Expanding organizational diversity through untapped talent pools

Finding Diverse Talent
Introduction
Organizations depend on finding talent in order to keep their operations going in a successful manner. If the talent pool shrinks, organizations may fail to reach objectives. Having access to diverse talent not only increases the chances for an organization to achieve its objectives, it also increases the quality of talent that the organization can draw upon to pursue diverse goals. Diverse options are all around: from employing military veterans to workers of the older generation to applicants with a criminal record, organizations can find considerable talent by diversifying the type of talent pool they have created. This paper will describe how using untapped talent pools such as U.S. military veterans, older workers and candidates with criminal history increases the diversity of the organization; why organizations should embrace return to work programs to enhance diversity; specifically for qualified women who leave their careers or take a temporary break to handle family responsibilities/commitments; and identify the inclusion challenges in creating a culture where all employees feel included, respected, and appreciated.
How Using Untapped Talent Pools Increases Diversity
Using untapped talent pools is a good way to increase an organization’s diversity. Many untapped sources bring with them unique skill sets and experiences that can be instrumental in driving success within an organization. For example, U.S. military veterans are likely to have a keen sense of discipline, field work experience, leadership experience, and appreciation for decision making and following the chain of command. They are likely to be competent, committed, and loyal to their employers. Yet, U.S. military veterans are often overlooked for work because it is believed that they face mental and emotional challenges in readjusting to civilian life (Faurer, Rogers-Brodersen & Bailie, 2014). Faurer et al. (2014) recommend, moreover, that businesses find ways to collaborate with the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) so that veterans can find the opportunities to use their skills in the civilian world and create new job opportunities for themselves. TAP recognizes that military veterans can be a great asset for businesses, and the program is oriented towards linking military veterans with organizational leaders to facilitate the employment of the veterans. By working with TAP, organizations could increase their talent pool and increase their diversity in a positive direction. Faurer et al. (2014) note that “the use of talented facilitators and local HR professionals to co-facilitate the scheduled TAP classes and workshops, encouraging employers to standardize their own job descriptions to better convey job requirements, and enhanced understanding of the skills translators on Military.com as a useful tool could evoke greater participation by soon to be veterans and enhance the program’s effectiveness” (p. 57). Organizations could use TAP to benefit themselves and enhance the diversity of the workplace by using the Military.com portal as a way to tap into this untapped talent pool.
They could also turn to older workers to increase their talent pool. The older generation is still ready and willing to work but they often get passed over because they are not new to the workforce or are not fresh out of college with the latest training. Older workers nonetheless are likely to have a lifetime of experience behind them and the willingness to be committed an loyal to an organization that hires them. Many skills that organizations required from workers can be learned on the job or from some brief training, which means that by looking to hire only young and eager applicants organizations are narrowing and restricting their talent pool from being as inclusive as it could be. Older workers have a lot to offer and the younger generation has a lot that it could learn from the younger generation. Including them in the talent pool is a way for an organization to increase diversity within the workplace. Bringing multiple generations together on one team can further enhance the team’s strategic nature and culture, with young workers matching up with older ones and both learning something beneficial from the other (Moore, Everly & Bauer, 2016).
Organizations could also open up their talent pool to candidates with a criminal history. This is actually a recommended practice and to deny applicants a chance to apply for a job based on their criminal background could be a violation of their civil rights. So it is in the best interest of every organization to give due opportunity to these applicants as well and provide them in their talent pool. Using untapped talent pools like this one can increase diversity within the organization by bringing people together from different backgrounds and experiences and helping them to form lasting bonds that can serve as the backbone of organizational success. It can also help to show that no matter where people are from, how old they are, what mistakes they’ve made, or what role they have played in society, they can contribute to a business in multiple ways, illustrating how effective a strategy rooted in the promotion of diversity can be.
Untapped talent pools are essentially a gold mine of opportunity for organizations. Companies compete with one another for in-demand workers—but so many workers with great qualifications slip under the radar because they do not fall within the conventional framework of what a qualified worker should look like. When Billy Beane took over the Oakland Athletics, who transformed the way baseball organizations thought about hiring players. Beane saw that many players were simply not even being acknowledged because they did not meet certain conventional criteria. Yet what he saw when he looked at players was great substance and skills and potential that could be tapped to turn a bad team into a winning team. Beane’s theory proved correct and the Athletics went on one of the longest win-streaks in sports history. Beane’s methods were in turn implemented by all the other organizations in time and promoted greater inclusion of players who otherwise would have been passed over (Gin, 2018).
