In today’s competitive global war for talent, a commitment to diversity hiring could set your company apart. The candidate of today wants to see a commitment to diversity that goes beyond a sentence in the employee handbook. Here are some concrete steps your company can take if they want to walk the walk.

First things first, get on the same page.

1. Create a Diversity Vision and Statement this will help guide all future efforts.
2. Host a diversity training workshop for management so everyone knows how to participate in your company’s vision for diversity.

Now, take a moment to assess where your company is at today. Is it completely in line with your vision? Probably not. Identify where the company is at now through a Diversity Brand review to determine how to proceed towards the statement your company has outlined.  From there, you can begin to work on a unified “Diversity Recruiting Strategy.”

When I led a diversity effort in global staffing at Monsanto my strategy included 7 points.

1. Certify all recruiters as diversity recruiters. You can do this through programs like AIR.
2. passive diverse candidate pipeline development
3. Advertise to specific demographics for example on radio stations with shows in languages other than English.
4. Include diverse images on career page, website, pamphlets, and social media.
5. Publish testimonials from minority and women employees from all levels of the company.
6.  Host an open house and invite organizations that are operated by and for minorities.
7. Participate in career fairs targeted at minorities and or women.

This strategy led to some key Recruitment Diversity Metrics for Professional Hires in the US:

POC  (person of color) Applicant Flow increased 79% over the previous year, and the flow increased some 70% in the following year.

POC Applicants interviewed surged above 30+% for several years, reaching 37% of all Applicants.
POC Hires reached 24% of US Professional Hires and in the following year, POC Hires reached 36%.

At Unext.com and Lockheed, I utilized similar strategies. At Unext.com we exceeded overall Diversity Hiring goals for POC (goal 15%, results 22%) and Women (goal 30%, results 50%).  While at Lockheed, I led efforts that increased the flow of women and minorities candidates, achieving a 20% increased in POC hiring–surpassing an internal benchmark.

Obviously, social media can help to improve these results. For example, Facebook can help you recruit more Diverse candidates and also help leverage your Diversity Brand message. It can be used to create Talent Community of Diverse candidates. You can showcase your current on-going Diversity efforts and Programs on your company’s Facebook page, or (as I would highly recommend for larger brands) by creating a “Diversity Careers” brand Facebook page. This page should be as inclusive as possible and should have inclusive imagery from all “walk of life”—all groups should be represented. It could also list the various Diverse group and associations and organizations you have partnerships with for Talent Acquisition purposes, such as Hire Heroes USA (Veterans), HRC advocates on behalf of LGBT Americans, and AsianMBA.org.

Diversity Marketing Plan:

Tailor a diversity marketing plan based on your specific goals. My plan included donating textbooks to inner-city high schools and attending their career fairs, publicizing the accomplishments of our POC and female employees in trade publications, and partnering with the local community organizations to host workshops on successful interviewing tactics.

Consider creating a specific Web page entitled “Minorities in Your Industry,” with its own URL to reach minority job seekers where many employment searches begin – a quick browse on Google.

Conduct feedback sessions/focus group with minority and women employees in order to accurately gauge where your company is and how it can improve in fostering an environment of diversity.

Build an Alumni page on your website or Facebook to stay connected with all high performers (in general) who left as well high performing Minority/Women alumni. And, you could focus on making an employer branding award list, such as Black Enterprise’s list of “40 Best Companies for Diversity” or  Diversity Inc’s “Top Ten Companies for Asians Americans to Work For”, etc.

Gather data. Use metrics to evaluate how well the organization is doing on their diversity and inclusion program. Create goals based on region or country depending on your company’s reach. These numbers help you track your progress over time in target areas.

1. Minority representation overall.
2. Minority representation in certain departments.
3. Retention rate of underrepresented employees.
4. Pay disparity.

I want to point out that most of these initiatives are low or no cost. The benefits are obvious to not only the reputation of your company but to the workplace environment. You will be creating a space where the talent you need can thrive while creating positive partnerships with your community.

