8 tips for hiring and retaining diverse employees
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Retaining a diverse group of employees is not an easy task. It may take a lot of time and effort to achieve this goal. Here are some tips for managers in building a basic action plan toward this goal.TRANSCRIPT
Easy Small Business HR 1
8 Tips for Hiring and Retaining
Diverse Employees
Special Report From: EasySmallBusinessHR.com
Many managers and business owners understand the value of
hiring a diverse group of employees, but aren’t quite sure of the
steps that need to be taken towards reaching their goal of an
inclusive and diverse workforce.
Finding and retaining employees that represent a wide range of
diversity at all levels takes time and commitment. The following 8
tips should help towards developing a plan of action that over time,
will help you to hire and retain staff that are representative of the
community at large.
Finding Diverse Employees
1. Participate with associations or organizations whose primary
focus is to work with underrepresented individuals. Participation
may include attending networking events, sponsoring an
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association initiative, or providing helpful workshops or
information sessions.
2. Take a look at your website and other marketing materials that
represent your company. If these materials
don’t highlight individuals from different backgrounds, you’ll
likely lose many potential candidates who will view the lack of
diversity in your marketing materials to be indicative of the lack of
commitment or interest that your business has for staff that are
different.
3. Reach diverse candidates early in the game by contacting
administrators at high schools or middle schools in areas where the
population is diverse. These types of events are the perfect
opportunity to showcase your company and the type of work that
your employees perform on a daily basis. Students will remember
your company when they are looking for work.
Keeping the Employees That You Have
4. Make sure that you orient all new employees by ensuring that
they are introduced to staff across the organization. Share with
them the often overlooked, but important information on the
mission and culture of the business.
5. Include your new employees in workplace activities and
initiatives as appropriate.
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6. Become more in tune to cultural and communication differences
in the workplace. Research the impact that cultural and
communication differences may have in the workplace.
An excellent article that goes into very interesting detail about
cultural differences in the workplace and how to identify an
overcome them is “Managing a Multicultural Workforce”.
Another great article to read is “Understanding Cultural
Differences in the Workplace”. Although the article specifically
speaks to international business, the advice is very transferable to
the U.S. workforce.
7. Don’t be shy about interviewing all of your employees in order
to get a sense of what they like about the organization, or what
they feel can be done better. As employees leave your company,
meet with them to learn about their experience and use the
information to help you to recruit and retain employees.
8. Provide mentorship opportunities for employees so that they are
exposed to individuals at all levels of the organization.