Engagement is our process of building rapport and relationship, for everyone’s gain, over time, through multiple and deep interactions.
Hadley-Reynolds listens differently. We teach those we work with to listen differently. In all of our work, we equally emphasize short-term and long-term. Our signature approach leads to professionals and employers both making decisions differently. It helps to eliminate a common condition among even well meaning organizations of being (and/or being perceived as) culturally “tone-deaf“.
Our approach helps both employers and diverse professionals throughout the ongoing engagement process, from networking (unattached to specific position openings) to recruiting to onboarding to retention.
Networking is a structured (formal and informal) part of our engagement activities. Hadley-Reynolds methodically connects diverse, top-tier talent with specific forward-thinking employers across industries, cultivating understanding and resonance among members of these organizations and a highly qualified pipeline of potential near-term or long-term hires.
Hadley-Reynolds’ networking goes beyond simply introducing people and setting up exchanges. We create value by continuously cultivating tailored sub-networks of diverse talent and identifying & connecting top-quality contributors to organizations that increasingly value, prioritize, and commit to maintaining a diverse organizational culture.
Our Diversity InvitationalTM series of events is just one prominent tool among many in the networking “kit” that we offer both employers and high-caliber talent. Other tools include facilitating in-person meetings, assisting in arranging mentorships, scouting potential network/pipeline members at industry events, and reviewing industry trades to identify the diverse ‘movers and shakers’ who might appreciate meeting similar and diverse others
Recruitment is the part of our overall engagement that involves attracting and selecting suitable candidates for specific roles / organizations.
Hadley-Reynolds recruits differently. Whereas conventional recruitment is a short-term, goal-oriented search to fill one or more open positions, H-R recruitment is part of a larger, long-term engagement and relationship-building strategy that establishes depth and rapport with talented and diverse leaders, even (and especially) when there are no specific openings available.
While traditional recruitment focuses on opening requisitions within an Applicant Tracking System, with the goal of closing and filling them with “the right fit” as soon as possible, the H-R recruitment approach leverages a proactive, longer-term, low-volume, “high touch” approach.
We commit, in an ongoing way, to conducting an array of time-seasoned “pipeline”-building interactions, ranging from one-on-one meetings with currently employed, diverse, super-star executives to our unique Diversity InvitationalTM series of tailored relationship-building events.
From early in the engagement and recruitment process—continuing through onboarding—we help develop internal “champions” within diversity-conscious organizations—mentors connected repeatedly to diverse talent based on meaningful relationships that we facilitate with the industry’s top performers and/or rising stars.
Onboarding is the part of our overall engagement that helps new hires adjust to social and performance aspects of their new jobs smoothly. When done well – which is central to our mandate – strong employer and strong new hire experiences lead to much longer-term employee retention.
While traditional onboarding focuses almost exclusively on helping to ready the new hire / employee for his or her new role, the Hadley-Reynolds onboarding consulting focuses as much or more on helping our client organizations to ensure that the organizational culture is evolving quickly and appropriately to support the desired shift toward more diversity at every level.
We help leadership to practice and promote: (1) more culturally sensitive listening; (2) more seeking (and experiencing with an open mind) perspectives from diverse staff in advance of making decisions; and (3) more decision making using increasingly developed, diversely-informed intuition and information—and transparency of process around inputs.
Retention is the part of our overall engagement that helps increase the likelihood that diverse new hires will stay and be productive long-term.
Hadley-Reynolds approaches employee retention holistically as one part of an integrated overall engagement process. We recognize the high cost and many causes of failed employee retention, especially among executives and other high-level contributors.
Retention of new hires is measurably enhanced by virtue of the enduring and substantive H-R-catalyzed relationships that are created during the many interactions beyond just an interviewing process (for example, informal discussions, participation in our Diversity InvitationalTM, candidate orientation/mentoring provided by “champion” executives within our client employers, and strong consulting during the onboarding process.)
H-R’s consulting attention to the co-development of organizational culture and diverse executive onboarding also enhances retention results.