Resource Solutions Innovation Consultant winner at Onrec Awards 2022

Written by Robert Gould  •  RS News  •  5 April 2022

Pip Wells is an Innovation Manager at Resource Solutions, playing a vital role within our Innovation team. We are delighted to announce that Pip has been announced as the winner for the Unsung Hero of the Year at the Onrec Awards 2022. This recognition is truly deserved, particularly for her pioneering work in the field of Diverse Hiring.

Diverse Hiring has been a key pillar of our client advisory programmes and interventions since the Innovation team was formed in 2015. Yet from 2018 onwards, it has been the number one area of client interest and now makes up over half of the advisory work undertaken by the Innovation team. 

Therefore, in early 2020, the Innovation team began curating a highly detailed auditing framework and research-based methodology that enables us to offer clients a Recruitment Inclusivity Audit. This advanced audit analyses the impact of the end-to-end recruitment process on candidates. We believe it to be the most advanced diversity audit available.

A tireless advocate

Pip Wells has been living and breathing every aspect of the Accessibility and Inclusivity audit – looking at the current recruitment content and process for 10 major clients in just 12 months. 

She has been using the independent audit to analyse the impact of the current recruitment process using multiple candidate lenses: Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Socio-economic, Disability & Neurodiversity, Faith and LGBTQ+. Pip has been a tireless advocate of bias minimisation in recruitment, often quietly leading projects and challenging the status quo – a genuine unsung hero of meritocratic hiring. As part of the project, Pip provided an in-depth report to each of the 10 clients, providing actionable recommendations for improvement. 

Positive long-term impact

The Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) landscape is changing at a rapid rate, with more and more leaders understanding that adopting a D&I mindset is not merely an option, but a business imperative. 

The impact of this has been significant. Research suggests that ceasing to ask a candidate about their current salary can be the single biggest step an employer can make to achieving pay equity, particularly for women of colour. Taking these findings onboard, many Resource Solutions clients have fundamentally altered their approach and are no longer requesting candidates to reveal their current salary as part of the recruitment process.

Meanwhile, another client has stopped asking for criminal convictions as part of the application process. Over 10 million people have a conviction in the UK and charities such as Ban the Box are calling on UK employers to create a fair opportunity for people with convictions to compete for jobs by removing the tick box from application forms. These are just two examples of the positive long-term impact that Pip’s work has had. This audit work has been recognised by global awarding bodies, including Reuters Responsible Business Awards 2021.

Pip’s innovation and passion for this project has enabled our clients to comprehensively alter their recruitment process to ensure better outcomes and ultimately, create a more inclusive workforce. Resource Solutions is incredibly proud of her accomplishments and we are so happy that she has been recognised as the hero she is. 

Find out more about our Diverse Hiring advisory solution. 

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