DEI and Onboarding: 3 Easy Tips to Craft These Strategies Together

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has become a pressing topic for many accounting firms. From developing a mission statement to training your employees to altering your communications, DEI strategies are endless. And they are equally important across your firm.

So how do you get started? How do you change your culture to think more inclusively? One way to begin your strategy is to start thinking about DEI during the onboarding process. At ClearlyRated, we developed DEI committees with different goals and objectives. Our “Hire Better” committee is focused on DEI during the hiring process. Here are three tips that have helped us “hire better” and grow our team.

1. Implicit Bias Training for Employees

DEI training across your firm is crucial to the development of a strong DEI strategy. When it comes to onboarding, we focus on training our interview team specifically on implicit bias. What exactly is implicit bias? According to ClearlyRated’s recent blog post, implicit bias is defined as a natural and universal strategy that our brains have adapted to help us make faster judgment calls in a way that preserves mental energy and keeps us safe. When it comes to DEI, bias can create one way of thinking and limits our exposure and perspective to what’s familiar—i.e. what we’ve experienced before.

There are a variety of training programs designed to eliminate implicit biases. These training programs are designed to expose people to their implicit biases and provide tools that adjust automatic ways of thinking and ultimately eliminate discriminatory thinking. ClearlyRated utilizes a free Microsoft training that is also distributed to all new hires.

2. Blind Hiring Process

Blind or anonymous recruitment allows employees to solely hire on experience. The blind process removes names and any other identifiers from the resume, including contact information, age, gender, race, and photo.

According to Pinpoint, an applicant tracking software, the blind hiring process removes any conscious or unconscious biases and typically results in fairer representation at the interview stage and better hiring outcomes. Here are some reasons why a blind process is important:

• Reduce the risk of bias (conscious or unconscious) in hiring decisions.
• Demonstrate that you take discrimination seriously.
• Diversify your workforce.
• Avoid overlooking great candidates by accident.
• The hiring team can focus on factors critical to successful performance.

Click here for further details on the Pinpoint anonymous screening process.

3. Utilizing Diversity-Specific Job Boards

This may be one of the simplest ways to bring DEI to the forefront during the onboarding process. Begin by posting your open positions on a job board dedicated to helping businesses be more inclusive and open to diversity. According to Diversity Job Board, their goal is to connect qualified minority candidates with the best companies and organizations that will help them achieve their goals. Similar to Diversity Job Board, there are a variety of job sites with a focus on helping minorities and underrepresented ethnic groups. Some of these sites include:

• Diversity.com
  Black and minority talent on all skill levels

• PDN recruits
  Top talent for multiple minority groups

• Black Career Network
  Highly-engaged candidates from the black community

• Hispanic/Latino Professionals Association (HLPA)
  Skilled talent from Hispanic and Latinx community

• WorkplaceDiversity.com
  A wide pool of candidates from a variety of backgrounds

• FairyGodBoss
  Female candidates at all skill levels

Notable Statistics on Hiring a Diverse Team

 By now, I hope you understand the importance of DEI and how crafting your strategy for the onboarding process can and will be impactful to your firm. Still need some convincing? The following numbers may do the trick:

• Gartner predicts that by 2022, 75% of organizations with front-line decision-making teams that have diverse talent and embrace inclusive strategies will exceed financial targets.
• McKinsey & Company reports that companies in the top quartile for gender, racial, and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry medians.

Unsure where your firm stands in their DEI journey? Before focusing on onboarding, take the initial step by talking to your employees. A brief employee survey with identity-based questions can uncover DEI-related concerns and industry benchmarks to help you measure the diversity of your firm’s workforce.