Back in April, I ran a live podcast conference on the future of talent acquisition in partnership with the team at TA Tech. We had ten excellent speakers across five topic sessions, and I’m delighted to now be able to bring you the content to you as a series of podcasts. I’m releasing these every Friday for the next few weeks, so if you don’t want to miss them, make sure you have subscribed to the show.
Following on from the Recruitment Marketing and Recruitment Advertising sessions I’ve already published, this week’s episode looks at the role of technology in the future of diversity, equity and inclusion. I was joined in the discussion by two brilliant guests, Trina Hymes, Global VP of Sales at Diversity Sourcing Platform Talenya and Global Communications and Branding Leader Charu Malhotra.
In our conversation, we discussed:
▪ Is the increased focus on DE&I actually making a difference
▪ Common recruiting biases
▪ Starting with inclusion
▪ Sourcing diverse talent
▪ The role of leadership
▪ Agility through technology
▪ How technology can help and how it can’t
▪ Visions for the future
Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.
Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:17]:
Hi everyone and welcome to this special bonus edition of the Recruiting Future podcast. Back in April, I ran a live podcast conference on the future of talent acquisition in partnership with a brilliant team at TA Tech. We had 10 excellent speakers across five topic sessions and I’m delighted to now be able to bring you the content as a series of podcasts. I’m releasing these every Friday for the next few weeks, so if you don’t want to miss them, make sure you’ve subscribed to the show. Following on from the recruitment, marketing and the recruitment advertising sessions that I’ve already published, this week’s episode looks at the role of technology in the future of diversity, equity and inclusion. I was joined in the discussion by two brilliant guests. Trina Hymes, global VP of Sales at diversity sourcing platform Talenya, and global communications and branding leader Charu Malhotra.
Charu Malhotra [00:01:15]:
So, I’m Charu Malhotra, I’m based in London and I work in global employer branding, talent and culture. So I’ve been lucky enough for the last 15 years to work for organizations like McKinsey, Unilever, Ferrero and BP. Always in that sort of lovely intersection of recruitment and culture and branding. So looking forward to this conversation.
Matt Alder [00:01:34]:
Fantastic. And Trina, introduce us and tell us what you do.
Trina Hymes [00:01:38]:
Yes, hello and thank you for inviting me to attend this podcast. And hello Charu. So I am Trina Hymes. I am the global VP of Sales here at Talenya and we are a diversity sourcing platform. We are the premier company in our space that has an AI powered data and behavioral science technology that helps companies top a funnel to increase their diversity talent pool. So I am extremely excited to be here and looking forward to our conversation.
Matt Alder [00:02:06]:
Fantastic stuff. So as ever with all of these conversations, I want to start with a bit of context to frame things. So diversity and inclusion, it’s never been as major talking point as it has been in the last 12 months, but is it actually a major focus? Is anything actually changing? I mean, what are seeing from employers? Charu, do you want to give us your perspective?
Charu Malhotra [00:02:30]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I don’t think you’re incorrect. It has had a much louder focus in the last I think two years than it ever has done. And I think organizations large and small have looked at diversity inclusion probably for the last five years, but with a narrative that’s been primarily focused on external recruitment from sourcing to a branding to the whole kind of employee lifecycle, sorry, candidate lifecycle before they become an employee. I think certainly the last couple of years has been more of an investigative and view on how does the employee think about diversity inclusion? How does it matter, which has been welcomed. But have things changed, which is your question? I don’t believe they have. I think there’s been a lot of noise around it, but I would mirror it to the noise around candidate experience that’s probably being talked about for the last decade. But are we actually seeing any real significant change in diversity inclusion from a leadership perspective and a pipeline perspective? I think the same conversations keep coming up. So I look forward to hearing what Trina’s got to say about it too.
Matt Alder [00:03:35]:
Trina, what’s your take on it?
