Inclusive Recruitment and Selection, Retention and Advancement of Employees

Recruitment is the process through which an organization attracts, assesses and hires a candidate for a job. This stage of the process is an individual’s first experience with an organization and plays a vital role in the diversity of candidates an organization is able to attract, and eventually, retain. Inclusive recruitment supports equity at the earliest step of the hiring process by creating standardized, transparent methods during recruitment that minimize the impacts of bias and other subjective factors.

During the inclusive selection process, employers narrow down an applicant pool to identify a candidate that will be most successful for the posted position. The selection process starts when an organization receives applications and continues up until the point an offer is made to a candidate. At each major decision-making point, the organization reduces the candidate pool until the end of the process when the “right” candidate is selected for the organization.

Inclusive retention involves the systematic efforts employers make to encourage employees to stay with the organization, leveraging policies and procedures to maximize job satisfaction and minimize the impacts of bias. This stage is crucial for developing and maintaining Branksome Hall’s workplace culture, reducing turnover and helping support long-term DEI success.

The most effective organizations recognize the importance of fostering a positive, healthy work culture and supporting employees’ development aspirations and career goals. Inclusive advancement is the process of supporting employees’ professional growth and expertise, with specific attention paid to members of minoritized groups. It includes stretch assignments and activities that promote job growth and/or expand job roles or responsibilities.

KEY FINDINGS: Recruitment and Selection

• Community Demographics: This audit provides a step toward understanding the demographic makeup of the organization and can be used as a baseline going forward. Branksome should adopt the practice of consistently comparing its workforce data to the wider demographics of Toronto or Ontario.

Learn More Diversity In Recruitment And Selection

Human Resource departments are key contributors to the success of whole-school DEI initiatives. Research suggests that recruitment of diverse candidates requires involvement of a DEI practitioner (Brown & Swihart, 2021), setting explicit recruitment goals with an eye for increasing diversity, as well as strategic and long-term approaches to hiring BIPOC individuals (Munhofen & Vardi, 2020). Lever (2022) found that in the last 12 months, over 70% of companies surveyed claim to have taken action to improve their DEI hiring practices. However, 60% of companies also expressed challenges with finding diverse applicants and prioritizing DEI as a company goal, and 50% struggled to create inclusive policies or retain diverse talent. Meanwhile, BIPOC candidates continue to face prejudice in hiring where they are perceived as less competent (Wells et al., 2021) or feel they are being interviewed to meet a diversity quota and are thus more likely to hide their identity during the recruitment process (Lever, 2022). Candidates are keenly interested in company DEI policies and look for related information on company websites and in the job description. Additionally, research suggests that BIPOC educators leave at rates 25% higher than their white counterparts due to burnout from racial stressors like microaggressions (Mahatmya et al., 2022), retaining diverse talent brings its own challenges, especially if there is a disconnect between DEI-forward recruitment materials and the majority-white reality of the job.

• Employee Recruitment Pool (Internal and External): Internally, employees can leverage many opportunities to build capacity to move into new positions. However, there is opportunity to create programs or partnerships to tap into a more diverse external hiring pool.

• Job Descriptions: Standardized templates should be adopted to reduce inconsistencies between departments regarding the breadth of information shared.

• Job Posting: Branksome’s postings are simple to understand, invite nondominant groups to apply, and offer a solid overview of tasks and reporting structures. However, lack of transparency regarding pay may limit Branksome’s candidate pool.

• Advertising: At the time of review, advertising for available positions conformed to established conventions in the independent school sector. Affinity groups, associations for minoritized professionals, and trade publications by minoritized communities are areas of development for targeted job ads at Branksome Hall.

• CV’s/Resumes: Implicit biases can influence selection decisions based on factors such as non-Western names. This could be avoided by implementing an anonymous application channel as well as consistent use of scoring matrices.

• Interview Panels, Interviewing and Selection Decisions for Employees: Interview panels always have an experienced hiring manager; however, a clear strategy is needed for ensuring diversity and DEI training for hiring panels. Branksome uses effective interviewing questions, and can improve by implementing grading matrices to increase consistency. Job offers are clear and HR is involved in all selection decisions, providing a strong foundation. For next steps, consider selection decisions with an awareness of the demographic needs of the organization.

Retention and Advancement

• Employee Onboarding and Accommodation: Branksome’s onboarding involves one week of formal training offered once a year and there are opportunities to expand delivery across the year. Branksome’s ability to provide accommodations complies with all relevant legislation but could be more proactive in providing a wider array of accommodations for the visually and physically impaired, as well as cultural and religious accommodations.

• Conflict Management: Branksome has clear policies and protocols related to conflict management. They can be better leveraged to counteract an internal culture of hesitancy related to raising issues. This hesitancy is based in dominant cultural norms of what is considered professional, which favours polite, quiet and indirect conflict style. Branksome has opportunities to increase public discussion of issues, such as through town halls or employee resource groups.

• Networking, Mentoring, Affinity Groups and Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): Faculty have access to valuable networking and mentoring opportunities at Branksome; however, the same types of opportunities should be available for staff. Mentorship programs should also meet the needs of equity-seeking employees. Many employees are unaware of Branksome’s newly established Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and their mandate.

• Inclusive Organizational Policies: Human Resources has well-established internal policies for faculty and staff to navigate critical issues. While these targeted policies are useful, at the time of review, there remained a lack of clarity for issues such as compensation transparency, washroom guidelines, pronoun usage and a transitioning policy for faculty and staff.

• Job Design (how work is organized and supported): The school has standardized job design for most jobs within the organization. At the time of review, the school went beyond legal requirements when offering paid leave, health benefits and flexible work arrangements. As next steps, the leave policy should be revised for gender-inclusive language and the school can conduct regular pay audits.

• DEI Training and Professional Development: Branksome Hall training and professional development is robust and should focus on systematically integrating DEI principles. While some DEI training has been provided to those in supervisory positions, non-management employees, especially staff, need greater support in this area.

• Embodied Leadership and Succession Planning: Leaders should champion DEI by example; however, minoritized employees have expressed unease about leadership relying on them to lead conversations and initiatives related to their own nondominant identities, indicating room for development among leaders.

• Succession Planning: Employees want to see a clear path to how to advance within Branksome Hall.

• Performance Reviews/Evaluations, Feedback and Data Collection: Teacher evaluation and non-teaching staff performance management were respectively assessed as impressive and adequate, with non-teaching staff experiencing fewer assessment measures and feedback opportunities. Feedback needs to be solicited more frequently from employees through anonymous feedback channels.

• Strategic Planning: Branksome’s current strategic plan includes DEI goals and objectives and should incorporate an ongoing engagement plan.