“Do I fit in?” Signals on corporate websites

“Do I fit in?” Signals on corporate websites

By Emma Stockdale, Laura William and Lilith Arevshatian.

Blog post by Dr Laura William: https://www.gre.ac.uk/people/rep/faculty-of-business/laura-william

 

Have you ever wondered what role your website plays in attracting diverse talent? Our study, published in the Human Resource Management International Digest looks at exactly this area!

Research shows that job applicants see websites as a mirror to the organisation and use information contained on websites to make judgements about how well they would “fit in” in an organisation. For this reason, it is important to investigate the type of information provided on websites and how this may or may not signal to minority group job applicants “goodness of fit” in an organisation.

We examined FTSE 250 companies for incidences of diversity, including mentions of diverse groups, awards for diversity and general mentions of diversity/inclusion/equality. We found that while many companies included mentions of diversity on their websites, the most common rationale was legal compliance with those valuing diversity in second place and the third most common reason for including diversity in the website was the business case.

In terms of the nine protected characteristics in UK legislation, we see that the most commonly referred to characteristics were sex/gender and age and the least commonly mentioned was pregnancy and maternity.

We propose several recommendations for organisations seeking to attract diverse talent through their websites, for example, being genuine about valuing diversity by including biographies from diversity employees, displaying any awards that are won clearly and in an easily accessible format. Most importantly, ensuring that equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of the organisation’s values to ensure a genuine presentation of equality and diversity on the website.  Organisations are encouraged to follow these recommendations to ensure they can attract diverse talent in an increasingly competitive labour market.

To read the full article, click this link: https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/HRMID-08-2018-0159