How to Write Your Equality and Diversity Statement

When you’re hiring for a new position, one of the things you’ll need to dial in is your equality and diversity statement.

Consider it one more way to define your brand and organization. When you connect with potential candidates, your equality and diversity statement can help set your company apart from your competition. It may even be the thing that helps a potential candidate accept your offer over another.

What’s in an equality and diversity statement?

It’s a lot like a mission statement that helps define your values. Consider it a blueprint for creating an inclusive workforce that helps define your hiring practices, benefits, and culture.

Ready to write your equality and diversity statement to support your recruiting efforts?

There are basically three parts to the process and it may take a little time. You’ll probably need some time for brainstorming, planning, writing, and editing with your organization’s leadership. But it’s totally worth it to support your recruiting efforts.

Your equality and diversity statement needs to answer three essential questions in about a page:

1. What does it mean to my organization?

You’ve got to dig into your mission statement as a company or organization to help you answer this. Why are equality and diversity important?

Set up a virtual call with your leadership team, or book the conference room, and hash this out. It’s the first step in writing your equality and diversity statement.

How you answer this really shapes your hiring practices, messaging, outreach, and ultimately your company culture and employee population.

2. Why does it matter?

It’s another question you can probably only answer through thoughtful conversations with your team.

Why does it matter in the short term? Why does it matter in the long-term?

Here’s something to consider:

If you build a diverse team of people with a wide variety of backgrounds, skills, and experience, you’re more likely to end up with a better product, service, and results than an everybody-is-the-same type of organization.

If your workforce isn’t as diverse as you’d like it to be right now, use your equality and diversity statement to help you get from where you are to where you want to be. From there, you can drill down on an actual plan of how you'll conquer your diversity recruiting strategy. 

3. How are we making this part of our organization?

Once you map out the first two parts of your equality and diversity statement and understand your why, identify strategic ways you’re going to implement your plan in things like:

• Job descriptions
• Candidate screening
• Recruiting interviews
• Creating teams of employees
• Company culture
• Job fairs
• On-boarding new employees
• Company events
• Performance reviews

Once you define these, set some measurable goals. Track your progress and evaluate how you’re doing throughout the year. Then make adjustments as necessary.

Create an equality and diversity statement to help your organization stand out

If you’re looking for ways to hire the best talent and create a workforce of creative minds that produce results, provide better service, and outperform your competition, your equality and diversity statement can serve as a guide to help you make it happen.