Trina Hymes [00:03:37]:
Yes, I would say to echo Swaruu’s points, there has been a lot of kind of noise. I think here especially I can speak on behalf of those in the United States due to the specific current occurrence of events that happened actually over a year ago with regard to the death of George Floyd. It did prompt a surgeons of interest, I’ll say, and diversity and inclusion in the workforce. So I have seen kind of on a small scale, where the Fortune 500, for example, list this year will include the diversity inclusion rankings, which I’m very interested to see, as well as the sec public companies here are having to report on talent, which includes diversity, mobility, turnover and recruitment. So I think there’s some baby steps that are being made. There’s some strides that are seeking to help companies be accountable. But again, I think there are definitely baby steps that are being taken.
Matt Alder [00:04:34]:
Trina, I’m going to sort of stick with you to answer this question, this question first, which is one about bias and particularly bias in recruiting. What are the sort of common key biases that you kind of see in recruiting?
Trina Hymes [00:04:47]:
Yes, so I think the most common biases are obviously photos, right? So they’re looking for either likability or attractiveness or something coupled with maybe the name of the person which might denote their ethnicity or their origin of where they may have been born, as well as names, which is also another opportunity to try to actually gauge where they may come from. And I think those are the top ones that we’re seeing across the board.
Matt Alder [00:05:17]:
And Chari, what are your thoughts in terms of the bias that we’re seeing in recruiting or the biases that we see in the recruiting process?
Charu Malhotra [00:05:24]:
Yeah, I think the ones that you’ve labeled Trina, I’d agree with. I think the last 12 months from a Pandemic perspective, there’s been an added layer of bias. I’ve always worked globally, so it might be based in London, but my stakeholders and my world has been very much global. And I think this whole. Because we’re working from home or predominantly working from home, for the last 12 months, there’s been an additional bias that has been brought to the forefront. You can tell and have a lens into how someone lives much more than you were when you were in the office, when you were coming to the office, all suited and booted, if you will. And I think that from things like bandwidth issues when you’re talking to somebody that perhaps in a country where it hasn’t got strong bandwidth and therefore interviews need to be rearranged more than once to how their office set up is set up. Indeed. Do they have an office? I think those kind of biases, which we perhaps wouldn’t have even talked about five years ago, are becoming more and more prominent. And I think how we then face up to those as talent leaders and technology partners makes for an interesting conversation and a really important one too, as we think about the hybrid model that a lot of forward thinking organizations are talking about and deploying in the next of six months.
Matt Alder [00:06:39]:
Yeah, I mean, I think that’s, that’s such an interesting point in terms of there are camera lenses pointing into, into everyone’s, into everyone’s house now. So the levels of assumptions and bias and perceptions that people can have are sort of massively, massively amplified. Going to sort of stick, stick with recruiting just for, just for a second and Jaro. I’ll stick, I’ll stick with you. What, what are you seeing from the companies that you’ve been working for in terms of how they’ve been trying to find more diverse talent at that talent acquisition stage and what’s been working, what’s, what’s not been working.
Charu Malhotra [00:07:14]:
Sure. So I think there’s been a lot of focus on attraction, as I said. So my heart always sits with branding because that’s where I spent most of my career. And I think a lot of work’s already been done on by the organizations that get this around the words and the language we use in our comm. So be that on our job adverts, be that on how we think about web copy and in the way that we showcase our employees. So, you know, visual imagery and visual language, those type of things, I think we’ve taken more than baby steps on, which is only but a positive, I think what’s being done really well. So people like Ey, IBM Unilever, I would call out. They’ve been piloting small initiatives that have helped, you know, things around neurodiversity, thinking about social mobility. I think Deloitte have done some really fantastic work around social mobility. So the recruitment lens of not just thinking about this as an attraction piece has been a really positive point. And I think for me when I think about what does good recruitment look like, it’s, it’s having organizations being brave enough to pilot something in the DNI space to help DNI recruitment but then actually go well this isn’t working and stop it. I think when it goes, when people invest too much, whether that’s dollars or sponsorship, it becomes really hard to backtrack. So versus safe space in recruitment, I think it’s brave space. Let’s pilot something. Is it working? Is it getting tangible results? Because it’s around measuring what’s the impact of this, is it working? And if it’s not, let’s try something else. I think some of the organizations I’ve mentioned have done a really good job doing some small scale pilots which then they can now make much more scalable.
