Entry-level hiring for women and people of color is approaching representative numbers in the U.S. workplace, but those numbers fall off precipitously for management and especially senior executive levels. For example, women of color account for only 4 percent of senior business leadership positions.

Diverse leadership teams tend to cultivate increased rates of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout the organization, with better rates of retention and promotion for women, racial minorities, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community.

How do you create an environment where highly qualified and motivated employees from diverse backgrounds want to grow their careers? The following tips can help you get started.

Understand the Benefits of Diversity in Leadership

A growing body of research shows that businesses with leadership that reflects the diversity of the marketplace are more likely to appeal to a broader range of customers. Organizations with diverse leadership teams are more efficient, more likely to come up with innovative solutions, and earn higher profits than those that don’t.

A reputation for prioritizing DEI initiatives, including increased diversity in management, can be a recruiting advantage at all levels, since an increasing number of applicants are asking employers about their DEI initiatives during the hiring process. This trend is most pronounced among Gen Z job seekers, with 86 percent stating that diversity is an important factor when considering an employer.

Finally, since 30 percent of employers lack a DEI strategy, a comprehensive approach to diversity hiring and promotion at all levels can give your organization an advantage.

Develop Talent From Within

Many employers think that emphasizing diverse hiring for entry-level jobs will automatically increase diversity across their organization at all levels as employees grow and develop and earn promotions.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Without diversity in leadership across teams and at the executive levels, diverse workers don’t tend to receive the nurturing and mentoring they need to progress in their role. Retention, especially for top performers, becomes a challenge, and employees you may have invested resources into recruiting and training may end up leaving only to flourish with one of your competitors.

The best way to end this cycle is to honestly assess your current recruiting and internal promotion processes. Ask yourself tough questions, such as:

• Do you tend to neglect internal talent in favor of outside applicants when leadership roles become vacant?
• Do you have policies in place that encourage mentorship?
• Do you provide your employees with opportunities to learn about career and professional development?
• Is your company culture nurturing for all?
• Do your hiring and promotion practices perpetuate unconscious biases?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you have work to do. You’ll need to focus attention on increasing diversity at all levels—entry-level, middle management, and executive roles—to compete with companies that excel at DEI.

Recruiting at the Entry and Mid-level

Some of the following recruiting best practices for entry-level hires can be employed to improve diversity for every role in your company, from intern to CEO:

• Consider implementing a blind application process. This means stripping off applicants’ names, addresses, and the names (and graduation dates) of the schools they’ve attended.
• Reach out to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and institutions with diverse student and alumni populations and forge relationships with their career services departments.
• Create targeted internship and fellowship programs for people of color and other underrepresented groups.
• Many sectors have professional organizations for people of color (for example, the Society of Black Engineers). Reach out to those in your field and ask about recruiting opportunities at all levels.
• Use a script for interviews that asks the same questions of every candidate and assemble a diverse hiring committee for every role.

You might even choose to take more radical steps, such as forgoing resumes altogether, which data shows can improve fairness in hiring and diversity in leadership.

Recruiting for Leadership Roles

Some organizations require that diverse candidates be among the finalists for all leadership roles. However, this policy can backfire. Applicants know the difference between a pro forma interview that is being carried out to fulfill company policy and a fair process where they are being given real consideration.

When gauging whether candidates have the leadership skills required for a role, consider roles outside of the workplace. Are any of the applicants for the role veterans with command experience? Have they taken on executive roles in nonprofit organizations or professional associations? Have they engaged in project management, complex event planning, or mentorship within their community?

All these experiences can help develop management skills and should be weighted accordingly when considering internal or external candidates for leadership roles.

Make sure you reward work on DEI initiatives as highly as you reward other accomplishments. Women are twice as likely as men to spend time on DEI initiatives, and since this time is often not considered part of their official job responsibilities, it’s labor that is often overlooked when it comes to promotions.

Consider investing in robust career re-entry programs to increase diversity in leadership, since statistically women are more likely than men to interrupt their career trajectory at mid-career to take care of children or ailing relatives, a reality that can hinder gender equity efforts in your management recruitment efforts.

Create a Culture of Inclusion

Is diversity a core value within your organization? If so, have you communicated this effectively in your employer branding?

You can increase retention, and thereby increase the likelihood that diverse employees will remain with you long enough to grow into leadership roles, by sponsoring affinity groups. Affinity and resource groups allow employees to come together to work on goals they have in common, provide support networks, and foster innovations that can improve your bottom line.

One of the most effective ways to ensure that DEI is a priority at every level of your organization is to tie DEI initiatives, including hiring, mentoring, and promotion, to management compensation. Once you begin implementing these DEI strategies, communicate them as transparently as possible to job seekers on your web site and highlight it in all your recruitment materials, including job posts.

Learn How to Increase Diversity Recruitment and Retention at Every Level of Your Organization

Employers who prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are more likely to recruit top talent and out-perform organizations that are less diverse. Our DEI Hiring Guide has the answers that will help you learn how to increase diversity in leadership and throughout your organization.

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Adults who have been diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) have untapped capabilities and often make excellent workers. In fact, an overwhelming majority of employed adults with an intellectual disability (ID) have been at their current job for three years or more. But, with only 35 percent of disabled persons ages 16-64 employed, many disability advocates and activists believe the disabled community is underutilized in the labor market.

Despite evidence that suggests developmentally disabled workers often thrive in jobs suited to their strengths and talents, many employers fail to recruit, much less hire, disabled candidates, even in tight labor markets. The information below can help you develop a hiring strategy that will help you properly appeal to, onboard, accommodate, and utilize this largely overlooked community of candidates.

First, Some Notes on Terminology

There can be a great deal of sensitivity around terminology when referring to IDD in job descriptions and employment documentation. Self-advocates within the disability community, as well as the federal government, tend to use “intellectual disability” ID and “developmental disability” (DD) rather than “special needs,” a frequently used term that disabled adults may find demeaning.

