More and more employers tout diversity and inclusion efforts in their recruiting strategies, but just putting on a socially responsible face may not be enough to entice today’s high-potential jobseekers. Not only are prospective employees interested in working for employers that are good corporate citizens, they have a plethora of tools available to make sure an employer is truly walking the walk and not just talking the talk on its social justice efforts. 
For example, websites and phone apps such as GoodGuide and B Corp let consumers and jobseekers alike check out products and organizations on social justice issues. In addition to apps and websites, jobseekers use social media to scrutinize potential employers. With the expanded networking capacity social media provides, jobseekers are empowered to investigate potential employers by interacting with people they know and trust.
That propensity to analyze employers is getting more prevalent, particularly among the millennial generation, according to Brad Federman, the chief operating officer of F&H Solutions Group, a consulting firm specializing in human resources and labor relations matters. “People want to feel good about who they’re working for,” Federman says. They want to work for employers that do good for the world, the community, and their employees, and that desire leads them to “check out all kinds of things about companies,” he says. “People want to feel a sense of pride about what they do and who they work for.”
Opportunities and challenges
Employers are hearing advice to pay attention to the tools jobseekers are using. A July 29 post on the Employer Law Report Blog from the Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP law firm, which has offices in Ohio, Florida, and Washington, D.C., informs employers about one app, Buy Up Index, which tracks how female friendly an employer is.
“With this type of information at consumers’ fingertips, companies should be aware that their internal policies and practices may be available to those on the outside and used for the purpose of encouraging or discouraging consumers from purchasing their products or services,” the blog post states.
The post goes on to point out that because of the increasing use of technology to transfer information, “employee policies designed to encourage recruitment and retention of female employees may have the added benefit of increasing the company’s goodwill and bottom line.”
So apps and social media can be a way for employers to showcase their social justice efforts to jobseekers, but they also can create complications.
The challenge employers face is that some of the applications are more accurate than others, Federman says. For example, a company suffering through a layoff, major stock drop, or some other problem can get a bad reputation online and find “it talks a while to dig out of a hole,” he says.
Federman says jobseekers are using tools such as Google alerts, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other forms of social media to find information. Millennials in particular, are savvy about working contacts through social media to not only find people connected to a company but also to contact them and get information firsthand, he says.
How should employers respond?
With so many jobseekers wanting to connect with socially responsible employers, it’s more important than ever for organizations to examine their own goals and standards, Federman says. “They need to understand who they are, what their values are. They need to understand their story and be able to tell it. If they don’t tell their story, someone else will,” he says.
Federman encourages employers to take a hard look at themselves and whether they’re living up to the image they want to present. Employers should ask themselves “do those values in that story stand up?” he says. “Is there meat on the bones there?”
Too many companies say they’re driven by community values and are devoted to inclusion, “but there’s not a lot there,” Federman says, adding that many employers continue to think like they did in the 1980s and ’90s when sponsoring an occasional charity drive seemed enough. “Doing an event once in a blue moon doesn’t cut it anymore,” Federman says. “People see that as shallow.”
The entrance of apps and social media into the job-hunting process means human resources professionals need to take on the role of marketer and sales force for the company so that they can communicate the employer’s story, Federman says, adding that too often HR limits its use of social media applications. “They need to turn on a dime and embrace that technology … to tell their story.”
Federman encourages employers to use their diversity and inclusion principles as part of their recruitment strategy since more diverse workforces tend to be more successful. “You’re in a day and age where your employees need to reflect your customers,” he says, and that includes striving for diversity all the way up to the board level.
“Diversity is not just a downward look,” Federman says. “You’ve got to have diversity at all levels. Otherwise it doesn’t work.”