Matt Alder [00:08:58]:
Charu’s very much got a brand focus and Trina, I know you’ve got very much got a sourcing focus in terms of what you do. So give us your perspective in terms of what companies are trying to do to source more diverse talent and what’s working, what’s not working, what do they need to think about?
Trina Hymes [00:09:15]:
Yes, sure. So I think that what they’re continuing to do is look at solutions and tools. I think that they have kind of realized that they need to invoke some technology to be successful. Right. So some of the things I’ve seen that have been non technical are, you know, partnerships with various colleges and universities, HBCUs for example, or partnerships with specific ally groups based on ethnicity or gender. So joining and becoming advocates and a part of specific groups, organizations that may be women in leadership, for example. I’ve seen an uptick personally and companies reaching out to me, asking me for similar colleagues that are probably women of color for roles they have open as well. At the end of the day, if you’re looking to source a large quantity of job opportunities across the spectrum of professional roles, you’re going to need to invoke some technology. So I think companies are, are kind of moving. Obviously they’re using some LinkedIn and even those companies are realizing that may not be enough and they’re looking to kind of really develop their tech stack if you will. Within the recruitment technology space.
Matt Alder [00:10:24]:
Absolutely. And I’m going to come back to that in a second because I think the technology conversation is a very interesting part of this debate. But I don’t really feel we can go any further in a conversation about diversity without first talking about inclusion. And I know, Charu, you’re actually on the podcast a few, I think it was a few months ago, it may have been a year ago. I’m not sure. My, my brain doesn’t, isn’t very good at remembering exactly when I had my episodes. But we were talking about inclusion, Inclusion there. So, I mean, give us, give us your views on once you’ve created a diverse workforce or you’re seeking to create a device workforce, how do you ensure inclusion? How do you ensure that people feel welcome and stay with the business?
Charu Malhotra [00:11:04]:
Sure. So I firmly believe, and I’ve been saying this seven or eight years now, that you start with the inclusion, you start, don’t start with the divers. So I think until you have an organization that has a culture where people can feel that if they want to be able to bring their full selves to work, they can. And I say that slightly differently to how I said it a year ago, because I’ve been doing a lot more reading around this in terms of the dictat around, bringing your whole self to work has got its own kind of implications to it. So I think building an inclusive culture where people are welcomed, where people can thrive, but also that an organization has forensically looked at processes and protocols that are keeping unrepresentative groups back is the first step before you start thinking about diversity recruitment. And I think what’s really interesting, certainly in the last five years, the first step organizations seem to take when they think about, oh gosh, I need to look at Adi because my competitors are, or it’s become important, is let me go and hire a diversity recruiter, let me go and hire a diversity consultant, let me go and hire a head DNI that often sits to reports to hr. So I think the inclusive culture and the equity that is looking at processing controls, looking at the culture, dismantling, where there are biases is the first step. And then you look at diversity recruitment and I don’t think I actually answered your question, but that was important for me to say it’s about diversity.
Matt Alder [00:12:37]:
No, absolutely. But just I suppose just to dig in a tiny bit deeper to that, what’s the, what’s the role of leadership in this? You sort of mentioned that. And I’ve seen this with countless employers employing diversity Recruiters or having a head of DNI who is part of the HR team. What’s the role of leadership within the organization in terms of building inclusive, inclusive workplaces? And are any companies getting that right?
