Retaining Diverse Talent

Over the past few years we have seen a big push in the media industry to hire diverse talent. As well as the strong ethical and societal reasoning behind this, it has become even more important since the pandemic as we have entered a time of record candidate shortage and tapping into different potential pools of candidates can contribute to the solution.

However, we note that whilst intentions are good and more and more diverse talent has been hired, retention of the talent is sadly lacking. Too often employers seem to think that diversity stops once the newly hired talent signs up, when really this is only the start of the journey.

So… what can you do to better retain diverse talent?

Strategies for retaining diverse talent

Onboarding
Making sure your onboarding process is effective in addressing the concerns of previous and current diverse talent. Should someone leave, make sure you then have an exit interview where they can freely speak about any frustrations or concerns that can pinpoint improvements for the business.

Mentorship
Providing encouragement to diverse talent is likely to help them feel valued and excel at their role. Does someone in the business genuinely understand the aspirations of the person they are mentoring and are they proactively helping them to fulfil their goals, checking in regularly to keep things on track?

‘Stay’ interviews
These are the opposite of the dreaded ‘Exit’ interviews – an informal chance to have an open conversation about why staff are staying and why they might want to leave – listen to what they want and provide! One of the questions we ask our staff is “What makes you want to leave your job?”

Address unconscious bias
Provide training to all staff and remember that training is only successful if it is followed up. If you make the effort to provide training, then make sure it is embedded in the organisation.

Create a community
Facilitating the meeting of diverse talent across your organisation will help forge connections across your talent pool.

Train managers
One huge reason people leave is poor management. We hear candidates complain that their line managers are not on the same wavelength as them and are not doing anything to address it.

Have a clear path to growth
One reason diverse talent might leave is that they feel overlooked. Having a clear path to progressions should eliminate that risk.

Diversity vs Inclusivity
The biggest point to make here is that it’s one thing to get the diverse talent through the door – if they don’t feel included, or if they feel tokenised, then you aren’t likely to retain them. Having inclusivity strategies that sit alongside your diversity targets might help improve your retention.

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