Diversity and inclusion are essential to driving true culture transformation at scale in any organisation. Beyond increasing awareness and growing diversity-focused habits, diversity and inclusion should be woven into your organisation’s core values. What better way to do that than by creating diversity and inclusion internships. This can also help to nurture career-focused diversity interns from the ground up.
Why Prioritise Diversity and Inclusion Internship Programmes?
Studies show that diversity promotes a culturally robust workplace and strengthens business. It allows employers to take advantage of creativity, fresh perspectives and productivity drawn from various individual backgrounds. Additionally, approaching your internship program hiring process without bias will also portray your organisation as one that encourages workplace diversity.
Below are five solid tips on creating diversity internship programmes, attracting talented interns, and turning your hiring process into a very inclusive and beneficial process for your organisation.
Don’t Seek Prestige
As you kickstart the hiring process for your diversity internship programme, it’s important not to focus on interns from only top-ranking universities or individuals who previously interned at prestigious companies. Although it can be tempting to pick individuals with impressive credentials, creating a diversity and inclusion internship is about giving opportunities to candidates who will most likely come from less prestigious backgrounds.
Local colleges and universities are some great places to set your sights on when searching for diverse interns who can add value to your organisation or company.
Diversify Your Internship Candidacy
Generally, to hire candidates who contribute to your diverse workforce goals, you must develop diversity-focused recruitment tactics. While putting up multi-racial pictures on your website pages is exciting, it’s harder to back it up with diversified culture. An excellent way to start is by proactively encouraging diversity and inclusion in your talent acquisition. Additionally, you can share a clear message about your diversity policies on your platform. That is also a great way to encourage diverse candidates to apply.
Add Value
Firstly, your company should write off the idea of interns as underpaid workaholics and coffee-fetchers from the get-go. The experience and knowledge gained from internships are critical to the career growth of young individuals as it gives them a competitive advantage in the job market. Whether it’s a summer diversity internship programme or a long-term internship role, your programme should focus on developing the intern and providing relevant value to your company. Diversity interns can be a great resource, especially when it comes to bringing new-generation ideas to the table.
Offer Internship Incentives
Paying your interns is a great way to avoid top talents experiencing financial barriers from sleeping through the cracks. When you limit your internships to those who can afford not to get paid, you’re conversely putting off diverse talents. Paid internships programmes eliminate the barriers to diverse interns who need income for various necessities while they devote their time and efforts to your organisation.
Focus Your Internship Messaging On Diversity
Interns are the future of any organisation; therefore, creating a culture where differences are welcome and valued will be vital to your long-term success. Making diversity a prominent part of your brand identity is key to success in diversity internship programmes. Candidates feel discouraged when looking at internship job descriptions with no messaging on diversity and inclusiveness. To attract potential and talented candidates, it’s essential to stress how seriously your organisation takes hiring diversity.
Final Thoughts
For many organisations, diversity and inclusion internship programmes are now an integral part of their workplace activities. Whether you run a renowned brand or a small business, building the proper foundation for diversity and inclusion will be pivotal to your human resource growth strategy. Creating diversity and inclusion focused internship programmes is one of the most credible ways to effect a meaningful company-wide positive change. When carefully applied, the few tips provided here can help you attract and build a more inclusive workforce. A workforce of young diverse interns can significantly add immense value to your organisation.
For further support, visit our Employers Advice Hub, where you can find information on what funding is available to your business, tips for attracting graduates and students, and how to advertise your early careers roles on our specialist jobs board.