IDDs are collectively defined by the National Institutes of Health as conditions that begin affecting an individual before they turn 18 that present challenges to their ability to reason, learn, or problem-solve, or that require adaptive behavior to meet the challenges of everyday social interaction or functioning. Because there is a wealth of material addressing aspects of neurodiversity in the workplace and hiring autistic individuals, this article will focus on recruiting and managing IDD employees.

As members of the disability community have become vocal self-advocates, they have insisted on claiming their disability as an integral part of their identity. Hence, for many candidates, “developmentally disabled candidates” may be preferable to “candidates with developmental disability.”

One note of caution: Be aware that disability is still an emerging area of identity and activism, which means you may need to adjust your thinking and terminology as you go.

Benefits of Hiring Developmentally Disabled Workers

In addition to staying in their positions longer than other workers, IDD employees excel at jobs where they can feel confident about process, such as distribution; in roles where they can care for plants or animals; or where they get to interact with people, such as sales or customer support.

IDD workers are used to working hard to overcome challenges and tend to know how they learn new information best, which is why leading employers like Walgreens, PepsiCo, AT&T, and Capital One have all made hiring from within the disability community a key aspect of their recruitment strategies.

Under federal law you may be able to pay ID employees less than minimum wage. This provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act was initially intended to encourage employers to hire disabled workers, but it’s many decades old and has been condemned by many disabled self-advocates. You will need to use form WH-226 to apply for certification from the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division if you want to pursue this, but it is not likely to endear you to the disability community or incentivize disabled workers to stay in your employ for long.

Ensuring an Accessible Hiring Process

You may be using gatekeeping barriers that are discouraging IDD workers from applying to work for you without even knowing it, but it’s important to be aware of these potential blind spots. Traditional application and interview processes often rest on assumptions that can be daunting for disabled applicants.

Luckily, the current best practices for all applicants are also best for accommodating developmentally disabled job candidates. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Eliminating personality screening instruments
• Including a robust equal opportunity statement prominently in all job descriptions
• Using images to illustrate duties whenever possible

The Job Accommodation Network provides sample language for equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation statements, including how to incorporate wording in your job description that invites applicants to access help completing their applications. The Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work (TTW) program can connect employers with Employment Networks that help businesses find qualified job applicants with disabilities.

Onboarding and Finding the Best Fit

There are some environments where such workers may struggle. For example, a very loud and visually chaotic atmosphere may be distressing to some ID workers who struggle with sensory processing—but not all.

The best strategy is not to assume anything about your IDD employees. Instead, talk to them and ask them what types of work they like to do, as well as what is difficult for them, always reassuring them that you want to find the right fit for them and that they will not be penalized for being honest about their needs.

Challenges and Accommodations

The biggest challenges you are likely to face when you hire an IDD employee will have nothing to do with your new hire. Sadly, it may be overcoming the assumptions and biases of your other employees and even your customers. Keep in mind that your new employee likely has been forced to overcome stigmas and false perceptions all their life. They should not have to shoulder this emotional labor alone, so be ready to be a strong ally on their behalf.

Another frequent challenge that developmentally disabled workers mention in surveys is feeling as if their supervisors don’t trust them to complete their work on their own. Research indicates that many employees with an intellectual disability feel dependent on coworkers to complete their work and this can negatively affect their self-esteem and job satisfaction.

Be sure that you aren’t underestimating your IDD employees’ capabilities. You won’t be doing them any favors by restricting them to only the “easy” parts of the job and reserving more complex tasks for someone else on your team.

Let your new hire guide you. If a task is too difficult or they need more training, trust them to tell you so. Your number-one job is creating a work environment and fostering a management style where they feel safe and supported if they need to ask you to repeat instructions or reassign work that they are having trouble mastering, which just happens to be a good management approach for all new hires.

Leverage Your Newly Acquired Disability Hiring Knowledge With a Free Job Post

You just completed a crash course in best practices for tapping into one underutilized segment of the job market—the disability community, including developmentally disabled workers. Now, get the word out that you’re an equal opportunity employer with a free job listing that emphasizes your commitment to the community.

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For people who are cisgender, meaning their “sense of personal identity and gender is the same as their birth sex,” common pronouns may be she, her, hers, or he, him, his. People who identify as non-binary or otherwise prefer non-gender categories may use they, them, theirs, or another set of pronouns.

The use of appropriate gender pronouns can help people feel seen and respected. Here are some best practices you can bring to your organization.

Highlight Your Gender Pronouns in the Workplace

There are several ways your team members can show they’re mindful of gender pronouns. For instance, they could add their pronouns to their display name in video meetings, their professional networking profiles, and their signature line in emails.

“I’ve put my gender pronouns in my email signature, along with a little linked explanation to say, ‘If you want to learn more about why I decided to do this, click here,’ says Laura Todd, director of inclusion and wellbeing at Randstad. “It’s showing that I’m an ally, that I respect all the different gender types that there are.”

Make Your Hiring Process More Inclusive

There are many opportunities for your company to incorporate inclusive gender pronouns throughout your hiring process. For example, consider the gender options on your job applications. “In your HR system, if you ask for whether somebody is a Miss, Ms., Mrs., or Mr., consider Mx.,” Todd says. You may also want to include a space for candidates to share their preferred name if it’s different than their legal name. As part of your interview process, have your recruiters and hiring managers share their gender pronouns and ask all candidates if they have a preferred way they’d like to be addressed.

Learn Common Gender Pronouns

Here’s how to use popular gender pronouns in the workplace.

Source: Randstad

Continue to Implement DEI Best Practices

Acknowledging gender pronouns in the workplace will help candidates and employees feel comfortable. Keep up the momentum with Monster’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Guide.

