1.2 Where do you promote your brand?
Where you promote your brand can also have an impact on the diversity of the talent pool you are attracting.
As you’ve already seen, social media is a great tool for brand promotion. It has the advantages of being inclusive, and of reaching a potentially huge audience.
Dalsfelt (2021) has collected together some recent diversity-related statistics, including:
- In terms of overall gender percentage use, 62% of men and 71% of women use social media (Razor Edge Media, no date).
- In the US, 69% of White people, 77% of Black people and 80% of Hispanic people use social media (Pew Research Centre 2021).
It is also worth considering that the specific social media platforms you choose will potentially be targeting your messages to different user groups. For example, in the UK, 57% of LinkedIn users are between 25-34, whereas TikTok appeals more to a younger, 18-24 year old, demographic (Zivkovic, 2022).
Other ideas for brand promotion
Does your organisation have a dedicated careers website or webpage? This could be a very relevant place to share important messages about diversity and inclusion.
Examples of interesting career focused pages with an emphasis on diversity:
Adidas ‘Join a diverse team’ [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
Sprout Social ‘Building a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace’
Another option might be setting up or being present at local events. You learned in Week 4 about the impact that location can have on diversity within your organisation – are there events where your presence will enable you to promote your employer brand?
For example, The UK Careers Fair website provides a list of local careers fairs across the UK.
The concept of corporate social responsibility (which you touched on in Week 1) can play a useful role here. If your organisation is involved in community projects that reflect the diversity you are hoping to promote or attract, e.g. mentoring members of a local LGBTQ+ group, or creating a sensory garden for people with disabilities, this will send positive messages about your commitment, to both community members and current employees.
Offering work placements or other work experience opportunities could be a useful way to attract individuals who might otherwise not have considered your organisation. ‘Try before you buy’ can work both ways!
Or you could establish relevant connections, within the community or beyond, to help widen your talent pool. For example, if you are looking to recruit new graduates you could work with university widening participation advisers or particular student societies, or engage with organisations such as Bright Network or 10,000 Black Interns.
Newcastle City Council (Stonewall Top 100 Employers, 2020)
Stonewall’s Employer of the Year, Newcastle City Council, hosted an event that gave the opportunity for the community to connect with LGBT-inclusive employers and they’ve utilised LGBT community events, such as Prides, to reach out to LGBT talent and encourage them to apply for roles within the council.
Another option might be sponsorship of diversity awards at a local or national level.
Activity 2 Who do you need to target?
For this activity, access to your organisation’s diversity data will be useful.
Using the data to identify any gaps, spend some time reflecting on where diversity is lacking in your workplace? For example, is the gender or ethnic diversity makeup of your workforce representative of your sector, or the community around you?
See if you can identify one opportunity to reach out to an under-represented group. This could be an idea for an event or a social media campaign.
Note – if the diversity data is not currently available, you could spend some time instead considering how you might collect that data from the employees within your organisation.
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Your organisation might already conduct pulse surveys, or a more comprehensive staff survey each year or every other year, which will usually include diversity data. If your organisation doesn’t yet do this, perhaps due to its size, PwC has a useful guide that aims to help you answer the following questions:
- How can I build the case for gathering diversity data?
- What data should I be collecting?
- Who should I involve in the process?
- What are common pitfalls along the way?
- How can I use the data I gather to gain insights from it and drive change?
You can access it here: Diversity Data Guide: Collecting and analysing data on the inclusion and diversity of your workforce
When advising clients on applying for jobs, careers professionals often suggest talking to someone who works in their target organisation, with the aim of exploring what it’s really like to work there.
Do you make it clear how a candidate can contact diverse employees within your organisation? Would your employees feel confident about sharing positive messages regarding the inclusive working environment you’ve created?
Making sure that the people who already work for you are fully aware of your organisation’s commitment to diversity, relevant initiatives and the aims and objectives for the future, is an important part of your diversity and inclusion agenda.
In the next section you’ll start to focus your attention on the recruitment process itself – starting with the job ad.