Talent Acquisition Questions

1. Are our recruiters embodying (and promoting) our employer branding?
2. How well does our talent acquisition department know what our employment brand and employee value proposition are?
3. Are our recruiters/HR generalists sharing valuable content about our “Brand” i.e. its culture, values, mission, goals, benefits, training, etc. on social media?
4. How are we showcasing our hiring managers? And their attributes?
5. Are we showcasing our firm’s opportunities? On our careers page? Our Facebook page? Our status updates?
6. Is talent acquisition truly working with other corporate departments in delivering the employer branding?
7. Are all company interviewers trained to sell our employer brand?
8. How – specifically – are our business leaders delivering on our employer branding promise and our employee value proposition?
9. Is our onboarding, induction, orientation processes showcasing and highlighting our firm’s employer branding?
10. Are we working with our in-house employee groups to improve our candidate experience and on-boarding programs?
11. Are we showcasing our employer brand on college campuses with our interns and with our University employee contacts?
12. What influence does our employer branding have on a candidate’s decision to join our company?
13. What are our current employees saying about our employer branding on review websites, such as Glassdoor?
14. What do our alumni say about our employer brand? What’s our percentage of boomerang hires?
15. What are candidates who “turn us down,” saying about our talent acquisition department and our employer branding?

When you look at some of the firms on the most recent Fortune magazine’s “Top 100 companies to work for” list, you will find leading edge companies which have successfully answered these questions. They are sought after employers in any type of job market. In a word, they are the most selective and they garner a lion’s share of the best candidates.

Hopefully these questions will engender some analysis and focus on the alignment of your Talent Acquisition strategy with your Employment Brand. Lastly, be aware of your candidate experience and social media. Seek out new technologies which can improve your candidate experience. For example, the SmartRecruiters’ Hiring Platform has hundreds of candidates each week tweeting about how much they enjoy the candidate experience of this new platform as opposed to the traditional “job application” experience.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt, MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies. Photo Credit flickr Glyn Lowe.

SmartRecruiters is the only platform that hiring managers and candidates love.

Diversity

You could begin with Facebook and Twitter. They can help you recruit more diverse candidates and also spread your diversity brand message. In fact, if you want to cultivate a Talent Community of  Diverse candidates, then Facebook and Twitter can be key players. Obviously, a Twitter account can be created to attract followers. This could be an effective channel for tweeting out your firm’s programs, processes, awards and accomplishments in Diversity and Inclusion. Daily tweets by your Diversity networks and employees could be a powerful magnetic for attracting “people of difference.”  Don’t stop there, use Instagram and Pinterest for capturing key moments, events (such as your firm’s MLK breakfast), gatherings (your Employee Resource Group celebrations) and building your Diversity brand image.

Similarly, traditional methods can be used to create and build a Diverse Talent Community for your firm. Think about partnering with: Professional associations such as Women in Technology, Clubs, Students groups (such as NBMBAA, 4H Club-as we did at Monsanto), Alumni associations, Colleges & Universities, Trade associations, Community groups such as the Urban League (local Chapters), national Veterans organizations as well as local Veteran chapters in your city. These are just a few examples from many which you could pull in to create this “virtual” talent community.

Additionally, inspire your Recruiters and Talent Acquisition staff, as I did, to network widely and broadly both on social media and within (and outside of) your industry. Consider this, keep a running list of people you meet (speakers, workshop facilitators, attendees, etc.) at industry and professional conferences and trade shows—actively network with them (after the event). Also you might consider partnering with firms (regardless of industry) in your own city in hosting shared events. While at Monsanto, I once organized a “shared event” for our US summer interns and partnered with Boeing and Edward Jones for hosting. This fun event was a success and it allowed the students to mix and mingle and network with peers at these other firms in St. Louis.

In closing, don’t miss the chance to be a leading edge companies in 2014 in this critical area. Your firm will have a distinct competitive advantage in the marketplace by creating and building a Diverse Talent Pool—so start one now and don’t get left behind.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt (@JohnnyTorrNesbi)  MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies.