Charu Malhotra [00:13:03]:
Yes, and thank you for the question because I love it. So our company’s doing it. Well, I’ll talk to that in a second. But the role of leadership is really fundamental. You can’t do this in organisation without it being role model from the top, for it not being something that is not just seen as important, but also accountable and measured, not vanity metrics, because that’s really easy just to look at the front end and the top of the funnel, but actually looking at everything internally. Where are people leaving? Why are they leaving? How are they leaving? So I think it’s key. It requires leaders to be accountable. It requires leaders to role model their behaviors and take themselves sometimes into an uncomfortable space. I’ve just done a project at seven, eight months at a tech organization where the entire board were white male Americans, bar one leader. That was hr. And actually in my first week, because I was brought in to look at branding and inclusion, I pointed this out and said, you know, what are we doing about this? And I was told that’s for, that’s for later on in the day. So it requires people to feel that their leaders aren’t just saying this. It’s not just a initiative and DNI is an initiative, but as I said, accountable make movable changes, role model behavior. And then something that Adam Grant shared yesterday in a podcast I was listening to, which thought was really interesting, DNI and the values of business has, isn’t just around, you know, painted on the walls or on a wonderful manifest or on a website. It’s the behaviors that are tolerated. So I think it’s role modeling is really important. If we’re saying bringing in women of color, if we’re saying bringing in poorly represented minorities in the organization, it, it matters in every single team and every single function. And how then that is then communicated externally and internally is something that leadership need to take hold of and not just see it as a 2021 program or kind of goal.
Matt Alder [00:15:03]:
Absolutely. And Trina, I suppose the same set of questions to you because they’re kind of, they’re sort of slightly stacked up there. So to kind of go back to the original question, if you want to create a diverse workforce, you have to ensure inclusion. What’s your sort of take on that? What are you saying?
Trina Hymes [00:15:18]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I definitely think, I wholeheartedly agree with Tarou that it does start at the top. It has to start at the top because if not, then no one will actually follow it. I think you need to have clear, executable actions and checkpoints so that we don’t go a whole year and realize in December that we’ve not hit these mile marks. I think when I think of inclusion, I think of that I can come to work and be my authentic self. Right. I don’t have to make excuses for why is my hair so curlier or any of these oddities that people tend to look at. I think that everyone simply wants to be able to fit in. And by that I mean have their own voice, march their own beat, not have to fit into a mold. That may be coming from a corporate perspective. And that leadership top down has specific benchmarks and that again, at all levels you’re able to see a representation of all people. And when you look at processes specifically, even starting with the actual job description, that is where it actually starts. That the job description is written in a way that is unbiased and that everyone would gravitate toward as well as performance reviews. So all the documentation and processes along the way within an organization need to be on parents with the whole mode of being an inclusive workforce because it all works together.
Matt Alder [00:16:39]:
Absolutely. And I want to sort of dig a bit deeper into, into technology now and maybe kind of approach this question from a, from a couple of different angles. So, Trina, you work for a technology, a technology company, and I’d be really interested to kind of hearing more about what you do, more about how you help what you’re seeing. Going to Charu first, just to ask a kind of a more general question about technology. Chari, what’s your view in terms of the role that technology can play in increasing diversity in the workspace?
Charu Malhotra [00:17:13]:
So I think technology is a bit like data. We shouldn’t be enthralled to it. We should use it and allow it to enable us to kind of solve the problems that we’ve identified. So I think where I love technology and where I’ve implemented it in all my organizations is part of the tech stack where we’ve decided and defined what is the problem statement we’re trying to solve. Where technology ends up trying to solve everything or is seen as a silver bullet. You know, I brought in X technology, therefore everything is solved in that space is where it goes horribly wrong. Because like data, if you use it badly or if you don’t implement it well or it’s not understood, it doesn’t do a great job. So I think technology is a massive positive. I’m a fan of many organizations that I personally implemented and see the work they do. But I think it very much depends on what’s the problem statement. And that’s something that organizations need to define themselves, not just think oh so and so is using X. Let me bring that in too because every organization’s problems are going to have a different nuance to them and are going to be slightly different. So big fan of some of the organizations out there, but I’m also a massive advocate for doing small scale pilots and I think that’s because, not because I’m risk averse, but I think this is too important a topic to let a big implementation fail and then everyone thinks, oh well, we should just leave the whole D and I space. So I think it’s defining the problem, implementing it well and then tracking the results.
