Using the web to increase diversity recruitment

Due to the competitive environment characteristic of business today, many companies are seeking to acquire a competitive advantage and improve organizational performance. This can be done in a multitude of ways, with increasing diversity being one of them. Possessing a diverse workforce has many benefits, including but not limited to the increased availability of unique perspectives. While increasing workforce diversity is a goal shared by many organizations, it is often a struggle.

Fortunately, new research findings from the Journal of Applied Psychology suggests that something nearly every company has—a website—may be an effective diversity recruitment tool. In particular, organizations with diversity cues on their websites are likely to elicit positive feelings and organizational attractiveness from minority job candidates, and increased interest from non-minority candidates.

As noted by the researchers, organizations can achieve such an effect by properly leveraging diversity cues. Some notable ways may include:

• • Placing pictures of diverse organizational members on the website
• • Using video testimonials from minority employees describing the reason they work for the organization, what they enjoy most at the organization, etc.
• • Publically stating diversity goals and initiatives.

For a deeper dive into the findings, please see the original research article.