Episode 94
How to build a diverse workforce | with Kris Clelland
Diversity hiring isn’t just about gender balance—it requires rethinking interview panels, job descriptions, and manager training. Kris Clelland shares how Wipro achieved 39.8% gender diversity and industry-leading disability hiring by treating DEI as a systemic challenge, not a checkbox.
Episode Key Takeaways
Over 90% of tech interviewers spend more than 80% of an interview uncovering what candidates don’t know, rather than exploring strengths and potential. This approach eliminates hiring leverage and reinforces the same-as-me bias that narrows diversity. Reframing interviews as exploratory conversations—throwing seeds and letting candidates talk about what they’re passionate about—surfaces capability that traditional questioning misses.
Diverse shortlists don’t guarantee diverse hires. Clelland implemented a rule: no shortlist moves forward without intentional representation across ethnicity, gender, age, disability, and sexual orientation. The business then decides on merit. This conscious effort broke the pattern of 90% of ANZ shortlists coming from a single demographic, even when equally strong candidates existed elsewhere.
Hiring diverse talent is only half the battle; retaining it requires management training and career lattice structures. Many leaders have never managed neurodivergent, disabled, or culturally diverse teams. External DEI leadership programs and transparent career paths—sideways, backwards, and across industries—keep diverse hires engaged longer than traditional ladder progression.
Comfort hiring—recruiting from demographics already familiar with your brand—is a silent diversity killer. Wipro, a 76-year-old Indian company, defaulted to hiring Indian candidates globally because they already knew the brand. Breaking this pattern meant consciously sourcing beyond that demographic and educating the market about the company’s true identity: 39.8% gender diversity, 380+ ethnicities, and industry-leading disability representation.
Salary transparency doesn’t make diverse hiring harder; it makes pay inequity visible. The argument that mandatory salary bands deter diverse candidates misses the point: parity within teams matters more than secrecy. Organizations like Amazon prove transparency doesn’t hinder growth or diversity—it just forces honest conversations about internal equity.
Frequently
Asked
Questions
How do you build diverse interview panels when hiring is urgent?
Prioritize diversity in panel composition as non-negotiable, even under pressure. Train interviewers to spot and call out bias—both conscious and unconscious—in real time. Focus panels on exploring what candidates can learn and contribute, not what they lack. This shifts the conversation from scarcity to potential, making diverse candidates more visible and competitive.
What's the biggest mistake in tech recruiting around diversity?
Treating diversity as gender balance alone. The tech industry overlooks age, disability, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, and ethnicity. Additionally, 90% of interviewers spend most of the interview finding gaps rather than strengths. This double bias—narrow definition and deficit-focused questioning—systematically filters out diverse talent before hiring managers ever see them.
How do you retain diverse hires after bringing them in?
Offer career lattice structures, not just ladder progression. Enable cross-skilling, sideways moves, and industry rotation. Provide management training on leading diverse teams, especially neurodivergent and disabled employees. Wipro’s average tenure of 4.9 years—despite 55,000 new hires in one year—shows that growth opportunities and learning environments matter more than title progression.
Should salary transparency hurt your ability to hire diverse talent?
No. Salary transparency exposes pay inequity but doesn’t create it. Amazon and AWS operate with full transparency across 960,000+ employees and continue to grow and hire diverse talent. The real risk is internal parity: if external hires earn 50% more than tenured employees doing the same work, people leave. Transparency forces organizations to address that gap honestly.
How do you break comfort hiring in global organizations?
Implement a rule: shortlists must include intentional diversity across multiple dimensions before submission. Educate hiring managers and the external market about your actual company identity, not stereotypes. Use AI sourcing tools to surface candidates outside your default demographic. Make it a conscious, measurable effort—not a nice-to-have—and hold teams accountable to it.