they can acquire survey data from third parties or diversity consultants. Companies should take the data and insights gleaned from surveys and polls to craft LGBTQ-friendly messaging in job postings and recruiter communications, so the target audience feels comfortable considering employment with the organisation.

Create an LGBTQ-Friendly Recruitment Process

To successfully recruit the best LGBTQ+ talent, companies need a comprehensive approach that includes tailored LGBTQ-friendly employer branding and diversity-oriented talent acquisition professionals experienced in assessing diverse candidates. Companies can also focus efforts on recruiting LGBTQ+ interns and offer them the opportunity to join the organisation full-time after the internship is completed. By creating a more LGBTQ-friendly recruitment process, companies will ensure that LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to accept offers of employment.

Ask for Employee Referrals

Employee referrals can be a strong LGBTQ+ recruitment source. Companies with employee referral programmes should adopt a diversity-focused approach that includes LGBTQ+ candidates. Companies should publicise this focus to employees, letting them know that the company is actively searching for and encouraging the recruitment of LGBTQ+ candidates to fill positions.

Workplace Inclusion Programmes for LGBTQ+ Individuals

Creating a diversity inclusion programme is one way of helping LGBTQ+ employees and other diverse members of a company feel welcome and comfortable at work. A well-run inclusion programme should support LGBTQ+ individuals in the workplace by offering workshops, training and support from both management and HR. The overall goal of inclusion is to make LGBTQ+ employees feel safe and like an integral part of a company.

Companies can also collaborate with outside LGBTQ+ organisations and charities and encourage both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ employees to participate in events sponsored by these organisations. By aligning company values with those of LGBTQ+ organisations, companies can show their commitment not only to LGBTQ+ employees but also to supporting equality in the community as well.

Diversity and inclusion policies and programmes can also save a significant amount of money spent on new talent recruitment and training by helping retain great talent. Furthermore, a more diverse and open workplace will increase creativity, which will lead to innovation and new ideas.

Conclusion

As the world becomes more accepting and understanding of the LGBTQ+ community, people expect businesses to do the same. Companies who work towards change to create a more acceptable and tolerant environment will gain the respect and loyalty of employees and the public-at-large. While there is still a lot of work ahead, there are a rising number of companies that understand that equality is good for business.

Only 5% of organisations say they’re succeeding with their DE&I initiatives. Download our free research report, Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes, for insights into how to improve diversity recruitment outcomes.