Dive Brief:
- Large firms, such as Intel and Apple have made huge strides towards increasing diversity in their hiring practices, says Peter Gomez and Susan Medina in Workforce. Apple reported hiring 66% more Hispanic candidates and 50% more African-Americans. However, much of this is still happening at the entry-level.
- As of 2014, only 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs were minorities, and only 5 percent were women. The 18th annual Global CEO Survey from PwC reports that "85% of CEOs who have a diversity and inclusiveness strategy say it's enhanced performance." There are large gaps between what companies think diversity means to their overall success and what they are doing to attract more women and minorities to executive level positions.
- Gomez and Medina warn that company diversity initiatives must have clear goals and be based on each company's diversity data, to determine the state of diversity as it exists currently. Industry and region can play a role in diversity opportunities at higher levels, therefore employee succession planning can support promotion from within.
Dive Insight:
The problem of diversity barriers for women and minorities may take more time and study to correct. The good news is that large companies are stepping up and making big changes to increase diversity in hiring and reduce bias in recruitment.
Gomez and Medina mentioned that Sodexo and Intel now have programs that tie bonuses to executive level diversity goals, which are great examples for other companies to follow. Another great example is companies that are turning to employee resource groups to keep an eye on diversity in hiring; a model that can easily be adopted by those at the executive level in any industry.