Matt Alder [00:18:45]:
So Trina, you, you work for a technology company that’s in this space and sort of yesterday I was learning more about the technology that you have and what you do and I think there’s some, there’s some fascinating things underlying that. So give us your, I suppose firstly give us your perspective in terms of what technology’s role is in solving this kind of issue, but also tell us more about what your system does.
Trina Hymes [00:19:10]:
Yes. So first of all, technology cannot be everything to everyone. So I wholeheartedly agree. And I think at Selenium, what we have done is we are focused specifically on diversity sourcing. So while our technology can be used to source a plethora of candidates across the spectrum, our bread and butter. The challenge, the problem that we solve is specifically regarded and related to diversity sourcing. So we’re looking at companies that have specific benchmarks, measurements, specific directives that are coming probably from the top to help them meet and exceed those goals. We’re using our technology, which is AI powered. It is data and behavioral science coupled with a lot of complex algorithms and data points to really uncover and find talent. Diverse talent that most companies and recruiters and sourcers cannot find, using some popular tools and, or job boards and websites to find candidates. Right. So we know that it’s more than that. We’re able to actually find candidates that have a digital footprint. So our database currently tops 1 billion in number. So if you are on social media, if you’re on, indeed, if you’re on LinkedIn, if you’re in, in GitHub or Stack Overflow, any of those very popular sites, and more in this small thing called Google, we’re able to actually get your digital footprint and provide a diverse talent pool top of funnel for candidates to not necessarily give anyone preferential treatment, but to really just even the playing field across talent actually qualified and targeted and prioritized by their merits. So our solution doesn’t just not only give you these additional candidates that you’re not finding, but we’re able to actually use our algorithms and give you a prioritized targeted list with a match score of the candidates that you can then browse, not looking at images, not looking at photos, not looking at their names to simply go off of their merit to find qualified talent.
Matt Alder [00:21:20]:
I think what’s interesting there in relation to the wider conversation is you’re using kind of AI to really solve an issue with recruiters being able to find and identify diverse talent in all the places that they would look. And I wonder whether some of that issue is caused by the platforms themselves, but also some of it is caused by the biases that the recruiters themselves have. And I think this is just a really interesting application of technology at one part of the funnel, basically.
Trina Hymes [00:21:53]:
Absolutely, absolutely. And we’re seeing, you know, sometimes recruiters or sources are also looking at, you know, specific colleges or universities. Right. So maybe they only want Ivy League or they only want candidates from certain universities as well. So there are a lot of biases that are. Our solution will help cover and ensure that these, you know, unconscious biases are not utilized to actually find candidates while also ensuring a diverse talent pool, again based on merit, because that’s very important. I don’t want anyone to leave our conversation thinking that in order to get a diverse talent pool, you need to lessen or weaken the skill sets of candidates. It’s absolutely not true. There’s just, you know, candidates that we find that we can find worldwide that most companies simply cannot. And using one or two popular tools is simply not going to be enough to help them achieve their specific goals and to ensure that they diversify the workforce.
Matt Alder [00:22:49]:
Charu, coming back to you, that’s a real sort of, I suppose, almost a process bias that recruiters have in terms of where they look and how they find talent. What’s your perspective on that?