Collaborations between the recruiter and these groups can allow for creative solutions that recruiters haven’t thought about. In one of my prior roles, recruiters would consult with Employee Resource Group (ERG) Leaders about positions they were having trouble filling. “The ask” would be for ERGs to provide avenues that the recruiter hadn’t considered. ERGs in turn felt valued to be able to help solve a business problem and were suggesting additional conferences, organizations and access to their personal networks to help fill the open positions. ERG Leaders also assisted the recruitment team by sharing a weekly open job posting with their respective communities. This allowed for an increase in the quality of referrals provided to the recruiting teams.

Recruiters in turn can learn how to leverage Resource Groups by attending and participating in conferences like the Network Affinity and Leadership Congress or Out and Equal Workplace Summit that are targeted to ERG Communities. These conferences often provide programming around solving recruiting and retention issues. Recruiters may be pleasantly surprised by the outcome and insights they gain from being in this space.

Another useful tool that I’ve seen created is a one-page overview of an ERG’s function, benefits, programming and contact information. This tool can be used by recruiters to answer cultural questions asked by prospective employees during the interview process or even at even at recruiting conferences. For the prospective employee, they gain insights into whether the organization is a good fit and also access to a buddy once they decide to accept the offer.

Most ERG Groups are forming their own recruitment and retention strategies. They have ideas on how they want to solve the problem and make a contribution to the organization. Be sure to check in with your Resource Group Leaders and ask to see their strategy. This is an opportunity for partnering on solving recruiting challenges.

As a Human Resources professional, you should never overlook the incredible usefulness of building alliances and partnerships with community organizations, associations, as well as your firm’s internal “Employee Resource Groups.” These efforts can aid your HR efforts. Some of these organizations could include:  Women in Technology, Hire Heroes USA, HRC advocates on behalf of LGBT Americans, NBMBAs, NSHMBAs, and AsianMBA.org.  At Monsanto, leveraging our Employee Networks Groups  (i.e., Women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian Networks) was a key priority.

For example, a summit with the Network Group leaders to work toward developing shared goals around diversity recruiting, retention activities, outreach programs, Diversity awards, etc was a key objective;  these groups were tremendously helpful in augmenting the unified Diversity Recruiting strategy for professional hires devised for the Global Staffing Department (which achieved an increase in “POC” Applicant Flow of over 70% for two consecutive years with hires reaching 24% and 36% of US Professional Hires). You could also enlist the members of your Network groups in your Employment Branding Program; they could serve as Brand Ambassadors for your firm.

So, then, Resource Groups are here to stay.  Companies like Sodexo are highlighting the value of their nine business resource groups in the recruiting process.  How are you leveraging your network groups to enhance your Talent Acquisition strategies?

Simone Morris (@jubileetown) also contributed to this article. She has served as an ERG Member, Co-Chair, Chair and Advisor to Employee Resource Group Leaders. She has been recognized for her exemplary Employee Resource Group Leadership skills by her previous employer Diageo, Diversity Best Practices, and Diversity MBA Magazine. Photo Credit schnauzdesign.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt (@JohnnyTorrNesbi) MBA, is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies.

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent, manage candidates, and make the right hires.

Employment Branding

An early decision you will need to make is a budgetary one; in other words, do you have the complete resources and budgets to partner and engage one of the big named/well known ad firms to build your Employment Branding Program or can you, by using in-house resources, other departments and fellow colleagues, attempt this effort?

After joining the firm (or moving into the role of Employment Branding Manager/Director) your first steps should be organized around ascertaining how your firm’s employment brand is perceived by key constituents both inside and outside of your firm. Inside your company you can:

1. Conduct focus groups with employees and employee groups to identify the state of your company’s internal brand and purpose (i.e.  Employee Affinity groups);
2. Conduct a Q&A with new hires at new employee orientations about your “firm’s reputation and image”;
3. Review the Internal organizational surveys which your firms conducts—(this effort calls for building a partnership with your Organizational Development folks);
4. Lastly, you should re-review exit interview results, and possibly, conduct a new survey of former employees about their views on the firm and their reasons for leaving.

