Note: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives continue to evolve as federal regulations and enforcement are released. Employers should ensure they remain compliant with the federal anti-discrimination laws surrounding DEI.
In today's workforce environment, all organizations aspire to make their workplace more diverse in order to have high-performing teams. Studies have shown that diverse organizations perform better. For that reason, many organizations should aim to reduce bias in the talent acquisition process, as it may jeopardize talent acquisition and employee retention efforts.
This article will examine how companies can move the dial on their diversity strategies and ensure Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the hiring process. However, it's critical to understand the legislative changes that took effect in 2025; employers are encouraged to catch up on the state of DEI in 2026 in order to carefully maintain compliance when moving forward with DEI hiring practices.
Please be sure to also check out the DEI hiring FAQ to find quick answers to some common questions on this topic.
What is DEI Hiring?
DEI hiring involves ensuring that there is diversity and fairness involved throughout the hiring process. It is essential in creating and maintaining a diverse workforce.
What Does DEI Stand For?
DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Diversity is the presence of differences within a given setting. In the workplace, that can mean differences in experiences, skills, gender, race, and so on.
Because of this, diversity can fall into two categories:
- Acquired Diversity: It refers to things like skills, experience, education, and skills, which are more fluid and can develop and evolve over time.
- Inherent Diversity: Think of inherent diversity as being tied to age, race, gender, and any other characteristic that is natural to who someone is as a person.
- Employers should also focus on merit-based characteristics when evaluating inherently diverse candidates to avoid non-compliance risks involving DEI-related discrimination
Equity is the process of ensuring that practices and programs are impartial, fair, and provide equal opportunities for every individual.
Inclusion is the practice of ensuring that every employee feels comfortable and supported by the organization when it comes to being their authentic selves.
DEI Hiring
When it comes to DEI in hiring, diversity should be the bare minimum. The focus isn't about hiring different races, genders, etc., it's about ensuring that everyone who applies to your open roles has an equal and fair opportunity. It's also about being critical and unbiased when it comes to your recruiting strategies, ensuring that every step of the process focuses on the quality of the candidate, not their background or how they look.
Benefits of DEI in the Workplace
Diversity hiring is the right thing to do. It's not only an ethical responsibility but also makes sound business sense. Here are some benefits of building diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace environments:
- Better Employee Performance: Workplaces that support DEI initiatives are shown to be more productive. A study conducted by McKinsey found that ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
- Improved Employee Engagement: Diverse teams are rich in varying perspectives and a wide range of knowledge, which is likely to engage employees. 83% of millennials report being actively engaged when they believe their organization fosters an inclusive workplace culture, according to Deloitte. That percentage drops to 60% when their organization fails to foster an inclusive culture. (A Gallup study has revealed that employees who are engaged or who are actively disengaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity.)
- Higher Employee Retention: DEI has been proven to build a safer and happier working environment. Recent research by Great Place to Work shows that when employees trust that they will be treated fairly, they are 9.8 times more likely to look forward to work and 6.3 times more likely to take pride in their job.
- Employer of Choice: According to Glassdoor, 76% of job seekers view a diverse workplace as an important factor when evaluating and considering job offers.
Strategies for DEI Hiring Practices
It’s always important to ask the following questions as the first step to improving a part of your business:
- What's our goal?
- How do we measure success?
Sit down with your hiring team and identify what it is that you want to achieve, and consider the following strategies below:
Remove Exclusive Language in Job Descriptions
Most employers and recruiting managers make the mistake of designing job descriptions in a way that excludes specific demographics. This often happens through the language used and the demographic targeted. For example, researchers have found that women are much less likely to apply to job descriptions that include 'masculine-coded' language such as "active", "confident", and "driven."
When crafting job descriptions, refrain from using industry or gender-specific language that could deter some of your strongest candidates. Additionally, consider using a 'Company Values' section: an element of a job posting that will help diversify your candidate pool by highlighting your organization's values and welcoming applicants from all backgrounds.
