Working for Her Tomorrow: Inclusive Hiring Strategies

We marked International Women’s Day celebrations with a range of internal initiatives under the theme of ‘Working for Her Tomorrow’ across the region – a celebration of the incredible women leaders in our business while promoting discussion on better addressing internal barriers and fostering allyship.

But what does it mean for organisations to bridge the gap women continue to face today? In this article, we offer a look into how inclusive recruitment initiatives provide an action roadmap that uplifts not just female professionals but a plethora of groups who benefit from processes that are considerate of their needs.

Inclusive Hiring Strategies

At Hays, we know that organisations who wish to maximise their performance face growing competition and shortage when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent and tapping into diverse talent pools. Companies who can show their commitment to fair and inclusive processes and recruitment strategies can increase their attraction and results.

In a recent survey across our Asia markets we found that 92% of female respondents said it was important to them that recruitment processes are inclusive. This was echoed nearly as strongly with 86% of male respondents in agreement.

To show a commitment towards inclusive hiring processes, businesses can look to their recruitment and attraction strategies and ensure these do not present any unseen barriers to women and provide objective platforms to assess all candidates. Some of our top tips are: 

Job Design and Advertising

1. Flexible Job Requirements: Focus only on essential skills and experiences needed for the role rather than rigid qualifications as this can disproportionately exclude women and other underrepresented groups.

2. Job Design: Consider if there is any flexibility with job design – can the role be accommodated on a part-time basis or job share arrangement? Are working hours or travel requirements a necessity or preference? This can widen your talent pool – especially with respect to women who are much more likely to be in part time roles than men.

3. Highlight Inclusive Benefits: Don’t forget to emphasise your employee value proposition and share the benefits you offer that will especially appeal to women, such as parental leave, flexible working hours, menopause or menstrual support, mentoring programs or employee resource groups.

4. Use Gender-Neutral Language: Are your job ads truly inclusive? A Gender Decoder can help you find out. These tools analyse job descriptions to spot gender-biased language, ensuring your advertisements appeal to a diverse range of candidates.

5. Inclusive Statements: Include statements in job postings that explicitly encourage applications from women and other underrepresented groups. These send signals that you are committed towards providing a welcome workspace for such individuals to thrive.

Screening and Assessment

6. Aim for Diverse Interview Panels: Aa gender balanced hiring panel can help to ring in alternative perspectives and balance biases. Candidates who see diverse representation at all levels are more likely to see themselves represented and greater long-term potential with a company.

68% of women and 65% of men thought diverse panels were effective in an inclusive recruitment process.

7. Take a Systems Approach: Bias – conscious and unconscious – is a key reason why talent can miss out on securing a role, despite having relevant skills, experience and qualifications. Use standardised interview questions and consider requesting work samples or other relevant skills-based assessments. Equip managers with a hiring rubric/scoring criteria so that all candidates are assessed fairly. 
72% of men and 65% women felt fixed scoring and assessment metrics are effective in an objective process.

8. Communicate and follow a consistent process: Wwomen are more likely to report being requested to undergo extra stages or steps in an interview process. Research suggests that women are more likely to be asked to prove or demonstrate their competency than male counterparts.
78% of women and 74% of men said they would be more likely to trust a company that followed a consistent process.

9. Prepare interviewers with a focus on Inclusivity: Unconscious bias and inclusivity training has mixed data around its effectiveness with variations according to quality of training, proximity to interviews and level of senior leadership support. However, raising awareness ahead of interviews, through discussions, prompts or training can help to mitigate some of the biases that can affect women and other underserved groups and can elevate interviewer confidence and focus.
58% of women and 63% of men felt that Inclusive Recruitment Training was effective although only 52% of respondents said it was regularly practiced.

Past recruitment to realisation and retention

While recruitment strategies are a great place to start, it’s important to ensure this is supported by an inclusive work environment where all employees have equitable opportunity to progress their careers.

Download our 2024 DE&I Report to learn how inclusive recruitment has benefitted organisations across Asia, and how leaders can foster an inclusive environment that supports recruitment and career advancement in the workplace.

About this author

Susie Barrow (she/her), Senior Manager Diversity Equity and Inclusion Asia, began working with Hays in 2018 and has over 12 years recruitment and inclusive leadership experience. Susie is passionate about enabling people and businesses to achieve maximum results and potential through partnering to develop innovative processes and people-centered ways of working that empowers diverse talent in equitable and inclusive ways.

Connect with Susie on LinkedIn.