Businesses across the world are facing an unprecedented challenge when it comes to finding top new talent. The pandemic sparked a trend in employees seeking new opportunities, leading to ‘The Great Resignation’ which left millions of roles vacant across the UK. This challenge is showing no signs of going away. New research has found that more than a third of employers expect vacant positions to stay unfilled for three to six months.

So, it’s more important than ever that businesses work to retain the talent they already have to avoid the painful and expensive process of attracting and hiring new individuals.

A lack of career development is one of the top reasons why people leave a business. So, organisations must have proactive strategies to develop every member of the team to avoid staff becoming disillusioned and leaving. This is particularly important for diverse talent, who have historically been overlooked.

Failure to maximise talented individuals will have an impact on a businesses bottom line, even if these people don’t choose to leave immediately. At best, it’s a waste of valuable resource. At worst, overlooked team members will become demotivated, leading to a drop in productivity levels which will impact profitability.

If businesses fail to progress, and therefore retain, their diverse employees, they also risk suffering from ‘groupthink’. This puts them at a disadvantage compared to competitors who have a broad range of experiences to draw on. A lack of diversity will also impact their ability to attract a broad range of talent in the future, causing these businesses to fall further and further behind their more inclusive competitors.

Are employers doing enough?
Whilst many businesses are making progress when it comes to hiring underrepresented individuals, not enough focus is being placed on progressing these individuals once they have joined a business.

This is partly due to the outdated belief that fixing the recruitment process will fix diversity and inclusion throughout the whole business because these individuals will naturally progress if they are talented enough. This simply isn’t the case. Research from Bridge Group into the financial services sectors demonstrates that those employees from lower socio-economic backgrounds progress 25% more slowly than their more advantaged counterparts, despite no performance difference. This number increases to 32% amongst workers who also identify as Black.

How can employers better support the development of diverse talent?
To counter these challenges, businesses must first understand why diverse talent isn’t progressing. Reasons might include a lack of a sense of belonging because the rest of the team are not like them; a lack of senior-level diversity champions; or a lack of awareness of opportunities.

There are a number of tools that can be used to counter these issues once they have been identified. For example, changing protocols for deciding who is selected for new projects or promotions.

Similarly, introducing senior-level, diverse role models who can talk about their journeys can be effective in inspiring others and acting as a voice for diverse talent. A bottom-up approach to diversity, based on bringing in diverse early talent, simply won’t work in isolation. Senior-level representation is essential.

For diverse individuals who feel as though they don’t belong within a business, the feeling of having someone ‘in their corner’ is powerful. Mentoring is one of the most effective ways to achieve this and is proven to benefit everyone involved. In fact, mentees are five times more likely to be promoted than those without a mentor, and mentors themselves are six times more likely to be promoted.

Traditionally, mentoring has only been accessible to a privileged few – often those with the best network of contacts. However, digital mentoring schemes can make mentors accessible to all. For example, Connectr’s digital mentoring platform has been designed to allow organisations to roll out effective mentoring at scale, helping them to foster inclusion amongst all employees.

Finally, measuring progress is vital to ensuring that diversity and inclusion strategies are effective. Metrics could include the number of promotions amongst underrepresented individuals, retention rates, and engagement with initiatives, such as digital mentoring schemes. Progress must be measured at regular intervals, and the results shared within the wider organisation.

Gathering all the data needed to measure progress will take time. However, firms must not let an initial lack of data deter them from starting to implement an effective strategy. Businesses know they need to be doing more and data will simply demonstrate the extent of the problem. The diversity and inclusion challenge should be addressed now, and not ignored until the circumstances are perfect. Any time wasted will result in lost talent, productivity, and, ultimately, profits.