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Pledging financial support for anti-racism efforts is a good start, but looking inward to address AAPI inequities and build inclusiveness and belonging within company borders are needed more than ever. Action is what drives change for marginalized groups, and business leaders can find ways to address racism in the workplace, and support and stand with AAPI employees.

What AAPI Employees are Experiencing

COVID-19 has unmasked and accelerated negative Asian American sentiment and exposed deep-seated biases and microaggressions that have long gone unnoticed. Anti-Asian racism has skyrocketed by 150 percent in 2020 and has not abated. According to a report from StopAAPIHate, 4.5 percent of the reported incidents are workplace discrimination.

“The more concerning number is that 35.4 percent of hate incidents occur at businesses, including several reports of Asian customers being refused service or harassed,” says Shalene Gupta, a research associate at Harvard Business School and co-author of The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, and Regain It.

This all points to a great need for businesses to do a better job of creating safe and inclusive workplaces that are anti-racist, says Gupta. “It is hard to imagine a business where employees are harassing Asian customers is also a workplace that’s safe for Asian employees,” she says.

Ways to Support Asian Employees

Monster spoke to experts to learn ways business owners and colleagues can support Asian employees.

Acknowledge Bias 

In the workplace, Asians are often confronted by long-standing biases and invisible barriers that impede their career progression. Although Asians tend to be more highly educated and have the highest median income than any other racial group, Asians face significant discrimination while getting hired, are the least likely to be promoted, and had the highest rate of unemployment during the pandemic.

Asian Americans are often stereotyped as the model minority—successful, hard-working, self-effacing—and “when you add in different cultural values such as modesty and a respect for authority, this can create a stereotype that Asian Americans aren’t a good fit for leadership positions,” Gupta says.

They are often employees, but seldom CEOs. According to a Silicon Valley diversity report, Asian-Americans make up 12 percent of the workforce, yet fewer than 19 percent become managers and less than 14 percent are executives.

Eliminate Bias

Managers need to be aware of these biases and how they can impact the decisions they make about who gets promoted. Bias training and cultural competence education can make leaders more aware of how these stereotypes impact their decision-making, says Gupta. “They also need to take a hard look at how they define success in a role and what personality traits they are screening for when they hire.”

Include AAPI in DEI Efforts

Asian Americans often grapple with the struggle of being the invisible minority because of the model minority myth so actively including and engaging Asian Americans in your DEI efforts will allow workers to feel respected, safe, and valued, says Sharon Kwon, a psychotherapist for Asian American, BIPOC, and immigrant populations struggling with racial trauma and identity.

“Asian Americans are not only fighting for a seat at the table, but we are also fighting for a seat at the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion table as well,” Kwon says. “After Atlanta (shootings), my colleagues and I received an influx of emails requesting Asian American speakers to present at DEI initiatives for schools, non-profits, companies, and government agencies. While it has been refreshing and validating to be included in the discussion about anti-racism in America, we still have a long way to go.”

Condemn Racism

Getting there requires leaders to take a strong stance on supporting the AAPI community and condemning racism. Kwon advises addressing and acknowledging anti-Asian racism as soon as an incident occurs—even if this is through a company-wide email—because your Asian employees will feel seen and heard.

Reach out to Asian American employees and colleagues during difficult times. “After Atlanta, my white supervisor at my non-profit mental health agency, called me to acknowledge this tragic event and how this may be impacting my mood and concentration. I felt respected as a human being, valued as an employee, and that my work environment is a safe space,” says Kwon.

Provide Resources and Support

Let all team members know the resources that exist and that you’re available to talk, Gupta says. That way those who want and need support can come to you to open up and no one gets singled out based on their race.

Make yourself available all the time—Asians are targeted by harmful discrimination every day. “Support can come in many forms, whether it’s letting the team know that your door is open, allowing people to take time off to process their feelings, or simply giving them their space,” says Gupta.

Leaders should not assume that racism isn’t happening just because their employees aren’t talking about it. “An HR professional told me her (mostly white) senior management didn’t want to create programming for Asian employees because they thought their employees were content. There’s a difference between being silent and being content,” Gupta adds.

Create a Space for Discussion

Gupta says that best practices include creating AAPI-specific programming to discuss what’s going on and solve problems in the community. Creating a voluntary employee forum to discuss racial microaggressions and hate incidents can help Asian American employees feel supported and like their company is committed to wiping out racial disparities. Having a safe place to voice concerns and be heard creates psychological safety and loyalty.

Commit to Change

Invest in equitable recruiting, hiring, and inclusion. Gupta recommends improving hiring practices, ensuring that your processes for promotion are fair, and making you have representation in senior management. That may mean cultural sensitivity training is in order.

Continue to Support Racial Literacy

Every company is responsible for doing its part to support Asian employees, and all employees.  Prioritizing inclusion and respect requires targeted focus, appropriate resources, and senior-level support. Our Diversity & Inclusion Hiring Guide has advice for companies of all sizes.

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Neurodiverse employees add significant value in organizations, yet this largely untapped talent pool is being screened out by recruitment and selection policies, including automated personality tests, that have been shaped exclusively for neurotypical minds.

The candidates who you may not even get to see —applicants on the autism spectrum or who have other neurocognitive conditions—may indeed be your best hires yet. Many of them have exceptional skill sets, so you don’t want to miss out on leveraging their abilities. Here are some ways to ensure that you’re reaching this rich talent pool and promoting neurodiversity in the workplace.

What Does Neurodiverse Mean?

Neurodiversity refers to the different ways that our brains may be wired and, broadly speaking, it encompasses autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other neurological conditions. Although many neurodiverse individuals have exceptional talents and other superior attributes, unfortunately, they remain poorly understood and stereotyped particularly when it comes to hiring, leading to high rates of unemployment or underemployment.

