Great strides have been made in championing equality in often hard-to-reach industries, says Pete Holliday – but there’s still plenty for HR and recruiters to take forward
I’m glad to see that Dame Stephanie Shirley’s interview in the latest People Management magazine has resonated so well with today’s HR professionals. The article took me back to when the FI Group that she founded acquired a recruitment organisation that was named, at the time, FI Recruitment. Shirley was a regular visitor to the recruitment team that was based in Teddington, Middlesex, and she took pleasure in regaling colleagues with stories from her childhood and early career.
That company is still alive and well, and now known as Sopra Steria Recruitment, and this article brought to life all of the great pioneering work she is doing – and has been doing for a number of years – in the area of equality. Today, as managing director of Sopra Steria, my team and I like to think that we are somehow taking her lead forward as we find work for IT professionals (among others). In essence, we operate barrier-free recruitment methods to help our clients achieve equality when they ask for our help.
In the world of recruitment service providers it can sometimes be difficult to make a big impact on the world at large, but we are adamant that a difference – however small – can be made. Essentially, barrier-free recruitment involves a series of small changes in methods and tools that can actually make a big difference. For instance, job boards exist that are built by disabled people, for disabled people, so they are accessible to all. It is a simple step to take to ask candidates what adjustments they might require when they are asked to go for an interview by the client, and to inform the client so the interview is fully effective for candidate and employer. Even making a clear statement to potential candidates that you encourage and welcome applications from everyone – purely based on capability and interest – can make a huge positive difference to people who might otherwise not consider applying.
The biggest difference can be made when recruitment service providers join up with employers to manage the whole approach: from how the original job specification is worded (for the impact of the role, not for personal attributes), how the advertisement is worded and marketed (openly and inclusively), and which channels and media are used to advertise the role (broad, diverse and inclusive), to ensuring that the engagement with all candidates provides everything they might require to ensure they can be fully effective in the interviews and, of course, in the employment that follows.
It is a journey that we have been on for the last year – to keep improving how we engage with clients and candidates. Influencing employers to modify as we provide our services to them is a journey that we plan to continue. Perhaps the recent feature on Shirley will encourage more organisations to follow suit – particularly if they too make the link between her enormous contributions to IT and to equality, and see that the FI Group she founded in the 1960s and the acquired FI Recruitment are still ‘flying the flag’ for equality.
Pete Holliday is managing director of Sopra Steria Recruitment