How Can You Improve Equity in Healthcare Hiring?
1. Assess Your Data
To understand where you stand on equitable hiring practices, take a look at the numbers.
If you collect your candidates’ demographic data, analyze that information to see if you’re attracting workers who represent your community. If you don’t collect this information, consider an alternate approach. For instance, send out surveys to understand if your employees are satisfied with their workplace equity. You might also invite patients to provide feedback, as they personally feel the effects of a diverse (and not-so diverse) workplace.
Analyze your findings to see what you could change. Is your candidate pool homogeneous? Do you have a diverse range of candidates, but not a diverse workforce? There might be some conscious or unconscious bias hurting your hiring process.
2. Use Inclusive Language In Your Job Description
Not all job descriptions are equally welcoming and inclusive. It takes time and thought to write a job description that promotes diversity and equity. Here are some of the factors that you should consider.
Use gender-neutral language. Avoid using gender-specific pronouns or job titles. Instead, opt for inclusive terms such as “they,” “their,” or “the candidate.”
Emphasize diversity and inclusion. Explicitly highlight your commitment to diversity and inclusion with an equal opportunity statement that emphasizes your company values.
Focus on essential qualifications. Avoid unnecessary requirements that may disproportionately create barriers for certain groups.
Provide accommodation information. Include information about disability accommodations. Mention that the company is willing to make reasonable accommodations during the application process and throughout employment.
Describe your workplace culture. Highlight any efforts the company has made to foster an inclusive culture, such as diversity training, employee resource groups, mentorship programs, and other inclusion-related programs.
3. Expand Community Recruitment Efforts
Partner with local organizations that support underrepresented populations. Place ads in community-specific newspapers with a diverse audience, for example. Diversify the job fairs where your organization has a presence. Build partnerships with organizations and institutions that focus on supporting underrepresented communities in healthcare.
4. Curate Diverse Interview Panels
Having a diverse group of interviewers can help mitigate biases, bring varied perspectives, and contribute to fair and inclusive decision-making. You won’t be able to cover every identity when putting together an interview panel, but you can increase the likelihood that someone will see themselves reflected in the room, and decrease the chance of unconscious bias
5. Provide Training and Education
Work with outside agencies to train hiring managers in equitable recruiting practices.If you’re unable to bring in outsider trainers, develop training within your HR team. Don’t ask employees to run these trainings themselves, as this puts undue labor on already underrepresented groups.
Potential Types of Training
Unconscious bias training. Unconscious biases can color a person’s perceptions, decisions, and behaviors. This training helps participants understand how biases affect their workplace interactions and provides strategies to mitigate its impact.
Diversity and inclusion training. Diversity and inclusion training focuses on promoting understanding, acceptance, and appreciation of difference. It educates employees about the value of diversity and the importance of creating an inclusive environment.
Legal and policy training. This type of training ensures that employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities in the workplace. It covers important laws and regulations related to employment, such as equal opportunity employment, anti-discrimination laws, and accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
Cultural competency training. This type of training aims to develop employees’ understanding of different cultures and cultural practices. It helps individuals recognize and appreciate diverse cultural backgrounds, traditions, and communication styles.
LGBTQ+ inclusivity training. LGBTQ+ inclusivity training specifically focuses on creating a supportive and inclusive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. The training typically addresses issues related to workplace discrimination, microaggressions, and creating an inclusive culture. It may also provide guidance on using inclusive languages and respecting diverse gender identities.
6. Regularly Evaluate and Improve Your Equitable Hiring Practices
Just as you started by evaluating diversity and equity in healthcare, return to these numbers once you implement new equitable hiring practices. Are they showing an improvement? If not, what can you do differently? Continue assessing your data (whether it’s demographic data or qualitative employee survey response) to track your process and maintain inclusivity.
Better Hiring With Apploi
Apploi’s human-centered design and robust suite of analytic tools gives you all the tools you need to ensure that you’re hiring equitably. Don’t just take our word for it. Schedule a demo today.