So what does neurodiverse mean in the workplace? The fact is that the behaviors of many neurodiverse candidates run counter to common notions of what makes for a good job interview and a solid hire. Strong communication skills, persuasiveness, confident body language, interpersonal skills, and adherence to social cues are criteria that systematically screen out neurodiverse applicants in conventional interviewing formats.

People who see things differently and act differently struggle to get past traditional assessment tests or to fit the profile that prospective employers are usually seeking.

The Advantages of Neurodiversity in the Workplace

While this may be overlooked during the interview screening process, companies that hire workers with disabilities outperform their competitors, averaging 28% higher revenue, according to an Accenture study. Diverse workplaces also see gains in employee retention and engagement, quality, and innovation.

Great minds don’t always think alike — and that’s good. After all, different ways of thinking often drive innovation and efficiencies. Many neurodiverse individuals have higher-than-average abilities and varied talents that complement a variety of roles, including but not limited to:

• Software engineering
• Data science
• Animal science
• Accounting
• Content creation
• Manufacturing

Individuals with dyslexia, for example, tend to have strong problem-solving skills, exceptional spatial reasoning capabilities, and often score high on creativity tests. Autistic and other neurodivergent people can have special abilities in pattern recognition, memory, or mathematics. They often thrive on repetition and routine, and have an eye for detail.

Updating Practices to Embrace Neurodiversity

So how can you be more inclusive of these talented individuals? First take a look at your hiring practices.

“Hiring processes have often become stale and rely on a manager’s sense and gut feelings. This inevitably leads to bias as it is a natural instinct to want to hire people who are just like you or who have similar experiences and backgrounds,” says Joseph Riddle, MPH, Director at Neurodiversity in the Workplace, a non-profit program dedicated to opening doors for neurodivergent talent.

“The typical hiring process also relies heavily on behavioral/social communication questions that are a really poor indicator of any future success and can be difficult to answer and can be anxiety-inducing for a lot of people,” Riddle says.

Workplace inclusion initiatives, including changes to your hiring process, can help attract all relevant candidates, including neurotypical minds, and get you the candidate that you need, and not the one that you think you want.

Areas Where Hiring Processes Fall Short

If you’re not finding talented hires for tough-to-fill roles, look no further than your technical interview processes. Applicants are often subjected to technical tests to evaluate critical thinking and problem-solving skills which have no bearing on the actual job role and responsibilities.

Neurodiverse candidates often possess the crucial aptitudes and qualifications, but get flustered from the stress and mechanics of the interview process. Their performance can be critically hampered which often leads to their non-selection.

In addition, candidate selection processes have rigid conventions around what constitutes a smooth social interaction with an emphasis on social skills. This can prove to be a huge barrier for candidates that struggle with interpersonal cues.

Pre-employment filtering tools, including personality tests and AI software, are increasingly being recognized for their potential to amplify hiring bias and inaccuracy. For example, the widely-used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test has been outed as a bad arbiter of ability, and unfairly excludes different groups of people.

Ways to Support Neurodiversity

As you strive to promote neurodiversity in the workplace, you might want to start by seeking out expert advice from a neurodiverse recruitment specialist. Partnering with a specialist — and with neurodiversity-specific recruitment sites — can not only help you design a more neuro-inclusive hiring process that, but can also help you find creative ways to reach this talent pool.

After reaching out to the experts, take a look at the roles in your core business. While tech companies are leading the neurodiverse advantage, underutilized neurodivergent talent is equally present in every sector and industry. Find out what positions in your company may be a strong fit for neurodiverse candidates and build your recruitment strategy from that point.

In addition, the place where you may find the best insights is neurodivergent employees (or candidates) themselves. Ask them what they find as supportive and unsupportive in the workplace and work with them to improve your hiring process and efforts to promote neurodiversity in the workplace.

Here are a few other changes that you can make:

• Use branding and messaging to make it clear that your organization welcomes and values diverse applicants. Include case studies or neurodivergent employees on your recruitment website pages.
• Review your job descriptions to ensure that they’re more inclusive and clear on key skills each role requires — those nice-to-have attributes may not be so essential, for example, in a data entry role. Use images to illustrate duties where possible.
• Simplify your application forms and interview questions to avoid confusion. Share the interview itinerary with the candidates, including the interview questions, in advance of the interview. Keep communication streamline and transparent across the process.
• Let them show you what they can do. Retool your interviewing process to include different assessments. “Have options for skill-based hiring, and discourage unstructured behavioral formats that often allow for bias to creep in,” Riddle says.

Neurodivergent Hiring Best Practices

Pioneering companies like EY, SAP, Dell, and Microsoft, are revolutionizing neurodivergent hiring and sharing best practices with anyone who will listen.

EY’s Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence (NCoE) were designed to create community and professional relationships to connect the talents of neurodivergent individuals to client needs.

In changing their own hiring practices, EY moved away from the traditional behavioral-based interview process to a performance-based assessment process. Their neurodiversity hiring program identifies hires through a customized, week-long session called Super Week, which involves components of observing, applying, and coaching candidates.

Similarly, SAP has also made significant changes to customize their hiring process to neurodivergent candidates. This includes a month-long screening process that proceeds in the candidate’s preferred format.

Does Your Hiring Process Promote Neurodiversity in the Workplace?

Companies are benefiting from embracing neurodiversity in ways that go beyond employment equity. Diverse perspectives drive better business outcomes. To learn more about how you can recruit amazing talent in an untapped pool, Monster’s free hiring insights and data can help you stay ahead of the competition.

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As you’re establishing inclusive transgender HR policies, it’s helpful to create an employee gender transition plan. Here’s how to write a plan that will help make a more inclusive environment for people who are transgender in the workplace.

How the Law Protects Transgender Employees

In the United States, there are federal and state laws that protect LGBTQ+ employees from workplace discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from being discriminated against on the basis of their “race, color, national origin, sex, and religion.”

