- 52% of organisations have a diversity policy in place for hiring new staff;
- Of these, 68% say the people who hire ‘generally’ adhere to it.
Only one half (52%) of organisations in Australia and New Zealand have a diversity policy in place for hiring new staff, and of these one-third (32%) either don’t know if it is adhered to or admit that it is generally not adhered to, according to recruiting experts Hays.
Meanwhile 33% of organisations have no diversity policy in place for hiring new staff, and 15% are genuinely unsure if they have such a policy in place.
"We are yet to achieve real workplace diversity in this country"
“If you’re wondering why we still need to have conversations around diversity it’s for the simple reason that we are yet to achieve real workplace diversity in this country – and perhaps one of the reasons is the number of employers who either don’t have a diversity policy in place for recruitment, or don’t know if they have one,” says Nick Deligiannis, Managing Director of Hays in Australia & New Zealand.
“Despite all the talk, genuine widespread workplace diversity will remain out of reach if organisations can’t even take the matter seriously enough to put a policy in place and make sure it’s adhered to.
“As recruiting experts our consultants witness thousands of selection and hiring decisions every day. We aim to present employers with a diverse shortlist of candidates, but often the candidates our clients then select for interview are not diverse.
“Clearly we need to continue to help employers develop a deeper understanding about what will drive positive diversity change. But employers too need to step up and put practical measures in place, including policies and educating hiring managers to adhere to them, if we are to improve workplace diversity,” he said.
The findings come from the Hays Salary Guide, which includes salary and recruiting trends for over 1,000 roles and is based on a survey of 2,752 organisations representing over 2.6 million (2,686,179) employees in Australia and New Zealand.
Get your copy of the 2016 Hays Salary Guide by visiting hays.com.au/salary, contacting your local Hays office or downloading The Hays Salary Guide 2016 iPhone app from iTunes.
For practical strategies to improve workplace diversity, see our report The Balancing Act: Creating A Diverse Workforce.