Over the last few months during conversations with several recruiters, hiring managers, business owners, heads of talent acquisition, and HR leaders in Australia, the USA and the UK, the topic of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) has come up.
Given the importance of Diversity and Inclusion in workplaces today and the frequency with which D&I has been coming up in conversations, I decided to host a special Q&A forum for our international recruiter community.
I invited Natalie Goldman, CEO of FlexCareers, to join me and to share her wealth of knowledge and expertise on this important topic. Natalie is also an Ambassador for Flexible Work Day; Head of Strategy and Partnerships at Women as Entrepreneurs; and a Board Member for the Womens Indigenous Network.
The main focus of the Q&A forum was the role that recruiters can play in D&I.
Prior to our conversation, I had also given our recruiter community the opportunity to send questions through for Natalie to address during the Q&A.
Some of the questions included:
- What exactly does Diversity and Inclusion mean?
- Is there a role recruiters can play in diversity hiring?
- How are business leaders helping to embrace flexibility in the workplace?
- What does it mean to build a company culture around diversity, inclusion and flexibility?
- How can unconscious bias impact the recruitment process?
- What can recruiters do to promote flexibility?
- How do you raise the subject of D&I with a client?
- What role can D&I play in the candidate experience?
- How can employers make their job descriptions more “diverse and inclusive”?
- Will the trend of “quotas” being implemented by some of Europe’s largest companies spread further afield?
Natalie answered many of these questions as well as several others that came up during our conversation. Earlier that morning Natalie had been hosting a round table event attended by the D&I leaders with some of Australia’s most prominent blue chip organisations so she had several case studies and scenarios that were literally hot off the press.
The key message coming out of our conversation was that recruiters absolutely play a key role in D&I both from the perspective of educating hiring managers on the client side, as well as ensuring that the candidate experience is free from discrimination and unconscious bias.
I hope you enjoy watching the recording of our recent Q&A forum.
If you have any general questions feel free to share them here. We’d love to keep the D&I conversation going.
Author
Paul Slezak
With over two decades of experience in the recruitment and human capital industry, Paul Slezak has established himself as a transformative force in the realm of leadership and career coaching, group facilitation, and talent acquisition. His unique perspective, drawn from his early career as a leader in global recruitment firms and his entrepreneurial success with his own start-up, has enabled him to make a significant impact on leaders, teams, and organizations across the world. Paul's passion for helping others achieve success and high performance is evident in his commitment to transforming leaders and their teams at local, national, and international levels. He specializes in promoting the importance of human-centered intelligence, focusing on soft skills such as authenticity, transparency, and trust to complement business-centered acumen and drive better workplace outcomes. As an impartial facilitator, Paul brings his expertise to team offsites and strategy days, ensuring alignment on goals, values, and culture while keeping participants on task. His engaging and energetic presence, coupled with his unique "entertraining" and "edutaining" delivery style, enables him to connect with audiences both large and intimate, sharing personal and professional anecdotes that inspire and energize.
