With every year, diversity, equity, and inclusion become more important to both employees and employers across the globe. 

It is critical that talent acquisition professionals include DE&I as a key pillar of employers’ talent attraction strategies. Want to get to the data? Go through surveys and studies that show what other companies are doing? Here are some recent research studies covering diversity in the workplace with learnings that you can bring to leadership, and hopefully implement into your DE&I strategies:

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) Research Studies

Diversity in the Workplace Statistics: Job Seeker Survey Reveals What Matters

Yello conducted two U.S.-based diversity recruiting surveys to answer the question: what are job seekers looking for when it comes to an inclusive workplace, and are today’s companies rising to meet candidate expectations?

Highlights:

• 83% of respondents indicate diversity is important enough to be a consideration when deciding whether to accept a job. This is a huge jump from 64% in 2018.
• 70% of employees would be reluctant to accept a job from a company that claims it is diverse but doesn’t have any executive leaders from underrepresented groups. This is another dramatic jump from 2018 when 52% agreed.
• To build a diverse workforce, 38% of employees say companies should partner with organizations that focus on different aspects of workforce diversity (i.e., gender or race), and 29% say companies should recruit at colleges with diverse student bodies.
• 42% of employers are posting roles on specialized job boards; only 21% of employee survey respondents consider this important.

The Gen Z Job Seeker

COVID-19 and recent protests against racial injustice have influenced what Gen Z looks for in their first jobs or internships. RippleMatch surveyed juniors and seniors from 235 schools about the challenges they’re facing in the job search, their views on remote work vs. relocation, what they’re looking for in an offer, and more.

Highlights:

• 69% of Gen Z survey respondents say that having a diverse executive leadership demonstrates a commitment to DE&I, and 67% want to see that companies are actively hiring and promoting diverse talent.
• 68% of students said a company’s diversity & inclusion efforts have become more important to them in the wake of 2020’s protests of racism and police brutality.

Gender Insights Report

To understand how gender impacts the candidate journey, LinkedIn analyzed data on billions of interactions between companies and candidates from job applications to recruiter outreach and hires. In their Global Gender Insights Report, they use their findings to help you improve every step of the job seeker journey on LinkedIn, including employer brand positioning and benchmarking diversity goals.

Highlights:

• 71% of talent professionals report that achieving gender parity at their company is a top priority.
• Women are 16% less likely than men to apply for a job after viewing it, but they are 16% more likely to get hired for the jobs they apply to.
• Women are also 26% less likely to ask for a referral.

2020 Recruiter Nation Survey Report

Every year, Jobvite surveys hundreds of recruiters and HR professionals for an analysis of trends and priorities in hiring. This year’s survey saw shifts in the importance of diversity and inclusion initiatives and much more.

Highlights:

• Diversity hiring made one of the biggest jumps in priority for talent acquisition professionals, increasing from 13% (2017) to 22% (2020).
• 33% of recruiters report that job seekers are inquiring about DE&I initiatives more than they did in the previous year.
• The majority of companies have specific goals for diversity in hiring with respect to race and ethnicity (63%), gender (54%), age (37%), veterans (33%), LGBTQ+ (29%), immigrants (28%), and disabilities (25%).

Diversity Wins

This is McKinsey’s third report in a series investigating the business case for diversity. Their latest analysis reaffirms the strong business case for both gender diversity and ethnic and cultural diversity in corporate leadership—and shows that this business case continues to strengthen. The most diverse companies are now more likely than ever to outperform less diverse peers on profitability.

Highlights:

• Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile—up from 21% in 2017 and 15% in 2014.
• In the case of ethnic and cultural diversity, the top-quartile companies outperformed those in the fourth one by 36% in profitability. The likelihood of outperformance continues to be higher for diversity in ethnicity than for gender.

How will you be incorporating this year’s DE&I trends into your recruitment marketing strategy this year? Let us know on Twitter!

Adriana Kevill

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Adriana has experience working in the recruitment marketing industry, and has also been part of the localization industry - giving her a unique insight into different cultures and international business. The “why not?” attitude that stems from her fiery personality combined with her dissatisfaction with the status quo, enabled her to build two departments from scratch: Search Marketing and Social Media. By immersing herself in the work of a wide variety of companies from several industries (financial technology, engineering, healthcare, etc), Adriana is equipped with a distinctive vantage point on processes, challenges, and opportunities when launching or expanding marketing programs. When she is not working, you can find her eating chocolate, sipping sangria, and making jewelry.