To make progress around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, hiring teams must take a data-driven approach. This allows people to make the most effective and objective decisions about how to drive DEI, why it’s important, and when to implement certain initiatives.
To drive progress, talent acquisition professionals need to leverage both employee feedback and candidate feedback, and the data that results from it. We’ll show you how your team can do that so you can drive DEI from hiring and recruitment through to engagement, retention, and beyond.
What is Employee Feedback vs. Candidate Feedback?
Instead of relying solely on information from resumes, recruiters now also collect feedback data from interviews, referrals, assessments, surveys, and more. But not all this feedback is equal. Before we collect this feedback data, though, it’s helpful to understand how employee feedback differs from candidate feedback.
Put simply, employee feedback is any information exchanged between two or more employees (either formally or informally) relating to job performance, skills, or one’s ability to work as part of a team. Our 2021 DEI Report found that, when measuring the success of their DEI initiatives, 55% of employers are using employee surveys, 48% are leveraging data around employee demographics, and 57% are looking to hiring results.
Candidate feedback is any information exchanged between a candidate and a hiring manager or recruiter pertaining to a candidate’s overall experience with recruiting-related activities like applications, interviews, and assessments.
3 Easy Tips for Driving DEI Through Feedback
Here are a few ways you can collect feedback and the type of feedback you should be looking for.
1. Drive DEI by collecting both candidate and employee feedback.
You can collect both employee and candidate feedback via quick surveys. These can include employee engagement surveys, eNPS surveys, pulse surveys, and interview surveys. The goal is to consistently gather feedback that gives you a better understanding of how employees and candidates feel about DEI in your organization and recruiting.
Depending on the type of survey, your questions or statements will differ. For instance, an employee engagement survey will typically use statements that participants can either agree or disagree with based on a fixed or sliding scale (think: 1-10 ratings).
You’ll also want to collect feedback from candidates on their actual recruiting experience, which can include asking questions about the diversity of stakeholders in interviews, how inclusive they felt their conversations were, and whether they were given enough information around the company’s DEI initiatives.
2. Consider gathering feedback through belonging and inclusion surveys.
Belonging and inclusion refer to the initiatives your company works on to make everyone in an organization feel that they’re a part of something that matters. Feedback on how employees (especially new hires) feel about belonging and inclusion gives you greater insight into your culture, so any questions or statements you include in these surveys or studies should be geared toward collecting the most direct feedback possible.
Here are just a few examples of questions you can ask employees and new hires when conducting belonging and inclusion surveys:
- Do you feel supported in your career growth at [name of company]?
- Do you believe everyone is treated fairly, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, or seniority?
- Do you feel safe bringing your authentic self to work?
- Do you believe you’re given equal opportunity to grow and advance at [name of company]?
- Do you feel [name of company] is living its values when it comes to diversity, equity, belonging, and inclusion?
- Do you believe our recruiting practices are fair and inclusive of all?
3. Leverage entry interview surveys for candidates and new hires.
It’s not uncommon for recruiters to hire candidates for roles they may not be the best fit for—and yet they’re perfectly qualified and well-suited to a different one. As a hiring manager or employer, you may feel this is a ‘recruiting fail,’ but an entry interview survey is a great opportunity to put talent in the right role from the very start!
Think about questions related to working in diverse cultures, inclusive workplaces, diverse teams, and career development for underrepresented groups like people of color and neurodivergent candidates.
Once you gather enough feedback from candidates and new hires, you can implement the data and insights at every step of your hiring process—especially your interview process.
Drive True Change with DEI
DEI is a promise, not a checkbox—but when you prioritize diversity in every aspect of your recruiting process, you help drive true change for your organization. To do that, focus on building a tech stack that empowers your diversity recruiting initiatives. Our complete guide to building a DEI tech stack shows you how.
And don’t forget to explore how the Lever – UKG Pro™business process automation allows your teams to work together and provide an exceptional candidate and employee experience that spans systems.