Provide Bias Awareness Training for Teams
Few recruiters are aware that they use mental shortcuts to make hiring decisions, which may accidentally benefit some candidates more than others. To combat this, offer fair hiring and bias awareness training to everyone participating in the hiring process. This can help shed light on hiring practices that may be unfair. It should also be conducted regularly with all employees to ensure they are supported and supportive of the DEI-centric work culture.
For maximum impact, combine this training with blind hiring, which involves stripping away identifiable characteristics from a resume unrelated to the job or experiences needed for success.
Standardize the Interview Process
Having some degree of informality during the interview process is a good way to build fellowship and get to know your candidates more personally. However, unstructured interviews can make it harder for you to fairly benchmark candidates, making it more likely that unconscious bias will creep in.
Creating a structured process that tests all applicants in the same way will ensure they're all assessed against the same markers.
The best way to achieve this is to stick to a standardized set of questions for every candidate. This can help reduce subjectivity and allow candidates to be judged against others based on specific answers.
Cultivate an Inclusive Company Culture
A DEI-centric hiring process is just the first step. To build a company culture for retention, companies need to create an inclusive and positive work environment that gives each employee a unique voice and encourages them to be themselves. Their individual needs are not only met, but they are encouraged to take time for personal responsibilities that they believe are important.
Talking with your employees to discover ways you can make your workspace more open to diversity can go a long way. Holding seminars, events, and conferences that help educate employees on the importance of diversity can also create a more inclusive environment.
Avoid Common Biases During the Hiring Process
Awareness through training will go far to eliminate prejudices and ensure a DEI-oriented hiring process. Here are the most common hiring biases:
- Halo/Horns Effect: Refers to when a recruiter focuses too heavily on one positive aspect of a candidate, allowing this positive aspect to overcome all other aspects of a candidate's application. The horns effect, as the opposite, is when a recruiter focuses on something negative exclusively.
- Confirmation: A drawn conclusion about a situation or a person based on personal desires, beliefs, and prejudices rather than unbiased merit.
- Social: This type of bias occurs when you make a judgment based on gender, cultural background, race, sexuality, etc., due to preconceived notions of a group.
Reinforce Merit-Based Hiring
Effective and compliant DEI hiring practices should support equal access to employment opportunities while maintaining merit-based candidate evaluation standards. The recruitment team should primarily focus on the following to reduce biases and improve consistency throughout the hiring process:
- Objective qualifications (previous roles, education, achievements)
- Structured interviews
- Standardized evaluations
- Skills-based role requirements
Federal Discrimination Laws to Know
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces federal laws prohibiting discrimination against a job applicant or an employee during a variety of work situations, including hiring, firing, and wages.
Below are some of the most notable EEO laws employers should familiarize themselves with:
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.
- The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967: Protects certain job applicants and employees 40 years or older from discrimination on the basis of their age. This law covers everything from hiring to promotion to compensation.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990: Prohibits employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities. Note that people of all ages could have any number of disabilities covered in the ADA, but you are not permitted to discriminate against any one of them, so long as the individual is qualified to perform the job.
- The Equal Pay Act (EPA) of 1963: Prohibits sex-based wage discrimination between men and women who perform equal work in the same workplace.
Note: These laws are the basics of how the EEOC tackles discrimination in the workplace. Court law interpretation and amendments to these laws are evolving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Final Thoughts on DEI Hiring in 2026
The key to a successful diverse recruiting strategy lies in acknowledging that inherent biases exist. To overcome bias in hiring decisions, organizations must implement ongoing training on bias and encourage DEI integration in the workplace. Equally as vital is to be alert to the laws that prohibit discrimination in the hiring phase and beyond, especially as federal regulations on DEI evolve.
Even when supporting DEI initiatives, businesses must still adhere to standard requirements and steps when it comes to hiring employees, such as completing Form I-9.
Employers should also consider using HR Reporting and Analytics to gauge the current diversity of their workforce.
If you need help to improve DEI in your hiring process, get in touch with us today to get a comprehensive assessment and customized strategies for your unique needs.