This is a critical and necessary step, as the information you gather from all of these sources and groups will be used in developing and testing your firm’s “Employee Value Proposition” (EVP).  Remember your EVP will be used in: offer letters, new hire on-boarding & welcome emails, radio commercials, video commercials, marketing materials (US & Global), toolboxes, external/internal career websites, university campus flyers, table tents, trade booth displays, etc.

Also, let me not forget to mention the very important role that Recruitment Marketing can play in developing and burnishing your local, regional, global and “target segmented” Employer Brand. In the beginning of these first 100 days, you will need to review all of your Recruitment Marketing materials, websites, trade show exhibits, giveaways, trinkets, videos, commercials, slogans, and social media pages and sites. Also make sure that your marketing materials are infused with diversity and lots of diversity images. In some cases, much like your Employment Brand, I recommend that you consider and develop specific marketing materials and sites for specific talent pool/populations and channels you want to impact and nourish.

Your next steps should be establishing and building partnerships with key colleagues and internal Departments which can help you implement, disseminate and communicate the future of your Employment Brand. Some of these key departments are: Organizational Development (previously mentioned) Corporate Communications & Public Affairs (this area was particularly helpful to me at Monsanto in a variety of ways in building an Employment Brand).

Corporate Communication can help employees communicate the Brand Message, Brand Promise and Brand Mantra. And by the way, you should use the Corporate Communication people for help with your “Best Place to Work Awards” application effort, as I did.  Some other departments to also work with are:  the Webmaster for your company’s overall website & the Career website, Graphics Department, Human Resources, Corporate Marketing, etc.

Let me also point out, for a minute, how critical developing a partnership with the Corporate Marketing must be, because of the necessary alignment required for the Employment Brand with the Corporate Brand. In my career, I was extremely fortunate that I joined Monsanto at a time when the overall Corporate Brand was being changed and I served (along with my Manager) on the Marketing Department’s Corporate Brand Positioning team tasked with selecting a new Corporate Brand image and tagline for the biotech Ag Giant— our Employment Brand program benefitted from that work. Lastly, you need the buy in and help of HR Leadership, the Human Resources Generalists and line Managers in implementing, executing and delivering the Employment Brand. 

In addition, another stage in this effort is to periodically measure the effectiveness of the Program for possible tweaks; for example, consult with your Talent Acquisition Department to determine if your firm is attracting (and retaining) the right candidates. Consult with your HRGs to understand how the employees are viewing the firm. Personally talk to employees about their views of the firm; attend the various Town Halls around the company. Ask if your Company’s turnover is decreasing? Find out if your firm is winning (or losing) any “Best Place to Work Awards.”  Meet with your OD people on employee survey results. Talk to College Students and Campus and Faculty personnel about your firm’s Employment image on key Campuses. Monitor Social Media to see what is being said about your firm’s reputation.

You obviously want to measure and report out results. In my Employment Branding Program, I had the following metrics for “ROI” on the Employment Branding Program: 

1. 56% and 54% increases in total completed applications via the career website over a two year period;
2. Increased positive press coverage–in Ag industry publications, St. Louis and mid-west publications and national news outlets, and University and Ag related organizations, associations.
3. Greater employee engagement as measured by internal surveys; & more HR prestige;
4. Increased diversity in number of applicants;
5. Single digit employee turnover.       

And needless to say, your firm’s Employment Brand should be sync up and consistently promoted and optimized through all of your Social Media outlets and channels. Some other things to consider would be to view (and adapt):  your Employment Brand vis-a-vis specific talent pools you are targeting; your Diversity Employment Brand; your University Relations’ Employment Brand, etc.

Your first 100 days in developing/executing an Employment Branding Program from scratch will be exciting and rewarding. The benefits of the Program are critical. In a word, top talent wants to work at top firms. So, a world class Employment Branding Program will not only benefit your Talent Acquisition strategy, but also the firm’s overall financial value to its shareholders.

