I’m delighted to have been invited to contribute to The Recruitment Network’s new initiative #RecruitmentMeansDiversity which has been designed to shine a spotlight on how the recruitment sector attracts, retains and treats its talent. We are already working closely with The Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative to help to break down the barriers faced by the millions of disabled people who are entering or progressing through the job market and having recently received a highly commended award by ENEI for a diversity and inclusion campaign, it’s an issue close to my heart.
It’s not a tick box – and it’s not just recruitment
So often we hear that there is a massive shortage of skills sets in particular sectors and yet many major companies still hire the same sorts of people from the same sorts of backgrounds and then pat themselves on the back for the odd bit of tokenism. What’s the business case for hiring a woman, an ethnic minority, a disabled person? The same business case as it is for hiring anyone – some of them can do the job! Diversity is about common business sense and it’s up to us in the recruitment sector to ram this message home.
Diversity Champion
This latest initiative is being spearheaded by industry legend Toni Coccoza, who has joined The Recruitment Network as a strategic advisor and who has an impressive track record of leadership having founded and led IT Recruitment firm DP Connect for 27 years until the recent MBO. She has been instrumental in several campaigns aimed at attracting and retaining women in IT as well as promoting technology as a career of choice to young people in education.
Recruitment Diversity Roundtable
As part of the initiative there will be series of roundtable events bringing together a wide-ranging group of individuals to help plan and direct the future of the initiative. I am really pleased to be joining the first roundtable event focussing on women in recruitment on 7th December to discuss what we can do collectively to promote equality in the recruitment industry. It could mean working alongside or partnering with others in the sector, or it could be something completely new!
Be part of the conversation
To kick-start the discussion The Recruitment Network has developed a short survey for those working in the recruitment sector to complete – it doesn’t matter what gender you are – please take a few minutes to complete it here and the results will form part of our discussions so your input will be really welcome.
Look out for the outputs in a future blog and in the meantime visit the landing page for updates and more information.
Author: Tracey Barrett
