Attracting and Hiring D&I Talent

Left to their own devices hiring managers at all levels will always recruit in their own image. To achieve D&I goals it is necessary to open hiring managers’ minds to consider candidates who don’t just not look like them but also come from different backgrounds and whose skills may be transferable rather than a complete match.

Acuity can help by:

• providing recruitment coaches who work with hiring managers to open their minds to alternative candidates and show them how to recognise and evaluate capability in individuals with transferable skills;
• building and managing external talent pipelines of D&I candidates in advance of requirements in key areas of employment – this can ensure that D&I candidates are on every shortlist;
• working with internal recruitment teams to ensure that D&I candidates are considered more carefully and that other opportunities to hire are not squandered in the future;
• supporting new D&I hires to ensure they hit the ground running and become fully effective as quickly as possible using:
  • first 30 days coaching
  • access to external expert mentors
• measuring the impact of interventions through surveys, focus groups and analysis of KPI’s.

Accelerating the Development of talent

Very few people make their personal development a priority. For D&I goals to be achieved it is imperative that these individual’s development is taken very seriously.

Organisations need to be aware of the development needs of their D&I talent and be sure that they have options to deliver against them.

Acuity offers short customised 1:1 coaching options which enable participants to aim higher, become more self-aware and provides them with a development plan that contains actions that they will actually follow.

The 1:1 Talent Acceleration Programme:

• Drives participants and line managers to put extra focus on personal development.
• Role Models great development conversations for Line Managers.
• Enables participants to stretch their imaginations with regard to how far they can actually go in their career.
• Output includes a personal development plan that will take them to where they want to get through and contains development actions they will see through.
• By combining the development plans with the thematic data provided by the coaches clients have rich data which can be extrapolated to identify the development needs of the whole population.
• Clients can use this to develop their curriculum to ensure the whole population has access to the development interventions they require.

Acuity has delivered these programmes globally. We have versions which also track the achievement of development goals, reports thematically on obstacles to development and offers options for improvement.

Culture and Environment

D&I Audit

Very few organisations are aware of how their culture supports or undermines the achievement of D&I goals. For organisations in the early stages of implementing a D&I strategy an audit to assess the starting point and inform the planning process. The audit also assists the measurement of impact by creating a base line.

Audits are tailored to client’s needs and preferences – we work with a noted academic, Jessica Ringrose, to enable rigorous assessment and benchmarking. Jessica is Professor of Sociology of Gender and Education, at the UCL Institute of Education.

Culture Change Programmes

There is a view that D&I is all about being fair but for Business it is really all about access to talent.  For organisations to realise and develop female talent the culture needs to accept and understand the attributes D&I individuals bring to the workplace, the behaviours that will encourage them to succeed and to ensure that leadership behaviours reflect the importance of inclusion. AGD has a huge breadth of experience in interventions that shift culture. This includes:

• Providing platforms and programmes to support D&I.
• Supporting with a variety of workshops and programmes specifically aimed at developing the ability to be proactive about their career.
• Educating leaders on how to manage diversity in the workplace.

 Coaching plays a huge part in supporting D&I talent to succeed in the workplace, so developing a coaching and mentoring culture is key to success.

Building a Coaching Culture

Adopting a Coaching Culture Strategy is about Business Change. Change in business, like anywhere, creates risk. But in today's global economy change is happening at a greater rate. The challenges that businesses face today are made even more demanding because of this pace of change.

Coaching is uniquely placed to address these challenges in a positive way. A business with creative, open minded and engaged, can-do, resourceful employees will be better placed than one without.

It goes without saying that if the change you want is to drive up D&I it is almost impossible without this sort of workforce.

AGD assists clients to create a strategy to develop a coaching culture, complete a diagnostic to identify where you are against that strategy, support HR in aligning the activities that develop coaching capability as well as delivering the training itself.

Like most things in this world, without real leadership most ideas remain just that - ideas. If

your business is looking to create real change through coaching then we will work with you to

identify a champion and coach them on how to implement a coaching culture.

D&I Networks, Reverse Coaching and Mentoring

Many organisations choose to utilise internal resources to mentor D&I talent through the organisation. AGD has experience of establishing D&I networks and building mentoring capability in senior leaders to support D&I talent in their careers.

Reverse coaching is an interesting application of coaching and mentoring where senior leaders are mentored or coached by D&I talent to facilitate a transfer of understanding between them.

In all cases the development of coaching and mentoring skills has significant payback for the whole organisation in developing a coaching culture.

Executive Development and D&I Workshops

We are able to deliver a whole range of workshops off the shelf – some examples are shown below. We have access to Business School faculty to deliver at the most senior levels as well as recognised experts in the field of D&I.

• 1:1 D&I coaching – Senior Leaders
• Group Coaching for Executives around D&I
• Strategic Facilitation – for building D&I strategy
• Board Coaching and Mentoring
• Reverse Mentoring for D&I
• Women’s Development Programme
• Managing Diversity Workshop
• Managing my Career
• Developing Competencies that support D&I
• Developing Leadership D&I Mindset

Managing D&I alumni

Organisations need to be part of a flow of high performing individuals circulating around the economy. Sometimes the best thing for an individual’s development is to leave for another organisation.

The legacy of your organisation’s investment in that individual will have already paid for itself many times over and this flow is something that should be embraced.

Once this is accepted it becomes obvious that you need to have processes that keep you in touch with former employees in order to:

• keep them in your external talent pipeline – if you are aware of what they want and when they might consider coming back you have a very good chance of rehiring great talent.
• maintain awareness of what competitors are offering top talent
• keep your knowledge of their story up to date so you can include it in your proposition to D&I talent

Acuity offers a service where we run groups through social media and have regular calls with individuals as part of an external talent pipeline management service.