Why Organizations Should Embrace Return to Work Programs
Organizations should embrace return to work programs especially for qualified women who have had to leave their careers or take a temporary hiatus to deal with family issues, children, or some other responsibility or commitment. Embracing the return to work program sends a positive signal to the community that the organization is committed to making sure all stakeholders have the support they need to deal with their lives in a good way. It also sends a signal to the talent pool that the organization is an employee-friendly establishment. Employees today are looking for organizations that are going to put their needs first (Wong & Chin, 2016), which means they want to know that they can still come back to a place if they take time off to deal with personal issues for a period of time.
Women especially need that support as they are often tasked with tending to multiple fronts at once—the work front and the domestic front. Sometimes they get called away to deal with issues at one or the other and have to neglect one sphere to deal with the issues that come up at the other sphere. Women should not be penalized for having so many commitments—it is just part of how modern society is organized: women are still expected to juggle both work and families, while men tend to be left mainly with work. Organizations can benefit greatly from having women on the payroll who have been there and done that: they bring with themselves a fresh perspective that can illuminate a room and help a team see things from a woman’s perspective, a mother’s perspective, or a wife’s perspective—which can be particularly helpful when the team is trying to consider how the female consumer might think of a certain idea or product being developed.
The return to work program benefits the organization in other ways as well. It can provide the organization with more stability in the economic sense, as the organization knows it does not have to go out and recruit new workers to fill in the shoes of the departed worker as he or she will be back after a period of time. Thus, it is a way to control the hidden costs associated with turnover; by allowing workers to come back, it cuts down on turnover and increases a company’s ability to invest elsewhere in the company, like in research and development. The return to work program is essentially a proactive way for a company to contain its costs.
It is also a way to stay in contact with departed workers, which can be very helpful when the company regrets having to lose the worker. It can also increase the morale of the workplace, as it keeps opportunities open. It gives workers a better sense of job security and belonging, which is what Maslow hierarchy of needs theory says many people need in order to reach a level of self-actualization: belonging and self-esteem. Dewa, Trojanowski, Joosen and Bonato (2016) also note that return to work programs can be beneficial for workers suffering from stress or some emotional trauma: “Mental illness–related short-term disability (SDIS) episodes are among the most costly types of absenteeism” (p. 177). The return to work program is one way for these costs to be reduced as it provides workers taking a sabbatical for mental health reasons the opportunity of returning when they are better, and it reduces the need of the company to have to find a long-term replacement in need of training and so on.
Best practice recommendations for the return to work program call for a supportive workplace environment: “all the guidelines recognize there are a variety of stakeholders and suggest they should be involved in the RTW process. All refer to the need for a supportive work environment. Based on the recommendations, coordination and planning could involve the worker, manager, and an RTW coordinator” (Dewa et al., 2016, p. 183). By encouraging employees to get involved in the return to work process, the company shows that it is invested in their well-being, concerned about their health, interested in keeping them for the long-term, and willing to alleviate any concerns about whether or not the person will still have a job when he or she looks to come back to work in 3 months, 6 months, or a year from now.
The return to work concept is simply good form for any country, as it is a proven model in the West, where there are a great many expectations among workers that when family issues or needs arise the worker is going to take care of the family first. The organization should see itself as an extension of the family and therefore as another form of support. For that reason, it is recommended that companies be mindful of how important it is for new mothers as well as new fathers to take time away from work to attend to their growing family: indeed, “the transition to parenthood represents an exciting time for many adults” even though it may “also pose challenges for working parents trying to balance this new and important role” (Fisher, Valley, Toppinen-Tanner & Mattingly, 2016, p. 129). Fisher et al. (2016) note that expectations among workers in the West are high for a return to work policy because of “a mix of political, economic, workplace and personal factors,” which leads “the majority of parents return to work following the birth of a child in the Western countries” (p. 129). Companies that understand these expectations and allow themselves to be amenable to them put themselves at the head of the line when it comes for workers to select the companies they most want to work for. When companies put the needs of their employees first, those employees are more likely to show that they want to be committed to the workplace long term. Thus it is in the best interest of the company to provide workers with a return to work incentive.
