What are the critical DEIB Questions for Talent Acquisition Teams

With the rapid rise in technology in recent years, recruitment has become an even more arduous task. Now, companies need not only an adept recruitment team but also clear-cut strategies that allow for a healthy work environment. If all the stakeholders are not on the same page, every effort put into improving the recruitment process will be wasted.

One of recent most important recruitment policies has been the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring. The reason behind the rise of DEI hiring is simple: it increases profit and revenue for the company. This is backed by several research such as:

• Mckinesy and Company 2020 report: This report stated that companies which had more diversity at their executive level to be 36 per cent more profitable as compared to their competitors.
• 2019 Credit Suisse Research Institute report: This report stated that companies that had at least one female member on their board of directors were far more profitable than companies with all-male boards.
• 2018 Boston Consulting Group report: This report focused on the managerial position within companies. Their findings showed that teams with diverse managers were generating on average 18 per cent more revenue for their organization.
• 2018 Harvard Business Review report: With rapid technological strides, market adaptability has become essential for companies to survive and thrive in the current market. This is why this report analyzed companies that had either pivoted to a new market or entered it as a way to diversify themselves. The findings were profound, stating that diverse leaderships were 70 per cent likely to enter and thrive in a new segment.

An integral part of DEI hiring is DEIB(Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) questions. These questions are a great way for a company to have internal discussions while creating Diversity and inclusion policies. We must understand that bias is one of the greatest deterrents to a diversity recruitment policy. And since bias can also occur at a subconscious and unconscious level, it is hard to detect. This is why one of the best ways prescribed to counter bias is to first accept that one can be a victim of bias. DEIB questions are a great way for recruiters to discover their biases, which can help them form strategies to counter them.

So, here are some DEIB questions that must be asked and their importance in making the workplace diverse.

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DEIB Questions 

Doing it step-by-step is a great way to use DEIB questions while forming policies. This means there should be different questions for each part, i.e., Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging.

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Diversity 

These sets of questions are targeted specifically to assess how much each employee understands about a company’s diversity aspect. For example, a great question to start such a discussion would be, ‘Do you think your team is diverse?’ This question allows every stakeholder in the recruitment process to express their thoughts. What do you mean by diversity? Is it based on race, color, religion, or sexual orientation?

We must understand that diversity and inclusion cannot be encompassed within a single definition. This is why it is important to establish what a company means by a diverse workplace. Another great diversity question is ‘How often a company hires from a minority or underprivileged group? So, again, the same question? How do you define an underprivileged group? Is it on an economic basis or societal status? One must understand that there can be no perfect way of recruitment, and it is only possible to improve it continuously based on new inputs.

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Recruiters can only decide what DEIB questions to ask in an interview once they have gone through the process themselves. If recruiters themselves don’t know their understanding of diversity, how can they judge an employee on the same issue?

Some examples of diversity questions that interviewers can ask employees during an interview are as follows:

• How effective do you think diversity and inclusion are in improving a company’s work environment?
• Is your diverse cultural background being respected by the company?
• Do you think that diversity has a positive impact on the company?

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 Equity 

Now, we come to the equity part of the DEIB. While it is easy for companies to make DEI guidelines to promote diversity in hiring, ensuring that these employees are treated equally after being hired is much more challenging. For instance, a company can easily increase diversity by conducting DEI hiring. However, what if all the employees were not treated fairly in the workplace after the hiring?

Another example of unfair treatment is pay disparity, which has been continuously highlighted and a contentious topic for years, especially in the corporate world. In addition, many barriers discourage employees from being an integral part of the workforce. So, a company can make all the efforts to promote diversity, but if it doesn’t treat employees equally, it will be reflected in the company’s retention rate and cost of turnover.

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Let’s look at another scenario to understand the equity concept. For example, a company has hired a disabled person to promote diversity. However, if they do not have the required facilities for the disabled person or they are not providing him the opportunities that are available to their peers, it does not bode well for the long term.

