Building a Diverse Workforce

Hire people BETTER THAN YOU and DIFFERENT TO YOU… Then LEARN FROM THEM. 🙏🏾 Sounds straightforward, doesn't it? Yet, why do so many leaders still struggle to grasp it? It’s because there's often hidden complexity beneath the surface. For example: 👀 Insecurity: Some leaders want to maintain the perception of being the smartest or most capable in the room. Therefore, surrounding themselves with highly skilled individuals could make them feel inadequate or threatened. 🔐 Need for Control: Hiring “less competent” team members could ensure that the leader remains the central figure, exerting control over important matters. 😱 Fear of Challenge: A diverse team can bring different viewpoints that might challenge the leader's ideas and decisions. 🧘🏾♂️ Comfort Zone: Some leaders prefer familiarity and ease, preventing them from being pushed out of their boundaries. ❤️ Misguided Loyalty: Leaders might adopt favouritism and hire people based on personal relationships or loyalties. 🤔 Short-Term Thinking: Hiring less skilled individuals could be a short-sighted approach to save costs or meet immediate needs, ignoring the long-term benefits of a talented and diverse team. 🤷🏾♂️ Lack of Awareness: Some leaders might just not fully recognise the value of diversity or the importance of surrounding themselves with skilled individuals. Leaders like the above ☝🏽are missing out on: 🧠 Amplified Intelligence: “Fuse Minds" Surrounding yourself with smarter people boosts team intelligence. Just like a puzzle, different pieces fit together to create a whole that's stronger than its parts. 🚀 Fast-Track Growth: “Learn from Experts" Learning from the best accelerates personal growth. Imagine being on a rocket powered by knowledge and experience – you'll reach your goals faster. 🤔 Constant Innovation: “Open Doors" Humility opens doors to innovation. Acknowledging that you don't know everything encourages openness to fresh ideas and creative solutions. 🏋️♂️ Informed Choices: “Embrace Thought Variety" Embracing diversity of thought leads to well-rounded decisions. Different perspectives catch what others might miss, reducing blind spots. 🤝 Unified Power: “Flourish in Collaboration” Collaboration flourishes when skills vary. Strength lies in unity, and a mix of talents creates a powerhouse of cooperation. 🌱 Trust Building: “Strengthen Culture" Inclusive leadership fosters loyalty and trust. Encouraging growth shows you value your team members, creating a supportive environment. 🚀 Ensured Continuity: “Smooth Transition" Passing the baton ensures continuity. When your team can carry the torch, you're free to explore new horizons without being tied down. In short, the aim of any great leader is to make your daily responsibilities redundant. This is best achieved by hiring people better than you, and those that share a different perspective. Empower them, learn from them and the rest will take care of itself 🦋

How does a company with 1000 people end up with fewer than 20 Black people or less than 10% women? It’s called “diversity debt” — the idea that if your company consists primarily of a specific type of person by hire number 10, it’s basically impossible to get representation back on track. No one wants to be a DEI hire. When we were recruiting for Chezie, a company with an explicit mission to build more diverse and equitable workplaces, we knew we couldn’t fall into this trap. We had to figure out how to promote fair recruiting practices from day 1. Here’s what we did: 1. Encouraged all to apply: We know long lists of requirements can scare people off, so we made sure to include a note encouraging candidates to apply, even if they didn’t check every box (pictured below!). More and more companies are doing this these days, which we love to see. 2. Posted clear compensation ranges: Transparency is huge for us, so we shared salary and equity details upfront in every job posting. This keeps us accountable and helps us avoid perpetuating pay gaps. 3. Standardized the application process: Every candidate went through the same @Airtable form with screener questions, which made sure we evaluated based on qualifications, not biases. 4. Sourced diverse candidates: We intentionally reached out to underrepresented communities. For example, we used Wellfound’s diversity feature filter to invite people directly to apply. 5. Accommodations-Ready: Before interviews, we asked candidates if they needed any accommodations because everyone should feel comfortable and supported during the process. You can hire for merit and make your process more inclusive at the same time. I promise. As the founder ecosystem becomes more diverse, I think more founders will prioritize building teams the right way. For any founders hiring or who’ve recently hired, what did you do to build equity into the process? #recruiting #startups

