Office Hours: 5 Ways to Diversify Your Talent Pipeline

This post is part of our biweekly "Office Hours" video series, featuring quick career, workplace and leadership tips from talent management experts and business leaders across the globe.

It's no secret that diversity in the workplace pays off, not only because it contributes to a healthy company culture, but also because it boosts organizational performance. According to a recent McKinsey study, ethnically diverse companies are 35 percent more likely to outperform industry medians, and, according to Deloitte, 83 percent of millennials are more engaged when they believe their company fosters inclusivity.

In this video, Melissa Lanier, who directs career and leadership development at T-Mobile, explains how she strengthens and maintains the talent pipeline for a company whose workforce is the most diverse in its industry.

Recruit better, she says, and make sure that you start the hiring process with a talent pool that includes candidates from multiple backgrounds.

Leaders who make hiring decisions must learn, perhaps through formal training, how to identify candidates that will diversify the organization. HR teams, meanwhile, must drive a continual conversation about how the organization can revise its talent review process and succession planning to be more inclusive.

Internally, managers must also strive to promote underrepresented voices to management positions so that when increasingly diverse future generations of employees enter the workforce, they'll be able to relate to their leaders.

Photo: Creative Commons