5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Brings Diversity to the Modern Workplace

By Jacob Wilson On Sep 23, 2019

Diversity has become one of the pillars of the modern business world, and in many countries across the globe, it is one of the prerequisites for a company to even exist, let alone build a thriving brand. In the quest for higher workplace diversity and a more diverse recruitment process that nurtures equality among genders, races, and communities, business leaders are increasingly employing the help of Artificial Intelligence.

As if AI wasn’t popular enough throughout the modern business sector, HR specialists are now leveraging its computing power and laser-like precision to pinpoint brand weaknesses and opportunities, and bring the right employee to the company without sacrificing diversity in the process. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the five ways Artificial Intelligence can help you build a more diverse workforce, in order to ensure compliance and take your company to new heights of success.

Emphasizing Gender-Neutral Recruiting

AI technology is becoming more nuanced and refined as the years go by, and there is no denying that professionals throughout the business sector can leverage its power and potential to make better decisions. But when it comes to recruiting, AI can serve a very unique purpose of weeding out our biases and allow us to create a more comprehensive, gender-neutral approach to recruiting. In turn, this stifles the age-old “battle of the sexes”, and most importantly, helps create gender-neutral industries.

Let’s take a look at a concrete example. In an article published by MIT’s Sloan Review, a Software company named Atlassian used Artificial Intelligence to create gender-neutral recruiting messages, texts, and stories that resonated with all gender demographics. In turn, this yielded an amazing 47% increase in the recruitment, onboarding, and retention of female recruits in a niche that was previously considered “a male-dominated sector.” This goes to show that no matter the industry you’re operating in, AI can help you create a gender-neutral recruitment strategy.

Waging a War on Wage Gaps

When it comes the wages and wage equality, the severity of the problem can range from country to country, sector to sector, and even between individual companies. While some countries have strict laws and regulations that govern and oversee the distribution of salaries in the commercial sector, there is still a surprising number of cases where the wage gap is present, and unfortunately, thriving. However, AI might be the solution every industry needs – a solution that will eliminate bias and allow you to stay on the right side of the law.

Innovative AI software can, for example, generate bias-free salary suggestions and projections based on a number of crucial factors, none of which take the employees’ look, ethnicity, or gender into account. Instead, the software will analyze variables such as education, certifications, experience, and performance to generate salary suggestions, as well as suggestions regarding bonuses and promotions.

Discovering Opportunities for the Disabled

Workplace and recruitment diversity is not just about bringing people of all genders and races together under one brand, it’s also about discovering the vast world of talented individuals in the disabled sector as well. People with disabilities make excellent employees and are some of the most loyal brand members every business leader can hope for, which is why competitive job markets such as Australia are fighting over the top talent in this community.

In Sydney for example, growth-oriented companies will combine Artificial Intelligence with disability employment agencies such as atWork Australia to find, get in touch, and recruit the perfect employee for their team. Using the processing power of AI to craft recruitment briefs and texts in combination with digital technology that allows business leaders to tap into the community quickly and easily, they are able to optimize their recruitment strategy to attract and retain the best of the best. Using the same mindset, be sure to make your company more accessible and appealing to talented individuals with disabilities.

Aiding the Recruitment of Diverse Talent

With all of this talk about diversity and the elimination of biased recruiting, it’s important to remember that AI is built by the skilled hands and ingenious minds of humans. In other words, AI software used to fuel diversity will inevitably contain the subconscious biases that reside in all of us. This is why nowadays Artificial Intelligence is structured in such a way that it consciously eliminates and overrides these biases when learning and optimizing its processes.

This creates an even playing field for all candidates, closes the diversity gap in gender-biased industries, and allows all candidates to showcase their talent without fear of bias or human error. What’s more, this helps create a thriving company culture, one based on equality, diversity, honesty, and transparency.

Enhancing Awareness in the Workplace and Beyond

And speaking of company culture, it’s important to note that AI is not only shaping the modern workplace in terms of diversity, but it’s also shaping the mindset of every individual in the company and beyond. Brands that utilize the power of AI to create a more diverse workforce are able to shift the internal and public mindsets from a gender-biased industry to a more gender-neutral one. That way, the tech industry can become more appealing to all genders, and deconstruct the prejudices that once shaped the sector.

Wrapping Up

Artificial Intelligence is transforming every industry and every niche in the modern business world, and it might as well be the long-term solution to the problem of diversity. With these insights in mind, you can implement AI into your recruitment strategy to create a diverse workforce and take your company forward.