LinkedIn asks you to post today to celebrate "a woman who's made an impact on your career." But these kinds of posts, even earnestly written, tend to leave us feeling hollow. If we're looking for real progress towards fairness and equality at work, here's what to do instead: 🪴 Did you know that if there's only one woman on a shortlist of qualified candidates, she has a whopping 0% chance of being hired? Simply expanding shortlists to include more than one woman (and for that matter, people from historically marginalized communities) helps counter biased decision-making. 📋 Standardized process can be a surprisingly easy way to mitigate bias. Structured interviewing, standardized skill-based assessments directly related to job tasks, and standardized scoring rubrics can make comparisons across candidates more fair and substantially reduce subtle gender discrimination. 🌻 Incentivize flexibility for ALL workers, not just women. In a vacuum, harmful norms may arise that imply these arrangements are only utilized by those who "don't value their careers as much," penalizing workers of all genders. Celebrate senior leaders, especially men, who model greater flexibility and wellbeing so that all workers are licensed to do the same. 🔍 Conduct a pay equity audit, seeking to examine not only outcomes like total compensation, but also distribution of candidates across roles. If men and women in the same role are getting paid similarly, but women are dramatically overclustered in low-paying roles, you've still got a problem. ❤️🩹 Create an anonymous and/or informal process to report and addressing discrimination and harassment. A lower-stakes way to address harm, in addition to training bystander intervention and modelling respectful communication, accountability, and timely feedback from the top, can mitigate daily harms for all workers. Some folks hesitate to push for these practices because they feel more committing than just posting on social media. They're right — because with more effort comes more impact. So reach out to a few of your colleagues and advocates within your workplace to work together on pushing for these changes. Ten posts in isolation pale in comparison to the impact ten peoples' collective organizing might have on your workplace and everyone in it! Remember: International Women's Day is a chance for us not just to celebrate women, but to sharpen our advocacy alongside women, to build a future that's better, brighter, and more fair for all of us.

🚀 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧  Diversity isn’t just about who’s in the room—it’s about who’s thinking differently in the room.  💡 I recently came across a story that flipped my perspective on workplace talent.  A major tech company hired an employee with dyslexia for a data analysis role. On paper, it seemed like an unusual match. But within months, this person spotted patterns in customer behavior that AI tools had repeatedly missed. The company later credited this insight with boosting customer retention by 15%.  🎯 The lesson? Different minds process information differently—and that’s a competitive advantage.  1️⃣ 𝐍𝐀𝐒𝐀’𝐬 𝐔𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬   🔹 NASA actively seeks neuro-divergent talent for pattern recognition in space data.   🔹 Employees with ADHD & autism have helped identify anomalies that traditional teams overlooked.  🚀 When you think differently, you see what others can’t.  2️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐢𝐚𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬   🔹 A finance firm dismissed a candidate with social anxiety due to a “lack of communication skills.”   🔹 Another firm hired him—and he became their top-performing forensic accountant, uncovering $10M in fraud within two years.  🧠 Sometimes, the best problem-solvers aren’t the loudest voices in the room.  3️⃣ 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫   🔹 Harvard research found that diverse teams make decisions 87% faster than homogeneous ones.   🔹 Companies with neurodiverse hiring programs report 30% higher productivity in key roles.  🔥 The bottom line? Innovation doesn’t come from fitting in—it comes from standing out.  💡 Question for you: Have you ever seen someone’s “difference” become their greatest strength? Let’s talk in the comments! ⬇️  #Innovation #DiversityOfThought #Neurodiversity #Leadership #Inclusion #ProblemSolving #FutureOfWork #Kawal

Despite their global image, major consulting firms often operate locally, leading to significant differences in capabilities across regions. This creates a major challenge: delivering a consistent level of service worldwide. The blueprints for these firms typically originate in major markets like the US, allowing them to project a unified image through strong branding and standardized operating models. On the surface, this creates the perception of a seamless, global offering. In reality, however, regional differences in talent, resources, and approaches often tell a different story. Local offices may prioritize different areas of thought leadership or have varying expectations of profitability. These disparities can make it difficult to ensure uniform service quality, particularly for clients with cross-border needs. Frequently, firms must rely on significant investment or joint ventures from their US or global headquarters to meet these demands. Yet, despite these challenges, the perception of consistency and excellence remains intact—thanks to the firms’ ability to standardize frameworks and methodologies. For clients operating across geographies, however, understanding and managing these regional variations is critical. It requires assessing each region's capabilities, resource availability, and cultural nuances to ensure the best outcomes. As globalization continues to demand seamless cross-border services, consulting firms are under increasing pressure to bridge these gaps. Whether through targeted investments, enhanced talent mobility, or strategic alliances, the firms that can truly align local expertise with global standards will define the next era of consulting excellence.

