Creating a healthy economy: Why recruiting differently matters

A healthy economy is an economy that meets the needs of its people within the planet’s boundaries. In order for this economy to be realised, it means rethinking growth - rather than the relentless pursuit of financial growth, focusing on regenerative practices that enable the thriving of humans and nature within our world’s ecological limits.

So, what will it take to create this healthy economy? One of the most important factors is fostering healthy organisations - organisations filled with passionate, hard-working individuals who are actively driving transformative change. These organisations act as the building blocks of a healthy economy, shaping the systems and structures that sustain it.

So, how do we create healthy organisations?

A healthy organisation - like any other system - must constantly regenerate in order to flourish*. Among other requirements, one important aspect of being regenerative is fostering collective learning and investment into the diversity and skills of its people. The more diversity that exists, the better an organisation can respond to the diversity of problems it encounters, enabling it to thrive.

But investment can be scarce

Yet, investment in diversity and inclusion isn’t always prioritised. For instance, ACEVO highlighted that there is a clear lack of progress on improving diversity and reducing the gender pay gap in the voluntary sector. They found that only 7% of charity leaders were of Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic backgrounds. Meanwhile, the gender pay gap within the sector has risen to 14% in 2024, its highest since 2014. These statistics show how far we still have to go in building organisations that truly represent the diversity of the communities they serve.

So, how can we ensure that the teams that make up our organisations represent diversity of thought, background and lived experience?

Recruiting differently

One way to address these issues is to rethink traditional recruitment processes. At On Purpose, we've been moving away from traditional recruitment, such as CVs, cover letters and exclusionary selection criteria. Instead, we've been testing different strategies to help improve the diversity (health) of the impact sector (the system). Whilst we acknowledge these aren’t perfect, we believe they are a step in the right direction.

When recruiting the 20 Associates who join our partner organisations for their six-month placements, we've trialled the following three strategies:

1. Removing the minimum education requirement. This has removed a key barrier for people without formal higher education and allowed applications from a broader pool of talent with diverse life experience and skills, enriching our cohorts with unique perspectives
2. Implemented blind recruitment. Traditional recruitment methods often leave room for unconscious bias - linked to names, education, or work history - to creep in and influence decisions. To counter this, we blind score our application form. meaning that we don't review a candidate's CV in the application process and blind score their application form answers. This has considerably reduced unconscious bias in our selection process.
3. Introduced reasonable adjustments for interviews. Supporting candidates with a range of conditions is essential for fostering inclusion. We offer adjustments like flexible interview times, the use of calculators and extra time for interviews. This has allowed neurodivergent people and others with specific needs have a fair chance to succeed.

Making these changes to our recruitment process has been challenging at times. For instance, developing and adopting a blind scoring process entailed building a new scoring system, which a small, busy team had to learn and adjust to quickly. Likewise, allowing for reasonable adjustments can be time consuming and it requires awareness raising and training to ensure interviewers understand and guarantee respective adjustments.

However, implementing these changes has been absolutely worth it. It's improved the diversity of candidates who apply to and join the Associate Programme, therefore helping build more resilient organisations - ones that reflect the diversity of the world they serve.

The journey is far from over

While we’ve made meaningful strides, we know this is only the beginning. We're continually looking to improve our processes to ensure we help create those healthy organisations we all want to be a part of, and ultimately, contribute to creating a healthier economy.

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If you share our vision of creating a thriving, healthy economy, why not join us on this journey? Register your interest for the chance to become one of our partner organisations and help shape the future.

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Additional sources:

• Business Balls ‘Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety’
• Harvard Business Review 2016, ‘Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter’
• Kate Raworth 2017, ‘Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist’