How to Inspire, Hire and Grow Diverse Talent

• Healthy_Communities
• Employment and Skills

The How to Inspire, Hire and Grow Diverse Talents toolkit, supported by JTI, provides practical guidance to help businesses inspire future talent, develop inclusive recruitment processes and provide an enabling work environment to help employees thrive. The guide is structured around the Business in the Community (BITC) Employment Framework.

About Business in the Community’s Employment Framework

Originally developed to support our work on youth employment, it was subsequently extended to help businesses think more strategically about their employment and skills offer.

The framework identifies three distinct stages:

1. Inspire: providing pre-employment support.
2. Hire: removing barriers in recruitment processes.
3. Grow: ensuring in-work support.

This concept provides a broad overview of interventions that support disadvantaged groups to get into sustainable, good work.

The business case for inclusive recruitment

• Addressing skills shortages: in a tight labour market, when many employers are struggling to fill vacancies, widening your talent pool to consider candidates from disadvantaged groups is an effective way to bridge the gap.
• Reducing recruitment costs: working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus and third sector organisations can be a cost-effective way to find talent without having to pay expensive recruitment agency fees.
• Increasing staff retention: finding loyal employees can bring significant savings. BITC members who employ people from disadvantaged groups report lower turnover among those groups¹.
• Upskilling your existing workforce: providing pre-employment or in-work support for disadvantaged groups can create volunteering opportunities for your existing workforce, helping them to gain transferable skills that will benefit your business.
• Increasing staff engagement: business volunteers taking part in BITC’s Ready for Work programme reported a 74% increase in job satisfaction².
• Improving client relationships and boosting corporate reputation: a study of employers that promoted employing ex-offenders found that 65% reported this having a positive impact on their corporate reputation.³

What candidates are looking for

Our Inclusive Recruitment campaign – Opening Doors
Case studies, first steps, principles and actions

Also included in this Inclusive Employment: How to Inspire, Hire and Grow Diverse Talent toolkit is a range of case studies from BITC members that record practical interventions that have really made a difference. There are also four initial steps and a number of principles and accompanying actions to help your organisation take action.

Business in the Community’s work on employment and skills

Business in the Community (BITC) supports organisations to create meaningful employment. This is one of the most significant ways that business contributes to the livelihoods of individuals and communities and is for many the only sustainable route out of poverty. 

Offering quality work experience, adopting new recruitment approaches, and breaking down barriers to entering work for people from disadvantaged groups can benefit business by tackling skills shortages, building new talent pipelines, boosting retention rates, and achieving higher productivity.

Employment and skills are part of the Business in the Community Responsible Business Map