By: GABI

Is AI The Answer To Workplace Diversity?

The world as we know it is changing, paradigms and perspectives are shifting in an effort to build a better future. Social justice, minority inclusion, and workplace diversity are some main focus points we’ll continue to see and improve in the coming years in all sectors of modern life.

The recruiting process is also diving deep into this transition, with companies making workplace diversity a priority. This is not happening because of a trend or a simple need to keep up with what’s happening in the world. We have scientific proof that companies with diverse workforce produce 19 more revenues while also closing the gap on inequality.

All of this sounds great and encouraging, but how can this be achieved more efficiently? Considering the human hiring bias, integrating the help of AI for diversity seems to be one way to achieve the much-needed change companies are looking for. Let’s take a closer look at diversity recruiting and how hiring with AI can help your company.

 

What Is Diversity Recruiting?

As the name implies, diversity recruiting refers to a more inclusive recruitment process. The process tries to overcome the hiring bias so people from diverse backgrounds, ethnicity, genders, and a variety of skill sets have a fair chance when competing for a job. Diversity recruiting starts from the first step of the hiring process and continues to the last when the candidate is welcomed into the company as an employee.

That means the job requisition needs to have a clear focus on the types of skills necessary for the position, resumes, and assessments analyzed with the minimum—preferably without—hiring bias. The recruiter should offer the candidate a great interview experience. During the interview, the recruiter should discuss the skill sets that the candidate can bring into the company. They should also figure out together if the workplace culture in the organization is something the candidate would enjoy being a part of.

How Can AI Support Workforce Diversity?

More and more companies are using AI for diversity in the workplace to improve processes like recruitment or to implement algorithms that ease the process of promoting current employees. Hiring with AI gives companies important benefits like innovation, improved performance, and better problem-solving solutions.

A research paper done by IBM shows how improved performance links to workplace diversity achieved by hiring with AI. By helping remove the human biases in the recruitment process, employing the help of AI for diversity seems to be the key. And the more diverse the workforce is, the more varied and valuable are the different perspectives and angles the candidates bring to the table. From diverse knowledge and resources to innovation and creativity, there is no doubt diversity recruiting is an asset for any company.

AI-powered recruiting tools can help recruiters build a diverse workforce. A resume aggregator, for example, helps recruiters search through thousands of resumes for a specific requirement without allowing biases like gender and ethnicity preconceptions to get in the way of the candidate selection process.

Furthermore, AI-powered talent ranking tools simplify the recruiter’s job in searching for the candidates with the top skill sets necessary for the job, analyzing a huge amount of data. The recruiter will get a shortlist of top-ranking candidates, bias-free. This means, for example, that candidates with great talent—that might have been pushed aside due to human biases like their education or gender—will have a chance at an interview.

AI is also making its way into the assessment part of the recruiting process. AI helps develop questions and games that assess the skills and personalities of the candidates, removing the unconscious human bias from the process.

 

Other Considerations for Diversity at Work

Workplace diversity goes beyond benefits like innovation, increased productivity, and performance. By building a diverse workforce, companies contribute to the fight against inequality, a problem our society is struggling, having caused great suffering and damage. Giving a fair chance to those well-equipped for a certain position, but falling short because they’re a minority, is a moral improvement our society needs to embrace.

Diversity at work can help us finally close the gap between genders, with companies giving women leading positions. Like a domino effect, women in power can stand up for other women in the company, abolishing the paycheck inequality and focusing more on meritocracy.

Last but not least, increased diversity can help mitigate the toxic work culture that has roots in marginalizing people based on bias and preconceptions. In time, this will help decrease harassment.

Conclusion

Workplace diversity is the way of the future in recruitment. It brings the company benefits like improved performance and productivity, innovation, and increased creativity while helping candidates have a fair chance in an interview. All this is possible with the help of AI technologies that are becoming more and more accessible.

If you want to build workplace diversity in your company, Gabi Labs is here to help you make it happen. We have a great variety of AI-powered tools that will help your recruiting process become easier and more open to diversity. Get in contact with us, and we’ll show you how.