Our Hiring Practices
Embedding Equity in our Hiring Process
Our People and Culture team has established updated norms and made significant changes to embed equity throughout our hiring process. Read below to learn more about how we incorporate JEDI into our recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and ongoing human resources policies.
Recruiting
- Centralized hiring process through the People and Culture department while collaborating with the department to maintain a consistent process for job postings and candidate selection
- Created a template for job descriptions and reviewing postings for bias
- Prioritize the understanding of the varied skills and experience each candidate may bring to a role vs seeking a homogeneous candidate profile
- Offer an IslandWood application form as an option for applicants who are unable to complete the online application
- Ask all applicants to respond to a general JEDI question, and do not advance applicants to the interview phase if their response does not indicate a commitment to social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion
- Clearly state salary range, work schedule, and job classification on all job postings
- Focus job descriptions on what is required for each position, without inflating educational requirements
- Invest to expand and diversify job postings by publishing open positions in BIPOC-specific job boards
- For our educator roles — prioritize lived experiences and teaching experiences over a requirement of specific educational degrees. For example, we removed a prior requirement of a background in environmental education (EE) because the field of EE, to date, has not been diverse or inclusive.
- Include a commitment to JEDI as a required qualification in all job descriptions
Interviewing
- Break interviews into two groups when more than 3 or 4 people need to interview a candidate
- Whenever possible, mix interview panels to include staff of various levels and backgrounds
- Provide interviewers with questions that ensure consistency and eliminate bias
- Whenever possible, have interviews conducted by staff members who have previously demonstrated effective interview skills
- Offer interview skills training for staff who participate in the interviewing process
- The People and Culture team reviews feedback to help ensure objectivity and consistency in the interview process
Onboarding
- Provide 1:1 and small group onboarding to guide all new employees through the integration process
- Provide an onboarding schedule that allows adequate time to learn about the role, meet the team and learn about the organization
- Whenever needed, provide an interpreter for staff member onboarding
- Provide hiring managers with an onboarding schedule that ensures all newly hired staff have a similar experience
- The People and Culture team sends hiring and onboarding surveys to all newly hired staff to learn about each staff experience and make improvements as needed
Growth Areas
- Each year we conduct an employee engagement and satisfaction survey. To date, we have not asked participants to identify their race, and therefore have not been able to disaggregate data, looking for employee trends based on race. This is an important step in ensuring that our continued work toward creating an inclusive, antiracist, equitable work culture is making actionable progress and that we are accountable to our staff. In our next staff survey, we will take the necessary steps to ensure we can disaggregate data by race.
- While we’ve made significant progress in our recruiting, hiring and onboarding processes, we will continue to review and evolve our policies to ensure that they are equitable.
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