Dive Brief:
- Even as hiring and market volatility tested companies’ commitment to DEI, some tech companies in 2022 remained focused on building diverse teams, according to a Dec. 14 report from Hired.
- In fact, North American companies as a whole were more equitable in 2022 than in 2021, according to Hired’s data. They sent a much higher percentage of interview requests to underrepresented candidates and made a substantial number of offers to such candidates as well, the report said.
- Despite economic conditions, some of the most equitable employers reported decreasing time-to-hire metrics, meaning they were able to secure top talent more efficiently within tighter resourcing constraints and in a quickly changing talent market, Hired added. They also prioritized pay transparency.
Dive Insight:
Hired’s report focused on three of 2022’s most critical hiring and retention issues: efficiency, pay transparency and a commitment to equity and diversity. As HR pros navigate these challenges into 2023, they may want to take a cue from its findings.
For example, many employers are losing potentially valuable talent due to a sluggish hiring process, according to a fall survey by talent engagement platform Sense. Of the more than 1,000 U.S. job-seekers who responded, 80% said they wanted faster response times from recruiters. Notably, nearly one-third of the respondents said they quit applying for jobs because of slow response times. Fewer than one in five were hearing back from recruiters within 24 hours.
Unwieldy forms also cause candidates to lose interest, studies find. A 2022 report from Greenhouse found that more than 70% of job-seekers would not respond to a job application that took more than 15 minutes to complete.
Hiring and retention issues can be further exacerbated by poor communication and lack of pay transparency, according to other research. Fewer than one-third of the workers who responded to a second-quarter 2022 Gartner survey said they are fairly compensated. But perceptions of unfair pay aren’t necessarily rooted in actual compensation, a Gartner exec said in a media release. Instead, the main driver is trust. When employees don’t trust their employers, they don’t believe their pay is fair or equitable, he said.
Even so, not all execs are on board with pay transparency. Some worry about how current employees will react, according to a September survey by WTW. And a recent ResumeBuilder survey found that 70% of workers said they would demand the top of the salary range if provided with one.
On the other hand, high-performing HR teams more often link pay to performance and are transparent about their compensation strategy, a recent survey by Lattice found.
Keeping an organization’s DEI momentum amid economic volatility and corporate pressure to mitigate financial risk and maintain profitability is a concern for many HR professionals. However, when DEI is at the foundation of business operations, it’s not a trade-off, Misty Gaither, Indeed’s senior director and global head of diversity, inclusion and belonging, told HR Dive in August. Rather than retreating during this time, it’s important for companies to keep up efforts to attract, retain and grow a more diverse employee base, Gaither said.
