BOSSES PAY LIP SERVICE TO DIVERSITY
(13 February 2003)

Nearly half of senior managers do not believe their boardroom colleagues are committed to strategies that will attract minority groups into the workforce, according to a Recruitment Confidence Index Hot Topic report. 9% said they did not think the board was committed to workforce diversity and a further 38 per cent said they simply did not know.

The Recruitment Confidence Index is a quarterly survey of UK directors' and managers' expectations of changes in recruitment activity and business conditions. It is produced by the Daily Telegraph and Cranfield School of Management.

Each quarter the RCI analyses a recruitment issue in more detail. This quarter's special focuses on diversity and retention and is sponsored by recruitment and research consultancy Prospus.

Managing director of Prospus, Andrew Monaghan said he was not surprised at the apparent lack of boardroom commitment to a diversity agenda. "It reflects our experience on the ground. However, ultimately the success of diversity strategies comes back to senior level commitment because that's when things happen."

Shaun Tyson, Professor of Human Resources at Cranfield School of Management described the figures as disappointing. "It could be that boards simply haven't realised the extent to which diversity is an issue for customers and clients," he said. However he did see some grounds for optimism, given that 53 per cent of organisations are taking active steps to improve diversity.

Among organisations that do take diversity seriously, profits and social responsibility appear to be the major drivers. In both cases, 55 per cent of respondents said these were pushing their organisation to attract recruits from minority groups.

Commenting on the findings Andrew Monaghan said: 'The thing that will drive diversity forward faster is business leaders seeing the commercial advantages. And one of the major advantages is that customers prefer to do business with organisations that represent them. This sort of thing can give employers a competitive edge that will impact on the bottom line.'

The research also suggests that attracting a diverse workforce could help firms retain key skills. For example, women and ethnic minority workers appear to be among the most loyal. Only 11 per cent of managers reported having problems retaining female workers and only eight per cent had problems hanging on to the ethnic minority staff.

The greatest retention problems appear to be among new staff with 38 per cent of RCI respondents reporting problems holding on to staff who had been employed for less than a year.

The longer an organisation can hold on to its workers the easier it becomes. So 34 per cent of organisations said they still had problems retaining staff employed for less than three years, but this figure drops to 21 per cent for staff employed for more than three years.

Andrew Monaghan called on employers to devise clear strategies for retaining new recruits. "You have to nurture new employees. You need to monitor their satisfaction levels as often as every three or four months. It's no good waiting for a year, because they will have left by then," he said.

Other findings include:

• more than two in three employers monitor minority representation in the workforce but less than one in five monitor their customers
• only one in three organisations -have diversity targets
• only one in three organisations -write recruitment ads to attract minority groups
• less than two in five organisations - 39 per cent - track the financial cost of losing staff
• just over one in three organisations - 35 per cent - say hanging onto staff has become more difficult over the past two years
• HR departments spend 15 per cent of their time on staff retention issues and eight per cent on developing a more diverse workforce.

ABOUT THE RECRUITMENT CONFIDENCE INDEX

The Recruitment Confidence Index is a quarterly survey of public and private sector employers that measures expected changes in recruitment activity and business conditions during the next six months. It also looks at recruitment methods, skills shortages, staff turnover and pay rates. The RCI was established three years ago by Cranfield School of Management and the Daily Telegraph and is currently produced in association with Personnel Today.

The full report is available to the public, price £50. To obtain a copy contact Dr Emma Parry, Cranfield School of Management on 01234 754808 or e-mail emma.parry@cranfield.ac.uk.