British companies give greater priority to education than diversity when recruiting new employees, according to research from Cornerstone OnDemand and IDC. When asked what their top three priorities were when recruiting, only 25% of UK companies said diversity, whereas more than 40% said education.
These statistics come from the Future Culture, Building a Culture of Innovation in the Age of Digital Transformation, report carried out by IDC on behalf of Cornerstone OnDemand in which more than 1,900 HR, business and IT managers across 14 European countries were surveyed.
In the UK, job skills is seen as the most important recruitment criteria, followed by education and problem solving. Diversity appears as the sixth most important criteria for UK organisations.
| Top five recruitment criteria | |
| UK | Europe |
|
|
| 2. Education | 2. Education |
| 3. Problem solving | 3. Problem solving |
| 4. Cultural fit | 4. References |
| 5. References | 5. Cultural fit |
Corporate culture
Diversity is also seen as less important for the corporate culture within UK organisations. only 35% of organisations named diversity in their top three most important elements of company culture, on par with the European average of 35%. Being team-orientated is considered Europe-wide as the most important element of the company culture.
Alexandra Anders, talent director EMEA at Cornerstone said, “Managers need to encourage diversity in how they market themselves and the business, not just through marketing and public relations, but also through job advertisements.
“From a leader’s perspective, when you bring a diverse set of people together you must be clear how you want to be as a company.
“Yes, there will be local laws and cultural aspects that individuals in your organisation hold dear, but you must set the ‘laws’ as a company and what it means to be at your organisation. And for many organisations, this means moving away behaviours that stifle diversity.”
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