If you're losing brilliant women at the final stages of hiring - this might be why... Let me talk you through a recent example where a company had a disproportionately high number of women dropping out at late interview and offer stage for their tech roles: They were offering great salaries. Flexible working. A decent benefits package. So what was going wrong? We took a look at the data. Out of 2 billion data points, a few things stood out: → Diversity is non-negotiable. Women in tech rank it 31% higher than the average candidate. If they don’t see representation in leadership, they won’t apply → Flexible hybrid work wins, because structure matters. Demand for remote-only roles is 11% below average, while core hours and in-office collaboration rank higher → Family-friendly policies trump flashy perks. Fertility leave (+41%), job sharing (+33%), and parental leave (+19%) are the real differentiators But then we dug deeper; and that's where it got really interesting: → Women in data roles showed a higher demand for in-office work - mentorship and access to resources mattered → Women in engineering & development wanted mission-driven work and career progression above all else → Women in product roles prioritised culture and flexibility more than any other group The company checked their employer brand. Their careers page talked about “great culture” and “exciting opportunities.” But it said nothing about what actually mattered to the people they were trying to hire. They weren’t losing candidates because of the salary or the benefits. They were losing them because they don't know what their target talent groups actually want. The companies getting this right aren’t guessing. They’re using data to shape their employer brand - so they attract the right people, with the right message. Download our women in tech report to access more of these insights: https://lnkd.in/enYcGpeW And tell me if you've turned down a job offer for similar reasons? #WomenInTech #Hiring #EmployerBranding #FutureOfWork #DiversityMatters

Companies spend millions on antibias training each year in hopes of creating more-inclusive—and thereby innovative and effective—workforces. Studies show that well-managed diverse groups perform better and are more committed, have higher collective intelligence, and excel at making decisions and solving problems. But research also shows that bias-prevention programs rarely deliver. So what can you, as an individual leader, do to ensure that your team is including and making the most of diverse voices. Although bias itself is devilishly hard to change, it is not as difficult to interrupt. The authors have identified several practices that managers can use to counter bias (and avoid its negative effects) without spending a lot of time or political capital. In hiring, leaders should insist on a diverse pool, precommit to objective criteria, limit referral hiring, and structure interviews around skills-based questions. Day to day, they should ensure that high- and low-value work is assigned evenly and run meetings in a way that guarantees all voices are heard. In evaluating and developing people, they should clarify criteria for positive reviews and promotions, stick to those rules, and separate potential from performance and personality from skill sets

This year’s World Economic Forum sharpened the lens on the challenges facing businesses, governments, and societies. The world is both more interconnected and more fragmented, and the debates around the EU, US, and China exemplify this complexity. Cautious optimism defined the US outlook, tempered by the potential for economic shocks. Europe grappled with persistent competitiveness challenges, underlined by urgent calls for reform. China, meanwhile, occupied a complex growth middle ground, balancing geopolitical pressures and economic recalibration. For those of us in corporate affairs, these dynamics demand a fundamental rethink of leadership and function effectiveness. I was encouraged by the number of corporate affairs convenings at Davos, highlighting the increasing focus on our profession in navigating this complexity. These discussions emphasized that traditional approaches are no longer enough. We must be agile, deliberate, and proactive in shaping narratives, building trust, and delivering impact. Three potential areas where I interpret a corporate affairs call to action: 1. Global Context, Local Impact: The discussions reinforced the need for a “global to local” mindset. We must balance strategic global narratives with local relevance, equipping teams to manage both broad trends—like AI adoption and sustainability imperatives—and local realities, from EU competitiveness to US-China relations. 2. Rebuilding Trust in a Fractured World: The @Edelman 2025 Trust Barometer revealed a “descent into grievance,” fueled by economic fears and mistrust in institutions. This places corporate affairs at the heart of rebuilding trust through transparency, accountability, and action on challenges like climate change and equitable growth. 3. Evaluating Function Effectiveness: Are we structured to adapt to geopolitical shifts? Are we fostering leaders who balance sensitivity with boldness? Function effectiveness demands regular assessment, with investment in talent, tools, and collaboration as priorities. I found inspiration in @PepsiCo’s focus on technology and agriculture, from our “Farmers First” breakfast to engaging with young leaders from the Global Shapers Community. Their bold ideas for connecting farmers through technology were a reminder that progress comes from collaboration across sectors and generations. Corporate affairs functions have a pivotal role to play in addressing these challenges. Whether it’s shaping global narratives, driving public-private partnerships, or finding common ground in divisive spaces, it seemed clear that this is our time to lead with clarity, conviction, and creativity.

