19 Jul 2022
Office of Independent Adjudicators for Higher Education
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Challenge
Covid has had a significant impact on the higher education sector and in particular the experiences of students across the UK. This meant a sharp increase in the number of queries and the complexity of queries being received from students with concerns about the quality of Higher Education they were receiving.
The OIA needed to hire quickly but at the same time recognised that they were significantly behind where they would like to be in having a workforce that represented the demographics of the students they serve.
Work Delivered
We designed a number of recruitment campaigns that took the good from what had gone before but applied a diversity lens across it. This included:
- Re-writing job descriptions and job adverts
- Re-designing Recruitment Packs
- Re-designing the recruitment process
- Reviewed internal recruitment process to ensure all candidates had an equal chance
- Re-designing the interview questions and format
- Re-designing the approach to reasonable adjustments
- Providing Black Talent professionals to be a part of the panel for final interviews
- Updating the approach to diversity monitoring data
- Training the Hiring Managers on Inclusive Recruitment
- Supporting the OIA to hire a Black HR Advisor to take over our support from 2022 so that the organisation can be sustainably progressing it’s approach to D&I
Outcome
We have helped the OIA significantly change the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) demographic of its employee base and left them in a position where they now have the knowledge, tools and representation to successfully continue the work we have helped them to start.
