Yahoo Finance INvolve’s Suki Sandhu on how companies can diversify their pipeline of talent
Companies looking to recruit a diverse pool of next-generation talent need to look further than higher education institutions, according to Suki Sandhu OBE, one of the UK’s leading diversity specialists.
“It’s about diversifying your pipeline of where you are finding those people,” said Sandhu, founder and CEO of executive search firm Audeliss and INvolve, a network that help businesses transform their cultures to be more inclusive.
“If you’re continually going to the same universities, the Russell Group universities, then you’re not necessarily going to get the same diversity.”
Speaking to Yahoo Finance UK, Sandhu said businesses should also be looking to employ more people directly from school or from colleges, and explore offering apprenticeships instead of only hiring university graduates.
Watch the full Suki Sandhu interview here
Sandhu said organisations can also help improve social mobility through hiring people from diverse backgrounds as the most vulnerable in society can’t necessarily afford to go to university, he said.
Some companies, such as the “big four” professional services firms, have already begun to remove the requirement of a university degree from their recruitment programmes, a move Sandhu said “is definitely a step in the right direction,” he added.
“If you’re hiring at the graduate level or undergraduate or at the executive level, if you’re hiring a black person, someone who is gay and a woman, but they all went to a Russell Group university, privately educated, and middle and upper class background — are they really thinking differently?”
Sandhu’s INvolve this week released the annual EMPower Ethnic Minority role model lists. The Top 100 Ethnic Minority Executives list was topped by Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga. Salesforce business operations manager Farah Siddiqui led the Future Leaders list, while Nick Owen, chairman of Deloitte North-West Europe, was awarded the top spot in this year’s Advocates ranking.
