There has never been a time where organizations have prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace more than today, and many are taking significant, positive steps. With this increased awareness, innovation has abounded. The DE&I tech market has grown significantly, with vendors launching software tools to help leaders mitigate bias, generate diversity reports and insights, and build inclusive practices. This blog will explore how these DEI tech tools can be used to help organizations build a diverse workforce.
Source: RedThread, DEI Tech 2021 Overview
Generate DE&I Reports, Insights, and Analytics
Earlier this year, RedThread reported that many organizations are held back by insufficient insights and analytics when trying to improve DE&I. Workforce analytics and benchmarking-focused tech tools can provide businesses with meaningful reports, data, metrics, and industry benchmarks to inform decision-making, and DE&I best practices.
Workforce analytics tools provide up-to-date snapshots of your workforce diversity ratios to reveal bias-prone processes, diversity gaps, and outliers as they relate to your organization’s hiring funnel, turnover and retention, promotion rates, pay/compensation equality, and more. Additionally, benchmarking tools can evaluate the impact of current DE&I efforts against competitors and market standards, as well as highlight blind spots and opportunities for improvement. Employee survey tools can collect information directly from employees to help businesses understand sentiments surrounding your DE&I efforts and employee inclusion and belonging. These tools can then provide recommendations for improving your DE&I experience based on that data.
Reduce Bias in Talent Acquisition
Another area that businesses and DE&I tech vendors would like to solve is human biases throughout the talent cycle. An abundance of tech tools that can be applied to every stage of the hiring process, starting with candidate sourcing and attraction. For example, job boards designed to reach diverse groups and sourcing platforms with demographic search fields and diversity filters can provide access to underrepresented candidates, aiding recruiters in building diverse and inclusive talent pools. Additionally, tools that identify biased language in job postings and provide suggestions on writing inclusive job descriptions may boost attraction and responses rates amongst diverse candidate groups.
Greenhouse Inclusion employs "nudges" throughout the hiring process to increase awareness of potential bias and to remind recruiters to engage in inclusive efforts.
Other solutions that may interrupt human biases include candidate screening chatbot tools. Humans may be subject to biased screening practices based on the candidate’s demographic information, their education level, or even their name. Conversational chatbots, on the other hand, are programmed to screen out candidates based on job-specific requirements like skill sets, minimum years of experience, and geographic location. As such, chatbot tools can reduce the likelihood that diverse candidates get screened out due to human biases.
At the candidate assessment and selection stage, some DE&I-focused tech tools can conceal demographic information on candidate profiles and resumes before they are delivered to hiring managers. Tools that facilitate anonymous interviews, design structured interviews, generate bias-free interview questions, and administer standardized skills assessments may also mitigate the presence of human bias.
Even if your organization does not have a formal DE&I roadmap, you can leverage workforce analytics and insights to assess the current state of their diversity strategy. This data may reveal diversity gaps within certain components of the talent process, and this may prompt further deployment of DE&I-centric tech tools in those areas. DE&I tech tools can add objectivity and fairness to every step of the talent cycle. That said, their success depends on ongoing commitment and accountability from the organization’s leadership team, periodic review of key metrics to examine outcomes, and a clear understanding of the full benefits and limitations of each tool used. For more information, download our research report, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Modern Workplace.
