DISCUSSION The UK recruitment industry needs to get its Equality Act together

Anne Tynan is an HR Equality and Diversity specialist, whose report on Recruitment Equality has just been published.

On 3 February, Tomorrow’s Company gave Anne a platform to explain why she decided to analyse recruitment websites in terms of accessibility, equality and diversity.

With a background in equality and diversity, it was inevitable that I would focus on related issues when my own turn came to look at recruitment websites at the end of 2010.  It did not take long to notice that recruitment consultants, job agencies, online recruiters and organisations’ own internal recruitment departments were falling short of the equality mark when it came to their websites. Without further ado, I decided to turn the drudgery of job-hunting into a doubly productive way of expanding my own skills and knowledge, and contributing to equality of employment for all candidates.

Over a three-month period, I screened a cross-sectoral selection of 300 recruitment websites and analysed the results.

‘Recruitment Equality – Accessibility, Equality and Diversity on Recruitment Websites’ was the outcome, a 30-page report that is now available for all to read.

A few ‘wordbites’ (to coin a phrase) from the report suffice to set the scene:

Tomorrow’s Company has a mention within the report within a section looking at the types of logos and labels found on websites. Of particular interest to members will be the section on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); in my view, including equality and diversity in CSR demonstrates a slightly outdated attitude.

‘Recruitment Equality’ provides an insight into the recruitment industry’s standpoint on equality issues. To say that there is room for improvement could possibly prove to be one of the greatest understatements of 2011. Other organisations should now also take note.

A PDF copy of the report can be downloaded here.  A Word version of the report can also be viewed online here.