In your next 100 days, you can focus on creating a Brand Ambassador Program composed of your top performing employees who best represent your Employment Brand and its message. You could also meet with senior HR Leaders and get approval for incorporating (enterprise wide) some elements of the Employment Brand messaging, as it relates to employee behavior, into the performance appraisal process.  Thus outlining and reinforcing the firm’s expectations around the desired brand image it wants its employees to project to customers.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt, MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and former Director of Employment Branding and University of Recruiting at Monsanto. Photo Credit Salon.

For more information on establishing your Employment Branding, read “Positioning Southwest through employee branding” (by Sandra Jeanquart Miles) or my other articles:

• Uphold Your Employer Branding Diversity
• Diversity Employer Branding Initiatives in Europe
• The Integrated Talent Acquisition Strategy
• “Best Places to Work Awards Cultivate” Employer Branding
• Recruiting Strategies to Improve Your Diversity Brand

Recently David Smooke and I were discussing what it means to be a leader in Talent Acquisition, leading me to pen this article, “The Integrated Talent Acquisition Solution.” Broadly speaking, our discussion centered on the strategies I have employed over my 10 plus years (beginning with Lockheed Martin, the worldwide aerospace / defense contractor, through the present day) in which I have built and led several Talent Acquisition departments in such dissimilar industries as: Aerospace, Agriculture/Biotechnology, e-Learning & Mortgage Servicing. For me, it is about creating an “Integrated Talent Acquisition Solution” for the firm, using five key elements for hiring:

1. Diversity (Widening the Net)
2. Employer Branding (Differentiating your Firm)
3. Social Media (Talent Communities & Branding)
4. Cost Effective Sourcing (College Recruiting, Employee Referrals, Job Ads, etc.)
5. Staffing Firms (a much needed Partner sometimes)

Diversity

We all know about the changing demographics (not only in the US but globally) and how diversity can be leveraged and branded to provide a competitive advantage for firms. As I have mentioned in my previous SmartRecruiters blogs, Sodexo and Kaiser Permanente set the standard for employer branding diversity. The global giant Sodexo (a French multinational corporation headquartered in the Paris suburbs) casts a wide talent net. They explicitly consider the fostering of diversity and inclusion not only a moral imperative but also a business necessity and strategy. And at Kaiser Permanente (the integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California), the labor force reflects no racial majority, with nearly 60 percent of the staff comprising “people of color.” They contend that “maintaining industry-leading levels of diversity through deliberate planning, development, and outreach is critical to fulfilling [their] mission [and] sustaining [their] business objectives.”

Employment Branding

It is the second key component of an integrated talent solution; employer branding is both a long term strategy as well as an employee retention strategy. A compelling EVP/Employee Value Proposition (integrated and aligned with your HR offerings, company culture, brand message, brand ambassador program and “Best Place to Work” awards honors), can be very valuable in the hunt and war for top talent. As I did at Monsanto, the global Ag bio-tech giant based in St. Louis, you can position the brand message & EVP for: offer letters, new hire on-boarding & welcome emails, radio commercial, video commercial, marketing materials (US & Global), toolboxes, external/internal career websites, campus flyers, table tents, trade booth displays, etc. You can even “push the envelope” and incorporate elements of employment branding into your performance appraisal system; for example, consider this, why not measure employees on what positive “brand improving activities” they have engaged in over the course of a review period, such as volunteerism work, community good deeds, student tutoring, food kitchen volunteer work, etc.?

At Monsanto, I positioned the employment branding strategy as a long term solution for attracting and retaining top talent, it also helped, by the way, with passive and diverse candidate attraction. The “ROIs” on my Employment Branding Program were: a)  56% and 54% increases in total completed applications via the career website; b.) increased positive press coverage–in industry publications, St. Louis and mid-west publications and national news outlets, and University and related organizations, associations;  c.) greater employee engagement as measured by internal surveys; and more HR prestige; d.) increased Diverse number of applicants; e.) single digit employee turnover. Additionally, we furthered our Employer Brand by winning several key Best Place to Work Awards, most notably the prestigious, Fortune Magazine‘s “100 Best Companies to work for” ® Award.

