The Key Learning Points:

1.What makes a returner and how organisations need to better understand the career paths taken by women

2.Two main barriers which hold companies back from achieving the diverse candidate recruitment they seek

3.Three top tips for organisations wanting to access the returner talent pool

On this week's remote Risky Mix podcast, we’re joined by Stephanie Dillon, partner and founder at Inclusivity Partners, a business that designs and delivers returner programs for individuals who have taken career breaks. Inclusivity Partners recently launched a returner initiative in the insurance industry and we’re looking forward to hearing more about that today!

Stephanie admits that she “stumbled into the world of recruitment” after joining Michael Page on a graduate program. She left when she had her first baby who was subsequently diagnosed with a number of neurodiverse conditions which lead Stephanie to take a real interest in the diversity space. Stephanie realised that “from a talent perspective, when we recruit, we tend to have a very very limited definition of what constitutes talent”. She set up Inclusivity in 2015 to help those who want to return to their careers after taking a break.

Stephanie explains more about the returner initiative which recently launched in the insurance industry, with support from the Insurance Families Network, and adds that they currently have nine member insurers participating in the first pilot. In September, recruited returners will commence a six-month contract role with these insurers, and “it’s specifically designed to be a softer landing” – Stephanie explains that her firm will be providing training for hiring managers and coaching for returning candidates to make the transition back to work as smooth as possible.

Stephanie believes there are two big disconnects between what corporates say they want in terms of diverse recruitment and accessing returners, but what actually happens in reality. Firstly, “organisations consistently underfund their resourcing teams.” Stephanie explains that because of this underfunding, hiring teams are often sitting on too many vacancies which doesn’t allow them the time to properly investigate and explore a wide arrange of candidates so they “fall back on perceived safe bets”.  Another consequence of underfunding is that resource teams become unable to do strategic workforce planning to actually attract these diverse candidates. The second key disconnect for Stephanie is the support of middle management. Often the conversations and D&I buy-in happen at a senior level, but she believes you need to put the structure in place for hiring managers to “live that reality”, otherwise it’s “all talk and no action”. 

We ask Stephanie for her three top tips for companies looking to access the diverse returner talent pool:

1.      Investment in your resourcing team. Do more interviews, speak to more candidates, broaden your mindset about what makes a good candidate.

2.      Education in talent acquisition. The talent pool is getting older but we’re always shopping in the younger age brackets for talent.

3.      Put middle managers in a position to win. They need support to achieve more diversity, give them the leeway to make that happen.