Diversity Hiring Best Practices for Tech Companies

There are several essential things behind great and effective teams. These are cultural match and technical skills that complement and strengthen each other, communication transparency, and collaboration. However, there is one more factor that makes a tech team stronger and the value they deliver significantly higher. We are talking about diversity, inclusion, and equity. 

In this article, let’s discover diversity hiring best practices, following the examples of the companies that succeeded with them.

Hiring for Diversity: Why Tech Teams Need To Be More Diverse

An insider look – are tech teams actually diverse in leading companies? 

Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft are among the biggest companies in the world by market cap, followed by Google and Facebook. But despite being global leaders, they can’t boast of having diverse tech teams – only 20-30% of jobs in their tech departments and leadership are occupied by women.

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So, the share of genders in globally leading tech companies is significantly uneven. However, the size of the business doesn’t matter in this case –  and if we look at technology organizations from different countries, the picture of gender inequality is nearly the same. 

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In general, the current state of diverse hiring leaves, unfortunately, much to be desired. 51% of companies have no diverse hiring goals and 68% have no specifically allocated budget aligned with their diversity hiring objectives. 

The examples of companies with great diversity practices

Nevertheless, there are organizations with strong diversity hiring strategies. Let’s overview them and find out how they practice recruiting diversity and inclusion. 

• IBM. The diverse hiring practices IBM follows are based on three pillars. While only 5% of leadership positions in the technology sector are held by women, IBM encourages them to occupy leadership positions in the company competing with men on equal terms. They also make their tech teams more diverse by hiring Hispanic representatives and supporting Black startup founders. 
• Intel. Likewise IBM, Intel supports women in leadership positions, considering diversity and inclusion key to innovation. Their workforce consists of White and Asian people in almost equal shares; 3-7% of Intel’s staff are veterans, LGBTQ+ representatives, and disabled people. 
• SAP. SAP has been supporting people with autism since 2013. The company has the “Autism at Work” program and a strong belief in autistic people’s specific ways of thinking. And according to some researches, people with high-functioning autism can have distinct visual, verbal, or pattern thinking styles, making them able to come up with non-standard solutions. 
• Accenture. Accenture announced new goals to create a workforce that is more representative of the communities, in which it works, by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity hiring in South Africa, the UK, and the US by 2025. Likewise, Accenture launched the Black Founders Development Program to help Black entrepreneurs advance their technology businesses in the US.
• Mastercard. Mastercard promotes an equitable workplace for its employees with equal pay for equal work and even career development opportunities. Mastercard also partners with several financial organizations to support female startup founders. 
• Cisco. At Cisco, minorities make up nearly 50% of the workforce and 30% of the executive team. However, this diversity hiring metric isn’t the limit – after George Floyde’s death in 2020, S&P 500 companies appointed 165 Black executives, compared to 55 hired in 2019. Such a threefold growth shows that diverse hiring is more than possible – companies just need to pay more attention to diversity recruiting solutions. 
• Visa: Visa scores 100% on the Human Rights Campaign Equality Index & Best Place to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality. It is also recognized by Bloomberg Gender Equality Index with its equal gender shares (42% to 52%). The company also stands for pay equity. 

How to hire more diverse teams – tips and best practices

So, what diversity recruitment strategies can you follow in 2023? Below are some ideas and best practices for diversity hiring. 

Rethink your corporate culture

Every significant change begins with a change on a personal level, so start rethinking your corporate culture step by step, taking business and social context into account. For example, according to a recent report, there is a positive legislative movement in some European countries in favor of LGBTQ+ community representatives, which may grow into a trend of hiring LGBTQ+ representatives more frequently and with no prejudice. 

Use a role-based approach

Some of the roles are indeed more suitable for men than women and vice versa. For example, while women are more attached to working with people, men are more fond of things. That’s why men may have better chances of succeeding as a part of engineering teams, while women can show their best in the sales and marketing departments. Nevertheless, a role-based approach to hiring isn’t a magic pill. When making hiring decisions, you have to find a balance between the candidate’s professional background and personality. 

Set diversity goals

The examples of the companies we have reviewed above showed that keeping gender shares equal is a never-lose tactic. Get started with this simple idea if you have open positions and there are more men than women in your team (or the other way around). Also, don’t strive for gathering the team from people of the same age – they actually may have a lot of age-specific topics to discuss, but balancing wisdom with courage and vigor can be even better. 

Create DEI programs

Following the examples of companies above, you are welcome to create Diversity-Equality-Inclusion programs to support veterans, the representatives of minorities, and disabled people. In addition to strengthening your brand’s image and showing your values in action, your company can get additional tax incentives for hiring disabled people. 

Write inclusive job descriptions

Don’t sleep on the opportunity to build a talent pool consisting of diverse candidates. The simplest tip for this goal is writing inclusive job descriptions. An inclusive job description is one that has no gender, age, racial or health status biases, and follows DEI standards. As for the latter, you can start your job description by saying that your company promotes diversity, equality, and inclusion, prioritizing skills and competencies instead. 

Diversify talent sourcing channels

Another way to gather a more diverse tech team is to diversify talent sourcing channels. In addition to must-use global and local job boards, social media, and referral incentives, consider using dedicated platforms for diverse hiring. For example, you can find candidates from underrepresented ethnic groups on Diversity.com, reach out to female specialists on Après, or LGBTQ+ representatives on Out and Equal. 

Hire remotely

Hiring remotely is the best way to access the global talent pool and build a diverse tech team. When it comes to diverse hiring, hiring remotely comes with double-benefit. In this way, you can hire skilled and competent candidates who may feel uncomfortable with working in the office, but can still bring value to the table. 

Hiring International Employees to a Tech Company: 5 Best Options

Partner with a talent sourcing vendor that stands for diversity

If you need to hire diverse tech talent at a better speed and lower cost, consider partnering with a talent sourcing company that supports DEI values. At Bridge, we believe in people’s power to do their best no matter their gender, age, nationality race or religion. We would be glad to help you hire candidates with a proven success record, soucing them across the USA, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe. 

Looking to assemble a diverse tech team? Try sourcing-as-a-service 

How do we source engineering talent 5 times faster and 60% cheaper? The answer is our sourcing-as-a-service – a combination of data-driven engine and human touch. Combining these two approaches allows us to source remote candidates with relevant backgrounds and necessary skill sets. When our data-driven soucing technology suggests candidates carefully matched with your requirements, human talent sourcers handpick the finest-tuned candidates from the suggested pool. Most of our customers appreciate this approach and subscribe to our sourcing-as-a-service to close multiple positions and grow their talent pools month-by-month.

Get in touch with us now to discover how our soucing-as-a-service can help you hire diverse teams and redefine your talent acquisition strategy!