In June 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the protection must extend to LGBTQ+ employees. Likewise, there are federal and state laws regarding medical leave. At a national level, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected medical leave within 12 months because of a “serious health condition.”

Depending on the employee’s medical needs, some transgender employees may be eligible for unpaid leave under FMLA. However, some state laws provide a certain amount of paid leave as well, so an HR representative should double-check.

What to Include in an Employee Gender Transition Plan

When you’re writing an employee gender transition plan, it’s helpful to include relevant federal and state laws, your company’s DEI mission and vision statement, guidelines for employees, and policies promoting inclusivity. You may also want to include educational resources such as information about pronoun and name preferences and a glossary of terms.

For example, you could note the difference between sex, gender identity, and gender expression and provide information about the transitioning process.

Guidelines for Employees Who are Transitioning

You may choose to have employees start by telling an HR representative about their transition plan so that they have support. Next, the HR representative would meet with the employee and their direct manager to discuss their transition plan and next steps. The group can discuss the particulars of the plan, including:

• Dates and milestones in the employee’s transition process.
• A plan for telling coworkers.
• Logistics, such as when to change the employee’s information if they change their name.

To maintain confidentiality and privacy, the employee should help decide when and how to tell coworkers about their transition, and the information they’re comfortable sharing. If the employee plans on taking off work, the HR representative can check state laws and company policies to determine whether they’re eligible for paid or unpaid leave.

Advice for HR Representatives and Managers

Effective employee transition plans include best practices for the HR department and managers. For example, you may want your HR department to organize anti-discrimination and anti-bias trainings.

You may also want an HR representative, executive, the employee’s manager, and an LGBTQ+ expert to help lead the conversation with coworkers about an employee’s gender transition. It can be valuable to have the manager and executive share their support of the employee and reiterate their commitment to creating a welcoming culture for all employees.

Additionally, the HR representative and an LGBTQ+ expert can also offer to have one-on-one conversations with coworkers. If an employee changes their name, an HR representative should work with other departments to adjust email addresses, badges, business cards, and the company website by the agreed-upon date. If an employee legally changes their name, it may be necessary to fill out new employee contracts and payroll paperwork.

Suggestions for Coworkers of Employees Who are Transitioning

Be sure to include advice that helps coworkers be good allies to people who are transgender in the workplace. For example, you could say that coworkers should use the person’s preferred name and pronouns. You could also stipulate that coworkers not ask the employee questions about their medical history or plans and avoid asking invasive questions.

If your organization doesn’t have one, you could create an employee resource group (ERG) for LGBTQ+ employees and allies. The group can help all LGBTQ+ employees feel heard and supported and can provide allies with resources and advice for helping to foster an inclusive workplace.

Policy Updates to Consider

If the HR department decides to change policies, include them in the employee gender transition plan and the employee handbook. For example, the department may choose to adjust the dress code, guidelines for restrooms and locker rooms, paid leave policy, and health insurance plan options.

If it hasn’t already, the HR team may want to edit the anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and employment discrimination policies. It can also be helpful to update the employee handbook to use gender-neutral pronouns and include gender-neutral policies. There are also ways you can improve your hiring process and policies, such as:

• Writing more inclusive job descriptions.
• Using blind applications.
• Having hiring managers complete anti-bias training.
• Offering interview accommodations.
• Standardizing your interview process.

Get More Resources Delivered Right to Your Inbox

Writing an employee gender transition plan is a big step toward making your workplace more inclusive to your current employees. Learn more about how you can create an inclusive workplace by signing up to receive helpful resources from Monster. We’ll send hiring advice, trends, and special offers so you stay on top of all the hiring best practices and data you need to know.

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Yet, for many autistic individuals obtaining a position is more difficult than excelling at it. With unemployment rates as high as 80 percent for the autistic population as a whole, and 85 percent for autistic people with college degrees, this often overlooked segment of the workforce may provide the talent you are seeking.

So, how do employers support autism in the workplace and tap into the talents this diverse population can bring to the labor force? Effective neurodiversity recruitment begins with understanding what autism is and how to support workers who are affected by it.

What Is Autism?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a form of neurodiversity that affects sensory integration, social interaction, and communication. It is estimated that at least 2.3 percent of the population has ASD. Autism is not a form of intellectual or mental disability; rather, those with ASD experience the world differently than neurotypical individuals do.

Individuals with ASD often succeed in roles that require:

• Attention to detail
• Understanding of complex processes
• Working independently
• Creative, innovative thinking

Autistic workers may have difficulty reading social cues or transitioning from one activity to another, though this is not always the case. No two people experience ASD exactly the same way. For example, ASD presents differently in men and boys than it does in women and girls.

Myths About Autism in the Workplace

Many of the assumptions neurotypical people have about ASD are stereotypes that do not apply to all, or even most, autistic people. For example, many autistic individuals try to limit the amount of sensory stimulation they are exposed to and avoid large crowds and social gatherings. But many people with ASD welcome social interaction and intense sensory experiences.

One of the most unfair generalizations faced by people with autism at work is that they are not caring or naturally empathetic. Even more benign stereotypes—for example, that people with ASD tend to be loners or excel only at jobs with little personal interaction—are false and may lead you to underutilize your autistic employees.

Though many people with ASD may struggle with social expectations, such as looking people in the eye when they speak, this doesn’t mean they can’t excel in roles that rely on interpersonal skills. In fact, many people with ASD are intuitive listeners who do quite well in roles that require this skill.

Don’t assume that providing accommodations for workers with ASD will distract from your company’s core mission and undermine your success. In fact, research shows workplaces with high rates of neurodiversity, including autistic team members, tend to out-perform those that lack diversity.