Some examples of the equity questions are as follows:

• Are you treated equally in the workplace in the context of being provided opportunities, pay, and career growth?
• Do you think your company has a robust nondiscrimination policy that is enforced across the organization?
• Are people from diverse backgrounds given the same opportunity in the workplace?

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Inclusion 

You can have diverse hiring and try to make policies to treat employees equally. However, doing so without making your employees feel included as a part of the company is bound to fail. Employees not only want to be treated equally but also want to be felt as a part of the group, which is a primary human instinct.

But what does feeling included mean? Well, it could vary from employee to employee, but generally, it means that employees not only want to have a good bond with their peers, juniors, and seniors but also feel included in the day-to-day workings of the organization.

So, what are the ways companies can improve the inclusivity of a company? For example, if a company is conducting a meeting that involves taking some key decisions regarding the company, every stakeholder in the meeting should have the right to express their opinions. Not having an open dialogue can create resentment within the company.

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Recruiters should understand that companies can only grow when they are functioning in a democratic way. It is like an interview debrief where every stakeholder sits after the interview to discuss the performance of the candidates which helps in selecting the best of them. The same should be then applied for the day-to-day workings.

Some questions to be asked to ascertain the inclusivity of the company are as follows:

• Do you feel your company has an environment where you feel comfortable to share your honest opinions?
• Has there ever been an incident where you felt excluded from the company or your team?
• Does the company have policies that ensure the work environment is nondiscriminatory and devoid of bias?

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Belonging 

Belonging may be the final barrier a company must overcome to ensure their workplace is truly diverse. While inclusion is mostly related to day-to-day work and, to some extent, quantifiable, belonging is more psychological and can hardly be ever measured. So, what does belonging mean? It is the sense where employees feel an emotional connection with their teams that may go beyond just the workplace.

Having a sense of belonging also means that employees are relaxed and more open in their opinions, which helps the company have a healthy work environment. As mentioned earlier, it is a basic human instinct to feel accepted as a part of the group.

Belonging helps a company in a lot of ways. Firstly, it keeps the employees motivated which allows them to work to the best of their abilities. This ensures that their efficiency is at an all time high helping the company generate more revenues and in turn more profit. 

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In addition, employees who have a sense of belonging are also bound to also stay at the company for a long time thereby greatly improving the retention rate and reducing the cost of turnover.

While implementing DEIB policies is an important task, it is also important that any future employees hired in the company are based on these guidelines. So, how can companies implement such policies while hiring? This is where BarRaiser comes into play. 

So, what is BarRaiser? It is an Artificial Intelligence interview assistant that helps recruiters in creating a robust interview plan and help in the interview process. So how can companies use BarRaiser to improve their hiring?

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Well at the start we have our Ai interview copilot which allows us to create a questionnaire that is tailored to your needs. Before the interview the recruiter can just type out the requirements required for the job posting.

These instructions usually include the following things:

• The questions for the interview 
• The number of rounds for the interview 
• The duration of the interview 
• The number of parts that the interview must be divided into and their individual durations 
• Must have questions 
• The number of experience required for the job posting 

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During the interview too our tool constantly checks that the process is smooth. So for example, the AI records and transcribes the entire interview. This means that post interviewee the recruiters and the Hiring manager can look at it which eliminates the need to have a physical interview debrief.

Also post interview our AI bot asks the interviewer to rate the candidates on over 45 metrics. We follow this process because we believe that the decision making process should be in the hand of a human and our tool should act as an assistant which is why we describe our tool as an interview assistant.

Using BarRaiser we guarantee you Quality hiring that will also bolster diversity and inclusion. BarRaiser is the best AI Interview platform that features Structured interviews, AI-generated interview notes,  and tools to ensure quality hiring while eliminating biases from the recruitment process. With BarRaiser’s support, you’ll be well-equipped to build a strong team of sales associates who will drive sales and deliver exceptional customer service.