Your diverse workforce starts with recruitment

The South Yorkshire Housing Association (SYHA) employs over 600 people, working to provide nearly 6,000 quality homes and support to over 10,000 individuals in the community or supported housing.

SYHA increased the number of racially and ethnically diverse people hired in just 12 months as a result of introducing the Race Action plan - from a baseline of 3.7% to 22% of new starters.

1. Understand your organisation’s D&I goals

SHYA wanted the workforce to mirror the diverse community they serve. They wanted to address barriers to growing their talent from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

With over 100 managers all making decisions around hiring, they needed a structured system to tackle bias in the recruitment process - ensuring consistency across the business by introducing best practices for inclusive hiring.

2. Consider implementing a race action plan to diversify your workforce

In 2021, the SYHA developed a Race Action Plan. They conducted a deep dive into their workforce and customer diversity data to identify any themes or gaps – then, they set a target to review and design a process that would help an inclusive hiring process across the business.

The SYHA commissioned deep analysis, drawing out the experiences of racially and ethnically diverse colleagues and exploring how deep-rooted racial bias impacted their lives. This insight shaped bespoke solutions for the Race Action Plan.

Having managers with an ability to ask relevant interview questions and assessments is key to sourcing talent and provides a fair and consistent approach. To support this, they introduced a selection of new solutions:

• New standardised rating process, defined by skills, to minimise the risk of bias – from shortlisting candidates to rating interview performance, scores are then averaged.
• A new interview guide which incorporates the behavioural, situational, and strength-based approaches and structured interview principles
• People partners made available to coach recruiting managers throughout the process including the creation and planning of advertising and assessment options
• Learning resources on unconscious bias made available to all managers
• An independent IPM programme to support and audit the interview panels.

3. Use an Independent Panel Member (IPM) Programme’s to remove bias in recruitment

The IPM programme is a targeted initiative that the SYHA implemented to improve the representation of racially and ethnically diverse staff in the business, especially in leadership roles. The aim of the programme is to mitigate bias during the recruitment process, support hiring managers to make decisions based on objective criteria and hire individuals who bring “cultural add” over “cultural fit.”

The programme recruits SYHA employee volunteers with a passion for equality and diversity and in turn, it provides them with experience and developmental opportunities. The programme particularly welcomes individuals from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, as their lived experiences help provide some much-needed diversity on interview panels.

Prior to being a panel member, employees receive comprehensive training on selection and recruitment procedures and practices. Being an IPM panel member gives employees hands-on experience, the option to explore other parts of the organisation and provides the chance to meet new colleagues and develop new professional relationships. It is a platform to have their voice heard and contribute to better recruitment practices in the future.

The SHYA decided to utilise the IPMs to target the lack of diversity in senior roles. Since the programme launched in October 2021, IPMs have participated in the recruitment of all supervisory or management roles.

IPMs have also participated in the recent recruitment of board members, the chair of the board, and finance director. The programme is looking to expand and hopefully support recruitment for all roles across the business, especially in areas of the business with low diversity rates.

4. You can achieve significant outcomes in a short period of time

Since introducing the Race Action Plan, the SHYA have:

• Increased the number of racially and ethnically diverse people appointed to the organisation from a baseline of 3.7% of new starters in the 12 months prior to the Race Action Plan to 22% of new starters over the last 12 months.
• Improved the ratio of diverse candidates in applying for a role vs being offered a role from 27:1 to 9:1, over the last 12 months (the ratio for white British candidates is also 9:1) – a significant achievement in D&I over short period of time.
• Increased the overall percentage of racially and ethnically diverse employees across the workforce from 8.3% to 9.7% (with a target to reach 15%).

The SYHA will continue to review the recruitment process and put actions in place to equalise candidates’ opportunities and attract diverse talent into the organisation – and so can your business.