Recruitment Changes Who Enters. Culture Decides Who Stays

Often, organisations centre the recruitment process in their strategies to create diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) workplaces. Recruitment is visible and measurable, and it can be an essential place to start, but it’s not the whole solution. 

Creating DEI workplaces isn’t a quick 10-piece puzzle; it’s more like a 2000-piece jigsaw, where the pieces are deliberately designed to look very similar, so it’s really hard to put the pieces in the right place and fix them together.

In Episode 12 of DEI Will Not Die, Bree unpacks why recruitment matters, where it can go wrong and what actually needs to happen along the way to create meaningful change. 

Using recruitment to drive change. 

Improving recruitment isn’t about surface-level tweaks, it’s about examining the system.

A practical starting point is mapping out the whole recruitment process step by step and asking:

• Where might bias exist?

• Where can someone experience barriers?

• What assumptions are we making about what “good” looks like?

HR and leadership teams shouldn’t be the only lens you use. It becomes far more effective if you include people with diverse voices, or even those who have experienced your process.

When you do this well, you often find simple, high-impact changes. Things like:

• Clarifying vague selection criteria

• Providing interview questions in advance

• Using work samples instead of relying on interviews

• Defining what skills like “communication” actually mean in the role

Awareness alone doesn’t change outcomes

Organisations often turn to unconscious bias training as the default solution.

But awareness doesn’t necessarily lead to better decisions. In some cases, it can even reinforce bias. Because awareness without structural change leaves people to rely on the same systems, just with more information. 

If your organisation’s interview process rewards confidence over capability, or penalises difference, the outcome won’t change because systems shape behaviour, not the other way around.

Representation isn’t the goal

Hiring more diverse candidates is often seen as a success metric in creating an inclusive workplace, but representation alone doesn’t equal inclusion or equality.

If people join your organisation and:

• Can’t influence decisions

• Don’t feel safe to contribute

• Are assessed through biased performance measures

• Experience exclusion or harm

Then the recruitment process hasn’t created change. Instead, it’s created an environment that isn’t set up for new employees to thrive. This impact often results in a lack of employee retention.

What needs to change alongside recruitment

For recruitment to actually lead to impact, other systems need to evolve at the same time.

Here are a few things you can change:

1. Performance and reward: What behaviours are valued in your organisation? And it’s not about what’s written in your values, but what actually gets measured, recognised, rewarded and promoted. If inclusive leadership isn’t measured, it won’t be prioritised.

2. Decision-making: Whose voices shape outcomes, both in and outside formal meetings? If influence sits with the same group of people, diversity at the hiring stage won’t shift outcomes. 

3. Complaints and safety: If your complaints process is difficult, slow, or not centred on the person impacted, people are more likely to leave than report.

4. Promotions: Many organisations track recruitment data closely, but have little visibility on promotions. Who gets promoted, and what’s the process? If your process is informal, you create space for bias. 

So where do you start?

We can’t do everything at once, so what should we prioritise?

DEI work takes years, so trying to perfect one area before moving to the next won’t get you far. Instead, look at starting multiple system changes at once.

• Begin improving your recruitment process

• Start reviewing internal systems, like performance measures and promotions

• Build a roadmap that sequences this work over time

This is where DEI action plans matter. Action means nothing if it’s not coordinated. 

If you want recruitment to be a meaningful lever, it has to sit within a broader systems approach. Because this work isn’t about quick wins, it’s about building workplaces where people can stay, contribute, and thrive.

Listen to Episode 12 here.

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