Why hire for diversity?
Talking with other leaders, I often find a confusion about what “diversity” in hiring means and why it’s worth caring about.
This is my attempt to explain what I’ve learned.
What does diversity mean, in this context?
Diversity is sometimes used as a keyword for “equal numbers of women and men”, but that’s a very narrow definition and misses the point of what you’re trying to achieve.
To be clear, I refer it to as diversity of approach. You’re after a team with a wide variety of different backgrounds and experiences: people of different ages, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, religions, identities, and yes, of different genders.
Why hire for diversity?
I can give you two reasons for starters. The first is based on my values: everyone deserves an equal opportunity at doing something they’re qualified to do.
Depending on your values, that may or may not be convincing for you. So let me give you a reason that’s based on facts.
Diverse teams perform better. A Google search or Google Scholar search will reveal a vast number of studies that show diverse teams are best, as long as people are tolerant to each other’s differences. The Harvard Business Review has a great article summarising the research done in this area.
You’re still hiring the best person for the job.
In fact, in most countries it is illegal to discriminate based upon many of the diversity characteristics I listed above, and that includes so-called “reverse discrimination”.
The problem is that we’ve been too narrowly defining what “best person for the job” is. The best person isn’t always the one who appears to have the closest skill set on the day you interview them.
You want to put together a team that, when they work together, can come up with innovative ideas and implement those ideas. It follows that the wider the range of experiences your team has had, the more likely they are to arrive at the best solution. Research on the subject backs this up.
Hiring another clone to your team adds a bit more raw output to what it can achieve, but it is unlikely to add any new perspectives.
A diverse team is also more representative of your customer base, and can better advocate for them. A bunch of 20-something white guys might be able to write software that caters for the needs of other 20-something white guys, but that’s a huge segment of your target market that you’re ignoring.
If you needed another reason: as jobs become increasingly specialised, it’s more difficult to find the right person for a role. Why cut yourself off from the majority in the pool of great candidates? The companies who are welcoming all types of people get to choose from the biggest selection.
It’s human nature to be bad at hiring diversely.
And the reason is pretty simple:
People who appear to be the same as us make us feel safe.
Most of the people out there with homogeneous teams haven’t done it on purpose. It’s really easy to hire people like yourself. You understand their motivations; you can tell whether they’re going to be a good hire or not by simply using your experience of being you.
What’s more, your networks are most likely to be made up of people who are like you. So if you’re heavily relying on your networks to bring in staff, no wonder you’ve built a team of people who are all very similar.
We all carry around this idea of meritocracy: that we can put together a team based solely upon the merits of the individuals. But at the same time we’re all programmed to find people like us as “normal” and people different to us as “abnormal”. It happens without a thought, and influences our choices even if we don’t mean for it to. We must keep this in mind when we’re selecting people to employ. Am I uncomfortable because they’re really not the right person for the team, or is it because I don’t understand this person yet?
Would you have a beer with them?
I’ve often heard people say they’d only hire someone if they’d like to have a beer with them. In fact, some recruitment processes explicitly include a “post-work beer with the team” step.
While it’s important for your team to be able to work with your new employee, you’re not hiring new mates, and some people don’t or aren’t interested in drinking. Your job is not to put together your ideal social club! You’re hiring someone to be productive in your business.
At some point, I realised I was only hiring people I liked. (It’s so natural to do, it’s not something I even thought about.) I tried hiring people I didn’t feel a social connection with, and it turned out great. They were professionals at their job, and of course when I got to know them better, they turned out to be perfectly nice people. No, I still wouldn’t hang out with them outside of work. But that’s really just fine.
Diversity doesn’t mean accepting all values.
I’m not suggesting you just hire everyone. Your company has a culture, and it’s important to nurture it. At one company I worked for, we explicitly decided to screen for and reject people who were prone to cheating and lying.
Continue to reject candidates who choose to behave badly or who do not have the skills required to interact professionally with the rest of your team. That’s not the kind of diversity you need!
When you think “cultural fit”, think of a jigsaw puzzle.
It goes without saying that if you hire people that have a “perfect cultural fit” with your team, you’re going to end up with zero diversity.
Instead, think of the ways differently-shaped puzzle pieces fit together. Each piece is differently shaped, but they all fit together and form something more interesting than the collection of pieces. Your goal is to grow your culture so everyone can be included, not keep it constrained to a small definition of “fit”.
So how do I go about hiring a diverse team?
Your ability to attract diverse employees greatly depends on how diverse your team currently is. It’s unattractive to join a company where you might be a disrespected minority, and word spreads readily about workplace cultures.
If you’ve got a small team, great. It’s so much easier starting now.
If you’ve already got a big homogeneous team, it’s trickier. Here are my recommendations:
- Start at upper management level. Getting your senior management team diverse is a sign to new employees that you’re serious about it.
- Model appropriate behaviour to your team. Being diverse means everyone being inclusive of all the people in their team. Some behaviour that may have previously been OK in the limited subculture might no longer be. Professionals will adapt as long as they see you do it first.
- Modify your culture to promote respectful communication. The people in the minority need to know they can have a strong voice, that they can call out inappropriate behaviour, and that they’ll be listened to with respect.
As an example, studies clearly show that men spend a lot more time talking than women in meetings, and women will cede the floor to men much more readily than the other way around. Actively seek out and correct for these behaviours. - Explicitly state in your job ads that you are a diverse employer. My initial reaction was that this was a waste of space when my boss suggested we try it, but it was mentioned by a huge number of applicants as a really positive aspect of the advertisement.
- Use a tool like Joblint to scan your job ads. Joblint and its friends are not perfect, but they can highlight areas in your writing that might not appeal to people who are different to you.
- Participate in diversity events in your city. There’s nothing like showing up and saying what your values are to get across the message that you’re ready to accept a diverse range of people.
Yes, moving to a diverse culture is tough work. But I hope when you further look into it that you’ll be convinced it’s the best thing to do for your company. Good luck!
