Why Ethnic & Racial Diversity Matter

Ethnic and racial diversity in the workplace is a core value of our partner organizations. Why is diversity really so important?

In all organizations, diversity of experience and backgrounds has proven itself to be a vital success factor. This can be gained through many types of diversity, including racial and ethnic diversity. Diversifying a team's membership increases the range of opinions, ideas and opportunities available in decision-making processes. This, in turn, will improve the quality of those decisions, the ease of new strategy implementation, and the organization's effectiveness in meeting its goals.

Social and human service organizations have are particularly sensitive to ensuring ethnic and racial diversity because so many of these organizations serve a highly diverse constituency. In order to most effectively understand and respond to the needs of their clients and partners, social service organizations know that their staff should be reflective of the communities they serve. Some funding organizations have recognized the importance of these facts and have started to require staff diversity reporting among their grantees.

The social sector needs to continue to improve its workplace diversity, particularly at the senior management level. In order to achieve these goals, Commongood Careers makes several broad recommendations:

(1) Build a hiring pool of diverse talent through constant, year-round outreach to targeted communities and groups, instead of focusing on outreach only for open positions;

(2) Structure your searches so that you can allow a longer hiring window, possibly adding 2-3 months to a search, in order to ensure that every effort has been made to include diverse candidates in the final candidate pool, especially with senior level hires;

(3) Build an internal pipeline of diverse talent by hiring for diversity at lower organizational levels and then ensuring effective retention and career laddering to grow that talent into senior management roles.

Organizations that truly value diversity at all levels have proven to be the most successful at building workplace diversity. Making diversity an organizational priority in all areas, as opposed to focusing on diversity only in recruiting, will make your organization stronger on many levels and will enable you to attract and retain diverse candidates more effectively.

How Entrepreneurs Recruit Talent

A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine reported that the greatest challenge facing entrepreneurial organizations in 2007 is the ability to hire and retain the right people. The article had two particularly effective suggestions for meeting this challenge: 1) soliciting referrals and 2) hiring interns.

We know first-hand the value of employee referrals. Out of all of the searches we've completed in the past year, nearly 50% of placements have come either from the Commongood Careers network or the network of the hiring organization. When we begin any search, we reach out to our professional and personal contacts to explore their interest in a given position or to find out if they know anyone who might be interested. Besides drumming up buzz about a specific position, this strategy also helps us stay in touch with our networks and develop a talent pipeline.

Hiring interns is another effective way for entrepreneurial organizations to build relationships with developing talent. When hiring interns, it's critical to make sure there is a valuable role an intern can play in your organization. Remember, interns are typically looking for meaningful work experience and exposure to the mission-critical aspects of your organizations. A summer of taking lunch orders or shredding paper is not a meaningful internship. Interns are typically bright and ambitious; employ these talented resources wisely and you may be surprised at what they can accomplish.