Promote Neurodiversity in Hiring and Onboarding

To attract ASD candidates, make it clear in your job descriptions and on your company web site recruiting page that you welcome neurodiverse candidates, and that applicants can request interview and skills testing accommodations. Because autistic people tend to be much better when it comes to on-the-job performance than they are at talking about themselves or endearing themselves to strangers, interviews can be especially challenging for them.

Unless you have a hiring program designed for neurodiverse candidates, applicants with ASD are not likely to disclose early on in the recruiting process. However, implementing hiring best practices across the board should make it easier for autistic job seekers to spotlight their qualifications:

• Conduct better interviews. Share questions with applicants ahead of time and avoid chit chat during interviews. Stay friendly and welcoming but focused on the job.
• Focus on substance. Preference skills assessment and experience over style. Try not to focus on inconsequential issues that have no bearing on aptitude, such as eye contact or confident body language, behaviors that can be challenging for many autistic people.
• Forget about “cultural fit.” Don’t rely on arbitrary, hard-to-define concepts like “company culture” to make hiring decisions. Focusing on skills and aptitude as the main criteria for selecting candidates will likely increase the presence of autism in the workplace.

During and after onboarding, make sure meeting agendas are detailed and that team leaders adhere to them. If autistic participants will be called upon to make reports or answer key questions as part of a meeting or presentation, make sure you let them know ahead of time. Create a gradual onboarding process that includes pairing new hires with a mentor, and for autistic hires, when possible, try to make their mentor another employee with autism.

How to Support Autistic Workers

Once autistic workers come on board, they tend to have higher retention rates than other workers. But that doesn’t mean the workplace is always a welcoming space for these workers. Autistic workers are more likely to face bullying and other forms of harassment and discrimination from coworkers and managers than neurotypical workers.

The following practices can help support autism in the workplace:

• Educate your workforce about neurodiversity, preferably by reaching out to nonprofit organizations that are run by autistic self-advocates.
• Don’t underestimate your autistic workers. Even when autistic job seekers do find employment, many work at jobs for which they are overqualified. Make sure you are optimizing the talents of your team members with ASD.
• Implement a zero-tolerance policy toward any form of harassment and communicate the consequences of bullying clearly.
• Be aware that workplace socializing isn’t for everyone. Never push someone to attend a social function that is not related to their workload or make social interaction an aspect of performance assessment. Autistic employees may find group social activities, such as lunch outings or company picnics, emotionally taxing and stressful.

This does not mean that autistic workers do not welcome or need to establish connections with coworkers. Many do. It’s just that the ways they make those connections may not be through large company-wide gatherings. Consider working with autistic workers to create a variety of opportunities for interaction, such as taking part in volunteer hours in the community or monthly lunch with a designated mentor, that they can opt in or out of.

Providing Accommodations  

People with ASD are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which means that employers need to provide reasonable accommodation to help them succeed at their job. This might mean:

• Finding a dark, quiet space where they can work free of distraction.
• Accompanying written instructions with visual ones whenever possible.
• Pairing spoken communication with written instructions.

Since no two people experience ASD the same way, the best way to promote autism in the workplace is to ask autistic team members about their preferred work conditions. Many of the most useful accommodations—such as allowing for remote or hybrid work options or keeping workdays short enough to allow people to recharge—will likely benefit your entire workforce and increase productivity across your organization.

Learn More About How to Support Diversity in the Workplace

Now that you know how to recruit and support autism in the workplace, learn more about the benefits of neurodiversity, DEI best practices, and other way to attract top talent.

The post How to Support Employees With Autism in the Workplace appeared first on Monster.com.

1. Take a Look at Your Pronouns

When meeting an applicant, whether by phone, video call, or in person, start off introductions including name and pronouns. For example, you can say, “Hello, I’m [first name] and I use she/her pronouns.” That indicates to the applicant that your company is welcoming, and that the applicant is welcome to share their chosen name and pronouns with you. The company should strive to include employee pronouns wherever possible. For example: E-mail signatures, website bios, business cards, and in the virtual space: your Zoom/video call name.

2. Audit Your Forms for Gender Identity

For application materials, consider removing questions about an applicant’s sex. If that is not an option, and the sex designation is necessary for the application, include an additional designation for one’s gender identity, and have these questions be write-ins instead of dropdown/check boxes.

3. Create Trans-Friendly Workspaces

Even while working remotely, we need to make sure that transgender and non-binary staff feel safe and comfortable at work. One way to do this is to follow the guidance above: include employee pronouns wherever possible, even before hiring transgender workers. Helping new hires settle into their physical office space is a great opportunity to re-examine policies and procedures with the whole staff. Make it clear that employees can use the multi-stall restroom that aligns with their gender identity or wherever they feel safest, and make sure single-stall restrooms have gender-inclusive signage.

4. Foster a More Welcoming and Inclusive Workplace Culture

Make sure that your company has transgender-inclusive policies, and make sure you are able to speak to them if asked in an interview by a potential new hire. If your policies need to be created or improved upon, prioritize proactively getting these into place—do not wait for an out transgender employee to be hired to do so, or it could backfire. Acknowledge and celebrate transgender and non-binary people not only during annual holidays including Trans Day of Visibility, Pride, and Trans Day of Remembrance. Build in opportunities to discuss transgender issues and best practices in the workplace all year. Strive to use gender-inclusive language in all communications, regardless of whether you already have or plan on hiring transgender professionals. For example, greeting a group using “Hello all” or “team” or “everyone” or “folks” is more inclusive than “guys” or “ladies and gentlemen.”

5. Provide Training and Education

Don’t leave it to transgender and non-binary employees to carry the burden of educating everyone about transgender and non-binary issues. Get educated and make sure everyone from the CEO down is knowledgeable about best practices for an inclusive workplace. If you’re not sure how to do this, TLDEF provides corporate trainings, as do many transgender and non-binary DEI consultants.