Social Media

We all know about Social Media. It is without a doubt one of the pre-eminent (and most cost effective) sourcing channels we have seen—up to now. It is all about online engagement with large pools of potential candidates and building “Talent Communities.” Social Media can do that for you. Turning followers and “likes” into employees (and “candidate referrers”) is the name of this game. Social Media allows continuous online engagement. It can reach large pools of potential candidates with the possibility of being able to be able to engage them and build relationships in working toward the ultimate goal of turning them into either new employees or at least turning them into “recruiters” for your firm by spreading your Employment Band message. Recruitment best practices vary with each social media platform, so modify! For example, leverage industry-specific chats on Twitter in order to compile a list of useful niche hashtags to use for your industry on all of your job postings. On Linkedin, participation in group discussions relevant to your industry develops a community of qualified followers.

For Facebook, in addition to marketing your culture on your company Facebook page, I suggest considering establishing a separate Facebook Career/Job page for your firm’s hiring activity; this page can be linked very efficiently to your ATS with the Careers Tab. For this, I recommend SmartRecruiters. SmartRecruiters is the social recruiting platform that makes hiring easy.

Cost Effective Sourcing

Similarly, a University Relations program is a key component of an integrated talent solution.  This program can also be a talent platform for entry-level hires and it can also help to dramatically increase diversity hiring. Additionally, the benefits of college hires are many – ranging from low salary costs to comfort with new technologies onto multi-tasking abilities. For example, when I instituted a robust University Relations effort with Global Reach at Monsanto we had over 238 Interns, 55 Coops, and 25 Entry-level hires which also had Diversity results of: POC 30% & Gender 45%. Many of these Interns and Coops were recommended for re-hire (over 87%) and then converted to full-time hires upon graduation at a conversion rate higher than NACE’s reported rate of 58%; clearly an added benefit with hiring a former College Intern / Coop was that you have a prior performance track record with this new employee (based on several summers’ work experiences).

Another cost effective source of talent are employee referral programs. Clearly, the benefits of a robust employee program have been widely reported (such as: employees who are more productive on the job; employees who have higher retention rates; hiring more quickly than other sources, etc). For example, at Lockheed Martin, I instituted an employee referral program at corporate headquarters during a critical period for some hard-to-fill positions; it led to several good hires. The program offered $2000 for each referral which resulted in a hire and it also provided for an extra $500 referral bonus for the eligible employee making more qualified referrals than any other employee. So this employee referral program (coupled with a robust internal job posting/internal mobility program) helped us fill some positions without the use of Staffing Firms. Additionally, employee morale was boosted as we were able to reward employees with cash in their pockets.

Staffing Firms

The last component is the judicious and limited use of Recruitment Agencies—where appropriate.  Here you should select global agencies through a well defined set of criteria and specific to countries you operate in. A standardize contract is recommended as well as a set of agreed upon requirements. Throughout my career I have rigorously adhered to the maxim (and encouraged my Staffs as well) of filling vacancies at either at the 100% non-fee level or at least no less than a 90% non-fee level– but sometimes under the right circumstances a Staffing firm’s assistance is necessary.

Consider this, when I filled our first marketing Director position in London at Unext.com/Cardin Learning Group, (a tech savvy Chicago eLearning dotcom startup founded by noted Chicago businessman Andrew Rosenfield), I needed the “firepower” and connections of a local London-based firm (with International reach). After flying over to London and “interviewing” several London firms, I selected London’s Michael Page International PLC, a leading British-based recruitment firm. At the time, I strongly encouraged our lead headhunter Mark Houghton to run a diverse search—he did just that, landing us our first high profiled Marketing Director hire that happened to be a female. Similarly, for our vacancy in Asian, we engaged Heidrick & Struggles; here again, we stressed a Diversity hire and we got one.