Charu Malhotra [00:22:59]:
Yeah, I think it’s a bias, but also to be, you know, have to give credit to recruiters. A lot of them are bogged down by too many requisitions. Often they’re doing admin rather than, you know, just 100% sourcing. So any technology that can help them bring to their hiring managers a slate of candidates that they wouldn’t have seen before is only but a positive. And I think, you know, to sort of point technology can enable that. What it can’t help us do though is the kind of the hiring manager bias. So I think that’s what I say. They have to go hand in hand. But I think bringing two recruiters and hiring managers divert candidates that aren’t perhaps tapped naturally on the tools that you’ve just mentioned is any better positive. And I think there’s something around speed as well because we’ve all met those hiring managers, I’ve lived my life with them where it’s like, yeah, I want the best person there are and I know that we’ve got a target to bring more women into our industry, but I need that job filled in three weeks. So, you know, I’ll just tap into my network and then where you then have the network which is, you know, a very homogenous population. So I think a technology that can bring speed and agility so the hiring manager understands that yes, we’ve got the best people for the job. And actually it’s newer people, different people is but a positive because hiring managers, however vested they are in the diversity targets and the good ones are they ultimately want to fill that sales job. They ultimately want to fill that headcount as quickly as possible. So I think it’s that the agility that some of the technology brings to recruiters is really positive.
Matt Alder [00:24:30]:
That makes perfect sense. And again, this is a conversation I’d love to carry on for the next half an hour because I think there’s some fascinating things here here that it would be great to dig, dig deeper into. But we, we’re coming up to the sort of the end of our time. So I want to sort of ask a last question and I’ll ask this to, to Trina first so very much this event is sort of focused on the future. Looking at where we might be in a year or sort of two. Two years time. What, what vision do you think we should have of the future as an industry when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion?
Trina Hymes [00:25:03]:
I think that we’re going to definitely have to embrace even more technology. I think it is going to Charu’s point, expedite the process for sources and recruiters who do have a very challenging role. It is going to expedite and save them lots of time, provide them those quality candidates in that one week, two week, three week time frame. I see it just becoming just really exploding. I think we are just scratching the surface of what it will be. I think the Use of images and facial recognition is going to, I think it’s going to probably disappear because it’s so discriminatory. And I think there’s so many people that are crying out about this specific use of images and photos. I think we’ll see less of that and more really, you know, zero use of photos, zero use of names, maybe even zero use of colleges and universities. I think it’s just going to be we’re going to see more of an even playing field utilizing technology and removing even more of those unconscious bias at the recruiter, sourcer, hiring manager and corporate level.
Matt Alder [00:26:04]:
Chari, same question to you. What vision of the future should we have as an industry?
Charu Malhotra [00:26:09]:
So I think two things. I think first of all, as an industry, I would hope that rather than having this throw as much spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks approach to D and I, we have a playbook of recruitment. The industry has a cohesive way of looking at things that got agility but have been proven and are measured. So it’s much more a playbook approach versus just a myriad of difference of options. And I think the second point is thinking about technology and enablement is absolutely key because I think that will help us in exploring different types of technologies, but also not losing that a lot of the technology and the fact that we’re working more remotely can bring also some discrimination. So There was a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey released this morning that talked about 50% of employees that were surveyed experienced some kind of discrimination because they were working from home around accessing career mobility and training. So I think we, the conversation and the vision of technology and our industry should also be a deeper one and not just a surface level. You know, it’s a force for good. Absolutely. But like the images point that you made, Trina, I think we’ve all seen the Netflix documentary around how negative it can be to think about the way that imagery is used and so data is used. So I think the second point, as I said, our industry needs to look at things not just on the surface level, which is, I think, where some of us are playing, but also as a force for good. Where are the. Where can we mitigate risks? Because there are risks, but I think ultimately it’s a massive positive. It will help optimize and reach out to candidates in a much more effective way.
Matt Alder [00:27:40]:
So, yeah, thank you both so much for your, your time and your insights. That was an absolutely fascinating conversation. I’m going to ask you to turn your cameras and your mics off and, and I am once more. Going to invite Peter back to the Zoom stage for the next bit and I’ll see you after the break.
Matt Alder [00:27:58]:
My thanks to Trina Charu and everyone at TA Tech. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes@recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show.
Matt Alder [00:28:28]:
Thanks very much for listening.
Matt Alder [00:28:30]:
I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
