Multicultural Communities

Discover better ways to encourage applicants from multicultural backgrounds

Show your commitment

Building a culturally diverse workplace creates a powerful advantage for your organisation when it comes to recruitment. It broadens your organisation’s appeal to prospective employees, which in turn enables you to attract top-level candidates from all round the world.

So make sure you spread the word. Promote your diversity. Drive initiatives that show your organisation is committed to supporting all their employees, regardless of their backgrounds. Simple steps like this can help build your multicultural workforce.

Drive action with policy

Don’t just talk about creating a culturally diverse workplace, make tangible changes to drive action.

Make your commitment to cultural diversity official. Develop policies that create an equitable workplace. Then implement those policies so that people from multicultural backgrounds see they are valued and accepted.

Bring down the barriers

In Australia the positive impacts of bringing people from different backgrounds together are all around us. Yet for many of those people, working here hasn’t always straightforward.

People from multicultural backgrounds can face significant barriers to employment. Different languages, different behaviours, different expectations and different understandings, to name a few.

By understanding and addressing these barriers in your recruitment processes, you can provide better outcomes for multicultural applicants and create a stronger, more diverse talent pool for your organisation.

Find smarter ways for your organisation to recruit more multicultural applicants

Create application processes that encourage diversity

The first time many potential employees hear about your organisation is when they apply for a job. So it makes sense that this is one of the best times to demonstrate that your organisation is serious about diversity.

Making sure your application process is balanced, unbiased and inclusive is crucial. It will help multicultural applicants feel more confident about applying because they know they will be welcome and respected in your workplace.

Develop an inclusive interviewing process

An inclusive interviewing process is the key to ensuring that multicultural applicants have a positive interview experience. It can also help the interviewer gain a more accurate assessment of an applicant’s skill and capabilities.

Make sure your interview process considers their needs. Before you start, get an understanding of the culture of the applicant. Have an interpreter on hand if necessary. Be aware of any nuances in their behaviour. And remember to ask questions and listen carefully to their responses.

Inclusive Onboarding

New employees face a critical moment of truth during the onboarding process. It’s the time they get to see if the diverse and inclusive culture you promised them during their interview is, in fact, a reality.

Letting them see your diverse workforce in action is a good place to start. Introducing them to other employees, especially those from the same background is also helpful. Explain your diversity policies. Pair new employees with a mentor. Offer ongoing support. All these things can help them feel they belong in your workplace.

Retaining great talent is a challenge in itself. But retaining great multicultural talent comes with a special set of considerations as well.

People from multicultural backgrounds want to join a workplace where they feel comfortable and accepted. By taking a few simple steps, you can give them plenty of good reasons to stay. Be sure to nurture a culture of belonging in your workplace. Invest in professional growth and development for your employees. Communicate with them openly and often. Really listen to their contributions and act on their suggestions.

Lead by inclusion

A culture of inclusion starts at very top and moves down through all levels of an organisation. This is why it’s crucial that your organisation’s leadership team is committed to the cause.

Inclusive leaders practice what they preach about inclusion. They communicate regularly and actively listen. They initiate programs that promote diversity and inclusion and encourage participation by all employees too.

Drive inclusive initiatives

Building successful multicultural teams can be a challenge. After all, it means bringing people with different viewpoints, beliefs and talents together and asking them to work towards the same goal. However, it can result in great outcomes for individuals and the organisation.

The key is to build inclusion and value diversity. Create an environment where all voices can be heard and where all cultures are respected. And be sure to implement multicultural initiatives in your workplace, such as flexible holiday leave for cultural or religious events and facilities that support individual needs and beliefs.

Create an inclusive workplace

Building an inclusive workplace takes time and commitment. It’s like creating a rich mosaic of diverse people, ideas, backgrounds, genders, lifestyles and talents.

Making sure you have all the right pieces on hand is important. Implement policies and programs that celebrate cultural differences. Build cultural awareness and understanding. Recognise diverse talents. Insist on equality and fairness. Share knowledge, skills and experience and be sure to encourage contributions from everyone.

Multicultural employees want to work for organisations where their unique skills are recognised and rewarded – organisations that actively invest in their professional growth and development.

Talk to your multicultural employees regularly about the options your organisation offers them for training and upskilling. Discuss opportunities for advancement when they arise. Help them apply for promotion and support those who want to progress to leadership positions. Their advancement can help build a stronger, more productive and more inclusive workplace for everyone.

Mentor multicultural employees

A mentoring or “buddy” system is a great way to help new employees become acquainted with and comfortable in your workplace. But the advantages of mentoring go well beyond the onboarding phase.

A more experienced employee can help a new employee develop their skills and talents. At the same time, they can help that employee discover pathways to advancement and build a multicultural pool of future leaders too.

Set achievable targets

Your organisation already knows about setting targets for financial performance and productivity outcomes. Setting targets for workplace diversity is very similar. This process creates measurable benchmarks for different aspects of multicultural employment in your workplace and puts plans in place to achieve those benchmarks.

Diversity targets like these can help drive continuous improvement, boost accountability, measure performance and increase multicultural representation in your organisation’s leadership team.

Build pathways to promotion

If you want to build more diverse talent in your organisation’s leadership, you’ll need to show your multicultural employees the pathways to get there.

Making sure employees from multicultural backgrounds have equal opportunities for advancement is a good place to start. Map out those pathways with them and help them identify opportunities for promotion. Offer training and upskilling, Pair them with a suitable mentor. Then provide leadership shadowing opportunities so they can learn by experience.