For many organisations, ED&I is still little more than rhetoric. And even where there’s some progress, conversations often focus exclusively on ‘typical’ diversity markers like gender and ethnicity, while other marginalised communities are ignored. For Episode 10 of The View, we were honoured to chat to Emma Freivogel of Radical Recruit, who are doing amazing things to change that.
As an organisation that’s all about moving beyond ED&I talk to meaningful action and true impact, Radical Recruit’s mission is close to our heart.
They’re an innovative social recruitment consultancy who work exclusively with disadvantaged candidates from marginalised communities, connecting this untapped pool of misunderstood but high-potential talent with businesses.
We spoke to Emma about unlocking the power of this radical talent. Keep reading to understand how to build and retain a truly diverse, modern workforce that’s transformative – not just for jobseekers but for your organisation.
It’s time to redefine ‘diversity’
When most people consider diversity, they think along similar lines. People from:
- The global majority population
- Neurodivergent communities
- Disabled communities
- Queer folk
- Women
- Over 50s
- … and so on.
That is, people who enjoy protections under the law. And they’re definitely part of the radical talent story.
But there’s another group of people too, who don’t enjoy legal protection and are often misunderstood, mistrusted, and marginalised. These people have often had adverse life experiences, like:
- Contact with the criminal justice system
- Contact with the care system
- Domestic violence survivors
- Refugees or return veterans
- Homelessness and rough sleeping
- Generational poverty or joblessness
- Victims of modern day slavery
Emma talks about how, for these folks, the world of employment operates very differently. Often, they struggle to find and keep jobs, or they’re trapped in constant underemployment because the workforce doesn’t value them the same as ‘traditional’ talent.
Radical Recruit exists to change that.
You cannot possibly have a good life if you don’t have a job that offers fair pay in exchange for meaningful work. Work has the power to transform lives. Without work – without a sense of purpose – you can’t live with dignity. It’s such a waste of human potential, let alone the economic challenges associated with people not working.
Understanding hidden barriers
Radical doesn’t just place people into roles and hope for the best. Emma and her team work closely with both sides, to help:
- Jobseekers become interview- and job-ready
- Employers become ‘radical-ready’
On the jobseeker side…
Radical jobseekers can face myriad barriers – practical, physical, emotional and systemic – throughout the recruitment process and beyond.
Like:
- Lack of social capital – no introduction from a friend; no bank of mum and dad
- Lack of positive role models to lead the way
- Lack of confidence, self-belief, and self-worth
- Trauma experiences that shape how they interact
- Poor representation reinforcing lack of belonging
- Lack of access to practical resources – laptops; WiFi; bus fare; etc
- Challenges writing a CV or navigating a neurotypical, non-accessible process
Understanding, empathising, and helping dissolve these challenges is essential, to help more radical talent transition into meaningful jobs where they thrive.
On the employer side…
Emma sees two typical challenges that hold organisations back from effectively unlocking this talent pool.
- Lack of clarity about their current state
Organisations often approach Radical with a clear sense of where they want to be but without clarity on where they are. So it’s impossible to draw a roadmap.
“They simply don’t have a grip on their data”, Emma says. (Good diversity data is something diversity trailblazers Channel 4 evangelise too).
They aren’t clear:
- What does our workforce look like now?
- How do diverse employees come into the organisation?
- Where do they get stuck?
- How do we even define ‘diverse’?
Without knowing the answers to these questions, you can’t plan a path forward.
2) Diversity not treated as a business priority
The other major stumbling block to ED&I progress is a poor connection between diversity and the wider business. Often, diversity initiatives languish unsponsored in a silo without appropriate resources (or clout) to create and deliver on plans.
To drive change that’s serious, not just for show, organisations need to treat ED&I seriously. But often that’s just not happening.
And let’s talk about resources for a minute, because building a fairer, more inclusive process needn’t cost the world. Emma comments:
There’s this school of thought that to do diversity well you have to spend huge amounts of money and have a five-year plan, and all of that.
Actually, if you look at diversity through an equity lens there are so many things that organisations can do, at all levels. Things that are easy to implement, don’t cost a lot, and make everyone’s tomorrow better – radical talent or not
For example, five small changes:
- Include an accessibility plug-in
- Have a number for jobseekers to call if they need support
- Name specific details of the communities you want to include
- Add relevant HR policies that support ED&I into JDs
- Use an ATS that prioritises ED&I
Getting ED&I right: a real-life example from WPP
To bring this to life, Emma shares an example from a project with WPP – “a great example of an organisation putting their money where their mouth is and turning rhetoric into meaningful action”.
WPP approached Radical with a clear problem: we’re a predominantly white, red-brick university-educated group of men, and we want more diversity.
But they were struggling to articulate what that looked like. And there was a disconnect between HR, driving the initiative, and managers, who needed capable bums on seats, fast.
Radical helped WPP start from the ground-up, to understand:
- What diverse talent means
- Which challenges diverse talent might face
- How to accommodate those challenges
That process enabled WPP to reimagine every juncture of marketing, recruitment, screening, onboarding, support, and development through the lens of the radical talent they wanted:
- A homeless person’s lens
- A disabled person’s lens
- An ex-offender’s lens
- A woman’s lens
- A black person’s lens
- …and so on.
Then they took a multi-channel recruitment campaign to market, to tell that story.
Within five weeks, Radical ultimately supported 42 candidates to submit to one of WPP’s 12 open graduate roles, like project managers, analysts, training co-ordinators. Most of the candidates weren’t graduates, but the team was blown away by the exceptional quality of the people they met. Overall:
- All 42 invited for first-round interview
- 170+ second-round interviews
- 12 placements of radical talent
- 2+ years on, 11 still in-post and 2 promoted
The key factors that drove success:
One of the great things about the WPP story from Emma’s perspective is that they weren’t approaching Radical with everything perfect – but they leant into the discomfort of change.
They acknowledged they had internal challenges; systemic challenges; process challenges; policy challenges; bias challenges. And they made a conscious effort to do the uncomfortable and completely reimagine everything, wrapping their team in training to support the process:
- Scrapped the unnecessary ‘graduate’ requirement
- Got explicit about naming ‘we’d love to hear from more black people’, etc.
- Developed assessments that put accessibility at the forefront
- Had conversations with talent about how to create supportive processes
- Trained managers to start and support radical talent more effectively
- Conducted extensive unconscious bias training
- Intensive in-work support for 6 to 12 months
With diversity, people have this fear ‘Oh God, I’m not an expert, I’ll get it wrong’. And so they keep putting it off. But as a recruiter, the buck stops with you
Radical talent for radical outcomes
Bringing more radical talent into the workforce doesn’t just transform lives. It transforms business outcomes. It’s filling those hard-to-hire roles, from talent nobody else is competing for. It’s skyrocketing employee loyalty. It’s a brand your people are proud to work for. It’s better commercial results; more won bids.
Diversity is something we’re incredibly passionate about at Tribepad, but not only because it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s the thing that makes sense – for everyone.
Ready to move beyond rhetoric? Talk to Radical Recruit about how your organisation can start unlocking radical talent.
Tribepad is the trusted tech ally to smart(er) recruiters everywhere. Combining ATS, CRM, Video Interviewing, and Onboarding, our talent acquisition software is a springboard for fairer, faster, better recruitment for everyone.
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