Shape Talent's Three Barriers research found this absolutely startling statistic. We expected to see a significant response here but 54% of women being worried about how they are seen in meetings was a concerning discovery. In our survey of women we also found that: - 29% often feel undermined or dismissed in meetings - 23% do not feel they can speak up without being penalised for it - 48% avoid raising problems in order to avoid being seen as a problem themselves - 30% feel inadequate at work In short, women need to weigh up the risks of speaking up and being authentic at work. This is all the more true for women from under-represented groups, specifically: women with a disability, women from the LGBTQ+ community, Black and Asian women, and perimenopausal women. Most organisations would not know this. Let's face it, how many engagement surveys are likely to yield this level of detail? But this feedback is from women from a cross section of industries. Most organisations are likely to have these barriers without knowing it. So, what can you do about it? Firstly, you need to actively and consciously nurture a culture that is psychologically safe and inclusive for all genders. Build awareness campaigns and allyship to support psychological safety and empowerment for all genders. Leverage employee networks / employee resource groups to learn from members’ experiences, while creating an additional channel for members to express their concerns. Apply equality impact assessments to evaluate job designs, recruitment campaigns and leadership models and frameworks. Organisations also need to actively countreact gender biases. While conventional wisdom will guide you to start with behaviours and culture, that can also take years. I recommend starting with processes and systems. By focusing on addressing processes and systems first, it becomes possible to nudge change at scale and help start to challenge the associated behaviours. A good place to start is to audit your talent processes, frameworks and cycles for biases and stereotypes, and to counteract them. Oh and if you didn't know, we help companies do just this. Reach out if you'd like to find out more. #GenderEquity #ThreeBarriers

IN the workplace ... great minds DO NOT ALWAYS think alike ... The ghost of unanimous, fierce head-nodding around the meeting table can haunt a workplace, often masking a deeper, silent turmoil that lies beneath the surface of agreement. This scenario is often reinforced by those around the table paying tribute to their effective decision-making capabilities by declaring that “great minds think alike”. The problem in the modern workplace is that the reverse is more likely to be true: great minds don't think alike. And when we begin to appreciate varying views as high-performing investments rather than taxes, they transform into valuable assets that enrich decision-making and encourage growth. The power of diverse thinking lies in the range of perspectives that come into play when approaching issues, challenges, problems and opportunities. Diverse thinking challenges conventional solutions, pushes the boundaries of what is possible and leads to breakthroughs that homogenous thinking might never achieve. This type of thinking also provides a platform for robust debate and challenge. Such an environment is not just about tolerating disagreements but actively fostering them. And with adaptability crucial in today’s rapidly evolving world, diverse thinking prepares organisations to respond more effectively to change. Teams equipped with varied thinking styles, experiences and ideas can navigate unexpected challenges more flexibly and creatively, maintaining a competitive edge in a dynamic market. Embracing diverse viewpoints also allows for a more comprehensive understanding of issues to better navigate the complex challenges that today’s organisations face. Perhaps most important, embracing differing views guards against the danger of group think, where the desire for harmony leads to poor decision-making. While there is little doubt about the importance of diverse thinking, the question is how to break the cycle of being in “violent agreement”. One suggestion is that individuals should argue like they are right but listen like they are wrong. The phrase emphasises a dual approach to communication: confidently presenting one’s own ideas while remaining open to the possibility that they might be mistaken. Engaging in constructive disagreement is not always easy or comfortable. It might lead to tension and occasionally bruised emotions. The value that diverse thinking brings is in the quality of outcomes it produces. The modern workplace must embrace the premise that great minds do not think alike, fostering a culture where diverse thinking is not only accepted but seen as essential to success. #diversity #management #leadership #aimwa #innovation #humanresoruces #AIMWA Cartoon Used Under Licence: CartoonStock