Obviously, in all of this, you should not forget such effective things as: job boards, leveraging your ATS, mobile recruiting applications, microsites, online referral, job aggregators (Indeed, etc), a RSS feed, a job or news alert feature on your Career page and passive databases and SEO / SEM. In fact, at Lockheed Martin, I coordinated with our Washington, DC ad firm, Bernard Hodes, an innovativeSEO/SEM recruiting campaign for Lockheed’s tax department at corporate headquarters in Bethesda, MD. I worked with our Tax professionals on identifying various key corporate tax phrases and codes—so that once tax professionals conducted tax research on the web, up popped a Lockheed ad for a Tax job! This led to some cost-effective hires.  And, I recommend creating an alumni portal on your company’s website and instituting an outreach effort for high performing ex-employee.

(Don’t Forget Alliances.)

Lastly, you should not overlook the incredible useful sourcing channels built from alliances and partnerships with organizations, associations, and groups. Some of these could include: Women in Technology, Hire Heroes USA, HRC advocates on behalf of LGBT Americans, NBMBAs, NSHMBAs, and AsianMBA.org. And don’t forget about your in-house Employee Networks; at Monsanto I organized a summit of these groups (Women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian) to work toward shared goals and the attraction of new people; these groups helped to augment the unified diversity recruiting strategy for professional hires I devised (which achieved an increase in POC Applicant Flow of over 70% for two consecutive years with hires reaching 24% and 36% of US Professional Hires).

Talent Acquisition Solution

It’s simple, your hiring efforts will be greatly enhanced with an integrated approach to your talent acquisition strategy. By leveraging diversity, employer branding, social media, cost effective sourcing, and staffing firms, your firm will continuously attract the talent it needs to grow.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt, MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies. Photo Credit fauxto_digit.

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent, manage candidates, and make the right hires.

Let’s look at a few distinctive Diversity Employer Brands from some leading-edge companies in Europe. In “Uphold Your Diversity Employer Branding,” we discussed how a diverse employee base represents a larger pool of knowledge, perspective and expertise—thus leading to innovation as well as critical customer and product insights into demographic markets.

Interestingly enough, Diversity Management has taken hold in Europe over the past 10 years.  The European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union, encourages Employers to voluntarily put diversity management more firmly on their strategic business agendas and and has supported various activities in support of this.

In fact, small to medium-sized enterprises (less than 250 employees) have recognized that Diversity Management is important for attracting new business and employees. A unique voluntary solution has arisen to address Diversity—-so-called “Diversity Charters.” These voluntary Charters are initiatives which help firms and public institutions tap into the power of Diversity; these Charters are founded on the principle that Diversity Management is a key performance indicator for companies.

The companies which sign up for a Diversity Charter commit/pledge to:

“promote diversity and equal opportunities in the workplace, regardless of race or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability and/or religion.”

There are currently eight countries where Diversity Charters operate: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

For example, Batisol, a small French tiling and flooring wanted a more diverse workforce. Sensing some friction between workers from very different backgrounds, the Director addressed workplace discrimination by instituting a full day of diversity training designed to address stereotypes and promote the benefits of diversity. The Scandic hotel group (Sweden) successfully worked with the local Diversity Charter and with Disability organizations in Sweden to encourage more disabled groups and individuals to stay at its Hotels.

And, consider the huge German firm, Adidas. Adidas reports to valuing diversity as a “competitive advantage for fostering motivation and ensuring organizational success and stability.” Incidentally, Adidas, is one of the companies that ranked in McKinsey’s top quartile in diversity and performance.

And in the case study, “McKinsey observed that Adidas senior leaders have designated diversity as a strategic goal and started building it into the guts of the organization and the company has set hard targets for increasing the number of women in management ranks (this effort is supported by numerous policies, including gender-balanced recruiting, child care assistance, and flex- and part-time work opportunities.” The case study goes on to state, “There are many reasons companies with more diverse executive teams should outperform their peers: fielding a team of top executives with varied cultural backgrounds and life experiences can broaden a company’s strategic perspective, for example. And relentless competition for the best people should reward organizations that cast their nets beyond traditional talent pools for leadership.”

Another example of European Diversity initiatives can be found at Sodexo. From the company’s website we discover that Sodexo views diversity and inclusion as a key development priority. Sodexo fosters a culture that embraces differences and celebrates unique talents.

