The pandemic has changed the world in different ways, making virtual reality an everyday thing. Now, it doesn’t seem odd if you live in one part of the universe and converse with people living in different time zones. You can actually call them your virtual friends and this is real in today’s world.
What it does is it brings out the diversity that even existed earlier but virtual reality is more than a mere settlement now.
Besides socializing, the era brought about the need to unlearn sticking to the older ways of attracting workforce talent in the organization. It changed the meaning of success. Now, you get to recognize diversity as this is the only way to thrive in this competitive world.
Introduction
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) – these terms stand important in any company’s job hunt description if they want to abide by the norms that set today’s company culture apart. These terms mean you must welcome everyone for your workforce regardless of their age, gender, race, culture, experience etc.
This is what this article is about as it’ll highlight what are inclusive job descriptions and will also let you know how to write inclusive job descriptions that ensure you hire the real talent in your organization and continue to attract the same forever.
What Are Inclusive Job Descriptions?
According to Forbes.com, “a well-written job description is one that speaks to diverse applicants while being specific about the skill sets required.”
You need to hire the best candidates and that’s not possible if your application leaves out the best women candidates or anyone else for a manager role, for example – that explicitly states in the job ad that you need a “competitive leader” for this role. This can be biased when the term leader doesn’t just mean being “competitive.” You intentionally or unintentionally narrow down your approach and it reflects your company culture to the future candidates who might only wish to work within an organization where they don’t have to worry about the discrimination factor.
If you wonder whether employees consider a company’s DEI ideology before applying, you can have a look at this survey.
A survey by Glassdoor showed that 76% of applicants consider diverse workplace cultures important before looking for applying to a company. Whereas, 32% won’t go for a job role if it doesn’t offer diversity.
In a survey of 1,100 US employers, 95% reported that they were sure to hire diverse candidates and 86% give credit to the pandemic for enabling them to hire different applicants through various new approaches which surely has an edge in this over-advanced era.
That said it all. We need to change the way we think about the hiring process and whether we are missing out on exceptional talent with our biased approach in the job descriptions. How can we do that?
Simply by ensuring that our approach to hiring is all-inclusive. Below are a few important factors to consider before you write your next job description.
How To Write Inclusive Job Descriptions?
- First, learn about your company’s culture by a survey whether your employees feel belonged and the areas of improvement before putting out the job description.
- Stick to the essential requirements you need for the role. Do not just add different skills which might not be as important in the role or can be learned in the process.
- Leave out using jargon that might make your job description less reachable to the wider applicants as they may not be entirely familiar with the terminology you are using. Do not just assume that they must know everything about the role because this is where the role of learning comes.
- Use impartial language to attract candidates from different backgrounds, genders, races, and ages.
- Use gender-neutral language: avoid terms like “he/she,” “him/her,” and “manpower.” Instead, use terms like “they/them,” “people,” or “employees.”
- Pay attention to pronouns: use gender-neutral pronouns like “they/them” instead of gender-specific pronouns like “he/she.”
- Use neutral terminology: for example, use the term “administrative support” instead of referring to “assistant.”
- Consider other forms of diversity: think not only about gender, but also about other forms of diversity such as race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and age.
What Are The Advantages Of The DEI Culture?
- All the employees get equal opportunities in your company or organization creating healthy competition.
- Your employees feel safe in the workplace which promotes a productive workforce.
- It lets the company include employees’ opinions in the concerns that matter to them which essentially creates a feeling of inclusion.
- This culture allows the employees to present their ideas to the management, taking the organization to a creative height.
Create an inclusive workplace
One way to create an inclusive culture is to have an explicit commitment to diversity from management. This can be communicated through statements, policies, or programs that support diversity. Leaders can also model inclusion by being aware of their own biases and striving to be inclusive in their interactions with others.
Another way to create an inclusive workplace is to conduct diversity and inclusion training for all employees. This can help raise awareness of the importance of inclusion and provide skills for interacting with people from diverse backgrounds.
Finally, it is important to measure progress in creating an inclusive workplace. This can be done through surveys or other feedback mechanisms that measure how employees feel about the work environment. By tracking progress over time, you can ensure that inclusion becomes a core part of the company’s culture.
If you want to know how to include more diversity and equity in your organization or just want to review this, you may want to know how to do the DEI survey. Please click here to learn about this survey.
Conclusion
Creating an unbiased job description isn’t just an advertisement for attracting a talented workforce but it’s an opportunity to work with people of different expertise and creativity which mean you’re open to something incredibly innovative to offer this ever-evolving world. BarRaiser’s Interview Intelligence helps you conduct structured interviews that promote more diverse and inclusive hiring practices. Learn more about conducting inclusive interviews.
