Most business leaders say they value diversity, and diverse workforces are a source of innovation and resilience; however, there's a disconnect between wanting diversity in the workplace and actually hiring for it, particularly in the tech sector. According to a recent report from Atlassian, roughly 80 percent of respondents in this industry said that inclusion and diversity were important values to them, yet the same report revealed representation, retention, and belonging among underrepresented groups remain below 30 percent in the tech sector. “Unfortunately, many traditional hiring methods do not prioritize creating hiring pools from underrepresented groups,” said Todd Riesterer, chief people officer at LogicMonitor, a cloud-based network performance monitoring solution. “Oftentimes, insisting on precise experience requirements—whether that's a specific degree or previous experience—will limit the hiring pool, eliminating many amazing candidates who simply haven't had the same opportunities in life.” To build a more diverse workplace, leaders should consider building partnerships with multicultural professional associations and nonprofits. They can also look to more diverse academic institutions to help deepen their talent pools. Creating strong mentorship and robust referral programs can also help make organizations more attractive to diverse candidates and codifying a meaningful diversity and inclusion policy can also help organizations set concrete goals around equitable hiring practices. “Policies that support equal opportunity, like pay equity, are internal systems of accountability that can improve performance and help attract stronger candidates of all backgrounds,” said Vineetha Vijayakumar, a technical program manager at Esper, which provides DevOps solutions for Android.