6. Create Opportunities for Mentorship

Provide mentoring to all of your staff. All staff members can benefit from mentoring and training opportunities to help them to move up the ladder. Transgender and non-binary people can benefit from this, just like anyone else, and may feel more inclined to stay and grow with the organization.

7. Hire More Transgender Workers

One of the most impactful things you can do is hire more trans and non-binary people. Representation matters, and if you have multiple members of your team who are transgender and/or non-binary, the workplace can feel more inclusive.

Inclusive Policies Will Help You Hire the Best and Brightest

If you’re confident you’ve created an inclusive culture and recruiting process in your company, then you’re well on your way to hiring transgender and other often-overlooked professionals. Stay connected with Monster for the latest expert insights on bolstering your DEI efforts, understanding the latest hiring trends, and more.

The post Hiring Transgender Employees: 7 Tips appeared first on Monster.com.

Women earn more than half the college and advanced degrees awarded in the United States and have made gains in overall workforce participation. So why do the numbers for women in executive roles remain so disappointing?

Disparities begin at the first promotion level, when they’re less likely to cultivate the kind of relationships with company leadership that can aid in career advancement. From there, challenges mount at each stage of advancement, particularly at mid-career when women are more likely to ease up on their careers or even leave the workforce to shoulder caregiving responsibilities.

Armed with this information, there are steps employers can take to address these challenges and increase the number of women in leadership.

1. Focus on Promotion at the Early Management Level

Employers have focused resources and attention on recruiting women and men in equitable numbers, but more can be done to determine how to support women in the workplace in ways that will increase the number of women in leadership.

Men begin to break away from women at the first promotion level, when women are far less likely to put themselves forward or to be tapped by their direct supervisors for increased responsibility.

To address this systemic issue, you need to set goals for recruiting and promoting women at all levels, with a focus on entry-level management. Make recruitment, retention, and promotion of women part of performance criteria for all managers and executives in your company. Assess progress on this goal frequently by celebrating progress and being transparent when you fall short.

2. Support Women’s Professional Goals

Research shows that women receive higher performance assessments than men do. But there’s one key metric where women rank lower: leadership potential.

Supervisors are more likely to assume women are not interested in leadership roles, maybe because men are more likely to bring up their career goals in one-on-one meetings with supervisors. Women are also less likely than men to apply for promotions that they don’t think they are 100 percent qualified for.

Even when they are promoted into management, women in leadership roles face gender-based biases, such as being interrupted more often during meetings and presentations.

Antibias training, especially for managers who write performance reviews and have a say in promotions, can increase inclusion. Encourage managers to have conversations with high-achieving women employees about their career aspirations.

Whenever you have an open management position, make sure that:

• The job description doesn’t read like an impossible-to-fulfill wish list of attributes that might dissuade qualified women from applying.
• There are internal women candidates still in the running for the position at the final stages of your hiring process.

3. Provide Flexibility

Caregiving—for children and other family members—still falls disproportionately on women. This means many women are unable to devote the hours and energy they would like to building their careers. Others end up leaving the workplace entirely.

Employers can ease these pressures for all employees facing caregiving challenges by offering flexible, remote, and hybrid work schedules. They can also sponsor flexible savings accounts (FSAs) to help pay for childcare and eldercare.

In addition, top leadership can model work-life balance by taking time off and resisting the urge to send work emails at all hours. Communicating to employees that boundaries are important and respected can go a long way toward avoiding the kind of burnout that can lead top-performing women to jump ship before you have the chance to promote them into positions of leadership.

4. Address Pay Inequities Across the Board

Women, even women in leadership roles, still make significantly less than men, and the discrepancies for women of color are even more dramatic. Ensuring more transparency and equity in compensation can increase your chances of retaining top-performing women with leadership potential. It can also help you comply with the increasing number of state and municipal regulations that require pay equity and transparency.

5. Encourage Mentoring, Sponsorship, and Allyship

For women to catch up with men as workplace leaders, they need mentors, allies, and sponsors. A growing number of employers are encouraging mentor-protégé arrangements. These close relationships pair someone at a higher level of leadership with someone more junior to provide general advice and guidance. Though a mentor can be a supervisor, they are just as likely to be in a different department or even another company.

A sponsor is someone with the power to further your career, who is convinced of your potential and can speak on your behalf when promotion decisions are made. Women are less likely to secure these types of relationships with upper levels of management than men are. Employers need to be aware of this dynamic and encourage leaders to look for opportunities to forge sponsorship relationships with junior staff.

Allyship takes place at the coworker level. An ally might be someone who women can feel safe sharing frustrations with, especially frustrations that are a consequence of gender bias. An even better way to promote gender equity and make women feel supported in your organization is to sponsor an employee resource group (ESG) that focuses on gender equity and encourage men to join. The relationships formed through collaborative action on behalf of gender equity can have long-lasting effects on your company’s DEI goals.

6. Recognize and Reward the Contributions That Women Make

Women in leadership are more likely to check in on team members and provide the kind of support that maximizes performance. They are also more likely to be involved with DEI initiatives, community outreach, and employee morale initiatives. All of this work benefits organizations. Unfortunately, none of this is considered in the metrics used by most employers for internal promotions.

Incorporate these categories of labor into your promotional metrics and it should move the needle on the number of women who move into management and leadership roles at your organization.

7. Normalize Nonlinear Career Paths

Even with all of these measures in place, many talented women—and men—will opt to interrupt their career trajectory at some point for a host of reasons. Health challenges, caregiving and family responsibilities, educational and philanthropic opportunities can all affect career paths.

Today’s employers need to recognize that candidates with leadership potential may come with gaps in their resumes, and that the experiences those gaps represent sometimes make them better leaders. Opening up your hiring and promotion screening process to candidates who have less linear career paths will likely increase your company’s gender diversity in leadership roles.

Learn How to Support Women in Leadership and All Your Retention Goals

Get the latest expert tips and how-tos, learn about organizational management best practices, and read up on the latest innovations in human resources, talent acquisition, and more.

