Recruiters have key role in new diversity & inclusion standard
A new British Standards Institute Standard on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), due to be officially launched tomorrow, identifies recruitment agencies as having a key role in improving the UK’s record on D&I in employment by attracting candidates from a wider talent pool.
The new Standard BS 76005:2017 Valuing people through Diversity and Inclusion provides a framework and recommendations for employers, and gives guidance on how companies can look beyond the protected characteristics such gender, race and disability described by the Equality Act 2010.
In a section on candidate search and the shortlisting process, the Standard says that employers should ensure "private recruitment agencies have a clear commitment to diversity and inclusion and are able to demonstrate this in measurable and transparent ways via audit results that show the broadest pool of candidates being attracted and put forward".
The Standard highlights the importance of clients and recruiters working closely together to ensure agencies fully understand roles being advertised, client culture, their commitment to D&I, as well as any priorities they have in tackling under-representation.
Ann McBride, senior lecturer in employment studies at Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, and chair of the committee that developed the new Standard, told Recruiter that it moved the D&I agenda on.
“Historically it has been for HR or the diversity and inclusion person, but this says ‘we have got to go to the heart of what an organisation is to get the best range of skills and the biggest pool, without which you are not going to survive in this competitive environment’.” This called for strong leadership, as well as good HR policies, she added.
Fellow committee member Elizabeth Rickard, who represented the Women’s Engineering Society, told Recruiter the key message for recruiters from the new Standard was that they should no longer look at a role and the kind of individual needed to fill it, but at a person’s capacity to do a role. "Employers shouldn’t assume that because a job had always been done or organised in a certain way this should continue.
“We assume that hours and place of work are part of the role, but when we break it down that is often not the case in the modern world.” For example, she said “through the use of technology, it can be fulfilled in a number of different places in a number of different times if it suits the company and the individual”.
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