Best Practices

Hiring Process

Recruitment Costs

Managing Diversity

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What does managing diversity in the hiring process have to do with winning the war for talent?
Top organizations have come to understand and recognize the vital importance of a diverse workforce to achieving long-term success.

The secret of what differentiates good from great organizations-Great organizations demonstrate a sincere and strong commitment toward building a diverse workforce and managing diversity in the hiring process. Great organizations go beyond a sincere and strong commitment to actually developing a component within their recruitment strategy and hiring plan toward formally managing diversity in the hiring process.

What is diversity . . . and why is a representative workforce important?

Diversity in the hiring process focuses on identifying and eliminating barriers to the employment of designated under-represented group members, for example, women, aboriginal people, people with disabilities and visible minorities. Its aim is to achieve and value a workforce that reflects the diverse composition of the larger community.

Best-in-class organizations recognize the importance of proactively examining employment equity and diversity at the beginning of the employment relationship - at the point of attracting and recruiting candidates. If there are obstacles that prevent certain candidate groups from viewing your organization as a desirable place to work, and from applying for employment . . . these obstacles will cause under-representation challenges as you progress through the selection process without the initial diversity in your pool of candidates.

The secret to success? If you start with a candidate pool that represents the diversity of the larger community, your chances of selecting, hiring, training, promoting and retaining a diverse workforce is far greater.

You?ve convinced me . . . how do I get started managing diversity in the hiring process?

Successfully managing diversity in the hiring process is a 4-step process:

• Benchmarking where you are today . . . i.e. implementing a method to measure diversity at all stages of the hiring process;


• Understanding the designated under-represented groups (and availability) and definition of your greater community (provincial/state or national), in order to set meaningful diversity goals for workforce representation;


• Identifying, analyzing and eliminating barriers and obstacles to the employment of designated group members; and


• Ongoing measurement, analysis and monitoring of what is working and what requires further refining.

Representation is about understanding the importance of what barriers may be in place and equitably managing diversity in the hiring process to enhance workplace culture.
Organizations winning the war for talent have discovered:

• Increasing numbers of skilled workers are in designated groups;


• Diversity is an invaluable employee recruitment and retention tool;


• The power of recruitment technology and how it effortlessly tracks and reports on diversity and under-represented groups; and


• The significance in continuing to look for ways to strengthen recruitment strategies that tap into the full potential of an increasingly diverse workforce.

We invite you to visit our Resource Center to access and download the following information related to managing diversity in the hiring process:

• Considerations - Analyzing Diversity in the Hiring Process


• Canadian Fact Sheet on Members of Designated Groups