New Service - Recruitment Inclusivity Audits | Robert Walters

Demands for more diversity in the workplace from employees, shareholders, and other key stakeholders are now a business imperative. Moreover, ethnically and culturally diverse boards are 40% more likely to have higher profits compared to low-diversity boards.

The Robert Walters Group (RWG) found that around 80% of client requests they receive were “how to make their recruitment process more inclusive”. Our research identified that diversity hiring practices were inconsistent in that there almost seemed no point to minimising bias at the hiring stage if job descriptions or the organisation’s career page had job listings unchecked for bias.

Based on these findings, the RWG has curated a highly detailed auditing framework and research-based methodology enabling us to offer our clients a Recruitment Inclusivity Audit Service. This pioneering data-informed hiring Audit removes biases from the entire recruitment process, allowing organisations to create a diverse workplace. In this article, we explain the Recruitment Inclusivity Audit in greater detail, including what it is, why it's important and the benefits to organisations.

What is a Recruitment Inclusivity Audit?

Delivered by RWG Diverse Hiring Practitioners, the inclusivity audit is an end-to-end audit of current recruitment processes in an organisation. This independent audit analyses the impact of current processes using multiple candidate lenses including:

• Gender

• Ethnicity and Heritage

• Disability & Neurodiversity

• LGBTQ+

• Age

• Faith

Why is an Audit important?

The Audit really gives organisations a chance to “hold up a mirror” to their own process to understand where bias exists and to identify whether the way the organisation’s recruitment process helps or hinders an individual candidate.

The Audit also scores an organisation’s recruitment processes for how inclusive they are through each diversity lens (e.g. inclusive for women but less so for those impacted by digital poverty).

Recommendations for action are developed at the end of the Audit through the analysis of between 150 – 290 data points and on academic research and best-in-class case studies from over 100 sources, that identify hidden barriers that unintentionally disadvantage certain communities, and to enable the organisation to re-engineer the way they hire to be more inclusive for all.

One criticism of many diversity initiatives is that they may be well intentioned but are hard to quantify and measure impact. To combat this critique, we designed the Recruitment Inclusivity Audit to focus on actionable, meaningful change, by providing an action list in a tiered or priority format - from quick and immediate recommendations such as job advert guidelines, diversity data language and taxonomy, through to more significant process changes for example, changes to the design of the applicant tracking system.

The Robert Walters Group (RWG) found that around 80% of client requests they receive were “how to make their recruitment process more inclusive”. Our research identified that diversity hiring practices were inconsistent in that there almost seemed no point to minimising bias at the hiring stage if job descriptions or the organisation’s career page had job listings unchecked for bias. Based on these findings, the RWG has curated a highly detailed auditing framework and research-based methodology enabling us to offer our clients a Recruitment Inclusivity Audit Service.

This pioneering data-informed hiring Audit removes biases from the entire recruitment process, allowing organisations to create a diverse workplace. In this article, we explain the Recruitment Inclusivity Audit in greater detail, including what it is, why it's important and the benefits to organisations.

What are the results / benefits from the Audit?

The Recruitment Inclusivity Audit was born out of client demand for a more rigorous, data-led solution to identify processes that unconsciously disadvantage certain communities. An awareness that we were uniquely well-positioned to help provide a solution to. The result is in an industry-leading product which delivers direct value against inclusivity objectives for our clients. Our Audit has been commissioned by Schroders, Legal & General, Nomura, HSBC, AXA, TSB, Linklaters, Tilney Smith & Williamson, NHS Kings, College Hospital Foundation Trust, Aviva, Phoenix Group, GSK, Deutsche Bank, and Ansell since its launch.

What do our clients say?

It’s worth noting that 100% of our clients who have already undertaken this Recruitment Inclusivity Audit have stated they would recommend this to others. To date, we have had around 30 clients, in 9 countries globally who have “held up the mirror” to their own processes to understand where bias exists in their recruitment processes.

Clients we are proud to have partnered with so far:

King's College Hospital
HSBC
AXA
Ansell
TSB
Landsec
London Stock Exchange Group
Linklaters
Aviva
Tilney Smith & Williamson
Schroders
Legal & General
Financial Conduct Authority
Nomura
GSK
Deutshe Bank

Awards and recognition for our Audit

Reuters Responsible Business Awards

Apsco

Personnel Today

The Firm

Contact us for a consultation about how this Audit can support your organisation’s diversity strategies.

Contact Lenka Kellert
Lenka.Kellert@robertwalters.com.nz