Inclusion Challenges in Creating a Culture of Inclusivity, Respect and Appreciation
After recruiting a diverse workplace, the organization then has to focus on creating a culture of inclusivity, respect and appreciation. The workplace culture is the bedrock of the organization. It is what supplies the workers with their sense of what is right and wrong, what are accepted practices and what are unacceptable. The culture of the organization is what drives the workers to achieve the goals of the company. It is what maintains their morale, creates positive energy, and increases workers’ likelihood of committing to the company long term. In order for inclusivity to be embraced by the workers, it has to be promoted in the company’s culture. That means managers and leaders have to be ready to lead by example and promote a policy that celebrates diversity and respects inclusivity. To achieve that goal, there will be obstacles to overcome. These challenges can include how to implement changes in the workplace culture regarding the advent of inclusivity policies, how to define new concepts so that the proper respect is shown to all workers, and how to foster a real and empathetic culture where appreciation is shown to one and all by one and all.
One of the biggest challenges currently facing many workplaces is the topic of inclusion and the extent to which companies should be all-inclusive of all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or gender. When it comes to race and ethnicity, these challenges are minor, as the Civil Rights Movement mainly put those issues to rest with the Civil Rights Act. However, new gender identities have emerged over the past few years that make the issue of gender inclusion a bit more complicated, especially for workplaces that are used to promoting conservative values. Conservative workplaces tend to shy away from promoting gender inclusion, particularly for LGBTQ+ persons, who might identify by the gender opposite to the sex with which they were born. This creates issues in the workplace, for example, when it comes time for where such people might use the restroom—in the ladies or in the men’s toilet.
Understanding that these are issues that will have to be addressed in a culture of inclusivity, the organization should take steps to define exactly what is meant by inclusion and how the process of inclusion will be conducted. To address the bathroom issue, for instance, the organization could take concrete steps to have gender neutral bathrooms. At the end of the day, organizations have to be cognizant of what makes their employees comfortable and what their employees will be willing to support. It is never a good idea to implement changes that will meet with a great deal of insurmountable resistance. However, with the right leadership, resistance can be overcome and necessary changes that promote inclusivity can be implemented. Authentic leadership can be especially helpful in these instances (Boekhorst, 2015). It provides workers with the example and guidance they need to embrace new ideas and welcome diversity into the workplace.
By facilitating a culture of inclusivity, respect and appreciation, the workplace can offer workers more of a supportive environment in which all people of all backgrounds are welcome. This promotes genuine positivity in the workplace and can overflow into the community. Companies that are dedicated to improving diversity show that they are aware of the diverse nature of the community in which they are situated and that they want to reflect the real world aspects of their community by opening their doors to one and all. Additionally, by embracing diversity in the workplace, the company improves its chances of landing top-notch talent, as the talent pool expands exponentially the more diverse-oriented the company becomes. A business that is focused on promoting diversity and inclusivity in the workplace culture is one whose reputation will precede it.
Another challenge that might be faced in the workplace regarding inclusivity is the generational challenge. Not all generations are going to respond the same way to diversity in the workplace. Some older generations might resist expectations of tolerance and respect as they are unlikely to be informed on the need for inclusion, respect and appreciation in the workplace. Older generations were brought up under different standards and political correctness was not one of them. For that reason, companies have to be mindful of the values of older generations when they implement their inclusivity policies. The best way to be mindful of what older generations feel is to provide them with training and steps on how to be sensitive to the needs of others. The older generation can learn to be tolerant and accepting of diverse workers with a little guidance from leaders in the workplace.
Donnelly (2015) shows that tensions can emerge in the workplace when diversity issues arise and that these can stem from a lack of understanding or acceptance of inclusivity theories, which come from the human resources management department (HRM): the best solution for this challenge therefore is to manage diversity by building “on the social categories covered by conventional equal opportunities policies to include personal characteristics, with the emphasis placed on positive voluntary action rather than compliance with external legislation” (p. 200).