GUEST CONTIBUTOR: Co-Authored by Andrea Briggs, Project Manager, Talent Intelligence and Consulting for Personified, and Sanja Licina, Ph.D., Senior Director of Talent Intelligence and Consulting.

With many organizations claiming that workforce diversity is important in today’s business world, the mystery remains as to why diversity and diversity initiatives are still lacking in many of today’s workplaces.

The latest evidence of this comes in light of a recent study by Personified, which indicates that while many employers and workers agree on the positive impact diversity has on their organizations, many employers are unsuccessful in their diversity efforts.  For this study, conducted in September 2010, we surveyed nearly 500 hiring managers and 2,000 employees nationwide to find out how workers and employers perceive diversity and its effect on both organizations as a whole as well as day-to-day business.

Perception Versus Reality
One of the major findings of the survey was that respondents believe a diverse workforce  benefits  their day-to-day work and the organization overall. Yet, despite the perceived benefits of diversity, evidence suggests that diversity and a focus on diversity initiatives are still lacking at nearly half of all organizations.  Only 54 percent of survey respondents agreed that their organizations were diverse, and at least a quarter of hiring managers believe their organizations are unsuccessful in achieving the diversity efforts they set forth.

None of these findings are to suggest, however, that employers aren’t trying to diversify their workforces, because many are. But like any other business initiative, successfully achieving diversity requires a long-term investment of time and resources. Unfortunately, too few employers make this initiative a priority.

One of the reasons for this oversight is that very few organizations have a definition of diversity that extends beyond race, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation; however, diversity encompasses so many other factors. For the purpose of the survey, for example, we defined diversity as “the variety of differences between people in an organization, encompassing race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, sexual orientation, tenure, organizational function, education, background and more.”

Creating a more meaningful definition of diversity is an important first step to targeting various groups and creating a strategy around recruiting a diverse set of qualified candidates.  Far too often, we see employers use a uniform advertisement, highlighting only one recruitment message; yet, the same message is not going to resonate with a wide variety of candidates.  By creating multiple messages to speak to many different people, employers can make a substantial impact on their ability to recruit diverse candidates.  For example, additional Personified  survey research shows that advancement opportunities are significantly more important for African-Americans and Hispanics over Caucasians, and for younger age groups over older ones.

Another reason it is important for employers to keep diversity front of mind when creating their recruitment message: our survey found that 35 percent of job seekers have applied to an organization mainly because of its commitment to diversity.  Yet over half of hiring managers revealed that they rarely or never discuss diversity initiatives in their recruitment efforts.

These findings suggest that organizations miss an opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competitors for an entire third of the job seeker population by failing to discuss their diversity initiatives in their recruitment efforts. 

Mean What You Say
When it comes to diversity, however, it’s not enough for organizations to simply say they value it; they must actually show it. Otherwise, they risk losing highly qualified talent.  According to the survey, a remarkable 30 percent of workers said they would leave an organization they did not feel was diverse enough.

This finding underscores the important role that a company’s commitment to its diversity initiatives plays in its ability to retain top talent.

Even more disheartening is that over 10 percent of the hiring managers surveyed say their organization does not measure their success in achieving diversity initiatives at all. This finding represents one of the major roadblocks employers encounter when implementing diversity initiatives: they fail to assign objective measurement to these efforts and thus have a difficult time understanding whether their efforts are effective.

Achieving Diversity: What Does Success Look Like?
So what does it mean when organizations successfully “achieve diversity”?

When we speak with clients in terms of successful diversity efforts, we’re really referring to two things: not only providing equal opportunities for all groups, but also building a workforce that is truly representative of the clientele they serve. In other words, organizations shouldn’t just recruit people who fit certain standards of diversity, but focus on building a team of people who truly understand customers and clients across different groups, with various backgrounds and experiences.

Especially now, as the economy recovers and businesses become more financially stable, it is crucial that organizations refocus on their diversity efforts. Not only does today’s qualified talent demand it, but people from different backgrounds, different education and skill sets have a lot to bring to the table in terms of innovative ideas and game-changing perspectives. They will be the drivers who help move these organizations forward.

The business world is as competitive as ever, and if employers plan to stay ahead of the curve, they need to realize that diversity is just like any other business initiative, wherein if they invest the right amount of time, energy and resources, they will see the impact of these efforts in their bottom lines. Otherwise, they will find that as society becomes more diverse, they simply won’t be able to keep up.

Andrea Briggs is Project Manager, Talent Intelligence and Consulting for Personified, a division of CareerBuilder. Briggs works with numerous clients to improve the efficiency of their recruitment strategies. With both a professional and personal commitment to diversity, Briggs completed her Master’s thesis on racioethnic diversity and how it affects team interaction, and has a publication in the Journal of Management examining team demographic diversity and its relationship to performance.

Sanja Licina, Ph.D. is Senior Director of Talent Intelligence and Consulting. Dr. Licina directs the talent management consulting efforts for Personified. Under Dr. Licina’s leadership, Personified has assisted thousands of organizations in leveraging business intelligence to make strategic cross departmental changes in their organizational initiatives. Dr. Licina is an employment expert who is often asked to discuss the state of the job market, hiring practices and workplace issues by trade groups and publications.