And lastly at Coca-Cola, we notice a Company’s global diversity mission and nine business-resource diversity groups that are available to all employees coupled with ongoing diversity training and a Public Issues and Diversity Review Committee (with Board representation).

I believe these 5 diversity employer brands initiatives have a lot to teach us about global Diversity efforts and results. Given that the global workplace and customer markets are becoming more diverse every day, these firms have embraced the benefits deriving from Diversity. And I am particularly encouraged about Diversity efforts in Europe (where I lived for a while), given that the European Commission is encouraging Employers to voluntarily put Diversity Management “more firmly on their strategic business agendas” and is supporting various activities in order to achieve this goal.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt, MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies. Photo Credit KoreanITTimes

SmartRecruiters is the hiring platform with everything you need to source talent, manage candidates, and make the right hires.

• Diverse perspectives lead to innovation
• When properly managed and trained diverse work teams produced results  six-times higher than homogenous teams
• Companies that embrace diversity enhance customer loyalty and problem-solving
• Greater diversity leads to financial growth
• Access to new markets and financial growth

Moreover, a frequently cited US research study by Catalyst6 suggested those Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women on their board of directors experienced better financial performance on average (in terms of return on sales, return on invested capital and return on equity) than those with the lowest representation of women.  Researchers have also found that diverse work teams properly managed and trained produced results that are six-times higher than homogenous teams. Analyzing a statistically significant sample of companies across Europe, Brazil, Russia, India and China, the 2010 Deloitte report showed that “companies with the highest share of women in their senior management teams outperformed those with no women from 2007-2009 by 41% in terms of return on equity (22% vs. 15%) and by 56% in terms of operating results (17% vs. 11%).” I

DiversityInc recently published a list of Top 50 Companies for diversity. There are some commonalities: strong CEO support, resource groups, diversity metrics, and mentoring, multicultural philanthropy, community outreach, D&I as a business driver, training, and supplier diversity.It is worth noting some examples of specifically exceptional practices. I believe the 5 diverse employer brands you can learn the most from are Microsoft, Monsanto, Pfizer, Kaiser Permanente, and Marriot.

For example, led by Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s executive staff is committed to ensuring that diversity and inclusion are a part of everyday business, from acquiring and retaining great talent to serving customers and developing innovative products. They see diversity and inclusion as a long-term business strategy that will help enable the future success of the company.

At Monsanto (formerly owned by Pfizer), where I worked for many years in Global Staffing and diversity Training & Branding, the executive staff (including Hugh Grant, Chm, President and CEO) went through diversity training as did employees (who were trained by fellow employees like myself serving as diversity Trainers). I witnessed firsthand Mr. Grant’s commitment to D&I and his concern for advancing the business case for diversity.

And at Pfizer, a core tenet belief is that having an organization of people with diverse backgrounds (educational, geographic, ethnic, et. al.) and experiences (professional, social, developmental, et. al.) increase the potential for Pfizer to successfully address large and everyday business challenges by leveraging the different perspectives that result from the diversity; Pfizer also believes that Supplier diversity is a strategic business process.

At, Kaiser Permanente, the labor force reflects no racial majority, with nearly 60 percent of the staff comprising people of color and a framework for diversity has been put in place by the Board of Directors which mandated National Diversity Agenda.

And at Marriott, Regional diversity and Inclusion Councils ensure that a diversity strategy is implemented in local markets with strategic partnerships, targeted recruitment campaigns, diversity communications, other outreach to associates and strong supplier diversity efforts.

In closing, with the global workplace and customer markets becoming more diverse every day, business need to create a leading-edge hiring culture that embraces diversity as a business imperative and a strategic part of their on-going operations.

Johnny Torrance-Nesbitt, MBA is an award-winning Global HR professional across several industries and with outstanding successes in Global University Relations, Employment Branding and Global Talent Acquisition, and Diversity Strategies most notably at several leading global Fortune 500 businesses such as Monsanto, Lockheed Martin, and the dot.com start-up, Unext/Cardean University in Chicago and London, England. Photo Credit Sirinomics