The post 7 Ways You Can Support Women in Leadership appeared first on Monster.com.

It’s no mystery why younger workers are looking for a deep commitment when it comes to equity. Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is the first majority-minority generation. In other words, more than half the members of this cohort do not identify as white. In addition, more than one in five, or 21%, identify as LGBTQ+.

For Gen Z, your company’s stance, from the use of inclusive language to flexible benefits policies to employee demographics, signals how they and their peers are likely to be treated in your workplace. “Millennials and Gen Z want to work for companies whose values are in alignment with theirs,” says Rahul Dooley, an HR knowledge advisor for SHRM.

But diverse images and a few words sprinkled on your company website are not going to be enough to satisfy today’s applicants. Even upping your game when it comes to DEI in hiring at the entry level may not be enough. Job seekers, especially younger Millennials and Gen Zers, want to see diversity at all levels, including leadership.

Why Messaging Alone Won’t Suffice

Not only is today’s applicant pool more diverse than ever, but they also have easy access to more information about potential employers. Top applicants, recent graduates, and younger applicants are the most likely to have the tech and research skills you want, and they are also the most likely to know how to employ those skills to make sure your DEI practices match your stated values and intentions.

From reaching out to former employees on networking sites to scouring social media for poor reviews and comments that might hint at a toxic, unwelcoming environment, you can bet that your most sought-after candidates are checking up on you.

So how do you make sure you are sending the right message to potential employees? The strategies below can help you get started.

1. Show Your Support

Get involved with community organizations and causes that bolster equity and social justice and make sure that your top leadership supports these initiatives.

Encourage employee resource groups (ERGs), or affinity groups, that allow employees with shared interests, challenges, and identities to work together on projects and share common experiences. Make sure to mention these groups on your website.

2. Revise Your Job Postings

We get it. You need new hires, and you needed them to start yesterday. It’s tempting to dust off your most recent batch of job descriptions and post them to job boards. But this is not going to help you attract a diverse applicant pool.

Instead, make sure that your job listings aren’t communicating unconscious bias by using gendered language that discourages talented candidates from applying. For example, descriptions like “aggressive” and “rockstar” tend to discourage women from applying. Instead, focus on skills and experience that are truly needed for the position.

Make sure that every job listing includes an equal employer opportunity (EEO) statement that encourages applicants from underrepresented groups to apply. Then, edit all candidate communications, online application forms and tests, automated responses, and the career page on your company website with the same degree of scrutiny to delete language that might convey bias. Add statements that make your desire to build an inclusive workplace clear.

3. Craft a DEI Hiring Policy

In addition to including an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) statement on all external communications, make sure you have a well-crafted EEO policy you can send to hiring managers, recruiters, and members of hiring committees whenever a new position is approved and a candidate search begins. It should also be included on your company website.

This policy should require hiring managers to employ inclusive language during all phases of the process, from job posting to job offer. For example, every representative of your company who communicates with candidates should include their preferred pronouns in email signatures and at the beginning of phone calls, video conferences, and in-person meetings, and be absolutely sure to ask for and use the candidate’s. One recent survey found that 67% of Gen Z job seekers are put off by employers that do not have the courtesy to ask for preferred pronouns during introductory communications.

Your policy should outline all phases of the hiring process and include reminders of questions that tend to discourage or even offend candidates from underrepresented groups, as well as illegal questions to avoid during all phases of the interview process. It should also make clear that working to increase DEI in hiring and promotion at all levels is a core company value that will be rewarded, and that bias in hiring and promotion, including in how compensation is allocated, will not be tolerated.

4. Diversify Your Talent Pipeline

Don’t just keep going to the same well for talent—especially if that well is currently populated with private colleges or elite fellowships. Instead, reach out to community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), women’s colleges, and professional organizations that advocate on behalf of Black, Latine, Asian, and other underrepresented workers in your sector.

Work to cement ties with local veterans’ groups. The U.S. military is among the most diverse organizations in the world, adept at conferring a wide range of skills and leadership opportunities to service members from diverse backgrounds, including those that are underrepresented in the civilian workforce. In addition, encouraging military spouses to apply to job opportunities can extend your talent pool to a diverse population that is highly qualified but often underemployed and under-recruited.

5. Use Hiring Committees

Using a committee that is more representative of the range of candidates you are hoping to attract is an effective way to show candidates that your workplace values DEI. A committee of individuals with a wide range of backgrounds, ages, and cultures is also less likely to select candidates based on unconscious bias than a single hiring manager assisted by an HR rep.

6. Rethink Your Benefits Package

Offering a wide array of benefit options when it comes to healthcare and fertility, child and dependent care, and holidays and time off will show potential candidates you are serious about wellness and creating a supportive environment for all employees and their families. Including information about your policies that go beyond what is legally mandated, from egg freezing and storage to gender transition planning, can go a long way toward communicating your sincerity when it comes to DEI.

7. Be Up Front When You Come Up Short

Want to impress top performers from every generation? Be transparent about your failures, especially when it comes to DEI. No one expects you to solve this problem overnight. But they do expect you to show you are asking the right questions:

• Who is underrepresented in your company, especially when you compare your workforce to your target customer base?
• How can you work to increase representation in those categories?
• How are you progressing toward equity and inclusion on the metrics where your representation is weakest?

Of course, you should highlight your gains. But if you can admit areas where you’re falling short and explain how you plan to invest your resources and redouble your efforts to address those shortcomings, you’re far more likely to gain the trust and obtain the resumes of the top-performing candidates you’re looking for.

Post Your Inclusive Job Descriptions on a Site Where They’ll Attract Top Applicants

Now that you know how to optimize your messaging to attract applicants who value DEI, extend your job post’s reach and find top talent.

The post How to Show Candidates You’re Committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) appeared first on Monster.com.