Building Your Winning Workforce Through Diversity and Inclusion
This session looked at how diversity and inclusion can strengthen hiring, development and day-to-day management, from widening talent pools to tackling bias and microaggressions. James Marsh of HRreview hosted Chinor Lee, Associate Director of Culture, Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity at iCIMS, and Amber Brown, Product Solutions Manager at iCIMS.
Chinor Lee, Associate Director of Culture, Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity, iCIMS; Amber Brown, Product Solutions Manager, iCIMS. Hosted by James Marsh, HRreview.
Key takeaways
Stop fishing in the same ponds for candidates
Lee described a tech recruiter who hired from only four universities, none of which had many Black, Latino or female students, and then wondered why the shortlist lacked diversity. Lee also pointed out that a 20-mile hiring radius around headquarters would have ruled Lee out, at 25 miles away. Lee's advice is to move recruitment from filtering people out to filtering the most qualified people in.
Treat equity as giving people what they need, not giving everyone the same
Lee uses an image of five people of different heights and abilities, one using a wheelchair, all given the same bike, which fits only one of them. People outside the majority often have less social capital, so Lee looks for mentoring, sponsorship and coaching, as well as training, to level the field. Lee also suggests hiring diverse talent into middle and senior roles, not only at entry level.
Audit pay, promotions and exits for hidden gaps
Lee noted that managers control pay, plum projects and promotions through everyday decisions, where bias can creep in. Organisations doing this well check whether everyone in a pay band is paid fairly. They also ask whether people outside the majority are rated more harshly in performance reviews or let go more often.
Accept that everyone has bias, then build in checks
Lee compared it to refereeing a children's match your own child is playing in: you will favour your child, but you still have to referee fairly. Bias does not make you a bad person. The risk comes from denying it. Brown said bias training for interviewers is only table stakes: keep interview questions structured and consistent, make panels diverse, and track over time how the make-up of the panel relates to who gets hired.
Respond to the impact of a remark, not its intent
Lee said microaggressions are often unintentional but rarely small, and the usual reaction when challenged is to get defensive. If you step on someone's toe by accident, it still hurts and you still apologise. Lee gave the example of being told that Lee was very articulate. Teams need to feel safe to say how a comment landed, and the focus should be on the impact.
Make your commitment visible to the communities you want to reach
Lee suggested asking under-represented local communities how they see you, because they may not know what you are doing. Brown recommended building relationships with local affinity groups and using employee resource groups to show candidates there is a place for them. Brown also advised publishing your representation data, gaps included, with a plan to improve. In customer interviews by iCIMS, UK employers that explained why they asked for diversity data, and offered fuller answer options, saw strong opt-in rates.
The closing Q&A is worth the time, especially the answers on including neurodiverse candidates and on how to engage local communities that are not applying.
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