Attracting the Workforce of the Future Through Inclusive Hiring Practices
The Client Need
A $3 billion global video streaming company needed to build an inclusive hiring initiative to ensure their rapidly changing workforce reflected their values. While the company had a robust talent attraction strategy, they recognized an opportunity to invest in structural changes to the hiring process. The executive team searched for experts to implement an innovative approach that screened candidates on their ability to model inclusive behaviors and build on the company’s inclusive culture.
The development journey they took with ModelExpand began by training recruiters on the capabilities and behaviors to create diverse candidate slates and equitable hiring processes. After the education process, the Hiring for Inclusion initiative was launched. The integrated experience enabled leaders from across the company to reimagine how they evaluated candidates, signaling to those that applied that inclusion and belonging were key elements of the company culture.
The Solution
The development journey was spread over three dynamic and fast-paced development sessions. The audience was 30+ high-potential and cross-functional leaders from across the company. The sessions leveraged design-thinking concepts and paired research on inclusive behaviors with the company’s core values. The goal was for the different workgroups to cocreate inclusive interview questions and grading rubrics that the Talent Acquisition team could embed into the hiring process.
The first session outlined design-thinking principles and provided an overview of the project methodology. The bulk of the workshop facilitated participants' ability to ideate and prototype in their groups - mapping the research backed inclusive behaviors onto the company’s core values to jumpstart the creation process.
The second session focused on co-creating a set of interview questions that would help interviewers measure candidates for not only if they value, but truly embody, inclusivity with their day to day behavior.
The final session focused on co-creating rubrics to evaluate a candidate’s answers.
The ModelExpand team took the learnings and finalized twelve interview questions and corresponding rubrics to be piloted for ultimate company-wide use. After the interview questions and rubrics were finalized, the ModelExpand team ran a training for the pilot hiring teams to help them understand the project background, purpose of the interview questions, and learn how to use grading rubrics as a scoring guide. The session was highly interactive, as hiring teams discussed candidate scenarios, and learned how to dig deeper into candidate responses. The teaching pedagogies included both instructor focused teaching and peer-to-peer learning, specifically deploying the following strategies.
Role-playing efforts for recruiters and hiring managers to practice implementing the inclusive interview process in small groups with peer and expert feedback
A case study dedicated to navigating scenarios where there is conflict or pushback from key stakeholders
To reinforce behavioral change resulting from the sessions, participating hiring teams were provided with a Hiring for Inclusion toolbox which provided insight on the research that informed the design thinking process, an overview of the methodology, timeline, and process, as well as insight into the KPIs. The toolbox also included a step by step checklist for each stage of the interview, including steps for hiring managers to document the use of the inclusive interview questions. The ModelExpand team provided robust support during the pilot, hosting office hours where recruiters and hiring managers could ask questions on how to navigate questions from key stakeholders or otherwise challenging situations.
Results
99% of respondents said they would recommend the inclusive behavior questions to a friend or colleague.
The collaborative spirit generated in the workshops caught on quickly – recruiters and hiring managers were excited to launch the 4-month pilot initiative. Using a net promoter score (NPS), 99% of respondents said they would recommend the inclusive behavior questions to a friend or colleague, and nearly all respondents agreed that by implementing the inclusive behavior questions and rubrics, they could better assess inclusive behaviors during the interview process.
The Hiring for Inclusion initiative not only affected the company’s talent strategy, but it also had a profound impact on the culture - 100% of respondents agreed that by implementing the inclusive behavior questions and rubrics, they were better informed on how to exhibit and practice inclusive behaviors.
By partnering with ModelExpand to co-create a process that helped the company’s team vet candidates on their ability to contribute to an inclusive culture, the company was able to signal to prospective candidates how intentional they were about cultivating a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace - key to advancing both structural and cultural change at scale.
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