Articles - Recruiting and Candidate Dev

When I was a little boy, one of my favorite desserts was “arroz con leche” otherwise known as rice pudding in English.  One day, while she was slaving over the steamy stove to make my favorite dessert arroz con leche, I asked my mamita (Spanish for mommy), why she was adding so many “other” ingredients to the arroz con leche?  After all, arroz con leche translated literally means rice and milk, so I figured that was the sum total of the ingredients.

My mamita looked at me and said, “Oh no mi hijo (son), arroz con leche requires many ingredients for it to taste good.  I always add sugar, cinnamon, raisons, vanilla, a touch of condensed milk, a pinch of salt, and sometimes even pineapple, cause your papi likes it with pineapple.”  Needless to say I was perplexed.  I looked at her and said, “then why do they just call it ‘rice and milk,’ when it obviously has so many other ingredients?”  My mamita looked at me sweetly, as she always did when I asked dumb questions, and she said, “Mi hijo always remember, the most delicious and novel things in life, are always rich and complex in their nature and sometimes very difficult to make… that’s what makes them so desirable.” 

And so it was, through rice pudding and my mamita, that I got my first philosophical lessons via culinary diversity… I also learned about the virtues of possessing the patience, knowledge and skill to mix the right ingredients and resources at the right time, if someone intends to create a colorfully delicious plate (organization)!

 In this article, we’ll apply my mamita’s wisdom in answering the many questions I posed in part one of this diversity staffing discussion, and outline two of the four key ingredients and resources, necessary to architect and deploy an effective diversity staffing campaign:  1) securing your company’s leadership commitment, and 2) training and educating the diversity campaign’s participants.

Before we move on, let’s recap the four necessary ingredients to a successful diversity staffing strategy:

THE Ingredients to Successful Diversity Staffing Strategies

The four tools or elements that recruiters and HR professionals have found to be most necessary for successful deployment of diversity staffing are:

1-  Secure your company's leadership commitment.

2-   Be prepared to educate and train all those employees and hiring managers that will participate in the diversity initiative.

3-   Design and solidify the diversity processes and protocols that will be necessary in your diversity initiative.

4-  Make sure to spend the necessary time to plan out an appropriate diverse candidate sourcing strategy

In the last article I indicated that anyone can be a person of “color” and that “color” should be defined as creativity, outside-the-box thinking, and social inventiveness.  This metaphoric definition opens the doors for all of us have the potential of being people of “color.”  Your ability to BE a person of “color” in your approach to a diversity staffing strategy will directly impact your effectiveness in designing and deploying a successful diversity imperative.

1- Securing Leadership Commitment: Recruiter as Change Agent

Most of you, if you’re in a “normal” company will have an UPHILL battle with this one.  Securing the commitment from your company’s executive leadership will be one of the most difficult tasks in a diversity campaign… and for some the most difficult pursuit they’ll attempt in their careers.  However, as difficult as this is, it’s not impossible.  Especially not for the entrepreneurial recruiter (aka: person of “color”) that has the understanding and belief that an effective diversity staffing campaign is just about the most powerful solution for any company struggling to not only build their professional culture, but also their sales and clientele!  Any company that is able to achieve a corporate staff reflecting the business world’s diversity is a company that typically has greater morale, higher productivity and sales, and taller profit margins. These positive synergies from diverse companies will always render a stronger corporate fabric than homogenous organizations.  The recruiters and HR professionals that have this understanding and conviction deeply seeded in their souls will be the successful ones in securing the “buy-in” from their company’s leadership.  During your plan’s proposal phase, try showing your executive leadership team the many corporate success stories that diverse workforces have achieved in fiercely competitive markets.  After all, without the buy-in from leadership, the strategy will fail.  If you are a recruiter that is not already involved with enterprise-wide policy matters, NOW is time to get yourself involved.

MONEY & AUTHORITY

Securing leadership commitment does not mean having corporate leadership as supportive “cheerleaders.”  It means having leadership possess the same convictions recruiters and HR professionals have about diversity, and most importantly, it means having leadership willing to put their money where their mouths are.  Their financial support will is crucial in facilitating the initiative’s success.  Leadership commitment also involves decentralizing and granting staffing and Human Resources the authority and decision-making freedom necessary to effectively deploy a diversity strategy.  Ultimately your corporate leadership should not only be morally, financially and administratively supportive of the diversity initiative, but they should also set the pace by participating in every aspect of the diversity initiative.  They should be your best examples of what an employee should be doing to assist in assuring a diverse workforce.

BUSINESS RESOURCE GROUPS (BRGs)

Among the most effective tools that I have used to obtain and secure leadership buy-in and enterprise-wide support is the use of business resource groups or BRGs.  Business resource groups have also been called affinity groups.  BRGs achieve many of the necessary requirements to assure the  deployment of a successful diversity campaign and are strong catalysts in assuring enterprise-wide participation, team building, diversity structuring, campaign planning and commitment sharing.  What I have found is that as a recruiter BRGs are "social devices" that are easily led and facilitated by the recruiter or HR professional. Since the most effective recruiters are amongst the highest profile people in any corporation, their high profile reality can easily translate into the recruiter or HR professional potentially becoming the most effectively consistent diversity catalyst in an organization.

