Why Hiring and Retaining Diverse Employees is Key Today: Tips on How to Succeed

PR Tactics Magazine
July 2007, p. 17

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One of the best practices for recruiting starts by creating the right company atmosphere. A company must display a corporate culture that values and supports diversity, former recruiter Robert Steward says.

“You should be constantly striving to brand yourself as a company everyone wants to work for, even if they are not sure why,” says Steward, now a manager for LatPro, a popular online job board started in 1997 for Hispanic and bilingual professionals. “People talk to each other. If you are known as a company that respects and values multicultural skills, be sure that your employees are ambassadors of this identity to everyone they meet.”

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Retaining multicultural workers

While it is important to attract good employees, it is equally important to retain them. After dedicating the time to hire good staff members, it only makes sense to try and keep them.

“While some might feel this can be attained by just doing some sensitivity workshops that make everyone feel good for an afternoon, I believe there is much more to retaining minority employees,” Steward says. “It’s certainly important to help each other understand the cultural differences, not only between non-minority and minority employees, but also those between minorities within the same ethnic group and between minority groups.”

Even so, minority employees must feel their opinions are valued in a company, Steward stresses.

“Companies that encourage participation and initiation of projects or programs that are important to their employees show minority employees that their voices matter and what’s important to them is important to their employer alike.”

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