As a Glassdoor report indicates, 57% of employees think their company should be doing more to increase diversity among its workforce. Let’s take a closer look at why workplace diversity is so crucial, and why, when it comes down to it, it’s so difficult to actually implement.
The importance of diversity hiring for your businesses
Hiring good candidates can be a challenging task, as the right candidates are often few and far between. An additional challenge is ensuring that hiring choices are mindfully made, making sure a diverse and inclusive workplace is maintained. This is important as it makes everyone, regardless of who they are or what they do for the business, feel equally involved in and supported in all areas of the workplace. Research has shown many benefits of a diverse and inclusive workplace, ranging from higher revenue growth, greater readiness to innovate, increased ability to recruit a diverse talent pool, and up to 5.4 times higher employee retention. When it comes to ethnic and cultural diversity, top-quartile companies are 33% more likely to outperform on profitability.
But why is diversity hiring easier said than done? Due to inevitable unconscious bias.
What is unconscious bias and how does it affect workplace diversity?
Unconscious biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people formed outside of individuals’ conscious awareness. As it is quite common for workplaces to suffer from unconscious biases, it is important to be aware of these biases and the negative and effects they can have on decisions in recruitment, promotion, staff development, and recognition. But how can online data collection address this crucial issue so workplaces around the world can rectify antiquated methods of hiring?
How automated online data collection is tacking unconscious bias in the workplace and simplifying diversity hiring
Scouring the web for the perfect match is a time-consuming task that often requires full days of work put in by hiring managers and HR departments. A solution is required, to not only cut down on the sourcing and locating time, but also to help underrepresented candidates shine through.
Automated solutions do just that.
By implementing a process of automated online data collection, companies can overcome natural unconscious biases, save time and dedicate themselves to a hiring process free from prejudices.
Catching up with Dave Walsh, co-founder and CEO of Mathison
We sat down with Dave Walsh to learn more about his company, Mathison, and how online data collection is helping his company on its quest to revolutionize workplace inclusivity.
About Mathison
Founded in 2019 in New York, Mathison’s mission is to bridge the gap between the most underrepresented job seekers and employers committed to diversity and inclusion. Mathison is a highly innovative organization and a welcome change in the hiring landscape, as it is dedicated to advancing intersectional diversity, making it a fair and unbiased process, as well as reinvesting back in the community. Mathison’s success has spread far and wide, leading to collaborations with some of the biggest brands worldwide, such as Hello Fresh, Trip Advisor, Sonos, and many more. In direct partnership with enterprises and NGOs, hiring managers use Mathison’s platform to source, target, and find hard-to-reach candidates, while simultaneously ensuring an unbiased hiring process.
Why collect online data?
Typically, brands like Mathison need access to large amounts of public data from diversity talent networks to identify talent. They scour the web for relevant information based on applicant skill sets, background information, and the field they’re in, to find the best matches for the company’s customers. Based on the public online data collected, they can establish if a potential candidate is a right fit for their customers.
Mathison collects online data from the following public resources:
- Search data: Collection of publicly available social media data to identify information from diversity talent networks to source talent. This data helps brands target, source, and match job seekers to companies looking to hire diverse candidates.
- Audience demographics: Candidate demographics are another aspect from which brands can better identify underrepresented talent. Finding the right talent from a specific age group, location, ethnicity, the LGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities, veterans, and many more, can be a strong indicator for the right fit.
Which Bright Data product do you use?
Tailored to our specific needs, we currently use the Bright Web Scraper IDE.
What has your experience been with Bright Data so far?
Bright Data has been an extremely valuable partner in helping us meet our growing demands for online data, as we’re able to outsource our data collection and management efforts. Without their technology, we’d be forced to build and maintain datasets manually every time we partner with a new organization, which would take time and resources away from our team’s ultimate goal of matching underrepresented talent with their dream jobs.
Looking ahead, will your company continue its partnership with Bright Data?
Our mission is to bridge the gap between underrepresented job seekers and employers committed to inclusion by helping employers cast a much wider net in their hiring. Our partnership with Bright Data will greatly help us bring this mission to life.