Another impressive attribute about BRGs is that absolutely everyone in the enterprise must and will desire to participate.  Case in point, one of our pre-IPO clients not only needed to staff up rapidly, but they wanted to assure that they grew in a rich and diverse manner.  We decided to deploy resource groups initially geared for Asians, people's disabilities, and gays.   The success of these groups not only led to attracting more diverse and qualified employees to the company, but later after the company had achieved its objective of 400 employees the BRGs became the sources of employee communication & relation groups, intern mentoring programs, training workshops, College Recruitment, community speaking engagements and ultimately a general “SPRING-BOARD” of organizational pride! The affinity groups had not only achieved their initial objective of diversely staffing up the company effectively, but later the affinity groups became effective employee wellness and management development resources.  Taking notes HR professionals?  Recruiters absolutely can and must directly engage in growing their companies' social capital by deploying a diversity staffing campaign with their executive team’s buy-in.

2- Preparation Training & Education

Successful diversity staffing campaigns deploy effective training and education resources from the very inception and never stop ... ever!  The most effective and educational information the recruiter and the human resources department can disseminate in a diversity initiative is the knowledge and vision of the future; and what that future holds for the company when diversity flourishes.  When recruiters act as diversity facilitators it is a natural progression for recruiters to also fill the role as the enterprise visionary or “evangelists” pushing for visionary objectives within diversity.  As the “evangelist,” the responsibility of training and educating the company becomes paramount.  The recruiter and H.R. department will need to be able to clearly explain and identify:

1)    why diversity is necessary

2)    what successes diversity will achieve

3)    how financially profitable diversity will be

4)    what  the “road map” to diversity will look like.

 REAL AUTHORITY=ACTION

Recruiters and HR departments that are truly passionate about deploying and achieving effective diversity will have little problems applying education and training resources.  My experience indicates that the most difficult education and training that recruiters and HR departments need to facilitate will be to convince the corporate leadership to relinquish some of its authority so that HR can be free to plan out the strategic road map to the company’s diversity staffing objectives.  If the staffing department and HR are not given the authority to facilitate, lead and map out the chosen diversity procedures and path then the whole effort will fail. Some recruiters will have it easier than others, but once however, some level of autonomy for decision-making is secured, the “roadmap” to the diversity strategy is usually close at hand.

DIVERSITY “COACHING”

During this education and training phase, it will be important to articulate and help the rest of the company visualize what the diversity mandate will be, what each of the stages to the objective will look like, what role all the participants will play, what milestones will be reached - and even what documentation will be utilized for the diversity effort.  Indeed, like a football coach in front of his chalkboard scheming the plays of the game, so too the recruiter must clearly explain the “plays” and strategies that will lead to the organization's diversity victory.

 MORE PREACHING

Don't be surprised if you also have to train your hiring managers on how to interview candidates! I kid you not.  The fact is, the vast majority of hiring managers I have met at various client sites could stand some deep training in the simple fundamentals of interviewing ... let alone interviewing for diversity.  It will be absolutely critical that your hiring managers learn how to redefine the company's qualifications list for the sake of diversity.  Redefining what “superior performance” or what a “strong candidate” is will be crucial to the diversity effort.  Helping your hiring managers to understand and embrace diversity attributes as new qualifications - such as motivation, acculturation, bilingual abilities, international or cultural experiences, etc. will be very important in expanding their understanding and vision of diverse candidates and your diversity focus.  During this phase you’ll be doing a lot of repeating…and that’s ok, repetition is expected when you’re endeavoring to change a complete corporate-wide function such as staffing objectives….

Conclusion

Just remember what my mamita said, “the most delicious and novel things in life, are always rich and complex in their nature and sometimes very difficult to make… that’s what makes them so desirable.”  So don’t forget to listen to yourself, stay positive and to keep your eye on the ultimate goal.

I’ll be happy to field any questions you may have, until then, I’m Martin de’Campo signing off….

Diversity Staffing that Drives Power Profits! Part 1 of 3

DIVERSITY STAFFING: “COLORFUL” APPROACHES FOR COLORFUL WORKFORCES

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Biography

H. Martin de’Campo is a managing principal of HUMANATEK GROUP, a professional recruiting consultancy and a columnist and commentator on various business media venues on topics involving national employment/labor economics, strategic corporate recruiting, and diversity careers & staffing.  Previously, he was a William Keck Fellow at the University of Southern California; an Alfred Sloan Foundation Fellow (Research) while attending the University of California, Berkeley; in 2006 Human Capital Magazine featured him as a “Future HR Thought Leader of America;” and in 2009 Martin and Humanatek’s staff were awarded “Outstanding Service Recognition” by  Senator Diane Feinstein and Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigoza.  Martin is the author of numerous articles on employment/labor economics, human resources and recruiting and has appeared on TV & radio programs and countless business journals. 

To reach Martin and Humanatek recruiting services (retained & RPO) visit: www.Humanatek.com / email Martin at /martin@humanatek.com /or follow Martin at: http://twitter.com/Humanatek