Majority of Asian professionals believe data is key to attracting diverse talent; employers yet to match expectations

The majority of employers across Asia capture the workforce diversity data of those they select and hire, and the majority of employees across Asia believe that the usage of workforce feedback for understanding demographic engagement is a positive thing. However, only half of them are confident that such data is being effectively used to inform their candidate attraction strategy, reveals the latest Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) report by leading recruitment experts Hays.

The findings of the 2019/2020 version of this annual report are based on survey responses from close to 2000 working professionals based in China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. 87 per cent of respondents were born in Asia, 54 per cent were female, and 39 per cent held managerial positions. The survey covered personal experiences of the respondents with D&I in their workplaces, as well as their perceptions of its practice within and impact on their organisations.

Data driven talent attraction on the rise; but more participation from employers needed

Employers across Asia are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of applying D&I practices to their talent attraction strategies, with 64 per cent of respondents agreeing their organisation was proactive in its efforts to source diverse candidates. To do so, most companies currently ask existing employees for referrals (61 per cent) and analyse job application data to understand which advertising channels produce a diverse mix of applicants (34 per cent). Employees are also increasingly recognising this necessity, with 82 per cent believing these efforts were a positive thing.
In fact, the use of data is becoming an important tool in Asia’s battle against D&I related problems. 67 per cent of employers capture the workforce diversity data of those they select and hire, and 74 per cent of employees believe that the usage of workforce feedback for understanding demographic engagement is a positive thing. However, only 50 per cent are confident that such data is being effectively used to inform their candidate attraction strategy, with those in Japan (22 per cent) being least confident.

Applying D&I practices to talent attraction at a high but targets still need improvement

Although the use of data is on the rise, setting D&I targets is an area that could still use improvement. 71 per cent of employees believe that the setting of diversity recruitment targets for senior managers and line managers has a positive impact on the attraction of new and more diverse talent; yet only 57 per cent of companies have targets at all, with just 48 per cent setting them specifically for management.
However, individual indicators of D&I practices still remain overwhelmingly positive, with 83 per cent of respondents believing that ‘making sure the language used to describe vacancies and organisations is unbiased’ is a positive step, and 78 per cent of organisations saying they practiced this. Similarly, 80 per cent believed that profiling their organisation’s commitment to D&I in their recruitment materials was a positive thing, with 67 per cent of organisations agreeing that they already practiced this.

In Singapore: D&I practices power innovation

Known as Asia’s innovation hub, Singapore’s drive to maintain this title requires companies to attract the right talent. This is a position that 38 per cent of respondents in Singapore agreed with, having chosen ‘talent acquisition’ as the biggest aspect of talent management that D&I practices could positively impact.

Singapore is a traditionally mixed society with a long history of welcoming talent from overseas. It then makes sense that respondents felt their organisations would better reflect this society by attracting talent from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (44 per cent) with only Malaysia (49 per cent) and Japan (69 per cent) feeling this more strongly. However, 77 per cent of respondents in Singapore said the language their companies used to describe vacancies, organisation and culture was unbiased, while 71 per cent said that job descriptions and person specifications were reviewed for bias. The latter is an especially positive indicator of employer engagement in D&I practices.

Grant Torrens, Regional Director at Hays Singapore commented, “Companies have taken impressive steps over the last year to mitigate concerns over their D&I levels. While it is clear there is still some way to go in the region as a whole, if employers can continue such improvements then concerns over biases should fall further. The rising use of data to identify the right channels and methodology to attract a diverse mix of applicants, for example, will also contribute to improvements in the year to come.”

To learn more about the 2019/2020 Hays Asia Diversity & Inclusion report, please click here.

About Hays

Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2019 the Group employed 11,500 staff operating from 265 offices in 33 markets across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2019:

– the Group reported net fees of £1,129.7 billion and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £248.8 million;

– the Group placed around 81,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 254,000 people into temporary assignments;

– 18% of Group net fees were generated in Australia & New Zealand, 27% in Germany, 23% in United Kingdom & Ireland and 32% in Rest of World (RoW);

– the temporary placement business represented 57% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 43% of net fees;

– Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA