By Jonas Prasanna
Employer Brand | Social Media Recruitment | Talent Analytics
We have become a society of trending topics. Diversity is
not a trending topic. It's just not
-
Viola Davis
Organizational workforce diversity matters - not just view
points, ideas, market insights but bottom-line business impact on sales,
revenue, equity and invested capital returns. Diversity has many
expressions, the focus of this article is on gender diversity.
There was a tremendous activity in the week preceding &
during International Women's Day #IWD2016 with companies showcasing Women
Leaders, news inserts of women centric benefits, women's day grooming
session, marathon etc. with the sole objective to ride the trend. Most
people see through this like water in glass bowl. My endeavor is to
help you to develop not just a trending campaign, rather a sustained year long
diversity attraction campaign.
Buyers
Persona - Marketing 101, knowing your audience inside out, what are
their motivators, trigger points for action, whom /what do they connect with.
Does the organizational pyramid adequately reflect workforce diversity ? Are
there women leaders in decision making roles?
What are the reasons for exiting the workforce?
Aligning
Diversity Objective with Organizational Direction -
Measurable outcomes define the success of any initiative.
Multi-dimensional diversity objectives includes being recognized as an employer of choice among target
group, showcasing culture that promotes diversity - add layers to just increasing diversity
hiring numbers.
Brand
Activation Framework - Your target audience is experiencing your brand at
different stages
Attraction, Evaluation, Application and Advocacy.
The key to launching a diversity brand campaign is
identify & evaluate which intervention can have the maximum impact at the
each stage. Each stage is not encased in a silo, they are permeable, you will
need to evaluate which stage makes sense for your organization and direct
greater efforts to the areas that need strengthening.
Identify
& build a repository of Women Leaders and their stories - A great way to
identify which women leaders in your organization has a great story, first hunt
them on LinkedIn, look at their profiles. Do you see an interesting pattern of
work in male dominated areas e.g. sales, finance etc. Mine their personal blogs
for insights, have a conversation with them.
Interact
with Women Leaders with Internal & External communities - External
communities such as Grace Hooper, BizDivas, Sheroes, Avatar Career Creators are
great resources to showcase your organizations culture and diversity leaders.
These forums also provide mentoring opportunities for women talent, such models
can be replicated in your organization to promote the diversity agenda year
round.
Deliver
relevant content to the target audience to trigger a desired action - Sponsored updates, content marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps to deliver your message to your audience with precision and
predictability. Leverage on these paid means to drive traffic to your landing
page. Newsletters with periodic updates to the women candidates in your talent
community. Share audience-centric and
content driven topics like Leadership speak aimed at Executives & Senior
women professionals
Advocacy
is the secret sauce to a successful employer brand - Yaay! you have
successfully recruited a women leader, what next - communicate to the external
world - it could be as simple as a selfie. You keep peppering your talent
community with these updates, their perception of you as an employer will
change. Encourage your women leaders to
build their network within the organization - showcase key jobs to your
employees to encourage them to refer their personal networks.
A "Selfie" with Recruiter
Pinterest
Activation - This is a no brainer, a fantastic visual medium built on powerful SEO that makes users engage with your pins even after 6 months of pinning them.
No other social network can claim this recall.
- The half-life of a Pinterest pin is 1,600 times longer than a Facebook post.
- The average Pinterest user spends 14.2 minutes pinning every time they log in.
- 42% of the registered users are Women
User
Journey Workflow - Now all the above mentioned activities needs to be stitched
together to build a cohesive campaign. To enable a single-platform-cross-sharing-multiple-initiatives you need a diversity landing page a.k.a a micro-site. The campaign execution plan
shared is by no means exhaustive, it's dependent on organizations current state and it's internal
objectives.
My view on hiring for diversity doesn't seems to be climbing a toughest mountain,
considering the half of the skilled population consist of women. However, creating an inclusive workplace that
encourages women to stay, grow and nurture others are ultimately the real challenges.
About The Author:
Jonas Prasanna is passionate about delivering value
propositions that aim to attract, engage and hire the best talents in the
world. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Kochi (IIM, K). In his
current role as the Talent Brand & Social Recruitment - India for
Capgemini, he collaborates with multiple business teams to influence talent pools
through digital & social media channels.
