by Lou Adler, CEO and founder of The Adler Group
There is a growing corporate trend to deprioritise DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives. Even respected institutions like SHRM seem to be aligning with this movement. I believe this is misguided.
The issue is not the need to eliminate diversity hiring programs because they’re ineffective, but rather how these programs are implemented.
The core problem lies in the flawed hiring processes that companies use, not the goal of achieving a diverse workforce. By refining these processes, organisations can meet their DEI objectives while ensuring they hire top performers.
Since entering the recruiting field, I’ve observed that the main barrier to hiring top talent, including diverse candidates, is the over-reliance on job descriptions filled with required skills, competencies, years of experience, and academic credentials. This approach limits the pool of potential candidates, particularly those from diverse backgrounds who may possess different but equally valuable skills and experiences.
It’s not the skills, experiences or competencies that matter, it’s what people have achieved with their skills, experiences and competencies.
The talent strategy is the problem, not the DEI objective.
The traditional hiring model, which focuses on weeding out unqualified candidates, is fundamentally flawed when it comes to raising the talent bar and achieving DEI goals. This is a strategy problem.
In a market where the demand for strong talent exceeds the supply, this elimination strategy fails. The best people, regardless of diversity, are unlikely to be attracted to roles that appear to be at best, ill-defined lateral transfers, sugarcoated with generic boilerplate and hyperbole. Instead, organisations need to adopt an “attract the best” strategy, which focuses on offering genuine career opportunities rather than just another job for a bigger paycheck.
This is where Performance-based Hiring can help – by offering career moves, not lateral transfers.
Performance-based Hiring is an end-to-end business process designed to attract the best talent, not weed out the unqualified. It starts by defining work as a series of key performance objectives (KPOs) by answering this critical question, “What does the person in this role need to do to be considered an outstanding performer over the course of the first year?”
By defining the role in terms of performance objectives, companies can attract a broader range of candidates, including those from diverse backgrounds who may not meet the traditional criteria but who have accomplished something comparable in terms of complexity, leadership, scope and scale. As a result, the hiring process becomes more inclusive and equitable, naturally leading to a more diverse workforce.
Implementing Performance-based Hiring requires a shift in mindset and process design. Companies need to move away from conventional job descriptions and develop performance profiles for each role. These profiles should be created in collaboration with hiring managers and other stakeholders to ensure they accurately reflect the critical success factors for the position. Interview questions and assessments should then be designed to evaluate candidates against these performance objectives.
It’s clear that the path to a successful DEI program lies in reengineering the hiring process, not abandoning DEI initiatives. Performance-based Hiring offers a practical solution by focusing on attracting and assessing candidates based on their ability to achieve specific performance objectives rather than box-checking their skills and experiences. This approach not only helps companies build a more diverse and inclusive workforce but also ensures that they hire top performers who can drive business success.
DEI should be seen as a result of effective hiring practices, rather than an independent cause.
And just as important, HR and business leaders need to recognise that when something is broken, they should look first at the strategy to see if that’s the problem, rather than trying to fix the tactics. Getting this upside down is how you mistake activity for progress.
Permission has been granted from The Adler Group and Lou Adler, author of Hire With Your Head and The Essential Guide to Hiring & Getting Hired, to reprint this article.
About the author
Lou Adler is the CEO and founder of The Adler Group – a training and search firm helping companies implement Performance-based Hiring℠. Adler is the author of the Amazon top-10 best-seller, Hire With Your Head (John Wiley & Sons, 3rd Edition, 2007). His most recent book has just been published, The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired (Workbench, 2013). He is also the author of the award-winning Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! Using Performance-based Hiring to Build Great Teams (2007). Adler holds an MBA from the University of California in Los Angeles and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University in New York.
