At Revolt, we have made the commitment to be as representative inside the business as our society outside it – at the absolute minimum – over the next 3 years. To get there we’ve set targets for all underrepresented groups, which include: BAME, state school educated (as a proxy for social class), people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ and women (gender is analysed across all groups to ensure equality).
But targets without a strategy are doomed to fail. So we’ve reconsidered our hiring process in number of ways that we wanted to share:
> Always-on interviews: every leader across the business has been tasked with conducting one interview a fortnight. The thinking is the more talent we meet, the more diverse the pool we have to draw on once positions become available. It also shifts the responsibility of I&D from a handful of people to every leader in the business.
> 20% interview quota: at least 20% of the people we interview must come from underrepresented groups. To facilitate this, we’ve installed a mandatory 4-week hiring lead time – regardless of how urgent the need is.
> Blind CVs: we will follow our client DO’s guidelines to remove applicants names, universities and grades from CVs to erode our basic biases. We’ll supplement the ‘blindness’ by asking our recruiters to meet our 20% quota with the shortlists they provide.
Our intention isn’t to box-tick or fall foul of positive discrimination. After all, nobody wants their identity marker to be the reason they’re in the room.
Ultimately we aim to always hire the best person for the job, and we believe these steps erode our biases and establish an equality of opportunity that over time will turn representation into a reality.