Can I Intentionally Hire for Racial Diversity?
If I had a nickel for every time someone suggested that I was breaking employment laws by trying to hire more BIPOC staff members, I’d have a solid $1.25. Maybe more!
I can’t blame people for thinking this. We’ve been inundated with the supposed ideals of color-blindness, warnings against “reverse racism”* and the indignation of people who think they would have gotten that job if only it weren’t for those silly affirmative action types.
*This is not a real thing.
Here’s the thing. You can’t decide you’re only considering BIPOC folks for a particular position—that actually is a violation of employment laws. BUT. Hiring processes and outcomes have overwhelmingly favored white folks for centuries. They have, effectively, said they’re “only considering white folks for this position.” If we can’t combat this with refusing to hire anyone who isn’t BIPOC, what can we do?
We can examine our hiring practices for opportunities to stop effectively favoring white people. Through this process, we’ll see the places where we’ve created roadblocks for BIPOC candidates, made our organization seem unwelcoming, and cultivated homogeneous candidate pools. Let’s get started!
Get rid of requirements that aren’t really requirements. Are you hiring a doctor? Ok, then the medical degree requirement is real. Are you hiring a customer service representative? Then please explain why you are requiring a bachelors degree when what you really need is someone with reasonable maturity, a few months of professional experience, and a customer service orientation. Traditional education and employment systems in the US have been racist for as long as they’ve existed, so requiring that someone came up through those systems gets you some very predictable results.
Stop it with the “must have 2 years experience” for jobs that can be learned and performed with some basic training. If you can teach someone how to do a job within a few months of starting work, they should not need to have years of experience in order to qualify. No (or less) experience required? You’re about to meet a wonderful, diverse group of folks who never would have applied under the old system.
POST THE SALARY. Now. In the initial job posting. Don’t say “call for details” or “salary will be discussed in the interview” and please, for the love of god, don’t say “commensurate with experience.” Let’s break this down.
Why not ask people to wait until the interview? Because people who have not been raised by parents in the dominant (white, white collar, professional/office) culture are automatically disfavored. People who lack the power in the room are disadvantaged in negotiations—or won’t negotiate at all—and this leads to BIPOC folks and those from working class backgrounds to being paid less than their worth.
Why not say “commensurate with experience” if you’re willing to pay more for a few more years in the field? First of all, are you really willing to pay more? I would bet you have a budgeted range for the position, and while you might give $1 more per hour to a slam-dunk winning candidate, you’re not fooling anyone that you’re just totally wide open on the salary. Second, look again at what you are choosing to value here. If you elevate experience in determining salary, you are telling candidates that a) you value years in the field over all the other wonderful (diverse!) things someone can bring to the position and b) you are cool with paying people with traditional backgrounds more than people with non-traditional backgrounds.
Fix your culture. Haha, easier said than done, right? This should really be #1 on the list, because if you’re partnering with a hiring manager who likes the good ol’ boy atmosphere and is just looking for his next protégé, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. You need leadership to be moving the organization toward antiracism; you need management that agrees that racial diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a good thing. But what if you’re not there yet and you need to hire someone? This is your chance! Slow down the process a bit and have a one-on-one session with the hiring manager to discuss diversity goals. Share this post if it’s helpful! Coaching managers individually is one of the most effective ways to make organizational change happen. As HR and/or exec leadership, it’s your job to help them make better choices.
Think about who hears about your job openings. Who knows your company exists? Expanding the community of your organization—your patrons, your employees, your supporters—is a long, slow process, but it’s the ultimate game-changer when it comes to moving toward racial diversity in your employee population. HR can advertise in new places—a Spanish-language newspaper, the Urban League’s job site—but that won’t get you very far if a) no one from those communities has heard of you, b) worse, they’ve heard of you and already don’t trust you because of past behavior or reputation, or c) your organization hasn’t done anything to show communities of color that you want to be an actual partner in the community. If you swoop in every 6 months to try to hire someone so you can at least look like you tried, that’s not going to cut it. Build relationships now, by bringing something to the table when your company doesn’t need anything in return.
These steps will get you started on the path. We still have to talk about the interview process, but we can’t get there without a richly diverse pool of candidates.
Now remember, don’t finally hire a BIPOC applicant and then fail to give them the support, power, and sense of belonging that everyone craves in the workplace. Developing diverse applicant pools and making the hire is just one tiny thread in the fabric of building an antiracist organization. Eventually, your goal is to become a values-based organization. You haven’t checked a box. There is no box to check. Keep up the difficult, tricky, rewarding, awkward, uncomfortable, slow work. It’s worth it.
Readers, any other advice I missed? I don’t know everything! Comment below!
Need some rad HR advice of your own? Submit your question here.
(Also, if you hop on our mailing list, you can grab a free gift—our Four Steps to Core Values guide.)