Talent Acquisition COVID-19 Recording: Zillow's Annie Rihn - 7/22/20

In response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and its unprecedented impact to business and employers, i4cp holds a weekly series of standing calls to help Talent Acquisition leaders navigate this unpredictable time.

Diversity in hiring and employment continues to be a primary focus for the talent acquisition function. On i4cp’s July 22, 2020 Talent Acquisition Leader COVID-19 Response Series call, talent acquisition leaders from companies such as Citi, Pizza Hut, axogen and many others joined special Q&A guest Annie Rihn, vice president of recruiting at Zillow Group, to discuss how to make diversity part of their function’s and their organization’s daily practices. Some highlights: 

• Talent acquisition is sharing diversity hiring/employment data at different levels internally, if not externally on a large scale. In an instant poll of today’s call participants, 89% of respondents said their organizations are sharing this data with executive leadership, with another 32% reporting that it’s shared only within HR. Just over a quarter (26%) indicated that their company is sharing hiring diversity/employment data publicly, and an even smaller number (11%) is sharing these numbers with all employees.
• Achieving diversity in the hiring process belongs to everyone in the organization, not just the talent acquisition/recruiting function. Today’s Q&A guest, Annie Rihn, vice president of recruiting at Zillow Group, shared the company’s view that, while diversity is obviously critical at the hiring stage, the organization must also “focus on core practices and fundamentals that we put in place” to achieve diversity throughout the employee lifecycle, such as striving for a diverse slate of candidates for roles at all levels and creating fair and equitable pathways for employees to advance throughout the organization, for example.
• The recent death of George Floyd has been an inflection point for leadership teams at many organizations, in terms of becoming more transparent as to what the company is doing to become truly diverse and inclusive. At Zillow, the organization has made an effort to create a culture where conversations about the impact of events such as Floyd’s death and their impact on employees. “If you’re going to ask people to bring their whole selves to work,” said Rihn, “then that means understanding what they’re experiencing in their personal lives and in their communities.” At ServiceNow, for example, the company has invested in opening up discussion around such topics, and conducts training on how to become an ally to diverse and historically underrepresented groups, according to Nancy DeLeon, director of talent acquisition at ServiceNow.
• The majority of organizations are using mandatory diverse hiring slates, or are weighing the option of doing so. In a second instant poll of today’s participants, 52% percent of respondents said their organizations are using mandatory diversity hiring slates, with another 24% indicating that their firms are not currently doing so, but are considering it.  

In addition to this recording, please see these resources: