Furthering the diversity business case

Yesterday the Globe and Mail ran a story titled Ethnic consumer the goal for new Loblaw president, that is interesting for multiple reasons. The article speaks to the issues, challenges and solutions that Loblaw, as a major retailer faces when it come to the "ethnic" or diversity market.

Loblaw is a TalentOyster employer and was recently named as one of Canada's best diversity employers and it is not a coincidence that a retail organization would be so interested in diversity. In what is perhaps most succinct business case for adding diversity at any level to any organization the article says:

"About 70 per cent of spending growth in the next decade will come from visible minority groups, according [to] CIBC World Markets."

That's a pretty stunning number when you stop and think about it. What are your sales growth projections for the next 10 years? Are you making efforts to reach a diverse audience? If not you can cut those projections right now by two-thirds and that's only if you're lucky! The fact is that diversity isn't just a "nice to have" any more for business, it's now a "must have to survive".

This is the other, I think, compelling reason for why your diversity employment strategy must be strong. (The first reason being actually hiring good candidates which sure does seem like the kind of thing a company looking to be successful would want to do...) A more diverse workforce gives you better access to more diverse markets.

Ironically it's many of the same causes that push diverse candidates aside; comfort with "hidden" cultural references, networks of like minded people and the trust that comes in doing business with "someone like me" that will keep your business from growing in diverse markets. If you don't have representatives from the communities you are trying to reach on your payroll how can you possibly expect to build the same level of branding, trust, communication and user experience with those communities? You simply can't.

"But, this is retail", you say "this won't actually my B2B based business".

Oh really?

Yes it is retail, but let's remember that when it comes to consumer trends, in retail you're either first or dead. In other words retail may be setting the trend but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be closely following. The fact is that the size of diverse markets are growing and as retail operations reflect that it will increase the expectations for everyone about what a company should "look like". A company with a diverse, integrated workforce is clearly, demonstrably reflective of it's interest and commitment to diversity.

Diverse companies are going to seek out and prefer other diverse companies, because they clearly share some core business priorities, values and strategies. You clearly don't want to be the non-diverse company in this landscape and if, as the article shows, major retailers are diving into the diversity space then you need to make sure you are or will be soon.

And that means a real diversity strategy. Not just slapping a picture of a new immigrant and a woman in wheelchair on your website. Not just printing up your brochures in Mandarin Chinese. A real strategy starts internally and it begins with your workforce.

Transparency, Diversity and your Employment Brand

Last week Paul Dodd from Head2Head (a TalentOyster partner) made a thoughtful blog post about trends in employment branding and one of them in particular stood out to me and got me thinking. It was when Paul talked about the need for transparency in a successful employment brand and here is what he had to say on the subject.

"Employment brands are all about trust and credibility, so it's important to be authentic, honest, and transparent. It's okay if you aren't perfect - but pretending you're perfect, or something that you're not, is a good way to turn off potential employees. "

It's good advice but it never is as true as it is when it comes to how you embrace diversity. Good candidates, the ones you want to hire, can tell the difference between a truthful employment brand and one that in the case of diversity is simply about tokenism.

I talked before about how sometimes you need quotas in order to increase the diversity in an organization but if you want your organization to move past tokenism and have an actually diverse workforce quotas aren't enough. Being transparent with your employment brand on where you are now as well as the future you'd like to see can help with this.

Good candidates aren't going to be fooled by a message that says it's about diversity when the organization obviously isn't. By being honest about where you are now you make the candidates believe in the sincerity of your diversity strategy and more likely to join your organization.

After all, in the end good candidates are what it's all about. The diversity advantage we all talk about only comes about when you're actually able to attract all candidates including the best ones.

That means being transparent about your workforce strategy just as you are about any other aspect of your employment brand.

What a Jeopardy Playing Computer means for the Future of Sourcing and Hiring

If you haven't already heard last night a computer program called "Watson" started a three night run as a contestant on Jeopardy. A "thinking" computer that takes just seconds to understand questions and come up with correct responses on a wide variety of topics, does this mean your sourcing department could be replaced by computers sometime in the near future?

The results of the show so far have been mixed but as a software developer myself what is more interesting than how well or poorly the computer does is the demonstration to the general public of the gap between human thought and the "thinking" a computer does. For the computer it's not having access to information that is the problem, it is understanding the question that is the challenge.

It's a problem space that anyone associated with computers and programming is well aware of and it manifests itself in many ways including, the focus of this blog, searching and sourcing candidates for specific roles. It's why in spite of the many promises made of "magic bullet" software solutions that can take over your screening and sourcing these systems have not, and if the amount of computing power behind Watson is any indication, can not deliver.

We all know that while there are many benefits to a large database of candidates in an applicant tracking system it can also be a drawback when it comes to actually identifying the best candidates for specific roles. From a computer science perspective it's a challenge, be able to understand and quantify what a resume says, be able to understand and quantify what kind of candidate you are looking for and then matching the two together.

From the perspective of a user trying to search the system it's an excercise in frustration as we have to spend a lot of time being specific with what we are looking for while still getting mixed results. Mixed meaning that we either aren't finding all the candidates who might be suitable or we are finding too many candidates who aren't actually helpful to our needs. "Innovations" like "boolean searches" (which as an aside aren't really that innovative since they've always been a part of underlying database theory), have helped but there is still a lot of work required on your part to get actually usable search results.

So back to the headline does Watson mean that your ATS will soon be getting smarter then ever? Just drop in a job description and find the actually three best candidates in your system? No need for manual resume screening anymore?

Well. No.

If you have been following along you'll note that Watson took years of effort from multiple people, incredible amounts of hardware, is focused on one specific problem "domain" (aka playing jeopardy) and still is far from perfect. All of which would tend to show that the "holy grail" of fully automating the sourcing and screening process is still quite some time away.

It also seems worth mentioning at this point that all of even this relies solely on hard, quantifiable skills and experience. The realm of the job interview with it's appraisal of soft skills and analysis of how well (or not) a candidate will actually fit in to a role and organization isn't looking replacable for a very long time if ever.

At any rate it would seem that despite the advancements in AI that Watson represents the practical applications for it are still some time away and limited, at least to start, to certain types of problems. This technology or not it is still going to be very difficult for a computer to read and more importantly "understand" exactly what a job description or candidate CV says.

In many ways it's a reminder of how the valuations and assessments of people's skill sets, that we to a degree find easy, really are quite complex. Speaking from a diversity hiring angle it throws a light on the sort of hidden complexity we see all the time. We often talk about the need to make sure you are looking at everyone and it is exactly this sort of hidden complexity where subjective descisions, the kind that make you blind to some candidates, lie.

Some food for thought anyway.